Creekside Church Sermon of October 21, 2001 "Pleased to Meet Your Acquaintance" 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5	Rev. David Bibbee
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There is an awkward situation in which we have found ourselves at one time or another. Say you were introduced to someone, and on subsequent, sporadic occasions were in their company again. At your first meeting you said, "I'm pleased to meet your acquaintance," but you weren't pleased enough to remember their name. You asked the name, but promptly forgot it, so you ask again, again you forgot. There is a point beyond which you cannot ask their name. So you create the "appearance" of acquaintance and pretend to know them. This works for a while, then something dreadful happens. You are in a situation that requires an introduction of the nameless acquaintance to another person. Quick thinking is called for.

There is a system I employ when the person with no name must meet my wife. I say, "Here's someone I'd like you to meet. This is my wife Twig." It's her cue to say, "Good to meet you. I didn't catch your name." I then wait for them to give Twig their name. It's then a matter of saying, "How insensitive of me, Bill." Another method is saying, "Surely you two know each other?" Then discretely exiting while they take care of it on their own. Another method is to enthusiastically say, "This is my dear friend!"

We know we should know them, but we don't. We can't think of a way of getting the information without royally embarrassing ourselves.

Peter Gomes suggests the same holds true for us in the Bible. We were introduced. Early on we sat on a parent's lap and heard children's Bible stories. We heard more stories in Sunday school. Occasionally "spiritual" moods would inspire us to pick the Bible up and read bits and pieces. We felt "holy" when we did. We know we should know more about the Bible. We recognize familiar phrases, but aren't sure whether it comes from the Bible or some other source. We are at a loss for how to ask questions. It's embarrassing to admit we need reintroduced. Like climbing Mount Everest, it feels daunting, intimidating, and inaccessible to all but a select few who can scale its spiritual heights. We pretend we know it. We reference it, but don't read it.

"Continue in what you have learned and believe. Know from whom you learned it. From childhood you have been acquainted with the scriptures." These were Paul's words to young Timothy who was his missionary apprentice. Timothy's father was a Greek. His mother a Jew, and she guided his spiritual development. Instruction began at an early age for Jewish children. It was said that the law "flowed" into infants through their mother's milk. It was imprinted upon them. The scriptures were so imprinted in their consciousness that it was said that earnest Jews would forget their own name before forgetting a word of the law.

"Continue in the sacred writings," Paul said. The writings were the Old Testament. There was no New Testament. Timothy had no way of knowing he would be part of a story which would become scripture for us. "Continue and deepen your acquaintance," Timothy was told. "All scripture is inspired by God." Just as now, many stories were in circulation concerning how to live and what to believe and who was in charge; each story competing for converts. The Bible helps us get the stories straight. All scripture is inspired of God, which is to say that it doesn't offer suggestions. It doesn't speak to "you only" or offer information that might come in handy some day. The Bible is inspired which means it gets inside you; it converts you into someone you would never become had you not heard it. "It is profitable for teaching, for putting us on the right path, for correction and training," Paul said. We need a better teacher than our own experience. We are summoned to submit ourselves to the Bible's wellspring of wisdom.

Maybe you were introduced to the Bible, but there's much you don't remember. You want to be re-introduced, but how? If you're still with me let me offer some suggestions.

We will not hear the Bible if we approach it arrogantly. We believe we are far more advanced than the people who are in the Bible. We are technologically sophisticated. We are the pinnacle of civilization. They said, "The Lord is my shepherd." We can clone sheep.

We are also lovers of the new. New is better. My deodorant container says, "Bright, new look!" They redesigned the bottle three times in the last three years. I don't care if it's designed by Gucci. It's the contents that count. New isn't always better. We can learn something from everyone, even if they lived 2500 years ago. God is God, and people are people, and the Bible reveals people at their best and worst, which is to say it reveals people like us. To hear God address us in the scripture requires humility.

Now let's talk about ways to read it. Some say the best introduction to the Bible is to start at Genesis 1:1 and plow straight through to Revelation 21:22. I wouldn't recommend it, however, unless you have a guide who knows the territory. Starting is easy, but the terrain gets difficult about half way through Exodus. I hear people say, "The Bible gets dull after awhile." There is a reason. Some of it "is" dull. All those chapters about the construction and components of the tabernacle. All the dietary rules, the minutia of the law, all the tedious genealogies and those interminable "begats".

Instead of swallowing the whole thing at once, I suggest that you pick up the entrees. Someone suggested, "Stay at the higher elevations. The air is clearer and you can see further." Climb the stories of Moses, or Jacob, or King David. Look at the sights from Job's perspective or one of the prophets. Spend time with the four gospels and see Jesus from their different vantage points. Tour the Sermon on the Mount and the parables which are full of surprises. Spend time with Paul's theology in Romans, and his counsel to the Corinthians and the question of what love had to do with their quarrels and conflicts.

I suspect that most of us read our Bibles solo. We read it to ourselves, by ourselves. There are things we can learn by reading the Bible devotionally, but the Bible was meant to be read in community. To be faithful in our reading and interpretation, we need the input of fellow Christians. The Bible is personal, but not private. It is communal property. Paul Robinson, my mentor in ministry, often said that to know the will of God or the meaning of a particular scripture, we must listen with each other. We must trust that when we submit ourselves to it, the Holy Spirit guides the process. My interpretation isn't the only one. As I said last Sunday, "We learn the Bible best when we learn it together." If I don't listen to a text along with you, I might read into it what I want it to say. We come to the Bible together, and learn meanings on multiple levels.

We learn from the Bible when we come to it humbly and submit to it together. It requires discipline, which starts with carving out a time and place to read it. There is a specific skill to help the Bible to become part of us, and that is memorization. I have noticed in recent years that there seem to be fewer stories and jokes being told. Oh I am sure they are still out there, but fewer people are "telling" them. We hand them out on paper. Why memorize the plot of a story or joke when it's easier to download it from a website?

We commit numbers to memory…our social security number, phone number, pin numbers for the ATM. Teenagers memorize lyrics that sound unintelligible to the rest of us. Lots of songs are locked in our own memory banks. Long before the Bible was put on parchment, it was committed to memory and communicated orally. Hasidic Jews commit large portions of scripture to memory.

While I was in college, there was a resident at Timbercrest named Ira Frantz. He had become blind as an adult, and during the last years of his life he memorized all four gospels and several other books of the New Testament. I can still see him being led to the lectern at the Manchester Church of the Brethren, and remember how moving it was to hear him recite the morning lesson, word for word. What was impressive wasn't just his ability to "recite" the words. It was that the word was within him, written upon his heart.

The value of memorizing scripture is not to make us Bible quotation machines. It is not to pepper our conversations with quotes complete with book, chapter, and verse. "You are what you eat," the saying goes. We are also what we remember. It makes a difference whether you remember all the dialog from episodes of I Love Lucy, or the violence and explicit sexuality of movies and television, or the story of God's covenant with us in the scripture. The psalmist said, "I have laid up thy word in my heart." (119:11). Memory is one way to do it. The word that appears over and over in the Old Testament is…remember!

Do you know who has the most difficulty hearing the Bible? People who are in church every Sunday. The worship leader reads the parable of the Prodigal Son and you say to yourself, "I know that." Then you stop listening. You have heard it so much you no longer hear it. This is why imagination is an important part of reading the Bible. Make believe you are hearing it for the first time. Take off your logic and facts cap. Don't ask, "Did it really happen?" Listen for the unexpected. What's surprising, shocking, or weird? Enter on the text's terms, not yours. See how the world according to the scripture is arranged differently. Imagine yourself in the story, conversing with the characters. Climb the sycamore tree with Zacchaeus. Eat with Jesus at Mary and Martha's. Be the Roman guard at the foot of the cross.

There is another approach to the Bible which I will only be able to mention briefly. It's an ancient approach which is becoming more prevalent. It's called "lectio divina." It sounds imposing, but is not. It means "holy reading", or "spiritual reading." It isn't study in the usual sense of the word. It is not concerned with facts or information you can glean for a Sunday school lesson. It doesn't require an answer or neat conclusion. I heard a Catholic nun call it "meandering" through the Bible. In lectio divina you pick a portion of scripture, usually a paragraph, and you read it…slowly. When you finish, read it again. As you read and re-read, a sentence, a phrase, or a single word may catch your attention. Repeat that word or phrase as a prayer. Let it sink into you. What thoughts or pictures come to mind? In lection divina you don't read the text as much as the text reads you and gives a fresh awareness through which the spirit may address you.

There are many methods to better acquaint us with the Bible. One is not better than another. We could benefit from learning several approaches. "Whether" we read it is more important than "how" we read it.

I'll leave you now with a story of an introduction that happened long ago in a dark forest in Sicily. A peddler of religious books was held up by a man carrying a revolver. He was ordered to build a bonfire and burn his books. As the fire was starting the merchant asked if he could read a little from each book before dropping it into the flames. From one he read the 23rd psalm. From another he read the Good Samaritan. From another he read the Sermon on the Mount. From another he read 1st Corinthians 13. After each reading the bandit said, "Wait a minute! Don't burn that one. Give it to me. Hey, hold onto that one!" In the end, no books were burned. The bandit left with them all.

Years later the peddler and burglar had an unexpected meeting. The burglar had changed professions. He was now a Christian. He had read all the books, in particular, the Bible. You could say he was pleased to meet its acquaintance.

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