The Whole Story

Members of other Protestant denominations often have the impression that Episcopalians don’t use the Bible in worship. In fact, our three-year Eucharistic lectionary takes us through a very comprehensive reading. So it is we get not just the comforting bits, but also the difficult ones.

Like today’s lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospel. What do you do with them? Their messages are really pretty clear, but very difficult.

From Genesis: The binding of Isaac. The near-sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham is asked to voluntarily sacrifice what he surely loved most in the world. His own child. And the embodiment of God’s promise to him. To kill his love, his hopes, just because God asked him to.

Gospel: Mark is pretty clear that the way of discipleship is suffering and death. And he means real suffering and real death for the sake of the Gospel.

What do you do with these readings?

I think probably the most common reaction is a form of denial. To deny their full authenticity in my life, in my time. They are not fully authentic or authoritative with respect to my God, the God I know. We put them in the "difficult passages" pigeonhole and move on.

That’s what Peter tried to do. Peter said to Jesus, suffering and death are not the way my Messiah should act. And Jesus responded pretty directly. Get behind me Satan. You are thinking of human things, not divine things.

No one of us, as an individual has the right to pick and choose and define our own God. None of us is the author of this story. We don’t have the power or the place to write it as we would like it written. God is the author.

So what do we do with readings like these?

Part of the solution, for me, is to remember that the life of faith isn’t about me and my God. It isn’t an individual affair. This story God is writing is about God and God’s relation to God’s people, a community that is expansive across time and space. The Bible is about God’s actions in relation to this group, this community that is God’s people. For us today, the Christian life is in the church… participating in the full, ongoing life in community as the Body of Christ. The context isn’t me. It’s the people of God. I am a member of the people of God. But the people of God is much more than me.

As a part of the people of God, these stories are my stories. These are stories of the people of God. I can’t put them aside, just because I wouldn’t have written them. And I need to hear them. I am judged by both. Both speak of a level of sacrifice for God that seems incomprehensible, that "convicts" me with how little, how very little I am ready to sacrifice for God. I need to hear that judgment. And, as a member of the church, the worshiping community of the Body of Christ, I am forced to hear it during Lent.

Yet if I listen with the ears of the broader people of God, maybe I can hear some things that I, as an individual, might miss in these stories. These stories also tell of a steadfast God. A God who, in response to our obedience, will provide. And a God who is present in the midst of suffering. For those in Mark’s community who faced persecution unto death, Jesus says, as you share in my suffering, so shall you share in my eternal life.

But the even more important part of hearing these stories as part of a community, a people… is to hear them in the broader context of all of the stories and experiences of the people of God. I am not free to deny or discard these stories, but I am also "forced" to put them in a broader context. The context of the whole of Holy Scripture… all of the stories of all of the people of God. I must hear them within the context of the ongoing life and work and worship and witness of the people of God across the centuries. And this broader context tells of a God committed to us in love.

Paul speaks of this God in this morning’s Epistle. A reading often read for comfort and hope at funerals. God who will not let anything come between us, between God and God’s people.

We have a three year cycle of Scripture readings. If we, as a community, are regular in worship, these stories are placed in the context of 155 other Sundays and their assigned Scripture readings. No one snippet tells the whole story. We’re not free, as a community, to chuck out the bits we don’t like, but nor are we free to ignore all the other stories. Lent is an important part of our life together, but not the whole of it, and we’re not allowed to stay in Lent. As part of the ongoing worship community that is the Body of Christ, we will experience Easter.

And remember, too, that as part of the people of God, a community of faith, we hear these stories in the context of the Holy Eucharist. That is why we are here today. Our primary act of worship today is to celebrate, in thanksgiving, God’s gift of Holy Communion with us. Holy Communion. With one another and with God. That is God’s gift to the Body of Christ, the community of worship and faith. Holy Communion.