SERMON SERIES
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“How to Read the Bible: The Birth of Consciousness”

09/16/07

A minister was called to a new church and wanted to get out and visit and get to know his flock. So on his very first day, he made a series of pastoral calls. That afternoon, he came to one house, rang the bell and waited, but there was no answer. He tried the bell again. No answer. He knocked on the door, waited, but still there was no answer. And, yet, he got that sense-as we sometimes do-that someone was home but not answering the door.

So he took out his calling card and wrote on the back: Revelation 3:20. (For those who haven’t memorized the entire bible, it reads: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock…”)

Ah, the clever minister! He left the card in the mail slot and went on his way.

The very next Sunday, after worship, one of the ushers came to the minister and gave him a card that had been dropped in the collection plate. It was the very card he had left at his parishioner’s door. And under Rev. 3:20, someone had written: Genesis 3:10. The minister looked it up and it read: “I heard the sound of thee in the garden and I was afraid, because I was naked…” I think I can get away with that because it’s in the bible!

That’s not an example of how we’re going to do bible study, but it’s a good way to introduce my topic for today and the next several weeks: How To Read the Bible.

The first piece of advice I’m going to give you is: don’t try to read it cover to cover. If you start at Genesis, aiming for Revelation, you might make it to Leviticus, and then you’ll start tearing your hair out! Leviticus is not a page turner. Example: When any one of the house of Israel or of the sojourners in Israel presents his offering, whether in payment of a vow or as a freewill offering which is offered to the Lord as a burnt offering, to be accepted you shall offer a male without blemish, of the bulls or the sheep, or the goats…Animals blind or disabled or mutilated or having a discharge or an itch or scabs, you shall not offer to the Lord or make of them an offering by fire upon the altar to the Lord. A bull or a lamb which has a part too long or too short you may present for a freewill offering, but for a votive offering it cannot be accepted.

Did you get all that? Remember, no itchy or scabby goats in your votive offerings!

Am I mocking scripture? No, of course not. But I’m showing that not every word of the Bible is of equal importance. Not every commandment, law, ordinance, or prohibition is applicable to the modern situation. So we don’t read the bible straight through, we don’t assume that every single verse will matter to us. We interPRET, evaluate, edit and omit, as we go. Everyone does that, even fundamentalists who claim every syllable is holy. No one can read the bible just as it is. Everyone interprets. That’s why we come up with different meanings for the same passages, right? And I don’t believe that’s a sin. Isn’t it possible that God can speak through the bible to each individual with the message that person needs?

So we don’t read the bible from cover to cover, we don’t assume everything in it is equally precious or helpful, and we don’t come to it with a kind of blank-slate approach, as if our minds were ancient clay tablets and God were pressing the words into the clay and then they harden into truth.

No, we need to start with some concept, some theme that will act as a road we can travel, as we’re observing the scenery around us. Sometimes that road becomes just a faint trail through rough wilderness but it provides markers for us to follow. I won’t pretend there’s just one road through the bible but I want to offer the one that I’ve found most helpful. That road, that theme can be explained this way.

While we usually picture ourselves searching for God-reaching, straining for a glimpse, a touch of the divine presence-the bible, in fact, is the record of God’s search for us. With that as our theme, our path to follow - God searching for us - we can begin to read the bible in a whole new and exciting way.

To illustrate the method, let’s look at the story of Adam and Eve. You’ll notice I said “story.” I don’t want to pull punches. That’s what I believe. It’s a story, a myth. That doesn’t mean it’s not important. On the contrary, it’s much more important as a story than as literal fact. Think of all the time spent-wasted, in my view-trying to explain or make “believable” the talking snake, the forbidden fruit, and the strategically placed fig leaves, when the real, powerful, profound meaning of the story is found beyond the words, in allegory. These chapters in Genesis actually describe the birth of human consciousness.

One of the exercises I do with Confirmation classes every year is to put Adam and Even on trial. I set up a courtroom. The students volunteer to play the different parts and then they “role-play” a trial, calling witnesses, cross-examining, making summation to the jury.

One year, they called God as a witness, and I was elected to play God. Well, the young Confirmand Counselor was peppering me with tough questions and I was going under when the student playing the attorney on the other side shouted, “Objection! Badgering the witness!” Then he winked at his friend who was playing the judge and said, “I got that from Mattlock!”

At the end of the class, the students have to decide on a verdict-guilty or innocent. I can tell you-after doing this more than a dozen years-Adam and Eve are always pronounced innocent! The teenagers feel, I think a natural empathy with those two poor souls in the Garden of Eden. I mean, isn’t it just like a parent to make a rule, telling you not to do something without explaining why you’re not supposed to do it!

And the students always use the same reasoning: how could Adam and Eve sin before they knew what sin was? Before they ate the apple and found out the difference between good and evil? An astute theological question. Because this is not a simple tale about disobedience, as we were probably taught in Sunday school. It’s about the birth of human consciousness.

Think of it. What was it like for Adam and Eve before they ate the forbidden fruit? They lived by instinct, not by conscience. They didn’t consider alternatives and then make a moral choice. They felt an impulse and they acted on it.

They were unaware of their mortality, had no idea they would die.

They didn’t realize they were naked, had no need for, no conception of clothing.

What does this describe? Animals! At some point in time, Adam and Eve progressed from animal instinct to human consciousness. The bible describes this in the form of a story.

The consequences of their “sin” are the consequences of becoming human. Women would experience pain in childbirth; what’s more they’d know before it happened that it would be painful, so a decision would have to be made to have children in spite of this knowledge. Humans would have to work for a living, to toil, labor and sweat, as opposed to animals who live off the land. When Adam and Eve entered the Garden, they entered the world we know and became as human as we are.

If we understand the Genesis story as a powerful allegory to teach us profound lessons of life, we can understand that God was not so much angered by the acts of Adam and Eve as challenged by them. Now that these creatures have become human, they can’t stay in that carefree, idyllic Paradise where they began. They’re not equipped to survive there any longer. That’s why God puts the flaming sword at the entrance to Eden to keep them out-not as punishment but as protection.

They have to make their way in the real world. But God doesn’t expel them and then desert them. God-and this is very touching when you think about it-God makes clothes for them. God clothes these creatures who have never been clothed before. And when they leave the Garden, God goes with them.

God adapts. The plan has been altered but the plan is not as important as God’s love for these creatures. The humans have taken a turn in the road, but God will not abandon the project. God adapts. This is a recurring theme of the bible. God will find another way to communicate, to reach them. And now it will be through human elements-to speak to their minds and hearts, their logic and emotions, their thoughts and imagination, through other people, and through this very new world they now live in.

This is how God will continually and persistently strive to reach and teach, transform and redeem the beloved creatures. And this is the whole story of the bible.

To be continued…