Mtr Mary Trainor
Let me be: A man of one book. John Wesley
Dear friend,
How lucky we are to personally possess a Bible. Maybe, like me, you have more than one. Many, even.
But it wasn’t always possible, or even legal, to have a Bible in one’s own language. There was a time hundreds of years ago when access to Bibles was limited, in part because they were printed only in Latin. Thus clergy would tell the people what it said and what it meant.
This idea is at the center of dispute in our Daily Office offering today from Mark. Pharisees and some scribes confront Jesus about disciples’ behavior that is counter to the eating norms prescribed by tradition. Jesus lashes out: “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!”
Religious leaders controlled the people by controlling their understanding of God. In some places, they still do today.
The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid. Martin Luther
We who worship guided by the Anglican model of scripture, tradition, reason are blessed with the freedom, nay, the imperative to employ reason in our encounter with scripture and tradition. Part of our faith experience requires wrestling with how to incorporate what we read, what we hear, what others think. We are not bound by someone else’s interpretation.
This freedom also brings responsibility. In my early days in the Episcopal Church I resisted this freedom. In one particular Bible discussion group members were voicing this interpretation or that. I was so frustrated by their nattering, only wanting to hear from the priest what was the actual truth of the passage. Fortunately, I never said that out loud, and I eventually was blessed to shed the more narrow view.
The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home. Augustine of Hippo
The path to our freedom is littered with sacrifice. As one example, it was illegal in 16th century England to translate the Bible. Under that law, William Tyndale was executed for translating scripture into English.
I hope I never stop appreciating the courage of others whose collective contributions mean that I can sit in a Bible study, or Sunday worship, or alone in my office preparing a sermon, free to consider the Word of God, guaranteed by the brave acts of others.
Mtr Mary
For further contemplation: The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Søren Kierkegaard