Monday, June 27, 2005
Keeping and Talking the Word 5
This afternoon, Tim told us that he assigns his preaching students at Western Theological Seminary selections from Barbara Brown Taylor and other great preachers. He gives his students half of the sermon, and they are to finish it.
He asked us to do the same with a selection from God In Search of Man by Abraham Heschel. He read the selection and instructed us to finish it in our own words.
As we went around the table and shared our work, Christina commented that people outside of the seminar ought to read these.
Here is the fruit of our work.
The original text:
“The Bible is the perpetual motion of the spirit, and ocean of meaning, its waves beating against (humankind’s) abrupt and steep shortcomings, its echo reaching into the blind alleys of his wrestling with despair. No sadder proof can be given by a (person) of his own spiritual opacity than his insensitivity to the Bible… Irrefutably, indestructively, never wearied by time, the Bible wanders through the ages, giving itself with ease to all, as if it belonged to every soul on earth. It speaks in every language and in every age. It benefits all the arts and does not compete with them. We all draw upon it, and…”
Our completion:
“…find nourishment from it, the weak and the wise. It is ageless and timeless, irresistible and irrepressible as it flows from, and makes its way to, the true source of life. Like a never-ending stream, it flows through well worn channels, yet ever erodes the soft shorts of temporal teachings as it cuts deeper and straighter channels of eternal truth. The Bible is always the same and ever new, like the one it discloses.”
-John
“…as artists sketching with our worn brushes, create original works of art, Bible landscapes and portraits from our unique points of view. No canvas can remain blank if only those in its studio might behold its beauty and study its pose. The Bible begets masterpieces of God’s glory in multi-cultural colors and multi-textural tones. The Bible is God’s art gallery.”
-Chris
“…addresses our broken human predicament, for it speaks to everyone’s need to be completely understood, yet fully accepted. In it, my soul is connected to its soul, and through this embrace I am affirmed with a grace that does not let go.”
-Jim
“…we all draw upon it, and find in it our true identity, the real story of our lives. It gives us hope as the living Lord, who we encounter in the sacred text, continually unfolds the saga of this rescuing love. It stirs the imagination to see wonder, awe, and astonishment in an age of materialism and pragmatism. It confronts the pathological narcissism and unbridled restlessness of our time, and invites us to live in the restful rhythms of Shalom.”
-Tim
“…speaks to us his words of transformation, inviting those who hunger to feast upon his bread, those who thirst to drink of his living water, and those who are dying to experience life in all his abundance.”
-Mark
“…it quenches our thirst every time we dare to open its pages and expose ourselves to the mystery of the God who speaks. In it, God reveals himself in a way that leaves the human spirit asking for more, like a child asking his parents for a second helping of the finest honey-drizzled dessert. More and more, if we have the courage to open ourselves, will the pages of the scriptures speak into our lives, changing us from within as we do what it asks of us.”
-Sam
“…in our inmost being find its echo reverberating in the foundations and pillars of our souls. That reverberation is nourished by the open ear and the obedient heart, for it is as we allow our souls to beat in sympathy with its tone that a divine melody from heaven becomes played out within. Those who know this become the singers of society whose very lives are instruments of praise, those who don’t are the concert of the pavements ready to be cracked and torn by the cold and heat of the circumstances of life.”
-Leslie
“…because only it contains a dynamism which can intersect the dynamism of human life in a way that no other book can. The Bible pushes and pulls just as humanity pushes and pulls. The Bible jabs us, pokes us, and points us, and we sense its touch. Its words are not static, just as persons are not mere objects. For just as God breathed life into our bones, animated us through the Spirit, and now lives and moves among us, so does God breathe life into Scripture, animating its words and moving us from seeing to believing, from hearing to understanding, from knowing to believing. We live only by means of the God-breathed-ness of the Spirit, by the Water and the Word, and only with the telos of an eschatologically-driven renewal.”
-Kent
“…in no way is it diminished by our drawing. The Bible is unlike any other book. When we walk in the dark it shines light on our path. When we face our enemies it is a sword and a shield. When we drink from its well, we flower like dogwoods in the spring. ‘The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.’ [Psalm 19:1-2] Take and read. Take and read. Sola scriptura!”
-Tim
“…discover the joy of it, living in the cool refreshment of an unlimited supply of living water. At times it comes as a thundering waterfall that brings us up short and takes our breath away. In other moments it gently nurtures the soul as a stream moving through a mountain meadow. But always it keeps us in the rivers of God’s grace.”
-Dave
“…and hear, study, and proclaim it in all the lives and communities in which it warrants. We are overcome in the waters of its ocean of meaning; swimming delightedly, fearfully, reverently, in all the ways in which it now beats against the rugged shoreline of our lives; it was as new and fresh as the changing of our lives. We are again and again tempted by its beckoning, both the clean and the obscure, the comforting and the afflicting of our conscience that its power reveals.”
-Aaron
“…and fill our lungs with its breath. It conceives us in its words. It births us with its wisdom. It nurses us at its breast, we nurse on the milk of its… By its wisdom we balance our legs and receive the power to walk. By its breadth we learn to run full speed. And its grace is the cane which supports us in old age.”
-Kevin
“…find ourselves – our selves as we truly are. And we come to know our true selves. For in the Bible we meet God; or rather, God meets us. In meeting God, we meet ourselves as we are known; we know ourselves as we are met.”
-Ryan
“…the well never dries. We all encounter it and are welcomed at each meeting. We all speak it and ‘pour forth speech.’ Every day, all over God’s earth, the Bible empties itself, yet the next morning is found to be full. In engagement with the Bible, our restless and thirsting spirits are tamed and quenched by the Spirit of God, who is always hovering, brooding… waiting.”
-David