God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It

Rev. Joan Pell Sierra Pines United Methodist Church Sermon: 1/29/2017 Sermon Series: Half Truths Scripture: Deuteronomy 23:12-14, 2 Timothy 3:15-17, Matthew 22:37-40 God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It NOTE: This sermon is mainly a summary of the ideas in Chapter 4 of the book by Adam Hamilton, Half Truths. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It. It s a great statement. And it s short enough to put on a bumper sticker or a billboard. It sounds right. If God says something, then of course we should believe it. By God said it, Christians usually mean that the Bible says it. So if the Bible says something, then we believe it as Christians and that settles it. Right?!! Or maybe it s not quite that simple! So let s listen to our first scripture passage for today. < Deuteronomy 23:12-14> 12 You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go. 13 With your utensils you shall have a trowel; when you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a hole with it and then cover up your excrement. 14 Because the Lord your God travels along with your camp, to save you and to hand over your enemies to you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you. How many of you knew this passage was in the Bible?! God tells us where we should go to the Bathroom. Outside of the living space. With a shovel. So, as you heard, God does not approve of indoor plumbing. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It. Right?!! And this is far from the only challenging passage in scripture. Perhaps today s cliché is not totally true and needs some better nuancing! I ll unpack that some more in a moment, but let s listen now to our other two scriptures for today. <2 Timothy 3:15-17> 15 From childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. -1-

<Matthew 22:37-40> 37 He said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It is another one of those Half-Truths, a statement that we make that is not quite the whole truth and needs some better nuancing. Using it can hurt people too and lead people to conclusions about God that can push people away from faith rather than drawing them towards God. This sermon series is based on book by Rev. Adam Hamilton from the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area. You can catch up previous sermons from our website by reading/listening/watching. Have you ever heard a sermon on that passage from Deuteronomy about where to go to the bathroom? If you were in church in the 1880 s though you would be really familiar with this passage and you hear sermons preached on it! Because in the 1880 s indoor plumbing was becoming widely available. And churches were starting to debate its merits. Parishioners wanted to update their chuches with modern plumbing instead of having to go to the outhouse when nature called. That passage we heard was used to argue that God was against indoor plumbing! Back in the time of Exodus as the Israleites were traveling towards the promised land, the Lord was with them in their camps, and so the toilet area was setup outside their camp so God would not see anything indecent. If God saw human excretement, although part of the natural working of our body, then they believed that it was somehow unholy and should not be allowed in God s camp. Reminds me of when I was teaching some pre-schoolers about how God was with them everywhere they went. And one said even in the bathroom and I had to say yes! and they responded Ooo. Yuck! So our 1880 s preachers agreed with this logic, and said as churches were God s house then they should be treated like the Israelite encampments so the same rules apply. An outhouse was outside the church and indoor plumbing would bring it inside which was not allowed. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It. -2-

And that of course is not the only rule. Don t wear blended fabrics. Don t sow two different seeds in your fields. Eliminate pork and shrimp from your diet. For men, don t trim your beard. A rebellious son should be put to death. Don t clean house on the Sabbath or you can be put to death. No tattoos allowed. And more! So most Christians say that the OT verses reflect God s covenant with the Israel and are no longer binding on Christians. BUT we have Jesus saying in the Sermon on the Mount. I have not come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill it. I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-19). So the law stays. But then Jesus himself interprets the law very liberally. He got into trouble for healing on the Sabbath which broke the Sabbath laws saying: The Sabbath was created for humans; humans were not created for the Sabbath. For divorce, Jesus was more conservative than the law. The law of Moses allowed men to divorce their wives by issuing a certificate of divorce. Jesus told the men they could only divorce if their wife was unfaithful, otherwise if a man remarried, it would him that was the adulterer. But then when he came across a woman who had been divorced 5 times, he demonstrated mercy and compassion not judgment. Jesus interpreted the Law, sometimes more liberally, sometimes more conservatively, but always with compassion. The Apostles after Jesus death also had to wrestle with interpretation. What should they do about circumcision for Jesus non-jewish followers? The Torah, the Law was the most authoritative part of their scriptures. Ultimately they decided to not require circumcision and other parts of the Law were also set aside. Clearly neither Jesus nor the early Apostles agreed with the simple statement: God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It. And we should not either. We all interpret scripture. In Paul s letters there are numerous more instructions to us. Yet we have to interpret those too. As we women, are only too familiar with. No elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls or expensive clothes, women should pray with their head covered, women should not be permitted to speak in churches and should be subordinate. Most of us have moved beyond these. The last one took the longest (speaking / subordinate). Clergywomen have been part of Methodism since John Wesley licensed Sarah Crosby to preach in 1761. Women were ordained in the Methodist tradition as early as the late 1800s, but it took until 1956 (60 years ago) for women to have full -3-

clergy rights. And our Catholic and Baptist friends and other churches still read this passage as applying to all time. In the 1840-1860 s preachers argued that slavery was part of God s social order. More than 200 verses in the Bible address slavery and regulate its practice. The Bible was used to justify beating slaves and to justify the act of owning another human. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It. So maybe this statement isn t totally true or helpful. Let s break it down. GOD SAID IT. The second passage we had read to us, says that all scripture is inspired by God for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that we can be equipped for every good work. We talked about this in a sermon last May. 1 What does it mean to say that scripture is inspired? Does it mean that God dictated every single word? Most of the time in the Bible, the authors claim to be writing their own insights and reflections. Paul doesn t say that his words are God s words, but he trusts he is led by the Holy Spirit. God speaks through the author s words, BUT they still need to be interpreted. The Bible does contain the defining story of our lives. Its words and teachings shape us. We can study it and pray for God to speak to us through it. But we also need to recognize that the biblical authors were people writing for various purposes and for specific audiences in specific historical circumstances. God influenced their writing and continues to influence all of us as we read their words. That s not the same thing as saying. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It. I BELIEVE IT, THAT SETTLES IT. A whole host of factors go into understanding the Biblical text. We don t have the original manuscripts. We have copies and some of those vary in their wording. Then we must consider the translation. The Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek and little portion in Aramaic. Different translations as they struggle with to translate the more ambiguous words can end up with different meanings. Then we have to understand the historical context, what precipitated its writing, what it meant to the original audience, and the ways it might speak to us today. We have to look at its genre as it makes a difference if its law or history or poetry or letters or prophesy. We also ask questions of scripture. We consider context. We interpret. We wonder if God really intended women to remain silent? We recognize slavery as against God s will even if there are 200 verses to support it. We don t preach that having bathrooms inside churches is offensive to God!!! 1 http://sierrapinesumc.org/exodus/sermons/who-wrote-the-bible/. -4-

So what s the truth in today s half-truth? How do we make sense of what God says? We have access to commentaries and centuries of discussion. We have our study Bibles. Our denomination and our churches and pastors guide us. We go to Bible study and wrestle with each other. We have one on one conversations. We recognize that our own biases mean we hear what we want to hear! We acknowledge that we focus on certain passages and ignore others! And we try to look for ways around those shortcomings! That last passage that we heard today was spoken by Jesus. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. That s the lens that I try to remember to put on and to filter all other passages through to see if it might apply to us today. Jesus taught us who God is and who we are meant to be, so putting emphasis on his reported words and using a filter of love gives us a strong clue as to how to understand God s words to us. Yes, we that means we pick and choose. What is important is to pick the right things. And sometimes that means wrestling hard to figure it out and work out which pieces to believe in and then how we act upon them. This week in particular, I have been so conscious of those words that Jesus said in Matthew 25:35-40, words that we use for our offertory each week. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. 37 Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we do these things. 40 And the king will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me. This is one of those passages that passes the love and compassion and mercy test. The Bible teaches us to welcome the stranger, and in so doing, we are welcoming Christ. I find truth in our cliché God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It when passages are congruent with Jesus message of love. If we truly believe that God said it, then what are we going to do about welcoming strangers, the immigrant, the refugee, in the light of what is happening in our country? <Share personal story of life with visa and then green card and trips out of the country for some of the family only, and reasons to travel. I have empathy with the stranger/neighbor from countries on the banned list.> I have no answers, just questions to pray and ponder on. I found this on Facebook from earlier this month by Pastor Kendal Brown as quoted by the Clergy Coaching Network. 2 He said: I believe the Bible...enough to seek to understand not only what it says but what it means. enough to study the context of the text. enough to honor its original languages, the fact that words don't 2 https://www.facebook.com/clergycoachingnetwork (January 5 at 4:15am) -5-

always mean the same thing over time and that some words do not translate. enough to realize that the King James Version contains wonderful poetic language that inspires and comforts but it also contains horrendous translation errors. enough to know that the Bible did not fall out of the sky, leather-bound in the King James Version. enough to attempt to understand that the text without context is a train wreck. enough to know that councils of men, often with political agendas fought over which books would be included in the Biblical canon. As is often the case, those with less power lost. enough to know that God didn't stop speaking when they closed the canon. enough to see the Bible as a tool of liberation and not as a means of oppression. enough to recognize that when it was written, women were property and slavery was acceptable. Just because it's in the Bible doesn't make it right. enough to know that the Bible never claimed to be a science book. enough to know that the Bible is not a manual on all things related to sex and gender. enough to realize that the full revelation of God does not begin and end with Genesis & Revelation. enough to realize that theologies and religious perspectives have histories that can/should be explored and critiqued. enough to realize that God is big enough to handle my questions and problems with any given text. enough to realize that devotional Bible reading is not the same as Biblical research. [enough to know that the Bible is not God.] It s not as simple as God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It. There is truth in the statement. There are things that God said and I believe apply to this day and time and in those cases, that settles it. And there are other times when God may or may not have said it, and that through careful study do not apply to this situation and so the only settling being done is a rejection. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It is a half-truth and needs more nuancing. Adam Hamilton puts it this way, but it won t fit on your bumper sticker. He says, God influenced it. I read, study and sometimes wrestle with it. And, as I interpret it in the light of Jesus Christ, I hear God speak through it and seek to live its words as best I can Thanks be to God. Amen. Let us pray God of the Bible, how grateful we are for your love and compassion. We thank you for the scriptures that help us to know you and to know your purposes and will. Help us to understand your message to us in a well-nuanced way. Help us to study more and seek to live life following Christ, loving our neighbors as ourselves. Empower us in our struggles, and help us to trust that in the midst of our turmoil you O God are always faithful and do not change. AMEN. Resources Hamilton, Adam. Half Truths: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn t Say. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2016. -6-