Good Read God s word is good enough to live with. Psalm 119:97-105 Rev. John H. Hice September 13, 2015 Royal Oak First United Methodist Church, Royal Oak, Michigan In Love Have you ever noticed someone who s seen a movie or read a book so gripping that they started living the story? I m serious, they might pick a character with whom they identify or think so heroic that they start acting like them, dressing like them maybe even talk like them. Laura and I went to the Redford Theater earlier this year to see a showing of Somewhere In Time, which was produced over 30 years ago. People showed up at the theater wearing clothing and carrying parasols of the early 1900 s. It seemed they were there not just to watch the movie, but somehow live it. The magic and romance of the story grip some so much that there s a cult following of the film. Some people have watched it scores, maybe hundreds of times. Something about the story speaks to them of the purity and simplicity of a time so special that something in them wants to live it. I should talk. It s been over 40 years after I read the book and saw the movie, and I still sometimes think of myself as Jeremiah Johnson. Stories have a way of doing that to us. They so often speak of life the way it is or the way it should be. They create characters: some of whom are so like people we know in real life; others who are like we are; still others who are like the persons we want to be. They cast them into challenges that perplex and threaten and we watch our heroes overcome and emerge victorious. These stories just sometimes give us hope. Maybe we can overcome, too. Maybe in the end, we can stand for the things our heroes stand for and maybe we can be heroic, too. Brian McLaren, popular author of books on the emerging church, says we come to find ourselves in stories: they come to define who we are and how we see the world. 1 1 Framing stories, he s called them. For some reason they give us definition and point us in directions we might otherwise stumble around trying and failing to find.
With the Word There s power in the word, as it turns out. And that isn t a new idea. The ancients realized it and even attached it to God. Remember the way the Gospel of John starts. The writer wants to tell people about Jesus so they may believe and in believing have eternal life. The Gospel is going to be a story of Jesus life of his teaching and the amazing things he did, and of the way he lived and died so that the love of God his love would get through to us. And how did this story begin? In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God through him all things were made and he was the light of all people the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. 2 From the very start of the work, the author of John wants us to know that Jesus story is God s story and that it will speak. And everything about him is something that can get inside your head and form and fashion you like good stories do. Only this story is going to be the best. Where others fall short, this one save your life. It will free you from the stuff that s held you back. It ll give you a fresh start. It will give you a real belonging with God. It will help you see the world the way it really is and the way God wants it to be. And it will fashion you into the person God wants you to be for eternity. The Story is Jesus. And Jesus is a very powerful Word. I ve said all this by way of introducing today s scripture reading, which goes back in time way before the Gospel of John and way before Jesus, written when Psalms were composed to be sung at Temple worship in Jerusalem. When you read it or listen to it, consider how God s word and instruction frames the life of the one who sings it. And what would it mean for you? Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all day long. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is always with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your decrees are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. I do not turn away from your ordinances, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. 2
It s a good thing to study the psalms; but remember that they are poetry and like all good poetry they re composed and sung from the heart. Far more important for us to meditate on them than to parse their verses. page. So this is what we might get when we simply spend some time with the words on the Oh how I love your law! The Hebrew words are almost sensual. 3 We talk about going to law school and studying the statutes. We talk about obeying the law, about the law placing restrictions on us and providing order and protection. All that sounds pretty perfunctory. But to love it? To meditate on it all day long? You get the idea that the psalmist is absorbed in it. Like you would be if you fell in love with someone and you couldn t get him or her off your mind and you really don t want to. That being in relationship with this other changes who you are and you welcome that. You become a better self. You feel complete. This is the kind of passion that s being expressed. That God s instructions are worth falling in love with. Like that. We live in a time that wants to compartmentalize everything: school gets put here, family there, recreation over in its own slot, spirituality gets its own time, separate from all the other parts of life. The notion of falling in love with God s Word the way the psalmist sings wants to radically challenge that way of living. It says you can be in the middle of work and God s word is on your mind. You can be off flying a kite or munching food at dinner and you d still be ruminating on the word of God. You might even think of God while you re in church! If it all gets that deep no wonder the psalmist says it makes you wiser than the wise and more knowledgeable than those who teach. Who can be wiser, more knowledgeable than God? And with this wisdom not relegated to prayer time twice-a-week, but considered and applied all the time you d probably get power to resist evil and walk with understanding more-and-more. Wouldn t you? 3
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. When I feel afraid, think I ve lost my way, Still you re there right beside me, And nothing will I fear as long as you are near, Please be near me to the end. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. 4 apply. It s not really a hard Bible passage to understand, is it? Neither is it a difficult one to You can choose the stories you want to frame your life. And they will turn you into whatever they will. Or you can live with the Story God gives the Word that has Jesus written all over it because the Word is who Jesus is. Live with that one and you become more Christ-like the more you get absorbed. So first of all: read it. Open the Bible and start living with the pages. Study it with others here at church and see how you can journey with the word and have companions on the trip people who can point things out you d never notice, pick up messages you d never on your own hear, encourage you to keep walking in the light the lamp of the Word shines. Read it. Live with it. Know it better than all the other things that want to occupy your mind. And second of all: write it. Put down your thoughts in a journal, notes you d make for yourself to consider more deeply as time goes by. If you d like some pointers on how to journal, let me know. I d love to teach a workshop on it sometime. Then if you re going to read it and write down some notes, I d also encourage you to say it. Say it to a small circle of friends we re going to do our best to add to our small group offerings here together this year. Say it to your loved ones. Venture even to say it sometime when it doesn t seem like an intrusion but will be more like a gift. Read it. Hear it. Write it. Say it. Think about it. Sleep on it. Live with it. Live with God. 4 Absorbed The other day I dug out some writings of my Great Grandmother, Cora Belle Churchill. She died long before I was born, around the time the story Somewhere In Time was set. I d known that she was a woman with a strong faith in Christ, but I had never ventured to read the letters my grandmother had saved until now.
All through them were words that spoke of life and hopes, news about moving from one place to another, and what was going on with Albert (my great-grandfather) and her kids. She took an interest in the lives of those she wrote to. During most of the years these letters were written, my great-grandmother was ill. She suffered, I know: a 14 year illness with the last 5 years, bed-ridden. Sometimes she wrote about how lousy or weak she felt. But through it all, she expressed her faith. Faith that God would ever be with her, that either God would heal her or in the end bring her to an eternal home where there is complete healing and joy. She encouraged her readers as they worried for her. And truthbe-told she was sometimes given to preach salvation to them, encouraging them in the faith. She was an incredible witness. The more I read, the more inspired I became. And I share this because I want you to know that what I read was not wishful thinking, the words of a woman who plucked ideals from the air. Throughout her letters were ready references to scripture words she knew because she lived with them. She meditated on them day and night. A cult-follower of the Bible, you might say; the biggest best seller of all. And it gave her life. A lamp unto her feet and a light unto her path. May you read it. Hear it. Write it. Say it. Think about it. Sleep on it. Live with it. May you live with God, totally fallen in love. 1 McLaren, Brian, The Story We Find Ourselves In. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Copyright 2003. The whole book deals with this idea. 2 John 1:1, 3-4, 14. 3 McCann, J. Clinton Jr., Psalms, The New Interpreter s Bible Commentary, vol IV. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Copyright 1996 4 Grant, Amy, Thy Word Is a Lamp, The United Methodist Hymnal. Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House. Copyright 1989. p 601. 5