Luke 1:1 – 4; 4:14 – 21
When I was about five, my parents were
gifted with a coffee table sized bible, clad in white leather,
illustrated with copious color pictures, with space in the beginning
for entry of major events in the lives of the children – baptism,
first communion, confirmation, wedding, or ordination or taking vows
in a religious order. I don't recall if it was ever opened except by
my sister and I when we wanted to look at the pictures. After all,
in those days you could be a perfectly good Catholic without ever
cracking a bible.
Fast forward to the summer of my first
year in college. I had landed a job with the state Fish and Game
department as a general laborer. Our task was to grow grain around a
small lake. The grain was there to attract Canadian geese to land on
the lake. We also had to take care of Canadian goose chicks that
would be released at maturity in the hopes that they would remember
the lake when they migrated. The State of Montana was sparing no
expense in its attempt to convince the geese to make this lake a stop
over point so that future goose hunters would not be disappointed.
One of the other laborers was a guy
about my age and was a devout, and as I quickly learned,
knowledgeable Mormon. We had many discussions in which I took a
beating because he could quote the bible and I could not, and he
wasn't interested in what the Baltimore Catechism had to say. So I
resolved to become more biblically literate that summer, and borrowed
a somewhat smaller bible from my grandmother, which I don't think had
been read either. And it was the official Catholic version of that
time, written with a lot of thee's and thou's and behold's. I got
through it but I'm not sure anything stuck.
In college I took a couple of
scripture courses but it wasn't until many years had gone by when I
began to take the bible seriously and not only read it but read about
it. And that's how I became a bible geek. And you should as well.
If it's the word of God, we should read it and understand it, right?
Today in the first reading the people
have the law read to them. That meant they listened to a recital of
the first five books of the Bible, which took about half a day. Then
they recommitted to follow the law – the actual 613 commandments,
including the seven commandments given to the human race before Moses
came along, and especially the ten commandments. But the law
contained other commandments as well in the form of the stories and
object lessons. Lot's wife, for example, disobeyed the command not
to look back and was turned in to salt. Moses was told to strike the
rock to obtain water, but hit it twice, and God decided not to allow
him to physically enter the promised land. Cain killed his brother
and God made it so that Cain wandered the earth for the rest of his
life. If you knew the stories, you had an idea of what pleased God
and what offended Him. And the commitment the people made to follow
the law made them a people; they were bound together by the law.
And that's one thing the Bible does
for us; it is common ground for Christians. We can be much better
citizens of the United States if we know something about how the
government works and the common values enumerated in the declaration
of independence and the Constitution. And we can be much better
Christians, and have deeper solidarity with other Christians if we
are familiar with the founding document of Christianity. By the way,
we've just finished the week of prayer for Christian Unity.
Jesus is involved with scripture as
well in the gospel passage we just read. Jesus reads a few verses
from Isaiah, and then applies them to himself; in other words, he
looks for God's will in the words of the prophet, and when he
recognizes it, he begins his ministry. There is a way of reading
scripture called “Lectio Divina”, which is something like what
Jesus is doing. In the case of the Jewish people listening to the
law, they want to understand exactly what God wants from them; in the
case of Jesus, he is allowing the Father to speak to his heart
through the scriptures. In Lectio Divina, or Divine reading, we read
a passage; pray over it, think about it, read it again, try to put
ourselves into the picture. Many saints began their careers through
a similar process. Saint Anthony of Egypt, who founded Christian
monasticism, heard the words “leave all you have and follow me”
and knew the words applied to him. He sold his inheritance and went
to live in the desert.
Find a way to bring the bible into
your life, or deepen your appreciation if you already read it. Most
of us hear the bible passages at Mass; single out one of them,
preferably for the Sunday to come, and take it to your prayers every
day. Or, concentrate on one of the gospels and read it through, two
or three times in the liturgical year, along with a good commentary.
This is the season of Matthew, by the way. I never get tired of
comparing the first three gospels. It's so interesting to discover
how each author tells the story of Jesus differently, and John is
completely different. I think I made a big mistake when I first set
out to read the bible. I read it straight through, from Genesis to
Revelation, and that is probably the worst possible way. And of
course a wonderful way to fall in love with the bible is to form or
join a bible study group. As you and your friends meet to socialize
and discuss a bit of the bible, you will find that all of you have
different insights, and possibly some questions that in turn will
lead to further insights.
We know the writers of the New
Testament were quite familiar with the bible, and that's not
surprising. But sometimes it is a little surprising to realize that
Jesus read the books of the Old Testament and obviously meditated on
them and used them in his own prayer life. That prayer he offers as
he dies on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
is the first line of Psalm 22; rather than a cry of abandonment,
Jesus was probably praying what in the end is a very hopeful prayer.
So today I hope you will resolve to make the bible a part of your
prayer life.
