Read Faithfully

2 Timothy 3:16-17, NRSVue

16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

INTRO

This week, we continue our Wesleyan Rooted Sermon Series, as we explore our faith through a Wesleyan lens and come to understand what it means to be a Wesleyan people. We will examine what it means to follow Jesus through the Wesleyan tradition and explore what makes our tradition unique. In this, we hope to increase our understanding of how God’s grace is at work in our lives, and work to restore the image of God in our lives as we grow in our call to love God and our neighbors. Last week, we explored our call to be deeply rooted in the love of God as we allow God to work within us that we might be changed. We explored what it means to truly surrender to God that our roots might be fully grounded in God’s will and God’s ways. This week we turn to what it means to read scripture faithfully from a Wesleyan lens.

Did you know that indoor plumbing was invented in the 1840s? It wasn’t until the 1880s that indoor plumbing became more widespread. Before this, individuals had outhouses where they went to use the restroom. I’ve even heard stories from former church members who had an outhouse growing up or moments of reminiscing the days when parents or grandparents who used outhouses. When indoor plumbing was first coming into homes, people thought it was gross. They did not want a room IN their homes where they used the bathroom.

The church also waged its battle with indoor plumbing. Using the Old Testament, churches, pastors and laity would argue that indoor restrooms were not scriptural. Deuteronomy 23:12-14 tells us, “Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.” In other words, if we read scripture literally, then we must close down the bathrooms and provide equipment for folks to dig holes out past the playground…

Who here likes to eat pork chops? Who likes bacon? What about shrimp? All of these foods are prohibited with a literal interpretation of scripture. A literal reading of Ephesians 6:5-8 was used to argue that slavery was not only acceptable but that it was God’s intention for social order of the world. It was used to justify the harsh treatment of black and brown bodies. Often it was recited while those around witnessed whipping and lynchings. The message was clear….God desires this of you.

Even today, some churches still use 1 Corinthians 14 to argue against the calling and ordination of women pastors and to establish the “man is the head of the household” routine that often is used to justify the abuse of both women and children. We are often told that these literal readings of scripture are “Biblical” and the proper way to interpret scripture.

Yet, one look at sermons of the early church fathers such as Augustine will prove that the early church did not read scripture literally. One author notes this of the interpretive work of the early church “Exegesis, for the fathers, was not an academic exercise to be undertaken in order to prove already held beliefs. Exegesis was a spiritual discipline, a journey through the literality of scripture in which one is not only to dwell in the clear teachings of Jesus or the great theological pronouncements of Paul but by the very ambitions of a total reading of scripture one is led through the thicket and brambles of seeming contradiction, blank oceans and dry deserts of obscure and uncertain material.”

To be clear here, the early church fathers preached and call us to move through and beyond a literal reading of scripture. How the early church fathers saw the exegeting of scripture, the deep study of scripture, is to walk through the lens of the genre that the text is written in, differing cultural contexts, and also through the lens of Jesus Christ. Thus, not all scripture is meant to be read word for word in a plain reading. In other words, scripture, by it’s very nature, is meant to be interpreted.

In our text this morning, Paul reminds us that all scripture is inspired by God and all scripture is useful for our Christian journey. The question becomes, how do we read and interpret scripture faithfully? I love the way the message bible paraphrases our text. “Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.”

In order to understand what Paul is saying to us in our text this morning we must first name that, as United Methodists, we do not profess the doctrine of “sola scriptura” - which means scripture only or people who believe that we only interpret scripture, God’s will, and the world through scripture. When referring to the idea of “sola scriptura” or scripture only, Wesley argues that scripture is the primary means by which we bear witness to Christ and by which we discern the things of God. Wesley and we believe that the christian faith is revealed in scripture, illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.

In other words, before we bring in reason, experience, or tradition, we start with and give primary weight to scriptures by reading across the whole breathe of the biblical cannon. Theologian, Rev. Dr. Randy Maddox explains this for us writing, “Given his correlation of definitive revelation with Scripture, it is no surprise that Wesley consistently identified the Bible as the most basic authority for determining Christian belief and practice. Indeed at times he declared it to be the sole or only authority. These declarations must be balanced by his equally emphatic statement that anyone who says that they need no book but the Bible is a rank enthusiast.” In other words, John Wesley believes, that we need more than just scripture to interpret the Bible, and to interpret the world around us. We know that Wesley turned to scripture for decisions on the how the Spirit was leading him as well as things like practices of worship. Scripture is primary, but more must be considered in interpreting scripture’s application in our daily lives.

When we say that all scripture is inspired by God, we are naming that God was at work not just in the past but God is at work here and now. We recognize that God did something in the hearts and minds of the original authors and that God is doing something in our hearts and minds as we strive to engage, discern, and work alongside God through a faithful and spiritually empowered reading of the Bible. If we hold that God is the Lord of our lives then we must discern where our Lord is calling us to go…as we listen to the nudging of the Holy Spirit. Yet, the Spirit has been active throughout time.

In the 1960s and 70s, Theologian, Rev. Dr. Albert Outler coined the term “quadrilateral.” Drawn from a Wesleyan understanding of scriptural interpretation, Outler argued that Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience are the means by which Methodists, and Wesley interpret scripture. Keeping Scripture and primary, Outler coined the phrase we still use today, “the christian faith is revealed in scripture, illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.”

Tradition is the means by which we examine the consensus of Christian teaching and practice to see if the task being examined demonstrates a continuity of God’s Spirit’s ongoing transformative power.  The church acknowledges the wisdom of the faith in which grace was fostered, lived out, and passed down from the saints who have gone on, yet also recognizes that one must critically engage and appreciate tradition. We believe critical appreciation of tradition allows the church to see God in new ways. It can trace the movement of God’s Spirit through the ever-shifting changes of the church’s own reading of Scripture.

Over the years, tradition has shifted in the use of female clergy. In the Gospel, we see women as the first to proclaim the resurrection. Yet, in the early days of the church, the disciples lead. When we look to the first 300 years of Christianity, there is evidence of female clergy and, around the 6th century, evidence of female bishops. When we look to Paul’s writings, we see in one time frame, Paul telling women to be silent in church, yet in others Paul writes about Phoebe, a deacon, a clergy-person in the church. Even in our own Methodist tradition, Wesley authorized women preachers. In 1761, John Wesley licensed Sarah Crosby to preach. In the late 1800s, women were ordained in methodism, but the methodists in America turned back on that tradition. Some sects of methodism continued to ordained women, but when the Methodist Church was created in the early 1900s, the church stopped ordaining women. It wasn’t until 1956 that women had full clergy rights in the Methodist Church.

A critical analysis of both scripture and tradition show evidence that God has certainly called and set apart women to be spiritual leaders as ordained clergy in Christ’s Holy Church. If we simply used scripture, we would be left with contradictions. Instead, by starting with scripture and examining the tradition of the church, we see the ways in which the Spirit moves over the years guiding us to God’s intention: Full leadership of women in the church.

We don’t just use scripture and tradition. As United Methodists, we also are called to examine experience. Charles Wesley wrote a beautiful poem called “God’s Husbandry.” In stanza 7, he writes “They gather out the stones, and sow The’ immortal seed, the Word of God. They water it with tears and prayers, They long for the returning word; Happy, if all their pains and cares Can bring forth fruit to please their Lord.”

Rev. Wesley’s poetic language speaks of how our experiences shape our understanding and interaction with scripture. Each of us reads the Bible in light of the many external events and conditions that shape us as individuals. We also interpret our experiences in light of the Scriptures. Our experiences however, are subordinate to Scripture and yet our experiences ought to confirm scripture. One uses experience in some essence then to “test” the scriptural interpretation and traditions of the church. Yet, these experiences are more than an individual expression but a communal experience. For example, the church, both laity and clergy through the local church, boards of ordained ministry, and supervised ministry affirm that they have seen evidence and have experienced that candidates for ordination have the gifts and graces for ministry. This is a communal experience that is discerned by more than one person.

We are then called to reason all these things together. How do we connect the dots between scripture, tradition, and experience? Last week we spoke of how John Wesley used the means of grace throughout his life. At first, visiting the sick and reading scripture was a means of “assuring salvation” yet later in life it became a means of seeing, knowing, and experiencing God’s grace at work. What shifted from the early days of the Holy Club to his Aldersgate Experience was a “reasoning” or a divine revelation. It was Wesley’s ability to think or reason through everything and come to the conclusion that God was at work in his life. But it is not just Wesley thinking this through on his own. Wesley’s Aldersgate experience was taking all thought, all experiences, individual and collective, what scripture says, putting it together and receiving confirmation from God’s own Spirit that Wesley’s discernment is true.

The point of this, the test of whether we are reading and interpreting scripture rightly, is that our intentional discernment leads us to live a life that reflects the love of Jesus Christ. Which brings us back to our scripture lesson for today. “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” As Rev. Mark Reynolds reminds us, “When we say that the Bible is inspired by God, we are saying two things: (1) that God did something in the hearts and minds of the original authors, and (2) that God does something in our hearts and minds when we read it faithfully in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

In other words, our call as Wesleyan Christians is to read scripture faithfully attuned to God’s love, taking into account Scripture and how that Scripture is illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.” As we do this work, the Spirit will move in our hearts revealing something to us. We will begin to realize that God is a living God. We will realize that scripture speaks to a God who is actively at work in the world…a world that is constantly changing. As we move to see the Bible as the Living Word of God, we begin to realize more and more the imago dei, the image of God inside each of us, and inside all of God’s children. We begin to see things through different eyes as we focus less on a set of laws, or a means of holding someone in judgement and begin to see our call to embody God’s love in and to the world.

When our roots are deep, when we read and interpret the Word faithfully, we grow in our call as United Methodists, and as the body of Christ. May we grow in grace that we may love and serve God, God’s people, and the world in all that we say and do. May our reading of Scripture lead us to a deeper love of God and for others as God reveals God’s self to us though the Holy Spirit. May we see God, the Bible, and our faith as dynamic as we learn to love God with our whole heart.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.