Part 4 | Imaginative meditation on scripture

Imaginative meditation on Scripture This practice is often associated with Ignatius of Loyola who lived in the 16th century, and who encouraged the use of our imagination in order to enter more fully into the meaning of a biblical text and to engage with it more experientially. Simple method: - Choose a biblical story. A narrative passage is most suitable, eg. one from the gospels. - If it has some features that are hard to understand or see the significance of, it might be helpful first to consult a study guide or commentary. For example, if reference is made to particular people, places, social/religious customs or historical events, or quotations from other parts of Scripture, understanding these helps us to read the story without misconstruing something. This is about reading with our heads. - But then we turn to the passage again, not to analyse it intellectually, but to enter into it imaginatively. It can help to try to picture the scene described by the writer – taking notice of the details sometimes recorded of location, season, weather, sounds and smells – and to wonder about the various characters in the story and to imagine empathetically how each might have experienced what took place. - It may help to imagine ourselves within the story itself, perhaps as a bystander observing and listening, or as a participant – or various participants one after another, empathetically viewing the scene through the eyes of different people. For example, looking at one of Jesus’ healing or nature miracles through the eyes of the people involved. We can imagine ourselves caught up into the story – perhaps imagining Jesus speaking the words recorded there as addressed directly to us, or bringing to Jesus the desires or burdens of our own hearts as the people he encountered so often did. - It may help to imaginatively engage our senses: what do I see, hear, feel, touch, taste? What emotions, thoughts, questions, reactions and wonderings arise in me? What do I notice in the emotions and unspoken reactions, the relational dynamics and interactions, the body language of others, and perhaps charged atmosphere in the story? For example, when Jesus raised Lazarus, or when he challenged his host about his lack of hospitality? - It may be helpful to imagine the aftermath of the events recorded, how the scene might have played out beyond where it stops in the text, what might have happened next. For example, what went through the mind of the rich young ruler, who went away sad from his conversation with Jesus, as he struggled to get to sleep that night? This use of imagination is not about flights of fantasy that remove us far from what actually happened in the events described by the text; they are about a richer and deeper entering into the texture, tone and nuances of those events, so that we can inhabit the story, notice what we might otherwise have overlooked, and open ourselves fully to its impact. 1 If, as we do this, something particular strikes us, perhaps some insight or perspective we haven’t seen before, we don’t build a doctrine on it. What we do is to prayerfully notice how God might be speaking to us through this, and how the insight or perspective we’ve received bears on our own life and following of Jesus now. Example: John 7:53 – 8:11. 53 [[They went each to his own house, 8 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]] Kind of additional information you’d find in a commentary/study guide: 1. Context If you look at the story in your bible, you may notice that this passage is surrounded by square brackets, with a footnote explaining that it was not placed here in the earliest manuscripts of John’s Gospel; and it’s not certain where else it was placed originally. - But there are clues in John chapters 7 and 8 why it was eventually placed between them. - In these chapters we find Jesus’ opponents accusing and seeking to kill him, while wrongly thinking they are upholding the OT law. - Jesus says to them, Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment (7:24) and You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me (8:15-16). - This helps us to see how to read the story of the woman caught in adultery, as it is usually called. 2 - As in the surrounding chapters, Jesus’ opponents are absorbed in accusations and threats to kill, apparently for the sake of the OT law. - And Jesus exposes their misreading of the law, their misjudging of the situation, their wrong-heartedness. - It’s a vivid example of the human tendency to draw wrong conclusions from superficial understanding and poor motives. - And it’s a brilliant lesson from Jesus in how to see things the right way, and how to treat people the right way. 2. The religious background In this passage, the scribes and Pharisees are trying to use the Old Testament law to get Jesus into trouble, but it is a distortion. - The law they quote to justify stoning the woman comes from Leviticus 20:10, and it required both the man and the woman who had committed adultery to be stoned: If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. - They said she had been caught in the act, so the man must have been caught too – you can hardly commit adultery on your own; but he wasn’t arrested. The OT law also required two witnesses; and that the witnesses must not be malicious or lying; and that the witnesses should begin the stoning. This is found in Deuteronomy: - On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. (Deut.17:6-7) - A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offence that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall enquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. (Deut.19:15-19) This explains why Jesus says here, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her (7). But the incident reeks with malice and deceit. 3 - It doesn’t seem farfetched to think that the whole episode may have been a set-up job, the man slipping away while his mates, who had been given the tip-off so that they could witness the liaison, then seized the woman – whom they were willing to sacrifice for the sake of their malicious agenda against Jesus. - For we learn from v.6 that their motive was not to see justice done or the law upheld, but to trap Jesus publicly into either disavowing the law (which would have undermined his credibility) or condemning the woman (which would have undermined his compassion). 3. The social background Jesus says to the woman, Woman, where are they? (10). - ‘Woman’ sounds harsh to modern ears, but it was in fact a term of respect. - Respect was not always strong towards women in a patriarchal society, where women’s social and legal position was much more vulnerable than that of men. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground (6). - No one knows what he was writing, but some people think it may have been symbolic, given that the ten commandments were said in Exodus 32:16 to have been written by the finger of God, and given that Roman magistrates wrote their sentences before reading them out – and here was Jesus being asked for a legal ruling based on God’s law. Practice: Take somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes to sit with this text, meditating imaginatively on the story, prayerfully alert to anything God might bring to your attention. If you’d like a copy of my own reflections, please ask Jez to email them to you. I would encourage you to develop this practice in the weeks ahead, as you are able. Next month we’ll look at another ancient Christian practice that helps us engage Scripture prayerfully, reading with head and heart. 4