"Is the ‘Canon’ an Outdated Weapon?"

The 23^rd Psalm, for example. Here’s a very contemporary rendering of that well-known piece of sacred poetry, submitted to a newspaper by a man named Donald Sloane of Chesterfield; it’s been retitled "The 23^rd Sweaty Palm":

"The Prez-elect is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me stand up in polling booths;

He leadeth me beside the muddy waters;

He restoreth my skepticism;

He leadeth me in the ways of politics for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Dade County,

I shall fear no tampering, for the press is with me.

Thy computer-count and thy hand-count comfort me.

Thou prepareth a table of questionable ballets before me, in the presence of attorneys.

Thou annointest my palms with coin. My chad runneth over.

Surely dimpled and pregnant indentations shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I shall dwell in the House of Representatives forever."

(My thanks to Dennis Kleisley for sharing that bit of biblically inspired humor with me.)

But putting popular culture and religious tradition and spiritual sentimentality aside for a moment, a looming question remains for each of us: is the Bible of any use to us today?

Back when I was laying out the ideas for this series, I entitled today’s message, "Is the ‘Canon’ an Outdated Weapon?" That’s a little play on words, of course. A long time ago, a cannon (spelled with two n’s) was a large piece of artillery that armies used in battle. Today, technology and sophisticated weaponry have made the use of the old, large, bulky, slow-to-load and hard-to-aim cannon pretty useless.

"Canon" – spelled with one "n" – is the name applied to the set collection of writings that we know as the Bible. That word, "canon" comes from an ancient Semitic word that meant "reed" or a kind of stick used for measuring, and it came to mean "an authoritative standard by which other things are measured." As applied to the Bible, the word has traditionally meant that in this particular collection of writings – as held up against any other writings – the Divine purpose and will for all are to be found.

The "canon" of writings that we call "the Bible" resulted mainly from a long process in the Hebrew and Christian communities in which people of later generations read, heard, accepted, and applied to themselves and their situation written records of God’s words for and dealings with certain people and communities of the past. Church councils, held throughout the first several hundred years after Christ, finally set the "canon," and so we have this particular collection of sacred writings that is our Bible.

The question remains, though: given its ancient origins and the human hands and opinions that shaped it, is the Bible of any use to us today? I suppose the answer to that question lies in the eyes and heart of the beholding believer! Will I accept that, despite the fact that it comes from a time that is very much not my own, the Bible has something relevant to say about my confusing life in this crazy world today?

The truth is, of course, that every generation suffers from the delusion of "presentism" – the idea that the events of our own time are the best, the worst, or the most exciting. People always believe that the ideas of their time are the most enlightened in history, that all that went before was darkness, but now we are in the light. The Bible, I believe, shows us that human beings have suffered from the same basic kinds of problems, had the same vices and temptations, experienced the same spiritual blindness, and grappled with the temptation toward the same rotten behaviors throughout history. In terms of our spiritual needs, nothing really changes. And the basic, bottom-line, "timeless and universal" message of this "canon" is still needed and valuable and life-giving even today.

Think about these words from the great biblical evangelist to the Gentiles, Paul. Nearing the end of his life, in the final letter he would write, Paul sent instructions to a young man named Timothy who was a new pastor struggling to do the right things. We heard the words read to us this morning: "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the people of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

Here’s what I hear Paul saying about the Scriptures. First of all, they have been brought to us and taught to us by human beings, that’s true. The traditions of the church, the limited understanding of preachers and teachers, the misinterpretations of well-meaning (and sometimes not-so-well-meaning) people have influenced us all regarding the meaning and purposes of the Bible. But as Toni Smith acknowledged in her testimony to us a few weeks ago, even in the midst of that which has hurt us, there have been those people and those messages that have offered us life.

Somewhere along the way, we all heard and acknowledged the message that there is one God who created the world and each of us; that God seeks us and we seek that God...or frankly we’d all still be home reading the paper right now. At some point, someone who knew and loved the Scriptures showed us some images of people in there who seemed an awful lot like us. Young, old, struggling, angry, seeking, hurting, crying, laughing, loving. And at some point, somewhere, maybe not until coming to this church but maybe, also, a long time before that, someone spoke the 3 little words that have managed to stay imbedded deeply in our hearts and souls and minds...present enough to keep us looking and longing for more: God loves you! If even that much we have learned from the Scriptures, then, as Paul says, we should continue in what we have learned and become convinced of....

It’s true that there’s a lot in the Bible that we don’t understand and can’t make sense of and that we can’t explain. Well, you know, where I come from most people think there’s hardly anything better than a big old plate of fried catfish. And when you set in to eating catfish, you’ll discover that there’s a lot of little bones in there. So, as you eat that sweet, delicious meat, you just keep laying the bones off to the side. Only a fool would sit and choke on the bones...but only a bigger fool would walk away from good catfish!

Paul also said something else about the Bible in our reading this morning that I think we need to consider. He said, "All Scripture is God-breathed...." "God-breathed...." That’s a beautiful image. It says that even though these words were penned by human beings, preached by human beings, announced in the world from human souls...they are the breath of God breathing out of a human instrument. Someone who plays a wind instrument breathes music out of the instrument they’re playing. God has breathed the timeless and universal messages of Scripture out through human instruments.

Another thing about thinking of Scripture as "God-breathed": When can you feel someone’s breath? Most of the time, it’s when they’re very near to you, when they have their arms around you. Paul didn’t say that Scripture is God-shouted. From a great distance you can hear someone shout, and you still may know nothing about them. But Scripture is breathed from the heart of God, which means that, when we encounter God in the Scriptures, God is very near to us.

This book is not just a series of ideas. It is, bottom-line, a love letter from God. Now there are scholars a plenty who do a lot of hard work outlining, tearing apart the text, studying the ancient words, doing all that goes into being skilled teachers and explorers of the Scriptures. The work of such people is to our great advantage in that, through them, new light and new understanding come to us about the messages of the Bible.

But the Bible, as a whole, teaches us about God because God’s self is breathing out from the very pages. There are people who know and love the Bible who can’t read. They’ve heard the words sung and spoken, and they’ve believed what they’ve heard, and they love the truths. They’re very biblically-literate people. It’s not required that we be scholars. What’s required is that we receive this as a love letter. Someone is putting their arms around us, so close that we can feel the breath on our face when these words are being shared.

And, as Paul also wrote to Timothy, this great love letter has a purpose...it is useful to us. First of all, because it helps to "equip us" for good works. Everything we have come to understand about the purpose of being a church, about doing ministry in the world, about recognizing and using the unique gifts and contributions of each person in the church, about each of us being called to use who we are and what we can do to serve God...all of that knowledge comes to us from Scripture.

Secondly, though, and even more importantly, Paul tells us that the timeless and universal messages of Scripture "are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Remember what I have told you, repeatedly, throughout this series: when we read the Bible we must learn how to separate that which is timeless and universal from that which is historically and culturally bound. By finding and focusing, throughout the Bible, on the those ideas and messages which are timeless and universal we will find that we are pointed, throughout the Bible, to the One who is timeless and universal: our Savior and our Sovereign, Jesus Christ.

This "canon" is not outdated! It’s message is timeless and universal: it shows us how to be forever connected with God in Jesus Christ! It does not satisfy our curiosity about important questions in the fields of science, philosophy, history or psychology. Its function is to bring us to Christ, to bring us to maturity in Christ, and to send us out into the world to witness by our life and our good deeds to the wonderful power of Christ. It gives us great hope and assures us, as we read in 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, "‘No eye has seen, no ear had heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love God’ – but God has revealed it to us by God’s Spirit...." – God’s breath breathed upon us through the Bible. Amen.

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