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| "Trust" in Japanese: person (red dot) stands by word (blue) |
When reading the Bible with others in a small group, certain interpretations are offered and fine-tuned in dialog as each person brings insights, life experience, outside readings and other sources to the discussion. Gradually a fresh understanding comes into view, sometimes unexpectedly. English language versions of the original Greek (New Testament) and Hebrew (Old/first Testament) carry some resonance of modern times by choice of word or way of phrasing the meaning on the page. Likewise, other languages do something similar, not only rooted in a culture and a landscape, but also reflecting the moment in history (compare King James to the Good News Bible). This role of language in both bringing God's word closer, but paradoxically separating us from the full and long-lasting meaning is a topic that came up today in the Men's Bible Study on Zoom (and in person, for those at the church this morning).
On the one hand the Gospel, including God's only begotten son as a Living Word, is how humans learn new things and interrelate to one another. Just pointing out the limitations of spoken and written words, and the strong urge to frame logical propositions in linear chains, does not mean that non-verbal forms of knowing God (loving God) and getting to know one's Neighbor (love they neighbor; love they self, equally) are discounted. It seems natural and normal and transparent to privilege the verbal medium, especially when comparing it to alternatives like musical expression, immersion in the glory of the natural world, and visual art forms. From the printed page and spoken teaching/preaching we learn how to be God's people, the hands and feet of the Lord on earth, functioning as witnesses and agents authorized to enact God's love. And yet, on the other hand, words have limitations and can be pulled up from their context or be seized in ways that are unloving so as to be used to puff up one's pride or diminish another's worth. Spiritual babes hunger for clear lines of demarcation and simple formulas to follow. But with wider and deeper experience and knowing Jesus' life and examples and teachings, that same person may grow and require less of the "spiritual milk" and more of the spiritual meat so that what may have seemed at first contradictory, paradoxical, or baffling now can be seen without any fear or sense of threat. Differing ways and interpretations, so long as they hold to the core understandings that unite seekers of all kinds, can now be viewed for their value on their own terms, not be discarded for failing to fit into one's own container.
Mere mortals may try (and should try) to encompass God's meanings and God's will. But clever words or hearts hardened by fixating on one narrow interpretation will never understand all of the Truth. Only humility, vigilance, and persistence will take a person closer to the goal, even when nobody can fully know God in a totalizing and infinite way. Words are what we rely on, but these same words can lead to delusion or instead to clarity. Heavy handed versus having a light touch when wrestling with God's meaning can lead to different outcomes. Perhaps the truth, when it comes to the limits of words, is to be found when the words are treated like temporary vehicles to a larger and much bigger meaning; knowing the words is only part of the way into God's meanings. By memorizing a passage or by rereading a text or by vigorously wrestling with it in the company of others those words sometimes begin to blur and instead there is sometimes a sense of reading "between the lines" (what is not articulated; what is conspicuously absent) and word-roots, Hebrew imagery or Greek choice of words may intersperse with the passage being scrutinized. The result is the words on the page begin to melt and mingle with related meanings and instances from elsewhere in the Bible and in outside sources, too. As such the Word turns into a liquid; something alive, not frozen solid.
Great
care, scholarly effort, publishing history has gone into the Bible and
many translations to distribute copies around the world's many languages and
locations. That is surely important. But while it is necessary, it is
not sufficient. The Word of God lives in people's hearts, not in the ink
marks on dead trees pulped and bleached for paper. And without people
to wrestle with those words according to the lives they live, then the
Word is not being lived or being enlivened. Only when the Word meets
readers and listeners and those who reflect on it will something
valuable arise. Hence, God DOES need people in his universe, not just as
hands and feet to carry out teachings, obedience, and be the "show and
tell" of Christianity. There is a kind of mutual dependence: People need God, but also God needs
flesh and blood, fallible mortals to be the ones who (voluntarily) accept the grace
being offered when sin was paid for by Jesus' sacrifice. And His Word
(the one between the covers of the bound edition of the Bible) only has
reality and consequence when humans open the covers and wrestle with it:
Word + engagement = living interpretation rooted in a time and place
and language.
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