Sometimes I get angry

Sometimes I get angry. I don't get angry a lot. I really don't. I mostly get annoyed. And that's a different beast entirely. A much smaller, less significant beast and usually a beast that is fed by lack of sleep, low blood sugar or general whininess. When I actually get angry you know it's something big. At least it's something big for me. I save anger for the big stuff like poverty, war, injustice, gender expectations, gas prices and...the Bible. 

Not the Bible per se, I'm not actually angry at the Bible. What I'm angry about is how we present the Bible.

I get angry when we present the Bible like it's a plumber's manual. A how-to guide for fixing whatever's got you plugged up. The Bible is a story and its purpose is to pass on the collective stories and wisdom of people of faith throughout generations. It wasn't meant to be used like a search engine where you just type in your dilemma and up pops the solution. 

I get angry when we present the Bible like the stories are clear and straight-forward, needing no interpretation and containing no mystery. The biblical narrative is an ancient book with ancient wisdom. These words are meant to be savoured, pondered, wrestled with...kind of like the many trendy quotes I keep seeing on fb from Rumi and Ghandi. It was written by real people and so there are inconsistencies and contradictions. It was written by many people and so it's multifaceted. It was written in a different time and so there are contextual cues that we need to explore. If it was just a straight forward historical account of what some people did, then there would be absolutely no point in reading any of it more than once.

I get angry when we create artwork depicting biblical characters or scenes that are one-dimensional, simplistic, or just "happy." I see this most often in children's materials, but I find it in books for adults as well. Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar look like acquaintances who happened upon one another at the park, rather than ...not sure how to even describe what they are. But clearly some emotion is required.  Jesus is stiff and passive, hardly the energetic, passionate and radical teacher that the Bible describes. For goodness sake, put some energy into the man who is weeping and calling Lazarus to come out from the tomb! For some reason the sun seems to be perpetually shining and everyone looks simply...okay. Just fine. Just going to the mall to pick up a jug of milk and on the way I might stop and listen to an incredibly tense dialogue between Jesus and a group of irate religious leaders, but I won't let that impact my placid expression. And just for the record, I get equally frustrated by graphic novels that make Jesus look like a sex god and everything is all thunder, lightening and bloodshed. But within these extremes, with all the art forms that exist, there must be room for some honest, dynamic expression. Some edginess, some life?

I get angry when we read the biblical text with less enthusiasm than the meteorologist giving the weather report. I believe all people are invited to participate in worship and all people are invited to read scripture. But if you don't care about it, if the text is meaningless to you, then please decline the invite. Don't read scripture just because it's something to check off on your "I participated in church" to-do list. Don't read scripture because it gets a worship leader off your back or because you feel guilty. When we read scripture we are holding someone's story. Perhaps we can think of it like standing in for a friend, telling the story of their devastating illness or miraculous recovery, or their encounter with the Divine. We tell the stories of others with respect for their experience. I think we can approach scripture with that same respect. We may not know the person, but we have their story, their wisdom, their experience of God. Let's treat it with some respect. And by respect I don't mean solemnity, but integrity. 

For years I've had an image in my mind of what it might have looked like for Jewish elders to tell the stories of their ancestors. And maybe my image is all wrong, but it's life-giving for me. I imagine a family, not one of our nuclear families, but a tribe, gathered around the fire. All waiting expectantly for the elder or the story-teller to begin. And then being drawn into the mystery, regaled by the highs and lows, the tensions, and then perplexed by the ending. I imagine the children begging their elders to tell them what it all means, and their elders smiling and shrugging, knowing in their hearts that none of us will ever truly know. And I imagine they curl up in their beds with images from the story in their heads, and hearts warmed by the hearing.

I know this all sounds rather idyllic and perhaps even a bit silly. But this is the image that reminds me that the scriptures were stories about real people and they existed, not as plain black text on thin white paper, read alone in quiet secluded places, but as a living story shared orally and in the context of community. I don't think that the Bible has existed all these years because of sheer determination or because Christians just had a lot of power. I believe the Bible continues to exist because the story is alive. 

And I get angry when we treat it like it is dead.

Just had to get that out.