Verses, Verses Everywhere... but the stories are even better.

I have been reminded of late of good King Josiah, who was 8 (read :EIGHT) years old when he took over for his assassinated father, Ammon, who succeeded the disastrous rom King Manasseh. Josiah, however "did was was right in the eyes of the Lord." After he was older, one of the things Josiah did "right" was to repair, refurbish, and otherwise restore the Temple that King Solomon had built a couple of hundred years before.  

During that project--and I hope you remember this story from Sunday School--a copy of "the Book of the Law"was found under the Temple's clutter. Upon reading it, and realizing how unfaithful the people of Israel had been (not least during the reigns of his father and grandfather), Josiah tore his clothes (as sign of great grief and repentance), and commanded that the people hear again God's word and renew their covenant to live faithfully as God's people. 

It is one of the great stories in all the Bible--and one with shockingly enduring applicability: how the Bible is often lost or buried, even in the Church: is hidden under the clutter of so many other things. How many of God's own people--people who claim God, anyway--disregard the Word that gives Life, and that abundantly. How even the priests and rulers among us do not remember or know the ways and will of God.  

That is a sermon for another time. 

But there come moments, don't there, when we turn again to the text: we lose the job, get the diagnosis, watch the marriage or finances disintegrate. We have nowhere else to turn and so we turn to the Bible, though sometimes we are unsure where to look or what to look for; bu there is a sense we all of us have that here, here, is what we really need. We desire to read and listen and draw comfort (but leave the challenge till later). 

Now is one of those times, of course. And so many people are busing finding a verse here, a verse there, verses...verses, verses everywhere...to read, and to offer as balm, as comfort, to frightened souls in this weird, wilderness time. And good for you. Keep looking. Keep reading.

All I will say is that for me, isolated verses do not bring as much comfort as the themes, the narrative arcs—what scholars sometimes call “typologies.”

Which is why I am encouraged, cheered, to remember that the story of God’s people is very often a story of displacement, of one form or the other—of exile from the places and things that have given identity, but don’t anymore. Displacement, which calls for even greater reliance on God.

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For example, do you remember how God called Abram and Sara to leave the carapace of Ur in the Chaldees and go to a new land? Away from Abram’s father’s land and people, and everything that was part and parcel of his old life. That theme carries on…

When the people of Israel were Exiled from Jerusalem, away from the Temple and its priests, its worship and customs, traditions and songs--and BACK to Babylon. It is almost as if they were reversing Father Abraham's course.  

As surely as we are exiled, too, away from here from our place, our people, our songs and rituals. We can almost begin to sense, in the least wee sense, that since of displacement that caused the Psalmist to lament: 

“By the waters of Babylon, there we hung up our lyres and wept when we remembered Jerusalem. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange Land?" 

That is the question for us, even now, isn’t it?

Displacement. I remembered how Jesus called the disciples away from everything that was familiar: the water, their hometown, home synagogue; their family, work, routine…call it social distancing.

I have even thought about the Exodus: how slavery had been a horrible, but familiar carapace or cocoon: a kind of unsafe, safe harbor. And once they were free of it the people did not know what to do.

Like we do not know what to do, now that we, like they—and like the disciples were—are displaced from our offices and routines and our extended families; from our work, some of us, and our ways of working, others of us.

For forty years, those ex-slaves had to depend on God day-by-day to provide what they needed to survive and learn and be the people of God in the wilderness…

And in this wilderness, the wilderness we are now in, thank God for the day-to-day gift of Bible, and prayer, and hymns and songs and spiritual songs… yes, yes, of course.

Bible. Spirit. Prayer. Those basic things, left to us through the centuries when our own Temple has been cleansed, restored, repaired, renewed. For all we have thrown away of the church as it was (so many gilded ossifications and leaden overlays as to render the Church itself, much of it, a kind of carapace that needed discarding) we have never abandoned Bible, Prayer, Spirit. And we need them more than ever even now.     

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But if we are not careful, will take those comforts to our own soul--make our personal manna a private meal; our individual salvation private. 

But in fact, in the stories, every instance the Bible’s people were displaced, they were still together. In families—Abram and Sarah; among the Exiles, marching along their own Trail of Tears to Babylon; the first disciples—Jesus’ call never left anyone alone: they had to be in the group; even the people in the wilderness: they were in the wilderness together. 

Over and over again they ate together: Passover, Seder, Table Fellowship, Eucharist--all, quite literally, a fore-taste of the Glory Divine. 

Paul was never alone, either, even in jail!

Which is why we, too, have to find ways to keep connected. With Bibles and hymnals and prayer books in hand, of course--but looking for others to read with, pray with, sing with, because our faith is a corporate thing. 

Personal, but never private. So thank God for technology, and phones, and emails… all are crucial.

But keep looking for even other ways to connect and stay connected.

          

Whatever we are forced to give up in this displaced and displacing time, let us never give up on the hope and need to be together again.