And God spoke all these words:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.  (Exodus 20: 1-3)

 

After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (John 2: 22)

 

So.

This week a Chat and Chew, one of the participants; whose name I won’t tell you because what happens at Chat n Chew stays at Chat n Chew, came armed with her Bible and nailed me with a whole pile of questions from one of our scriptures last week.  For those of you who weren’t here, or if you checked out and worked on your grocery list during the sermon, the story was of Abraham and Sarah, and them entering a new Covenant with God and getting new identities. 

The question, wasn’t actually about this story, but was instead about something that happened in Chapter 12 – and really the question is kind of irrelevant to the point I’m about to make. 

Because, this whole encounter was one that makes your minister’s heart really happy.  Because – not only had they paid enough attention to worship last week to have questions, but they actually picked up their Bible, reread the references, and then came armed with ideas and concerns. 

I’m not sure I answered them particularly well.  There’s a lot of questions that are raised by the texts that we consider sacred.  And I think that’s o.k.  I think its one of those times where we have to be o.k. with our world and our spirituality not being particularly black and white.  Because, that’s kind of the point.  Right?  That we have to think and discern what it actually means to be faithful. 

This was driven home a bit more this week at Bible Study because we were talking in particular about the Exodus text that has the 10 Commandments in it.  I was using my Jewish Study Bible; the Bible that I used when I was studying the Old Testament or what we called (‘cause we’re cool and all that) the Hebrew Scriptures.  When you open this Bible to Exodus 20, where we get the 10 Commandments from, there’s far more notes on this page than there is actual text.  You see, this text, so familiar to us that we could probably all recite them, is full of interpretation and translation that we could never cover in a single reading. 

What we think is straight forward, easy…..uncomplicated….black and white…..isn’t really.  And yes, it raises more questions than it has answers.  One of my favourite questions that came out of Bible Study was “why are some of the commandments like “You shall not murder and you shall not steal” actual laws now, and others of the commandments like “you will not have any other God’s before me”, just kind of casual suggestions?”

Why indeed?  I don’t know.  I think we’ll all have to think about the implications of that for a long time. 

This week, when I turned to the John scripture, the one with Jesus turning over the tables in the temple, I was once again hit with”

This raises farrrrr more questions than it does give answers. 

You see I thought I knew this story.  I thought I knew it well.  Jesus comes into the temple – gets mad at the money stuff, kicks people out. You know.   But here’s what I really found out. 

One of these things is not like the other.

This temple incident in the John scripture sounds wayyy different than the temple incident in Matthew and Mark.  Its not at the right time; its far earlier in Jesus’ ministry on earth.  And logically, if it had happened at this point, I’m pretty sure that the Roman authorities would’ve bypassed 3 years of Jesus’ life and gone straight to crucifixion because he was risking the complete shut down of the temple. 

Questions. Questions. Questions.  I have so many of them.  And I really want to leap right into answers.  I want to go from these uncomfortable shades of grey into the precision of absolute black and white. 

But we don’t like shades of grey, right?  We prefer explanations. Answers.  Data.  My mind went immediately to “Well, of course Jesus didn’t actually turn tables over in the temple this early in his ministry, did he.  Maybe, he did this twice? Or maybe not?  Maybe John heard a different story, or got some of the details wrong.  Or maybe, if you want the Divinity School explanation, John, the Evangelist, moves it because he wants to show us that, tell us that, help us understand that … blah, blah, blah”

We don’t want the questions.  We want God to function in our life as history and fact rather than Gospel and Grace.  So, we explain things away.  We explain God instead of experiencing the hazy place of revelation.  We explain God instead of encountering God.  We question and expect answers, and when we don’t get what we want we start talking about things like ‘inerrancy’; and run further away from revelation. 

When we look for answers rather than revelation, when we explain away the mystery, we explain away the.

I AM. 

God who is and who shows up.

Who shows up at times that don’t seem to hang together.  Who shows up at times that defy explanations.  Who shows up at times that we question.  But doesn’t give us explanation.  Just gives us

Presence.  Mystery.  Revelation. 

Blessings today, my dear Bethel Friends, and remember you are Loved. 

Just because God is. And that defies explanation. 

~Rev. Lynne