This post details my experience of Session Two of the Towards
Ordained Ministry course. See my previous post about session one to find out what
the TOM course is.
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I googled the
speaker before this event, the Rector of St Bride's Fleet St, and I was looking
forward to hearing from her as she seemed pretty awesome. Plus getting our
teeth into the topic 'The Bible' from a priest's perspective was quite a fun
prospect.
I wasn’t disappointed. She
tackled what could have been quite a controversial topic very well, imparting wisdom
without opinion in a very down to earth manner.
There
were lots of anecdotes and five minute pauses for us to turn to our neighbours
and discuss something before feeding back to the group.
Intro
She laid
her cards down from the beginning, encouraging that diversity is good for our understanding,
and we all need to engage with the Bible for ourselves. She also told us a
little about herself and her church, including the titbit that the first
newspaper was founded by a woman.
Her story
When she got into it, she started by taking us through the place
scripture has had in her own journey. It started with Anglo-Catholic Sunday
school and RE lessons being simply Bible stories, using the KJV, the version
that is “like, what God actually said”, which of course was tough to read,
especially without help. She “didn’t know how to read” the Bible.
She eventually went to evangelical bible studies “because they did
them better.” Then in her first year of theological college, the academic biblical
study was “dislocating” and exploded her assumptions of scripture and informed
her use of it in worship. She said she was “so grateful to go through that process”,
and though she had to rethink a lot, it “all came back together”, meaning the
initial loss turned into a profound understanding of scripture.
“Critical engagement” is key, because the power of scripture is in
its “complexity” so ask the hard questions! And don’t skirt round the difficult
bits.
“Living Word of God”
At this point she gave three examples of how scripture can be to
us the ‘living word’.
One, having a “verse collide with your life” which can do things
like make you realise your own emotion, and “unlock a situation”, effecting the
external circumstances.
Two, reading something can give new perspective to overcome an
internal struggle or a new direction after the resolution of an internal
struggle.
Three, for 29 years she had to give between 4 and 7 addresses a
week, and only extremely rarely did not speak to the lectionary texts. Of
course she came across the same texts over and over, but they “always spoke to
me in new ways”, and the texts she had to work, pray and engage with most led
to “cracking” sermons.
The Bible is “gloriously subversive”, like the fact that it tells
us it’s always the least suitable, the least capable person who is chosen to do
God’s work - the ancient Abram, the argumentative and stammering Moses, the
persecuting Pharisee Paul. When she went on a tour of Paul’s route through
Greece, it “hit me like a ton of bricks” that his experience had, at the time,
felt like a failure, and only God could see the big picture that we now see, of
the success story.
The subversive-ness is in the call to humanity in all our
brokenness and frailty, and that like Paul we should rejoice even if all we see
currently is bad – we follow the crucified Christ, so we know that suffering is
part of ultimate success. The Bible shows us we have to think differently about what results
look like”.
“Scripture is baffling”
Here she briefly touched on the stuff a lot of us don’t like, such
as God obliterating whole nations in the OT, or being told we must hate our
families and no one is good, in the NT. Her advice on how to engage was to
inhabit the challenging texts in our prayer life, which might shed some light;
and she reiterated that academic engagement can inform scripture in liturgy.
Interpretation
Following on from that, she did point out that the Bible does need
to be interpreted, because when reading it, we’re “juggling” lots of factors,
and it can have a big impact – just look at women’s ministry. But we can’t be
blinded by the divisions over scripture that are currently fashionable, because
they have changed radically over time.
For example, in the 1590s, weddings rings were a passionate issue
of contention because they weren’t in the Bible. She’s a very keen fan of
Richard Hooker, often cited as the author of Anglican morality, and alongside
Cranmer and BCP, is the closest we have to a founding father – point being when
he was writing his defence of Anglicanism, it included a huge amount on the use
of wedding rings.
Another debate ran around the use of anaesthesia in childbirth, as
‘the Bible clearly states’ that the pain is our punishment handed own from Eve.
You see, the engagement with scripture is not and will not ever be static.
But that begs the question, who do you decide to listen to? Who has
the authority to interpret the Bible? It is personal and one must have a direct
relationship with it, but there is a risk that we aren’t always well-balanced
and it’s not always the Spirit that inspires interpretation! It is crucial to
experience scripture in community and share and listen to reflections with
others.
What is it
In a rather backwards way, she ended with how to define the Bible.
It’s has two parts and an apocrypha, it’s made up of many genres, it’s the story
of a promise and its fulfilment, written by many authors over a period of more
than 1000 years.
We need a balance of acknowledging the process of a “fluid
collection” of scrolls being shaped into the book we now have vs the reality that
we acknowledge it as the Word.
It’s also a “very, very dangerous” book, look at poor Tyndale
and result of his translation into English.
Looking at the Gospels in particular – we need them all!:
Matthew – set pieces, Messianic, polished
Mark – reader does the work, rough edges
Luke – tabloid, about people, engaging, Holy Spirit, the poor
John – like stained glass– need to see it from inside, mysticism,
Christ’s divinity
The
actual question
Finally
she turned to the vow that was the title given to her for this talk, from the
Ordinal – “Do you accept the holy Scriptures as revealing all things
necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?
Its authority for an individual must come in two
stages; first, one must simply trust, based on one’s heritage of tradition that
acknowledges its authority; and then second, one must pray and study to
discover its innate authority for oneself.
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The previous session was
- Authority - Do you accept the discipline of this Church and give due respect to those
in authority?
Future sessions
will be:
- Doctrine - [I will miss this one] Do you believe the
doctrine of the Christian faith as the Church of England has received it, and
in your ministry will you expound and teach it?
- Ministry - Will
you be a faithful servant in the household of God, after the example of Christ,
who came not to be served but to serve?
- Spirituality - Will
you be diligent in prayer, in reading holy Scripture, and in all studies that
will deepen your faith, and fit you to bear witness to the truth of the Gospel?
- Mission - Will
you lead Christ’s people in proclaiming his glorious gospel, so that the good
news of salvation may be heard in every place?
