GOOD FRIDAY: THE SECRET OF LIFE

Christians gather on Good Friday, for the same reason that we gather on any other day at church. We gather to walk, to walk with Jesus.

I like this walk. In fact, I need this walk, just like I need to walk every week of the year – no matter where I am. I have walked in the mountains of North Georgia, in the hills of middle Georgia, on the beaches of South Georgia.

Two weeks ago, as is my practice in Atlanta, I walked this very neighborhood, where I know most of the roads now. I know where the sidewalks are and where they are not. I know where certain birds like to congregate. I know where there are hawks, right here in urban Atlanta. In fact, I have seen foxes, all sorts of snakes, even coyote and deer. I don’t need to be walking in rural areas to see those animals.

And, of course, I have seen their life cycles – young birds in nests in the Spring, and the run-over possums and squirrels in the streets. Anyone who walks a lot sees dead things, real live dead things.

Two weeks ago, however, I saw something quite unusual for me. I was along West Paces Ferry Road, here in Atlanta, surely one of the nicest streets in the city. Almost every house on that beautiful street seems to be a mansion, including, of course, the Governor’s Mansion. Some of those homes are truly spectacular.

As I was walking alongside one of those homes, I saw a huge and growling machine. When I was a young boy, I called them steam shovels. I think they are called excavators now, or power shovels, with big diesel engines, and full of hydraulic hoses. It was loud and powerful.

I had to stop and watch. As I paused, the skillful operator turned the saber-toothed bucket right toward the house. Then, with a careful swipe, the bucket tore off a complete wall of one of the upstairs bedrooms.    

This was not an accident. The power shovel excavator was there for demolition work. The machine was deliberately and very methodically destroying that beautiful house. The destruction was quite carefully arranged. There was no wrecking ball just careening around everywhere. First the shovel tore off a piece of the roof, and then a section of the wall, with pipes and wires and conduits hanging out. Every few minutes, the bucket would carry the debris to a nearby waiting truck.

Only when that upstairs room was completely gone, did the operator turn to the adjacent room. Slowly and deliberately, the entire house was coming down. I watched for about fifteen minutes, and then I continued my walk.

I was sad, of course. I was actually sad for the house, imagining what sorts of activities and lives had developed within those walls. I thought of the sad and horrified neighbors. But I was sad for the previous inhabitants, too. Some of them were probably glad to see the house go. Surely at least one of them was. Maybe it was too old to maintain properly any more. Maybe a new owner of the lot wants to start all over again. Whatever the reason, that beautiful home, constructed so carefully and sturdily, was going the way of all flesh.

The next day, I was walking again. Obviously, I wanted to pass by the house again, and I did. By the next day, there was no house there at all. It was an empty space, with a heap of rubble resting below, a pile of broken beams and splintered wood and crumbled plaster and cracked concrete. It was what I expected, but I was stunned. It was a picture of Psalm 103:16, “the wind passes over it, and it is gone; and its place knows it no more.”

But then, as I paused, I saw something else I did not expect. One of the tall white oak trees in the back yard was now the predominant feature of that lot. The tree was still bare with winter gray and no sign of leaves yet. But at the top, at the very top of the bare tree, sat one of my favorite birds, a red-shouldered hawk, surveying the land. I would not have seen the bird if the house were still there.

In fact, the hawk may not have even been there if the house were still standing. He was probably up there waiting for the inevitable mice and rodents who would be fleeing the scene; he was probably looking to take advantage of a newly cleared hunting ground. I thought of Luke 17:37, “where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”

This week is about walking. It began with the rather fun and glorious procession of Palm Sunday; and today, that walk leads us to the cross.

That walk leads us, with Jesus, to where he breathes his last and says, “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). He was praying the Psalms when he said that, as he often prayed the psalms. He was reciting Psalm 31:5, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

If we had heard him continue that psalm, we would have heard him say,

“I am the scorn of all my adversaries,

A horror to my neighbors,

An object of dread to my acquaintances;

Those who see me in the street flee from me.

I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;

I have become like a broken vessel” (Ps. 31:11-12).

Jesus, the heroic figure of spiritual strength, the one who made the blind see and who made the lame walk, is now a broken vessel himself. His body, a structure containing such spirit that he could walk on water, that he could still storms, that he could walk through angry crowds – that body is now crumbling and falling like a demolished house. “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Jamie Quatro, a new author from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, has recently written an engaging book of short stories, one of the most provocative ones titled, simply, “Demolition.” In that story, a strange deaf man shows up one day in the local, steadfast, faithful stone church. But after a few Sundays of his attendance, a small piece of one of the stained glass windows falls out. It is the image of Jesus’s foot. Over the course of several weeks, other pieces of windows randomly fall out, for no reason whatsoever. The other physical pieces of the church are foundationally secure.

Then, as the windows start falling out, the parishioners begin to see God’s natural world in a new way. Indeed, the images before their eyes are so startling and new, so provocative and fresh, that the parishioners decide to actually tear off the roof of the church and see the sky. Then they decide to tear down the walls, very deliberately. They realize that the missing stained glass was actually a gift, and “for the first time [they] could see each other worshipping in the natural light” (Jamie Quatro, “Demolition,” in I Want to Show You More, Kindle edition, location 2471). Ultimately, the entire church is demolished.

The story continues with some shocks, because this fresh spirit in the church also leads to possible irresponsibility and a re-discovery of sin. But the point is that demolition, even the destruction of buildings and structures we hold to be precious and dear, can lead to new perspective and new life. Again, the demolition of what is familiar in our lives is certainly risky, because the lack of structure can lead to irresponsibility, too; but it leads finally to new life.

Sometimes the structures of our lives need to fall away. In fact, they don’t simply need to fall away. They will fall away. They will be destroyed. They will die.

For me, this is the secret of life. I was walking along a beach a month ago when I thought about it this way. Things die; this is the secret of life. I was walking along shells and seaweed, even old carcasses of dead fish and a few birds. I saw where pigs had dug up and eaten turtle eggs. I saw birds eating other flesh. I saw lots of bones. And, yet, as beaches are, it was somehow beautiful; I felt alive.

What is the secret of life? The secret of life is death. The secret of life is that everything dies. At our Christian funerals, we say as much; “All we go down to the dust.” Even Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life – even Jesus, who is eternal life—even Jesus, dies.

And he doesn’t just die. He dies slowly, deliberately, methodically, even terribly. It is his death, this death, which sums up the deaths of a million other creatures. Jesus dies.

If we are to walk with Jesus, if we are to walk the walk of Jesus, then we, too, must encounter death – deliberately, methodically, courageously.

In our lives, walls and structures will fall away. In our lives, bones and skin will fall away, too. We can see it daily if we pay attention while we are walking. Parts of us die. Good parts of us die, parts that were necessary and beautiful and sturdily built. One day, the time comes when they are demolished.

But demolition is not the end. That demolition, and our death to the old, makes way for something new. When the house was demolished, the red-shouldered hawk became visible and alive. In the same way, it is the destruction of our old structures that makes way for the love of God to be renewed in us.

Jesus talked about love. Jesus taught us deeply about love. But, today, Good Friday, is the day that Jesus shows us love. It is when Jesus lets his old life be torn down, when he lets his body be demolished, that we are able to truly see love.

Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The scriptures say he was talking about the temple of his body (John 2:19-21).

When that temple crumbles, when even the walls of our beautiful churches are torn down, when we let down the finely furnished walls of our own lives, then it is that we see the love of God shining in a new way.

And that, ultimately, is the meaning of today, Good Friday. The old falls away. The structures of our lives die. Even our very lives die. The secret of life is death. But if we keep on walking, we see; we see that every death in our lives also shows us a new way to love in our lives.

Good Friday, then, is ultimately about love. It is a death, for sure, an occasion for us to die to ourselves. But we see today, that love is stronger. If we die with Christ, we will also live with him; and we will love with Christ in a new way.

AMEN.

(This was the Good Friday sermon of 29 March, 2013)

The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler

Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip

"GODS WITHOUT MEN" AND OUR SEARCH FOR GOD

Watch closely, and we can see the search for God most everywhere. Sometimes that search strikes us as crazy, and sometimes that search is dazzlingly beautiful. Sometimes, that search is most clearly articulated by people who confess no particular Christian faith at all. I am most appreciative, then, for the self-identified atheist, Hari Kunzru, and his wonderful new book, Gods Without Men.

Doug Coupland, in the New York Times, calls Kunzru's book part of a new literary genre (NY Times, March 8, 2012), an exploration which transcends our usual notions of time and space. I like that kind of exploration, because it points out our human limits. The exploration of human limits is a critical part of the spiritual quest. Then, when we pay attention to actual words and actual places, we engage also in a religious quest; we make those words and places holy.

Kunzru’s book is about many things: space and time, Wall Street excess, autism, cultural differences, UFO cults, the desert of the American West, even love. But it is also about one place: a (fictitious) three-fingered rock formation somewhere around the Mojave Desert. Kunzru’s characters, some of whom are human and some of whom are not, arrive at this formation during different historical times. Coyotes, Native Americans, Spanish missionary priests, UFO cults, aged rock musicians, hippies, American military personnel, all end up there. But the characters whose journeys are most studied are a young married Manhattan couple, one of whom is American Jewish and the other of whom is immigrant Punjabi; Lisa and Jaz  have a severely autistic son.

Of course, I will not reveal too much of the story. In fact, one might debate with me what the story actually is. Perhaps the story is how one character, Schmidt, understood his work: “The shape of his project was becoming clear: how to connect the mysteries of technology with those of the spirit” (Gods Without Men, Kunzru, page 11). Or maybe the story is about how one character describes some New York art in a glass case: “There’s a tradition that says the world has shattered, that what once was whole and beautiful is now just scattered fragments. Much is irreparable, but a few of these fragments contain faint traces of the former state of things, and if you find them and uncover the sparks hidden inside, perhaps at last you’ll piece together the fallen world. This is just a glass case of wreckage. But it has presence. It’s redemptive. It is part of something larger than itself.” (page 137).

Later the same character, a Wall Street quantitative analyst, says: “There are certain things you can’t look at directly. You need to trick them into revealing themselves. That’s what we’re doing with [this financial model]. We’re juxtaposing things, listening for echoes. …Parapraxes. Cosmic slips of the tongue. They’re the key to the locked door. They’ll help us discover it….The face of God. What else would we be looking for?” (page 138).

“You need to trick them…” Indeed, the novel begins with a coyote, the trickster; and coyotes also play a significant role in the novel. Remember, then, that “coyote” and “trickster” are also roles that have been assigned to “Hermes,” the god of interpretation, the messenger of the gods to humanity. The hermeneutical task of interpretation takes its name from a trickster.

Ultimately, I believe the story line can be reduced to a question that one earnest local girl asks the visiting musician: “Tell me something,” she said. “Are you out here looking for lights?” (page 28).  Yes, these characters, like all of us, are out there looking for lights. Wherever we are, right now, we are looking for lights. 

Some places, over time, have become sources of light for us. Hari Kunzru’s book makes the implicit point that those places of light are often where we meet limits. Jaz’s search, for instance, began to be clear when he was at MIT graduate school, in “the field of quantum probability, where he worked on reconciling competing mathematical descriptions of the physical world, attempting to understand life at a scale where precision dissolved in indeterminancy” (page 58).

Finally, the place Jaz and Lisa are drawn to is only an absence: “Ahead of them lay only a vast emptiness, absence. There was nothing out there at all” (page 381). The ultimate limit. This limit, a via negativa, leads to my favorite definition for God, most famously worded by Saint Anselm of Canterbury in the twelfth century: “God is that greater than which nothing can be conceived.” God is that place where our human capacity fails; God is at the limits of our human experience. God is greater. Those are the places I call holy. They are holy because so many of us, of so many wildly various perspectives and types, have found truth and light there.

Maybe you know where I am going here. Yes, I am going to Church. The Church is holy because people have found holiness here, generation after generation. For Kunzru’s characters, the holy place is an odd three-fingered rock formation (the priest inevitably interprets it as the Trinity). Again, Kunzru, the author, has publicly identified himself as atheist; but he provides quite a friendly study for how people come to identify holy places.

For Christians trying to be faithful in the twenty-first century, Church will be the place where we meet limits and light – a place of re-discovery, though it may not be a physical structure at all. We will go there when all the other tricks of the world – both ancient and modern—have gradually failed to satisfy us. Like the characters in Gods Without Men, none of us is perfect. In fact, we are rather mistaken, dirty, and forlorn. Nevertheless, the Holy finds us. The Holy finds us when we reach certain limits.  In the Christian Church, the Christian Community, we witness to that search, we witness to those limits, and we witness to a love that transcends time and space.

So it is that Lisa says, “She felt like she’d been destroyed and rebuilt again. She felt, if she had to give a name to her feeling, symbolic, as if she now stood for something greater and more significant than herself, stood for the knowledge of limits, was—no, not God’s representative, nothing so grandiose or egotistical—just one of His signposts, a person in the crowd whose life story pointed toward Him, showed the way out of the vanities of this world and into reverence for the unknowable, impenetrable beyond” (page 359).

 

 

Yes. God is that greater than which nothing can be conceived.


(This article originally appeared in Episcopal Cafe, on 23 March 2012. Check it out.)

BIRTHDAY OF FLANNERY O'CONNOR

I am glad Flannery O'Connor was born this day, the Feast of the Annunciation; so I read again "A Temple of the Holy Ghost." Brilliant. Tantum ergo Sacramentum Veneremur Cernui.

THEODICY IN LITERATURE: HOW DOES ONE LIVE WHEN THE WORLD IS NOT GOOD? THE SPARROW AND THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

How does one live when the image of the good has been shattered? That is one way of phrasing the classical question of theodicy in contemporary terms. Classically, the term "theodicy" means "a justification of God's goodness or power when evil exists." It might be the central problem of theism, which is belief in a personal and good and all-powerful God. If God does exist as all-good and all-powerful, why does evil also exist? A theodicy is a defense of God, or at least an explanation of God, while also acknowledging the existence of evil -- or at least the existence of The Bad.

I have just finished reading one of the best literary versions of theodicy that I have ever read. It is The Sparrow, written by Mary Doria Russell, published in 1996. The book tells the story of Emilio Sandoz, Jesuit priest, who follows his faith in God to become one of the first earth visitors to an alien planet. Yes, the book participates in a science fiction genre. But, like all good science fiction, the book is really describing our current human condition. The best science fiction is always about present humanity! And this one is about, God, too!

In the case of The Sparrow, alien music is detected from the Arecibo Observatory in the year 2019; and it is the Jesuits, among all the governments and organizations of the world, who are fist able to mount an expedition to visit the planet, Rakhat. Emilio Sandoz, superb linguist, and deep man of faith, is on the trip, with his best friends. I was delighted that it is the Jesuits who are the first explorers to the alien planet, as they often were in the history of western civilization -- for better or for worse.

I do not reveal the plot by saying that all of Sandoz's friends die; that fact is declared early in the story. As the story develops, one discovers the intensity and delight of Sandez's faith. But by 2059, when Sandoz has returned to earth and is remembering his journey, his faith is silent and dreadfully damaged. The book is, thus, a theodicy. How does one believe in a good God when all evidence seems contrary to that fact? How does one believe that "not one sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing it?" (Matthew 10:29, from which the title of the book is derived).

Now, jump back to the great J. D. Salinger (author of The Catcher in The Rye, and of my favorite, Franny and Zooey), who died one year ago. Today, I read another slender review of Kenneth Slawenski's new biography of that deeply spiritual writer, J.D. Salinger. I have already mentioned the Wall Street Journal review, by Carl Rollyson . Today, Dierdre Donahue writes in USA Today that

Slawenski has written a terrific literary biography, one that jolts the reader into realizing why Catcher connects with readers 60 years after its publication. It is not about prep school misery. Rather, in its oblique way, Catcher in the Rye touches on the struggle to keep living even if one has lost faith that the world is a good place.

Is that grand adolescent novel, The Catcher in The Rye, also a kind of theodicy? Yes, I think so.

TO BOBBY COX AND THE GAME OF BASEBALL, WITH AN ABIDING TRIBUTE TO A. BARTLETT GIAMATTI

For you who do not know baseball, and who are thus far east of Eden, and way beyond Paradise, let me deliver the sad news that Bobby Cox has retired from his job as manager of the Atlanta Braves baseball club. Those of us who follow baseball knew this day would come; indeed, Cox announced it almost a year ago. Nevertheless, the day is sad and sober. I pause to salute Bobby Cox and the game of baseball, with an abiding tribute to A. Bartlett Giamatti.

When the Braves arrived in Atlanta in 1966, I was ten years old, the perfect age to become a baseball fan. I fell in love with Tony Cloninger after that first major league baseball game in Atlanta when he pitched ten innings – far too long for the first game of the season, his arm was never the same—and then, later, when he became the only pitcher in history to hit two grand slam home runs in the same game. I will always revere Henry Aaron –Hammerin’ Hank Aaron—who still is the best athlete this city has ever known.

I was somewhat of an athlete, certainly not a great one. And I was a fan of math of science. Though I won the science fair award in the seventh grade, I was not great at those disciplines either. Baseball became my passion because it combined the life of sports with the life of the mind.

But the Braves were a truly dreadful baseball team during most of their first years here. 1969 and 1982 were strange aberrations (when they won their division). There were moments of hope, and some occasional great players, but little else of interest except the antics of one Ted Turner, an entertainer if there ever was one, and who entertained us one day by naming himself as the manager of the forlorn Atlanta Braves.

Their woeful performance did not deter me. My wife, Boog, and I, serving our first church in Smyrna, Georgia, would often get to the stadium at around four in the afternoon, a full three hours before the game was scheduled to start. We bought two tickets and got a whole section to ourselves. Nobody else was there.

It was during those lean and losing years that I really did learn to love the game of baseball. In fact, love and loss go together in baseball. Baseball is about loss, and no one truly understands baseball until he or she knows how to lose. And no one truly loves baseball until he or she knows how to lose.

In fact, baseball is actually a game for losers. The sheer odds reveal it. The best batters get hits only three out of every ten tries. The best teams still lose thirty to forty per cent of their games during a season. Baseball teaches us how to lose, how to lose gracefully, and how to return the next day with a new record, with the attitude that nothing is impossible, with the glory of resurrection! (Baseball has much more to teach us about the beauty, elegance, and humility of life; but that’s another story.)

It was around the mid-1980s that one of my other baseball heroes entered the game. His is the only autograph I have truly treasured in my sports life, but it does not adorn a baseball or a bat or a souvenir program. He signed my diploma from the School of Divinity at Yale University, where I graduated in 1982, and where he was President of Yale University. He resigned the presidency of Yale in order to become President of the National League and then Commissioner of (all) Baseball. From glory to greater glory; I believe in that progression.

When he became President of Yale in 1978, he was, at forty years old, the youngest president Yale had ever had; he still holds that record. When it was rumored that he might be named president of Yale he said, “The only thing I want to be president of is the American League.” He was a Renaissance scholar, and a truly renaissance man. He loved baseball.

In fact, he is the only person in history ever to go from being president of a major university to being the Commissioner of Baseball. I thought that was wonderful! But he was tough. He dealt forcefully with unions at Yale, and he dealt forcefully with Pete Rose in baseball. It was while he was Commissioner of Baseball that the great player, Pete Rose, admitted to gambling on baseball.

Now, remember that baseball is really a metaphor for life. Baseball teaches us about life. Even though baseball teaches us about human frailty and futility, Giamatti would condone no easy penalty for betting on baseball. He arranged for Pete Rose, one of the greatest players of all time, to be banned from baseball for life. Eight days after that arrangement, Bart Giamatti suffered a massive heart attack and died at Martha’s Vineyard. He was fifty-one years old.

His was a death reminiscent of tragic literature. But it was Bart Giamatti who had already written so eloquently about the inherent tragedy of baseball. “It’s designed to break your heart,” he wrote in an essay called “The Green Fields of the Heart.” (in A Great And Glorious Game, 1998). Listen to this great passage:

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

…Of course, there are those who learn after the first few times. They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.”

In another book of his, a little masterpiece called Take Time For Paradise, Giamatti developed the lovely theme that baseball is the narrative of epic romance and of the Odyssey of Homer; home –home plate—is where the adventure both begins and ends.

“Virtually innumerable are the dangers, the faces of failure one can meet if one is fortunate enough even to leave home. Most efforts fail, Failure to achieve the first leg of the voyage is extremely likely. In no game of ours is failure so omnipresent as it is for the batter who would be the runner...The tale of leaving and seeking home is told in as many ways as one can imagine, and there still occur every season plays on the field that even the most experienced baseball people say they have never seen before.” (p. 94, Giamatti, Take Time For Paradise).

It is the Odyssey of Homer. Baseball is the Odyssey. My point is this: the Atlanta Braves, from 1966 through 1990, could not get home. They were adrift and aimless. They helped us learn about loss and life, but they were terrible.

Then, from 1991 through 2005, Bobby Cox led the Atlanta Braves to fourteen straight division titles – a feat no other professional sports team, in any sport, has ever matched. Bobby Cox became their hero, and he became my hero. It was a beautiful run, but it has no meaning without the previous futility of the Braves’ first years in Atlanta.

The Atlanta Braves played their heart out because they knew Bobby Cox valued them. The greatest strength of Bobby Cox (besides his sheer knowledge of the game), and maybe also greatest weakness, is that he was loyal to his players. Cox stayed with his players, even if it was a split second too long.

Of course, Bobby Cox has been criticized for winning so few World Series championships, only one, in 1995. I think this has something to do with his ability to create a winning team atmosphere, a true team, which values every single one of its players and not just the super stars. Players loved playing for Bobby Cox because he valued them and played them.

Essentially, Bobby Cox played to win over the long season, one hundred and sixty-two games. He did not manage for the short series which depends upon only a few of the great players. He depended on the entire team, and time after time, they rewarded him. Even this year, 2010, when the Atlanta Braves were surely not one of the most talented teams in the major leagues, and when their most talented players fell, one by one, by the wayside to injury –even this year!—they were in first place much of the season. They played their hearts out for Bobby Cox, who, in turn, had them playing far above their stature.

This is why he did not win the short series championships, and only one World Series. But that fact does not bother me, nor does it damage my respect for his managerial genius. I would much rather have a fine manager and a winning team over a season, with day-in and day-out good baseball. Fourteen straight division titles are testimony to quality baseball over time. His success has been proven over time, just like baseball always teaches us. Talent in baseball can be measured only in small ways, but over a season – and over fourteen seasons—those small ways add up to stardom. What a ride it has been.

But, “it’s designed to break your heart.” That’s what Bart Giamatti, the great renaissance scholar, said about baseball. And he’s right. Our hearts were broken again this year when the Braves fell to a very good San Francisco Giants team. Our hearts were breaking all year whenever we remembered this would be Bobby Cox’s last season.

But so be it. Here’s to Bobby Cox and to green fields in the sun, and even to the summer having slipped by. Things do change over time, and our illusions always meet reality. On the other hand, we all do get home one day, too. Bobby Cox has taken us around the bases, around the basepaths of both jubilation and defeat, success and loss. His greatness is measured in all the small things done well, over and over again, and in an amazing loyalty to his players. He has exemplified baseball at its finest and loyalty at its most stubborn. Now, he is safe at home, and so are we.

Sam Candler
23 October 2010

I'M SELLING BIBLES, MA'AM

 a sermon for 17 October 2010

"All scripture is inspired by God…”   -2 Timothy 3:16

“I’m selling Bibles, ma’am. God’s holy word.”

Those are the words of young Henry Dampier, in Clyde Edgerton’s delightful novel of a few years ago. It’s called, simply, The Bible Salesman, a kind of coming-of-age story in which a young Bible salesman actually begins to read the Bible.

That’s right. He is a Bible salesman before he has even read the Bible. The novel is about his beginning to read the Bible, and about his beginning to grow up, and about his experiencing the good and the evil of human life.

“I’m selling Bibles, ma’am. God’s holy word,” he says, without ever having read the Bible.

There’s a lot of people these days who talk about the authority of the Bible, or who believe in the literal and inerrant authority of the Bible, but who seem never to have actually read it – or at least have never actually pondered, and critiqued, and truly examined it. I am amused by proclamations about the infallibility of scripture that so rarely ever actually use scripture.

The fact is that scripture only occasionally talks about itself! Today is one of those occasions, and so I pause to talk about what scripture is and what it isn’t.

Upon their ordination, Episcopal priests take a vow declaring that they believe the Holy Scriptures to be the Word of God, and that the Holy Scriptures “contain all things necessary to salvation.” (You can read the full vow on page 526 of The Book of Common Prayer.) That sort of vow has been in place a long time; it was part of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion in sixteenth century England.

Notice what the vow does not say. It does not say that everything in scripture is necessary to salvation. It says simply that scripture “contains all things necessary to salvation.” Furthermore, our vow does not claim that the Bible is inerrant, or without error. That sort of claim has never been a majority claim in the Episcopal Church, or the Anglican Communion of Churches.

The inerrancy of the Bible is not part of our tradition.

But let me note something else. The Bible itself never claims to be inerrant! When I am arguing with people who believe in the inerrancy and the authority of the Bible, I ask them for one thing: “If you believe so much in the inerrant authority of the Bible, give the chapter and verse where the bible itself claims it is inerrant.”

It’s not there. The Bible itself never claims to be inerrant.

But the Bible does make some extraordinary claims for itself, or at least for the scriptures. One of its major claims for itself is today’s passage in 2 Timothy. We think it was Paul who speaking to his young disciple Timothy; it was certainly some authoritative figure speaking to a larger church. And he mentions scripture, the sacred writings. Remember, if he writes during the middle of the first century, AD, much of the rest of the New Testament has not been written yet, or certainly regarded as scripture yet!

He says, “As for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed,… and how from early childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3: 14-17).

This is a beautiful passage, speaking of the merits of sacred scripture for teaching and correction and righteousness, yet the passage never claims that the sacred scriptures are inerrant or without error.

Unfortunately, our Christian past is littered with outlandish attempts to interpret the Bible so that it can be symbolized as without error. Some of the more amusing have to with harmonizing various accounts of the same event. In case you haven’t noticed, the Bible contains many stories which seem to refer to the same event.

In fact, the very first two chapters of the Bible contain two very different accounts of creation – two different accounts of the same event. So, according to “the Bible,” who was created first? Humanity or all the other animals? Genesis 1:24 ff. declares that all the living creatures were created first, before humanity was created in Genesis 1:27. But in our Bible’s second story, Genesis 2:19 says that God created all the other animals after it was found that the man was alone and had no helper.

Two different stories. There is no need to harmonize them or even talk about inerrancy. But this “harmonization” principle has persisted among fundamentalists and inerrancy believers. The story of Jesus cleansing the Temple occurs at the beginning of his ministry according the Gospel of John, and at the end of his ministry according to Matthew, Luke, and Mark. How do inerrancy believers harmonize that difference? They claim that Jesus must have cleansed the Temple twice in his ministry!

That’s all well and good, until you get to something like the Ascension. Luke, chapter 24 seems to indicate that the ascension of Jesus occurred on the very same day as the Resurrection? Yet, Acts chapter 1 explicitly says that the Ascension occurred forty days after the resurrection. James Barr, in his book called Fundamentalism claims that he has heard conservative scholars offer, in all seriousness, the explanation that Jesus must have ascended twice – once on the Day of Resurrection, then he came back down, and he ascended again forty days later.

Obviously, this is a silly and extreme example. The point is this. There is a difference between inerrancy and inspiration. I believe that sacred scripture is inspired of God. That inspiration is why I read scripture, and contemplate scripture, and study scripture. The words contain the breath and energy of God. I do not read the Bible because it is inerrant and literal; I read the Bible because it is inspired. God breathes through the Bible’s words.

Even though we often speak of the Bible as the Word of God, even that phrase deserves explanation. “Word of God” is not the same as “words of God.” It is difficult to make the claim that the very words of the Bible are also the literal words of God. It is far more accurate to say that the Bible contains the “the capital W” Word of God.

For Christians, the ultimate Word of God is not even the Bible. The Word of God is Jesus Christ. That is what the Gospel of John means when it says, at chapter one, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. …and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” That Word of God is the living Jesus Christ. Jesus is the ultimate standard and guide of our faith.

I have one more favorite passage when it comes to Bible study. Hebrews 4.12 claims that “the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” I believe that verse refers to both concepts of word: Jesus as the Word and wisdom of God, and the Bible as the Word of God.

The point is that the Word of God is alive, not objectified and literalized and harmonized into rigidity. It is because the Word of God is living and active, that it really does mean different things from generation to generation. Indeed, it speaks differently to us this year than it did last year. The text has certainly not changed, but our lives and cultures have changed. Only a living and active Word of God is worth studying year after year, and week after week,

So, the discipline of Bible study is serious stuff. (I say to my Bible students, “take the Bible seriously, but not always literally!”). But it is also fun stuff. God speaks to us in various ways in each of the various sixty-six books of our scripture.

It is when we actually read the Bible that we discover its brilliance and authority. It is when we actually read the Bible that we discover it is certainly inspired stuff. The authority of scripture is that it is inspired. And it is when we actually read the Bible that we find it points to someone else. The words of scripture always point to the Word of God, Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Clyde Edgerton’s novel, young Henry Dampier introduced himself by saying he was selling Bibles, “I’m selling Bible’s, ma’am. God’s Holy Word.”

But that’s not me, Sam Candler. I am not selling anything. I am preaching Jesus Christ as the Word of God. I want people to be inspired by Jesus. “I’m preaching Jesus, ma’am. God’s Holy Word.”

Amen.
The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip

ON STIEG LARSSON

I read Stieg Larsson's first two books last year. I ordered his third last Winter from the United Kingdom, because it was not due to be released here in the United States until this past Spring.

Suffice it to say, then, I am a fan. I am struck by an underlying moral code that drives both the main characters, when they, and much of their surrounding culture, live so easily in a liberal, rootless, world. Now, his early death and disputed, complicated, estate have become another installment in the mystery series (chronicled quite well in "The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson," by Charles McGrath, The New York Times Sunday magazine, 17 May 2010).

As a fan, I was delighted to read Nora Ephron's quick, one-page summary of the three novel drama, here in The New Yorker magazine (titled, "The Girl Who Fixed The Umlaut")! What fun!
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ON FRANNY AND ZOOEY: HERE'S TO J.D. SALINGER

J. D. Salinger has died, and I must mark the moment by praising one of the finest books I have ever read. It is not The Catcher in the Rye, easily the most notorious of Salinger's slight body of work. It is the small volume, Franny and Zooey (see here for a helpful summary).

Speaking of "small volume," note the very opening words, in the overly modest front inscription:

As nearly as possible in the spirit of Matthew Salinger, age one, urging a luncheon companion to accept a cool lima bean, I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn, "genius domus" of "The New Yorker," lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant, most unreasonably modest of born artist-editors, to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book.

Who can resist reading the book which begins like that? Franny and Zooey is a book about prayer and breakdown, about family intimacy and public audience, about morons and geniuses, about identity and integrity, all set in the long weekend of an earnest college student around 1955.

Franny is learning to pray the Jesus Prayer and carrying around another slim volume, The Way of a Pilgrim. Zooey is her lovable and faithful brother, who tries to comfort her when she appears to be cracking up. There are other members of this highly educated and intelligent family.

It is the passage at the very end of the book that has stayed in my conscience for most of my life. Zooey is speaking on the telephone to Franny, but he has pretended to be another brother, named Buddy. Franny sees through the deception, but the conversation continues. Zooey quotes another older brother, named Seymour. Thus, using telephone and ruse and quotation of other people, Salinger confuses the very stability of identity. Who is actually doing the talking? (Add to this that the narrator of the book is actually the brother named "Buddy").

It does not matter who is doing the talking, Salinger seems to be implying, in a spectacularly Buddhist "non-identity" way. It is the advice of the older brother, Seymour, that becomes important -- important to writers and actors and anyone who is an artist. I daresay that the notion of "artist" here means any person of integrity in the world. Seymour had told Zooey always to shine his shoes before he appeared on the television game show "Wise Child" (on which show all the children had appeared at one time or another), this despite the fact that no one could ever see his shoes.

Anyway, I started bitching one night before the broadcast. Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door.... I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to them for the Fat Lady (Franny and Zooey, Boston: Bantam edition. Little, Brown, and Company, 1961. p. 200).

As Zooey tells this story, and how he obliged in shining his shoes for the Fat Lady, Franny remembers Seymour saying the same kind of thing to her. "He told me, too," she said into the phone, "he told me to be funny for the Fat Lady."

So Zooey continues:

Yes. Yes. Yes. all right. Let me tell you something now, buddy....are you listening? [note that "buddy" is also the name of their other brother, "Buddy" who is narrating the larger story]. I don't care where an actor acts...But I'll tell you a terrible secret--Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know--listen to me now-- don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? ...Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ himself. Christ himself, buddy. (Franny and Zooey, pp. 201-202).

I give nothing away if I say that this passage is at the very end of the book. For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands. After this, Zooey cannot talk anymore; it is as if words have ended.

As the world knows, J. D. Salinger did not publish much. Apparently, however, he wrote very much. I think of another of Zooey's remarks to Franny: An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's (Franny and Zooey, page 199). Here's to you, J. D. Salinger. May your soul rest in peace.