Bible Sunday

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green

Particularly men, particularly when they’re younger, have a particular way of communicating. It may be to do with shyness or confidence, or an inability to express one’s emotions; Or just the enjoyment of the game and the chance to employ skills of memory and wit – But there are certain friendships, I still enjoy, where the majority of our conversation consists… in quoting from films.

When Nick, our former director of music, and I lived together we would quite often fall asleep together on the sofa watching the Lord of the Rings films – Not in a romantic way – (In our defence they are very long) And I think, much as teenage boys quite often prefer to revise in their sleep – So the archaic words of Tolkien would seep into our subconscious;

Which reminds me of a family, I heard of, who taught their child to say “behold!” instead of just “look” – “Behold, mummy” – which I think is rather nice. It was not the Rees-Moggs. Part of the beauty of quotations, is that films or books, can get engraved on our memories, and repeated. So a particular line that has emotional force becomes personal to us. I’ve recently been teaching Oberon to say “I’m sick [cough]”, which is a line from the celebrated film Mean Girls. He doesn’t get the joke but he plays along and it keeps his family amused.

But also when we return to the film – and hear those familiar lines – it can bring back memories of friendship in a powerful way. When Rhiannon proposed to me, rather than the quiet personal approach you might expect, she did it outside in the street with 30 opera singers, singing a Taylor Swift song, with some personal tweeks to the lyrics about choral scholars and vicars; There’s a video in the bowels of youtube if you’re curious. Whenever I hear that song, I not only think of that particular “turning point”, but am also surprised that Swift gets the lyrics to her own song wrong.

Back in ye olde biblical timesy they did not have films. But they did have stories, and songs and laws, and letters – which form what we now call Scripture. And what we find in the Bible – perhaps because it was probably mostly written by men – Is that there is a constant cross-referencing going on – Subtle or not so subtle quoting of other parts of Scripture.

So in our Old Testament we have Isaiah proclaiming: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear’ That probably sounds familiar, but that may be because of the letter to the Romans:

For it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.’ Or perhaps Philippians: at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  Or it may be familiar because of the jolly nineteenth century hymn, by Caroline Noel At the name of Jesus /ev'ry knee shall bow, /ev'ry tongue confess him /King of glory now;

Our New Testament reading directly quotes Psalm 69:  ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.’ That’s actually the second half of the verse. The first half also appears often: It is zeal for your house that has consumed me Famously referred to as Jesus throws the money-changers out of the temple. And this matters, because Paul here is not simply pulling lines out of Scripture for effect. He is rooting his teaching in the wisdom and prophecy of Scripture. He is calling on his readers, who know the psalms, to have zeal for the house – which is Christ and the church – And reminding them that Christ himself threw out the money-changers who preyed on the vulnerable and exploited religion.

That’s not there in black and white but when you read the Bible, it wants you to read the whole thing all at the same time, Which is quite demanding. But we can’t fully understand the Gospel and Paul, unless we have Isaiah and the Psalms running through our heads – Which is why when everyone comes to the carol service at Christmas we start with Isaiah: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light… For a child has been born for us, a son given to us… and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, These are none of them the Gospel; They weren’t written by Handel; They are all from Isaiah, written over 700 years before Jesus.

Similarly on Good Friday it is Isaiah we read: He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. It’s a prophecy written centuries before he was born that has done more to shape the theology of Jesus’ life, than either his witnesses or the Early Church.

Today’s Gospel is the centrepiece around which Luke forms his Gospel. It summarises his ministry and gives him the Scriptural basis for his ministry. It’s the first thing Jesus does publicly in this Gospel. And again he’s quoting Isaiah directly. Only he changes it.

And this matters because with all this layering of Scripture it’s not just saying the same thing over and again. So this famous start to Jesus’ ministry: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’  But Jesus omits from Isaiah’s proclamation of ‘the day of vengeance of our God’, and instead includes from an earlier chapter of Isaiah ‘to proclaim release to the captives’. So we get immediately from this mis-quoting of Isaiah a clear sense of what Jesus is about and where he is taking Scripture in a new direction.

Now why does all this matter? It matters because Scripture is a living, breathing thing. As Isaiah says, the Word goes out; it does not return. It exists in layers like the structure of the Earth: with the crust, the mantle, the core; or as the layers you can see in a cliff face holding secrets of thousands of years. Each layer informs, interprets and builds on layers beneath. To quote out of turn: ‘It deepens like a coastal shelf’.

But the essential point, before we all get too interested in history, is that the Word of God is still alive today; Still speaks today: With Jesus, we can say: ‘Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

Wouldn’t it be amazing if our next Prime Minister stood up and said: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and I’ve been anointed to bring good news to the poor, release to the captive, to let the oppressed go free. Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

You’re right, it would probably be terrifying. And there’s probably enough ego going round without MPs believing they’re sent by God. Although it might make sense of the line that ‘no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town.’

But the Church can say it. In the last week raising £5000 for a homeless charity and a car full of food to a foodbank; In visiting Wandsworth prison, in checking in on neighbours; We, in our little ways can fulfil this Scripture today. Which is what it means to follow Christ.

And as we come shortly to baptize Scarlett and Bjorn – Listen out for how many stories we are immersing them in – And I’m not thinking of Gone With the Wind. In the prayer over the water we will hear of Jesus’ baptism (30AD), the crossing of the Red Sea (maybe 1400BC), the resurrection (back to 33 AD), and we might think of Noah being saved through the flood (perhaps 5000 BC), and the baptism of Constantine (337AD), which created the Holy Roman empire and the beginning of Christendom.

In our actions today we are remembering and reading these stories alongside our own stories; Rooting ourselves in Scripture, in order to discover and live out the promises and commandments of God. So as today we celebrate and give thanks for the Bible, let us not regard it as some dead thing to keep in a drawer or keep our holiday money in; But as a living tradition in which our own stories are written; Let us hear in Scripture and liturgy those quotations that have been spoken for thousands of years, speaking into our lives now; declaring: ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’  Amen.