What are you saying?

Being a school governor is a common occupational hazard for the clergy- it’s always in the risk assessment for any particular parish- but that is one peril of a post that by thinking ahead, always putting safety first and – most importantly- not volunteering, I have mostly managed to avoid. Alas, like the Saga brochure that pops on your doormat the day after your 50th birthday it is one of those things which cannot be avoided forever; eventually somebody will have the smart idea to ask you to volunteer. Thus, for a brief period about 5 years ago I was piped onto a governing board. Not long after I jumped ship, but not after learning important lessons I now share with you.

Thanks to the persistent prodding of a succession of ministers for education, gone are the days when the school governor’s rôle was a somnolent sinecure: efficiency and challenge are all the rage. Though if you thought a PCC meeting was the only one that could be mind-numbing to the point where chewing your hand off at the wrist appears to be the only way relieve the boredom, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The memory is but a blurry sepia daguerrotype now but I must say, however, that amid the SIPs and OFSTEDs, SATS and pupil premiums, it wasn’t all brain-freezing admin and eructing education-speak; there were odd moments of gubernatorial levity to be discovered, at least for me, if nobody else. I’m used to being the only one laughing- I sometimes preach at the 8 o’clock mass. And evensong’s hardly a raucous bierkeller.

To levity: a report by an external agency on the school’s Health and Safety was a case in point. Important stuff, without a shadow of a doubt, but the only people likely to have their pulse rate quickened by this sort of report are the people who write them. But, hey, you just never know what’s going to happen next- that’s pretty much the point of risk assessment- and so on page 43 of the report, after all the really scary stuff about electrified ponds, burning fences, broken lifts and bleach in Pepsi bottles- I’m exaggerating it was CocaCola— after all the grade A shockers (now all fixed), p 43, there was a photograph of an extravagantly fecund potted plant. The effect was a bit like turning the page of the Makin Report to see a photo of a chimp eating a banana, a strange coupling of bathetic and incongruous. So, this plant? Was it perhaps a toxic hazard? A hemlock houseplant ready to breath noxious fumes on an unsuspecting student? Or did its falling leaves present a trip hazard? Worse case scenario, had it been identified as an infant Triffid that would shortly be making its own free school meals of the children? None of the above: the plant had been deliberately positioned so you couldn’t see the fire extinguisher, which was ruining the interior decor scheme. More aesthetically pleasing perhaps, but not very helpful if you’re in a hurry after year 10 has set fire to the home economics teacher. See, even the dullest meeting can be an education.

So all nostaligc now for bygone days of health and safety zeal, I have pondered what perils and dangers might lurk in the darker recesses of our churches. What, for example might the most dangerous thing in this church be? 

I had pondered whether it could be the thurible- the incense burner; perhaps a loose tile or a falling gargoyle both have threatened catastrophe or at least personal injury lawyers at some point during recent years. With some lateral thinking, were our church very different, it might be a churchwarden, tower captain or organist- luckily all such roles at St Mary’s are filled by pussy cats who wouldn’t hurt a mouse. And no, that isn’t a challenge. However, I can now reveal the result of my risk assessment is that the greatest source of danger here today is that large red thing nestling on the back of Edgar the Eagle: the Bible. Now it’s just a book. It might give you a jolt if an irate preacher where to throw it at you, but as even if he were really worked up he could probably only get it as far as the front row,  there’s no real physical threat.  But that’s not, of course, the whole story. Many of the things we are familiar with things, things that are a part of our everyday lives- driving a car say, crossing the road, climbing the stairs- these are the things we forget can be extremely dangerous, and that— familiar though it will be to most sat here today— is explosive.

The Bible: 46+ books of the Old Testament, 27 books of the New, each one a little packet of spiritual Semtex. Why?

No doubt you’ve already worked our for yourselves how the Bible could become dangerous in our hands, when we myopically misinterpret it and turn a consummate instrument of salvation into one of oppression. There are also all the dangers of reading the Bible too literally as if it were the Highway code, but that’s another sermon. What I wish to touch on right now is a danger of a very different kind.

In the book of Revelation God’s Word is memorably described as a dangerous weapon. From the mouth of God comes ”a sharp, two-edged sword”, a blade  thatreally does cut to the quick and can cut any of us. 

We are all tested by the collection of writings that is the Bible. One of the greatest challenges is not to slam it shut– as soon as we’ve found the bit we want to read or, more challenging still, when we start to feel just how sharp that double-edged blade really is.  If we think that this is a challenge just for the rich, the powerful, the vested interests, let us think again. The more liberal among us are challenged by the reality that no matter how much we squirm and contextualise, the writings of the Bible are frequently and undeniably illiberal. Those who look for strong and obvious certainties from the Bible are challenged by the cacophony of competing and contradicting voices which shout out at us when we open it.  We are all  challenged by its accounts of a world of patriarchs and prophets, of angels and apostles, of psalms and salvation, a world sometimes entirely alien to our experience, and sometimes uncomfortably, perceptively close. [If you weren’t in the slightest disturbed by that reading from Revelation can I suggest booking an appointment with your GP to check you’re taking the correct medication?]

And the danger is that what is in there turns the world upside down; what is in there turns our worlds upside down. Whatever cosy worlds we create for ourselves, whatever truths we fancy that we make for ourselves in this post-modern world, the Word of God stands them on their heads. It drives a coach and horses straight through all our conceptions and our misconceptions. 

The first are declared the last and the last the first; the meek inherit the earth;  idols of family are ripped apart and cast aside; the virgin gives birth, those material riches that give us such a sense of security are just so much rust and moth food; those on the outside of society turn out to be right at the centre of God’s plan for the world;  the helpless and humiliated man stripped naked,  nailed to a cross and left to die– is the very incarnation of God. A dangerous manifesto indeed.

Now, you might say, this is all well and good in theory, scripture can be stirring stuff, but open up the good book at random and it won’t be long before you’re bogged down in a  nine-page list of unpronounceable Hebrew names, a fulminating rant against a long-dead king of a long-gone country, or a lengthy discussion about how to cure a tent of leprosy. How can this say anything to us now? Huge chunks of Scripture would appear to have no immediate relevance to 21st century lives. The temples of Baal that the prophets rail against at great length have long since gone. Very few of us still travel to work on a donkey, never mind one that turns round and talks to us (again, medicine check please). Sainsburys does not sell meat that might have been sacrificed to idols. Even the mighty Roman Empire is now to be found several feet under the soil, the preserve only of archaeologists. 

The Bible though certainly an ancient artefact is not quite the same; it is still a living Word. When at the end of the Scripture readings at Eucharist the reader says “this is the word of the Lord’ a profound, but possibly misleading truth is being proclaimed. What is being said then is not the same sort of thing as might be said if we were to hold up a copy of Pride and Prejudice and say ‘this is the word of Jane Austen’. It’s not the same as if a Muslim were to hold up a copy of the Koran and say that that is the word of Allah.  The Bible was not dictated by God, it is not God’s Word in that way. The Word of the Lord is something much more than bits of ink and dye on paper, papyrus or parchment. It is certainly not contained or trapped within them. But when the Bible is read, alone in private and particularly in Church,  then the Word of God is set free, the Word of God is written, in the here and now, on our hearts. God speaks to us through the words of Scripture and is not trapped in those words, because the Word of God is so much more than mere words.

So lots of talk of danger and challenge, of two-edged swords and explosions, of words that cannot be confined on the page. After all that you might be tempted to steer well clear of the Good book. The word of God it would appear is an unpredictable, unstable substance. It might be best for all concerned to make sure that any copy of the Bible remains firmly shut in the nearest church. Nice plan, but it wouldn’t work. There is no point lighting the blue touch paper and retiring to a safe distance. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away”.  

So, put aside thoughts of danger. If we set out to avoid misusing it, then Scripture threatens only those parts of us that keep us apart from God.  Open up a Bible, read and keep reading.   Be alert for the Word of God, not on the page or in the book, but being written on your heart.  If you find you’re half way through one of Paul’s letters and disgusted by his misogyny and homophobia- your reaction is God’s word speaking in your heart. If you’ve just read another gleeful Hebrew Bible description of genocide and are thoroughly repulsed that’s God’s word written on the canvas of your conscience. The literal meaning is the least of it, so listen with a spiritual ear, look with the eyes of faith. 

The Word of God is so much more than mere words. Open the book and open your heart.