Sermon for Bible Sunday – Last Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 29th October 2017
Last Sunday after Trinity
Leviticus 19.1-2, 15-18
Matthew 22. 34-46
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
You may be aware that this year is the 500th anniversary of the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) occasion when an obscure German monk called Martin Luther, is supposed to have nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, thereby beginning the Reformation. Although this happened in October 1517, this movement to reform the Catholic church was to rip European society apart for the next 100 years or so and wasn’t really finished in this land until the Restoration of the Monarchy following the Civil War much later in the 17th century.
And one of the principal points of the Reformation as Luther saw it, was to stop the church only conducting worship in Latin (which was clearly the language of heaven!) and allow ordinary people to hear the words of scripture read to them in their own language – whatever that might be.
Here in England, this was a tremendously contentious point. It seems incredible to think that people were prepared to die, rather than lose their familiar latin prayerbooks (an unwillingness to see change introduced into churches is nothing new!). Others were desperate for the ‘new learning’ as it was called to be brought in. Many of the Religious professionals realised what a radical and dangerous suggestion this was. “Allow the common people to know what the Bible actually said?!” Outrageous!
Because once you begin studying scripture in any depth – particularly the words of Jesus himself, you are bound to start questioning the institution that is the Church and which held such inordinate power at that time.
If you truly do, “love your neighbour as yourself” – where will it all end? How could soldiers be persuaded to take up arms against one’s enemies if the Bible insists on saying “love your enemies”?!
William Tyndale – who was eventually martyred for daring to print the first translation of the Bible into English, achieved a remarkable feat with his translation of the New Testament, published in 1526. So just 9 years after Luther’s act of rebellion. And although at the time he was denounced by the British Authorities, there is an irony that eventually, when the Church wanted to publish its own Bible in English, the scholars argued amongst themselves so much about certain translations, that it was the despised Tyndale Bible, with its elegant and clear phrases, that they eventually went back to as a reference source! And all of us to this day are still using phrases that owe their origin to Tyndale – even though we do not realise it.
As well as individual words, Tyndale also coined such familiar phrases as:
- my brother’s keeper
- knock and it shall be opened unto you
- a moment in time
- fashion not yourselves to the world
- seek and ye shall find
- ask and it shall be given you
- judge not that ye be not judged
- the word of God which liveth and lasteth forever
- let there be light
- the powers that be
- the salt of the earth
- a law unto themselves
- it came to pass
- the signs of the times
- filthy lucre
- the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak
- live, move and have our being
This is why the Bible is such a powerful document even to this day. So much of our British culture, our laws, our way of speech, still owes much to those who first translated the Bible from Latin and Greek and later from the Hebrew as well, into English. An English that anyone at the time could understand.
Those who wish to study literature and even those with aspirations to write the great Novel for today, are immeasurably poorer if they have no understanding of the Bible and its language and stories.
That is one reason why – several years ago, I decided with the approval of the PCC, that we would make a gift of a Bible to every couple who marry in this church. It matters that each home should have a Bible on its bookshelves somewhere, whatever the faith or lack of faith of the family members. In fact one could make a case that we would all be a lot better off and understand each other a lot better too if we made a point of also having a copy of the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita and the Holy book of other principle religions on our shelves and reading them too.
Those of you who have heard my little talks at weddings, will know that I frequently tell them that what I am giving them is a gift that I hope they will come to me after several years and complain that it is falling apart….
Because a Bible that is falling apart often means lives that are holding together!
That is not to say that I think we should slavishly follow every single word written within the Bible. Apart from anything else, it contains plenty of contradictions – but that is no surprise when you realise quite how many different human hands and minds have been involved in its creation. It may all be God inspired, but that is very different from believing it to be the literal Word of God…. dictated in some way by God. No, it is clearly the work of human intellects but the overarching story that it tells us is of God’s inordinate, amazing, inspiring love for us… and that is always worth celebrating. On Bible Sunday and every day of the year.
Amen.