Today in "Opening the Bible" Thomas Merton draws into question the notion that in order to read the Bible we must understand that there are two separate worlds, "one familiar and the other frightening and strange; one where you can be yourself and another where you must strive to be unnaturally "good...
This divisive and destructive pattern of life and thought is not the Bible message at all. The message of the Bible is precisely a message of unity and reconciliation, an all-embracing and positive revelation from which nothing real is excluded and in which all receives it full due and its ultimate meaning. One-sided distortions of the Bible have made it seem partial, and have restricted it to narrow, exclusive areas of "the sacred" and "the devout," as if to understand God's message one had to shut out God's world and (man) and history and time. As if faith meant the formal acceptance of the irrational and the absurd. As if one had to live by reason and common sense while at the same time repudiating and ridiculing them.
Merton does such a good job bringing this image of the use of scripture to light. Just as the incarnation was meant to draw us into a story in which there is no split within our existence that makes a person have to act or try to act as though s/he is a part of two world - and preferably the one. Rather, the Reign of God participates within what would be considered mundane and ordinary and also incorporates all that is not seen. That sounds like a line from the first article of the Nicene Creed that talks about God the Father..."maker of heaven and earth, of all seen and unseen." To be faithful doesn't mean we turn our noses away from a whole part of our existence. Everything within our lives is included in the adventure we enter as we are God's children. Did you notice that in the stories of scripture, we happen to be reading through Mark's gospel right now in worship, Jesus stays away from nowhere and nobody. The Son of God in the mix of it all and for that he catches it from those who expect that there are two realities and we are only allowed to exist in one. And yet, in those stories, we see the image of God revealed to the world in ways that are within our frame of reference - real life without exception.
Connection: Don't let yourself be put off and at a distance from the stories within the Bible. Rather, bring them close...so close that you are able to see how God dances in the world in which we live so that we can really live here in a bold new way.
Gracious God, Martin Luther reminds us of a journey and a life you entered for us. We sing at Christmas "from heaven above to earth I come" as a reminder of how this story of the Christ child is the story of life around us and with us and for us. Inspire us to see your glory shine all around us and within our lives. Amen.
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