WHEN THE BIBLE STUDIES US [W, 7-3-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—WHEN THE BIBLE STUDIES US [W, 7-3-24]

 

Because I spent ten years pursuing higher education degrees myself, and because my first decade after ordination was in campus ministry, and because I wrote stuff, I had a reputation among my peers as a scholar. A preacher/theologian.

So, a new, young preacher, just out of seminary and into a second career after banking, called and asked if she could come see me. She said, “They say if you want to talk theology, you’re the place to go.”

I was flattered, but of course, she didn’t really want to talk theology. Nobody does. She wanted to complain because the church, and her ministry colleagues, were not nearly as Christian as she thought they would be. She used up the whole tissue box I always kept by the chair for my visitors. Almost all the women preachers who came to see me through the years ended up weeping. The men needed to, and should have, but the code of manliness required them to weep only inwardly. That was easier on my tissue supply, but not, I suspect, on their souls.

But Brad [not his real name] really did want to talk theology. He was the associate pastor at a big university church. He was out of seminary, and had been ordained for several years, but he was working on some sort of continuing education that required him to have a mentor to guide his reading and thinking. He asked me.

He usually drove the 30 miles to my place for our meetings, but one day I needed to go to his city for other errands so I arranged to take him to lunch. When I got there, he said we’d have to wait an hour. The senior pastor was supposed to meet with a Bible study group, but had been called away, so Brad needed to do Bible study before we could eat.

No problem. I was glad to sit in, as Brad’s mentor, to see him in action.

It was a pretty good group. A little too intellectual, as befitted a university church. Too interested in studying the issue some more before making a decision.

Then someone mentioned a hurricane that had just devastated Puerto Rico. We’d all seen the awful videos on our televisions that morning—homeless and hungry people and destroyed homes.

“I just feel so sorry for those people,” one woman said.

“Yes,” I put in. “They already had so little.”

“Oh, no,” the woman said. “I don’t mean the natives there. They’re used to it. I feel sorry for all those people at the beachfront hotels who’ve had their vacations ruined.”

I was stunned. This was in a church that claimed to take its cues from Jesus. Brad gave me a sideways glance. Someone else quickly changed the subject. The Bible study went on.

I’m still chagrined that I did not respond to that. Even if I had to break in later, change the subject back, I should not have let that go unchallenged. Brad had warned me off with a head shake then, and told me later that the woman “was like that,” so there was no point in pursuing it. I understood about folks like that. Had lots of them in my churches along the way. But others were there; they needed to hear a challenge as a witness.

Most importantly, every time we ignore what the Bible really says, we give permission for folks to replace the Bible with their own prejudices.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. Most of them were sins of omission, like that day. Of all of them, that’s still the omission that rankles me the most.

I no longer like Bible study groups much. So many people aren’t really interested in learning from the Bible or from other Christians. Those should probably be called “sharing our ignorance and prejudice” groups.

Sheesh! I’m not a very good Methodist. John Wesley built that movement on “class” meetings. Everyone was in a group, a class. And here I am, a Methodist preacher, saying I don’t like those groups. But the class meetings didn’t study the Bible. They confessed their sins.

I guess I would have to be in the same class with that woman who was so upset about spoiled vacations.

John Robert McFarland