THE WHOLE WORD [Sat, 8-8-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Runner—THE WHOLE WORD [Sat, 8-8-26]

 

I once memorized the Gospel of Mark.

It’s not as great a feat as it might sound. At one time, candidates for the ministry in the Church of Scotland had to memorize the Psalms, all of them. I tried that. I couldn’t do it.  They were too much alike. I could memorize Mark because it had movement, a story, a beginning and a middle and an end, and another beginning…

I memorized the King James Version, because I read that the British actor, Alec McCowen, had memorized the KJV of Mark and was performing it on stage. I did a little acting at the time, in community theater, and I thought that would be a neat thing to do, to perform Mark.

I was also a long-distance runner in those days, and the long miles on back roads got lonely and boring at times. I thought memorizing Mark would give me something good to do. I bought a dozen little paperbacks of Mark, so that when one got sweated through from being carried in the waistband of my running shorts, I would always have another in reserve.

I chose Mark and the KJV for the same reasons McCowen did, because it is the shortest, and the KJV is the most dramatic, most stage-worthy version. I also chose it because Mark is the template for the other Gospels.

I did perform Mark a few times, but that turned out to be just a byproduct of the memorization. The real payoff was seeing the Gospel story as a whole.

Hans Frei has said that our current misuse of the Bible comes from “the eclipse of biblical narrative.” [The title of his book.] One of the reasons for that eclipse is that we look at the Gospel, and the Bible in general, only one pericope, one story, one passage at a time. [1] We take a verse or story from one spot in the narrative--Exodus or Romans or John—and say that it is the Word of God. No, those might be the words of God, through the words of authors, but the Word is the whole story. [2]

The Bible is a narrative. It is continual, not continuous. The narrative is composed of many stories, but it has a red thread of meaning running through, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection at the end. The stories are not meant to be a scientific reporting of the history of the world, but a meaning-full reporting of how God deals with the universe, and with each of us. 

I can no longer recite the whole Gospel. In the winter of my years, I can’t even memorize a grocery list of three things, like bread, bread, and bread. But I know the whole story. I know that it starts with the intention of God, and ends with the intension of God. [“Intension” is about internal meaning.] In between, if we let God tell it, the whole story is about the presence of God.

John Robert McFarland

1] The MSW sphelczhek is not very knowledgeable about biblical and theological language. It changed pericope to periscope. It also changes pastored to pastured.

2] I cringe a little when a liturgist in worship reads a scripture passage and ends with “This is the Word of God.” Not quite.