speaker-1: Our first reading is from Psalms 119. With my whole heart I seek you, do not let me stray from your commandments. I treasure your word in my heart so that I may not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes. With my lips I declare all the ordinances of your mouth. I delight in the way of your decrees as much as in all riches. I will meditate. Meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. how I love your law! It is my meditation all day long. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is always with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your decrees are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way in order to keep your word. I do not turn away from your ordinances, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: Through your precepts I will get understanding. Therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

speaker-0: So this is our last Christian cliche. Our last bumper sticker. It is. God said it. I believe it. And that settles it. Proof that you can, in fact, have a robust relationship with Scripture and not even have a passing familiarity with Jesus. So let me Read to you from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus deciding to reinterpret the law of God, which is in fact a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path, from chapter Matthew Chapter five. Listen for the word of the Lord with me. You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, you shall not murder. And whoever murders shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment. And if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the counsel. And if you say, You fool, you'll be liable to the hell of fire. That is Gehenna. If or so when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into the clink. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you've paid the last penny. You've heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor. And hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good. And sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don't even tax collectors do the same? Sorry, Ray. And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore. As your heavenly Father is perfect. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Your word, O Lord, is a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our paths. Let it lead us to you, and let it guide us into your ways. And now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, O Christ, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. I think that American Christianity has got a relationship with the Bible like we are baking. You know baking. That thing that demands you stick very much to the script or the project you are working on will be promptly delivered to the trash. You know making. I You remember that time that you accidentally mistook sugar for salt and some poor soul was the unfortunate recipient of that first bite, you remember? They remember. You remember how if you don't put exactly the right ratio of some sort of rising agent and salt and sugar in the cake, and how long how it needs to be just at the right temperature, and how you've got to cook it long enough, but definitely not too long, and how it's impossible to tell. Because that amount of jiggle in the middle is gonna change after you take it out of the oven because of carryover cooking, but it's impossible to write a recipe for exactly how much carryover cooking because who knows what temperature your house is, or what the humidity is gonna be in there, or if there's gonna be a sudden shift in the atmosphere. And yes, it's a big deal because it'll either deflate or be dry or undercooked and claggy, or it'll just taint plain taste bad. And if we're gonna bother eating sweets at all, they better taste good, right? Because I'm not trying to be like a little soft in the middle for nothing. You know what I'm saying. And you know baking. Baking, science, you can eat. That's how American evangelicalism approaches the scriptures, with that same sense of severity. God said it, just like it is on the page. And I believe it because God said it, just like it is. on the page, and that that settles it. Conversation over. Man. And I get why we would be sometimes drawn to this. We really want God's word. We want God to be trustworthy, and we think that God's word is God. And so we need it, we need it to be trustworthy too. We need something truly believable in a world full of spin and where truth is flimsy. And in a world where we can't even trust our eyes and ears anymore because AI has made us all a bunch of dupes. And not for nothing. There is a deep seam of fear of getting Scripture wrong and what the consequences of that might be. Spoiler alert, if you were here last week, you'll know that it's every bit as dangerous as drinking, dancing, swearing, or playing cards. And there are large swaths of Christian people. Who believe that they believe the Bible in this way? We've got lots of names for this situation. Some people call it biblical literalism, some people call it biblicism, others like to call it the doctrine of scriptural infallibility. And that sounds good. Like we're taking God seriously. But that isn't the claim, is it? The claim is that we take the Bible seriously, and those are different things. Indeed, all this Bible seriousness might be missing the point, as though the only way that we ever interact with the living God is through the scriptures. God has indeed promised to use the scriptures to talk to us and use them for our benefit. But if Karl Bart is right, this major theological voice in the 20th century, and the point of the scripture is actually to point away from itself to the living God, like John the Baptist, who declares that he must increase and I must decrease, then the Bible isn't actually the ultimate good. It's not the thing that we are really after. It's just a stop, a good and holy stop on the way to something else, and that something else. Is the living God. We can be encouraged by this. And maybe we can stop white knuckling our approach to the Bible with such fear because even Jesus doesn't abide the Bible or the bumper sticker. Jesus does not say, God said it, I believe it, that settles it, even while he says, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Indeed, Jesus says, you've heard that it was said in the scriptures and from the law, mind you, but I say to you, and that is a different thing entirely, don't murder is a categorically different command than don't be angry or call your neighbor a name. You can poke your brother's eye out if he pokes your eye out is a categorically different command than if somebody pokes your eye out, use this as an opportunity to clear their angry eyes and make them see you as a human being. Jesus is doing a new thing with that which is established. And I believe, as I said, that Jesus believed that God's word and God's law was a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path. But doing what he does in Matthew might be considered tampering with the evidence in a court of law. Don't you think? Let me give you another example of where Jesus seems to do more than just settle it with the Bible. But instead lives the scripture, lives as the people of God. And if you've ever attended one of my why are we and affirming church talks, you will have heard this before. So it's a r it'll be a refresher for you, but I need a refresher every now and again. So hang on to your butts. In Leviticus 21 and Deuteronomy 23, the law says that no male, and we're about to take a hard right turn here, so. Earmuffs if you need them. In Leviticus 21 and Deuteronomy 3, the law says that no male with crushed testicles, you're gonna want to hear this, Alex, or a penis, or a penis that has been cut off, that is either by accident or birth defect or intentional act, it doesn't matter, if this is your situation, you are not allowed. in the assembly of the Lord. So, in short, sorry, to sum up, eunuchs were not permitted to have full inclusion in the people of God. We might think of it like those churches who say, All are welcome, but hold gay folk at arm's length, or allow women in the church and to lead every Bible study but won't put them in leadership, right? All are welcome. That's the Mosaic law. That is what is settled. And that is the law that is in place in the time of Jesus. Every time anybody in the New Testament mentions the law, that prohibition, that exclusion is included in it. But in Isaiah 56, Isaiah prophesies that there will come a time when eunuchs and foreigners who live upright lives before the Lord will Will be welcomed. And check this out. He says that in the house of the Lord, the Lord God will give the eunuch a monument and a name that is better than sons or daughters. And guess what you can't have if you are a eunuch? Sons or daughters. And Isaiah goes on to say, with a straight face, he will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off. And this sounds really nice. But it is, let's be clear, in direct contradiction to what is settled in the Scripture and in the law. Or, you know, what God said and we believe and is settled. And then in Matthew 19. Jesus is responding to a question from the disciples about whether or not it's better to get married or whether it is better to abstain or not. And he says this. He says, There are eunuchs who have been so from birth, there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs in by somebody else that is like in the service of a king or a queen. We're actually gonna get to one of those here in a second. So there are some eunuchs who have been eunuchs from birth, some eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are Eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus isn't just saying, You've heard that it was said, but I say to you, He's straight up inverting what we have heard. He isn't abiding by the established law. He is taking the prophet's lead instead. And he does seem to have a soft spot for Isaiah. And then it doesn't just finish there. Jesus continues this trend. And then in an Acts 8, Philip is sent by an angel down the wilderness road from Jerusalem to Gaza. And along the way, he is passed in a chariot by what was essentially the Treasury Secretary of Ethiopia, who is both a foreigner and a eunuch. A double nope for the law, but a double yes. For Isaiah. And here, listen to this. Ethiopia's Scott Bessant is reading Isaiah in the chariot. Can you but does this feel like a God thing to you yet? He's reading to Isaiah, but he doesn't understand what he's reading, and so Philip runs over to the chariot and explains what he is reading, and the eunuch exclaims: Well, there's some water. What's to prevent me from getting baptized? And the answer to that, if God said it and we believe it, and that settles it, is everything, Scott! Everything that is settled about the scriptures and that the and in the law is that this is a nope. This is not okay. But guess what happens? They get down in that muddy puddle, and that Ethiopian eunuch. gets baptized into the people of God, thanks be to God. There are a million problems with biblical literalism, but one of the most obvious is that God knows that I have only ever heard people say, God said it, I believe it, and that settles it, when they want to use that as a dagger to throw at somebody else. It is only ever About gay people or Muslims or folks who have had to make the impossible decision to terminate a pregnancy or some nonsense about immigrants. Nobody ever uses that bumper sticker when they're talking about the bits where Jesus is like, hey, if you've got two shirts, you have to give one away to somebody who needs it. Nobody ever is, God said it. I believe it, and that settles it. About how we're not allowed to return evil for evil or even go to bed angry, and we certainly can't hold a grudge and come into worship. Nobody is ever telling us that we're supposed to, Jesus says, and we believe, and that settles it. Jesus says we're supposed to house the unhoused in our own homes. Nobody has ever Jesus said it, I believe it, that settles it, that kind of stuff. Why is that? Cause we don't get to point our finger at somebody else that's not me. Again, my friends, my point is that one can have a robust relationship with the scriptures and not even have a passing familiarity with Jesus, the living word of God, God's very heart outside of God's chest. And the fact of the matter is that I don't want to be, I don't want you to be either a Biblian. I don't want you to be a scripturian. I want you to be known as a Christian. Someone who reflects what Jesus is like, somebody who is on board with what God is doing in these scriptures, which is like this ever-widening trajectory of love and acceptance and welcome and a love that overcomes our fears and our hatreds. I want to take this beautiful gift that is Scripture, through which God still speaks, through which we get to see Jesus. And I want to receive it in all of its history and poetry and myth and truth-telling. To read it with you, because it was always intended to be read in community. And I want to believe with you that God is going to lead us together to be faithful, especially in those moments when that means that we have to trust God, trust that God is doing the next thing that isn't specifically laid out in the scriptures. And that's hard, and that's where faith comes in. But we can do that, because the truth is, my friends, that some of the most incredible years of the church's existence were between Jesus' resurrection and 313 when Constantine made us a state religion. And guess what they did not have that entire time? A Bible. What Scripture was was not settled then. But what they did have was one another. And what they did believe is a that they had a deep trust that the Spirit of God was in their midst, in the midst of the body of Christ. And they believed that God would guide them forward, using what faithful examples they had from their past and what wisdom cropped up in their midst. They trusted one another. They had a familiarity, they knew Jesus and not just the written word on a page that was settled. Reading scripture is not like baking. It's like cooking. You gotta feel your way through this. You gotta let the ancestors speak to you when you're seasoning things. Ain't no recipe ever told you the right amount of garlic to put in your food. One clove. Get out of here with one clove. You can't taste one clove. You gotta double that. You gotta triple that. Quad it up. Cooking is an art form. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of This kind of worked for me last time, so I'm gonna try something a little bit different this time and see what happens. Scripture requires such trust and familiarity with a living God. A trust not in a rigid God who requires a rigid life and a fearful life, but a God who has given you all the gifts that you need to lead you forward in faithfulness. A scripture that still speaks, a spirit that dwells within you, a community that surrounds and offers wisdom to you when we are engaging one another well. And we trust God to speak into the midst of that. These stories, this scripture is Is here to inspire you to breathe into your very life the life of God. It's a beautiful thing and a freeing thing. My son tells me that cooking is a is a good thing these days. It's a compliment. Like when you're doing something really well, you are cooking. So, my dear ones, scrape that crusty, bland bumper sticker off your caboose and get to cooking with Jesus in every sense of the word. And may our souls be nourished by that. And may we offering may we be offering life-giving food, nourishing food to a hungry world. Thanks be to God. Amen.