How do you read Genesis?

The first dozen chapters of Genesis probably spark more controversy in our culture than any other part of the Bible. Creationists bang the drum for God getting it all done in a literal week; evolutionists roll their eyes and dismiss the whole thing as mythology. Advocates of intelligent design try to find a middle road and take the whole thing as some kind of wider parable that assures us there really is a driving force behind the whole business. The average church-goer is stuck somewhere on this spectrum, maybe believing that each day played out like Genesis 1 says, maybe believing it's just intended to assure us in general terms that God created the world and it didn't come about by accident. People on the extremes tend to fight about this creation debate in school board meetings and on talk radio shows, in books and interviews and occasionally in a face-to-face debate.

The whole thing generates a lot more heat than light, which this time of year in Minnesota is maybe okay.

A "literal" reading of Genesis 1-12 brings up a few questions. Having spent seven years in youth ministry and eleven years as a pastor, I've heard most of the questions that go with these chapters. Here are a few of the best:

• What existed before all this story started?
• How long ago is "in the beginning"?
• Do snakes really talk?
• Of course the classic, Did Adam & Eve have belly buttons?
• Where did Cain's wife come from?
• Why did Cain found a city if there were a dozen people on earth?
• What about cave men? Where do they fit?
• What about dinosaurs?
• What about the fossil record?
• How could the earth really be repopulated from the animals on one boat?
• How could a wooden boat the size of the ark hold together in heavy seas?
• Could people really live 900 years or more?
• And of course there are more.

These questions are all very entertaining. But they totally miss the point. I'm about to give away my bias, so pay attention.

All these questions assume a post-enlightenment view of the Genesis stories. It's a way of understanding that says you get to know something by taking it apart, like a toaster -- you can disassemble your toaster and figure out what connects to what and why it works. (Please unplug it before trying this at home.) On non-living things, this works just fine, though I always had trouble getting things put back together again, and frequently they didn't work quite the same as they did before I took them apart. But this way of "knowing" doesn't work so well on living things, for example your cat. You can't take the cat apart and put it back together again. You have to live with the cat in order to know it, and the more time you spend with it the better you'll understand it. (Reading a little Kipling might help as well: "I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.")

The Enlightenment, that period of time when we believed that pure logic and rationality would solve all our problems and Science held all the answers, has made it very hard for you and me to understand the Bible. I think to "understand" the Bible we have to live in relationship with it, get to know it, treat it like a living thing.

In short, I don't find it helpful to dissect Genesis in order to understand it. It isn't helpful to me to ask questions of truth and falsehood, accuracy or inaccuracy. I find it much more helpful to live with the stories and relate to these stories like a living thing, because I believe that's exactly what they are. And as I do that, I find that these are stories about me. I learn about myself as I read Genesis. Who am I? Where do I come from? Why was I created? What is my relationship to the rest of creation? Why do I do the things I do? Why do the people around me do the things they do?

So in short, Genesis isn't about what happened back then. It's about what happened at my house this afternoon. Reading it for the sake of ancient history might be fun and entertaining in a speculative kind of way, but it totally misses the point.

I know many of you are thinking, "Yeah, but ..." and you're going to tell me it's accurate, you can trust it, or it's mythological, or whatever. I know. Really, I do. But for the moment, let it go and listen to what the story says about you and what you see when you look out your window, or across the dinner table, or on the evening news.

And it was good

Genesis 1:3-5

Here's an important question that might seem at first like just so much philosophical trivia:

Is something "Good" because God says it's good, or is there a greater idea of "good" that God is bound to follow? Another way to ask the same question -- does "good" reflect some moral abstraction, or does it reflect the personality of God?

I believe God determines what is good based on his own nature. So if something -- beauty, intimacy, relationship, courage -- lines up with God's character, it is good. We might use those same words to apply to things that appeal to us, but are far from God's heart, and then our notion of beauty or of courage is a twisted mistake.

Why is this important?

Because, simply, if we can know "good" apart from knowing God, we have the authority to make up our own minds about what is beneficial, what is positive, what is preferred, without ever submitting our wills to God. This is precisely the sin of the garden of Eden (to jump ahead a couple chapters) and is often the reason why strong Christian movements get derailed and turn in on themselves to pursue their own agendas. Well meaning Christians who decide they know what is "good" and pursue it apart from the primary agenda of knowing, loving, and submitting to God, tend to end up in a swamp.

Eve and Adam chose to eat the fruit in the garden in order to know how to discern Good from Evil apart from God. But here in Genesis 1, God himself declares what is "good." Making up our own minds is an ongoing temptation for us. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his final work, Ethics (which he never completed but which was assembled and published after his death under the Nazis in 1945), states that pursuing the knowledge of good in itself means we are missing the mark, for only through Jesus Christ can we know what is good for us, i.e., what it is that God intends for us.

Yet over and over again we are tempted to make up our own minds about right and wrong, good and bad, without ever seeking Jesus or his guidance on these questions. We decide a thing is good and we pursue it to the bitter end, not realizing that the good we are pursuing has turned on us and become evil before our eyes.

The whole thing reminds me of a line from the classic western "The Outlaw Josey Wales." A brutal, despicable northern officer has sworn to bring in the hero, Josey Wales, and has pressed one of Wales' friends into helping him. At one point in the movie he talks about all the other outlaws they'll go after when they've gotten Wales. The other man protests, "Once we get Wales it ends." But the evil man responds, totally sincere, "Doing right ain't got no end."

Rabbit trail

Departing from Genesis for a moment ...

I just read this news release from the ELCA news service about the church's publishing house having considerable trouble with retirement accounts for its employees. Late in the article the publishing house says they cannot cover their employees' retirement deficits out of their general fund because of "our own operational challenges resulting from fewer sales to shrinking ELCA congregations, and increasing competition from the Internet and publishers outside of the Lutheran tradition." The whole article -- and especially this statement -- is a harsh reminder of one of the biggest problems the Lutheran church as a whole has had for the last three hundred years.

Namely, we have operated as a closed system, believing it is better to be strictly "Lutheran" in all our ways rather than interacting with other Christians in our context. So Augsburg Fortress, our publishing house, has avoided selling to a general Christian market for fear of watering down our "Lutheran" identity. They have counted on sales within ELCA congregations, but those congregations have started looking at AF as only one option among many -- and sales have suffered. This downward trend is that much worse because growing Lutheran churches have tended to look elsewhere for resources. They are growing because they have a strong emphasis on boldly proclaiming Jesus as Lord and they have a high view of the Bible's authority. Sadly AF has not done a good job of providing resources for these congregations. Because AF doesn't see themselves in direct competition with other Christian publishers, they've not felt the pressure to assess their market and provide the resources their market is demanding.

What's the point? I'm not trying to bash Augsburg Fortress or the ELCA. As a friend of mine said recently, "The ELCA is old news." But as we move forward, it is important for us to realize that being Lutheran doesn't mean we isolate ourselves in a bubble. Note: I believe being Lutheran is one very, very good way of being a follower of Jesus. I'm proud of that identity. But we have to first know what it means to follow Jesus, and then know what it means to be Lutheran well enough that we can be out in the world, out in the mix of other flavors of Christianity, with the confidence that we have a voice, we have a contribution. The Lutheran distinctives of Law and Gospel as the lens through which we view the Bible, salvation by grace alone through faith alone, the priesthood of all believers, and the other distinctive teachings of the Lutheran tradition are an important piece the whole Christian church needs. So we cannot keep to ourselves and smugly feel that we've got it right -- Lutheran Christians need to be out in the world with the rest of the body of Jesus Christ, bringing our perspective and learning from the gifts other members of the body bring. Together we can help the world know Jesus.

And the other side of this coin is that Lutherans need what other Christians bring. We need the charismatics' passionate desire for the presence of the Spirit. We need the Calvinists' stand on God's sovereignty. We need the Wesleyans' longing for personal holiness. We need the Baptists' emphasis on personal salvation and the Roman Catholics' sense of the history and tradition of the body of Christ throughout the world. We need the Salvation Army's (did you know they're a church?) heart for the poor.

These other parts of the Body are not the enemy. Rather, the enemy is the one who seeks to keep us in conflict with these other Christians so that we are not engaged in making Jesus known to the world.

... and there was light

Genesis 1:3

And there was light. Seems so matter-of-fact, doesn't it? God said it, and it happened.

Two questions.

First, what would happen in your life if you had this ability?

Second, what would happen in your life if you really believed this about God?

First topic. Our words have power. When we speak, things change. Maybe it's not so obvious as "let there be light, and there was light," but what about other words? What about these:

"I'm proud of you."
"You are beautiful."
"I love you."
"I hate you."
"You are a failure."

Do these words have power? Better believe it. When you speak things change. We see this most clearly with the hurtful words. Even if you don't mean those words, they change things. Even if you're just speaking out of the woundedness of your heart, those words change things, create wounds in other hearts. A friend of mine says, "Hurt people hurt people." Our words most often carry that hurt and inflict it on others.

But it's also true of the words that build people up. Have you ever known someone whose words were consistently positive, upbuilding, helpful, loving? As long as there is sincerity behind those positive words, you want to be with that person. You want to spend more time with them, because it's a healing thing, a life-giving thing.

So maybe we do have this ability, more than we know. Our words change things. The Bible says it a little differently -- "Whatever you sow, you will also reap" (see Galatians 6:7). When we plant bitter, hurtful words, we will reap a terrible harvest later. When we plant deceit, when we plant arrogance, when we plant duplicity, the harvest is coming. Similarly, when we plant truth, compassion, gentleness, integrity, the harvest is coming. Count on it. It starts with our words.

But what about God's words? This brings us to the second topic. What would happen if we really believed that God was as good as his word? So look at some of the words God speaks in scripture. Do we believe these words?

"Do not be afraid."
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name."
"You are mine."
"I know the plans I have for you, plans for good and not for evil."
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you."
"In this world you will have trouble; but take heart, I have overcome the world."
"I go to prepare a place for you."
"I no longer call you servants but friends."

What would it mean to believe, down at the core of our being, that these words are true, and directed to us? What would change today if you knew that God called you his friend? If you knew beyond any doubt that God has good plans for you?

This business of speaking is powerful stuff. God says, "Let there be light" and the light appears. We say, "I love you" and the words call forth love in response. God speaks to us and says, "Do not be afraid." Are we willing to listen and let the words shape us and call forth a God-given confidence in the face of trouble?

Lord, let your light shine in us!

Light

Genesis 1:1-5

God speaks. Two words in Hebrew. "Let there be light" in English. The immediate result is "and there was light." God's word is powerful and has immediate results.

Anticipating the turn of the millennium ten years ago, Life magazine made a list of the hundred most influential people in the last thousand years. When you think back over the last thousand years of history, lots of names come to the fore -- scientists, explorers, statesmen, even a theologian or two. Who would you choose for number one on a list like that? They chose Thomas Edison -- because his invention of the light bulb has totally revolutionized how we live. If you want to do an amazing experiment, try doing without artificial light for 24 hours. No inside lights, no flashlights, no headlights, no LED lights, no illuminated clocks or watches or computer screens. I spend lots of time in wilderness situations -- backcountry canoeing, hunting, and camping -- and I don't think I have EVER gone without artificial light for 24 hours. It's an intriguing idea.

Think of the difference light makes in your life. Think how dependent most of us are on our eyes. Some of the people I've learned the most from are those who live without physical sight. They learn to rely on other ways of gaining information, other ways of navigating, other ways of "seeing". They have a lot to teach!

When God starts creating, he begins with light. Whether you imagine this first moment of creation as a brilliant Big Bang 14 billion years ago, or as a sudden appearance of light emanating from God's being six thousand years ago, doesn't matter a great deal. God begins the creation by creating light.

1 John 1 helps us understand part of why this might be. John tells us, "God is light and in him is no darkness whatsoever." What might this mean on a literal level? What might it mean metaphorically? Think of all the associations we have in our language with light. Look at this list and think through what it might mean to use each of these words or expressions, especially if we use them to refer to people:

Brilliant

In the dark

Dim

Bright

Enlightened

Dark

Illuminating

Luminous

Can you think of others that belong on the list? In our language and in our thinking, light is almost always a positive thing. We treasure brightness and color, both attributes of light.

Think what light makes possible. From a biological point of view, there would be no life without light. Photosynthesis in plants becomes one of the key building blocks for all life. Your skin absorbs sunlight and miraculously manufactures vitamin D. Sensors in your brain release chemicals in response to light that make you feel happy and well balanced. The lack of these chemicals sends some people into seasonal depression. (A few years ago I turned down a job offer on beautiful Resurrection Bay in Seward, Alaska. I had lived seven years in Seattle with 50 inches of rain each year, and I wasn't bothered by that -- but I couldn't imagine living in a place that gets three times that!) The very act of reading could not happen without light. The deeper you dig, the greater you realize is your dependence on light. Most of us have never thought about this. It is staggering.

So if God is light and in him there is no darkness, such that your reading lamp, my laptop screen, the hundred watt bulbs in my garage, and even the sun are just dim reflections of his glory, what does that say about your utter, largely unrealized, dependence on him?

Chaos

Genesis 1:1-3

One of the hardest things for us when we start reading the Bible is that we think differently than the Hebrews. Our minds have been trained to value a certain kind of logic, to see things in categories of "true / false" and to separate things into neat categories. A long line of human history has trained us not to get what the Bible has to say.

To the Hebrew mind, chaos is very close, if not identical, to evil. So when Genesis says that "the earth was formless and void" it's a statement about chaos. There's no order, no system, no function, no good. It's just chaos, and the result of chaos is that the earth is void. It's empty in the sense of its value, its usefulness, its connection to the purposes of God.

Ever feel like your life is formless and void? So many of us do. Think how much structure is imposed on your life -- structure that was foreign to the ancient Hebrews. How many clocks can you see right now? How many appointments are on your calendar for the next week? What schedules -- school, work, television, trains, flights, appointments, whatever -- do you hold in your head? What structures have you memorized if you start to think about road maps, store maps, mall maps, airport maps? We are structured down to our toenails. Yet -- and this is partly because of the structure -- our lives so often feel formless and void, totally chaotic.

The creation story is largely about God imposing order -- good order -- onto chaos. So many of us have taken the good gift of God to the nth degree and created a whole new kind of chaos. We have overstructured and overscheduled our lives to the point where the form has become void, the structure has become chaotic.

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. Is it dark over the deep places in your heart? Is there an impenetrable veil over the canyons of your heart? One of the truths the Bible tells us that is sometimes hard to hear is that the depths of our hearts often betray us. We are prone to hide things away there -- old hurts, fears, bitterness, abandoned hopes get piled up in the depths of our hearts but they do not go away. We find ourselves acting and speaking in ways that mystify us because we do not realize that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). The things hidden in the depths still move and manipulate us. The word of God reveals a whole new level of chaos in our lives when it points our attention toward the depths of our hearts.

But the story doesn't stop there. That is the "before" picture. The next line is critical, and (as often happens in the Bible) there are some word plays going on here. The Hebrew and Greek words for "wind" and "spirit" and "breath" are identical. So you could say in the next line (as some translations do) that a wind from God was blowing over the waters, or (as other translations do) the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, and there are lots of other possibilities as well. I like the term one translation uses, that the Spirit of God was "brooding" over the chaos.

Fact is, God comprehends the depths, the chaos, the formless void. But it is unable to comprehend God. The nature of chaos leaves it alienated from God, unable to reach out -- but God hovers, broods, plots for good in the midst of chaos.

Is it helpful to know that in those chaotic places in your life, God's Spirit is brooding, hovering, flowing? That the hidden depths of your heart are hidden to you, but not to God? God will speak and bring light into that darkness ... but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

For the moment, look at the world around you. What examples of chaos, emptiness, darkness do you see? What evidences do you see that the Spirit of God is moving?

Visions of heaven?

In Sunday School in about third grade we were assigned the task of drawing a picture of what we thought heaven looked like. I drew a giant triangular something-or-other with a cross on it and a doorway underneath, clouds all around, and scrounged a yellow crayon to somehow include my impression that the light from the throne of God was leaking out. Even at the time the picture underwhelmed me.

I think that's what we so often do with this idea of heaven. We make it about a place, a nice place, a place we all want to go because it's so nice, and we imagine it to be just like Minnesota but without winter or mosquitoes. And the Scandinavians will all be happy.

Weird.

But the Bible doesn't say that God created heaven. It says he created "the heavens and the earth." Then the text goes on in great -- GREAT -- detail about the earth, but we don't talk much about the heavens. A little bit with creating stars and birds and stuff that flies above our heads. But we don't get much detail, only a wistful sense that there's something good -- heavenly, even -- that is out of our reach.

In ancient Hebrew culture, or in any culture prior to the Wright Brothers or Sputnik, it was easy to imagine God "up there somewhere" and to make "heaven" -- the place where God lived -- synonymous with "the heavens" by which we meant whatever is above the sky.

Is that what the Bible is talking about? The Bible doesn't seem interested in revealing some otherworldly place where God has set up shop. Rather, the Bible seems quite interested in helping us see that God is present here, and we just fail to see. (Read Isaiah 6:1-9, for example.)

What if "the heavens" is referring not to some separate abode of God, such that God has to leave home to come to earth, but what if "the heavens" is referring to a spiritual realm that exists alongside but hidden from our physical reality? So that "the heavens" is the abode of God not separate from the physical creation, but simply hidden from it? If you do a Bible search and look at the term "heavens" throughout the Bible, you'll find initially that in most places early on in the Bible, it sounds like "heavens" is just another word for sky. The Bible refers many times to the "birds of the heavens," for example, and doesn't seem to mean some strange kind of spiritual birds. But watch later on -- starting with Ezekiel and some of the other later prophets, and especially in the New Testament -- and you begin to hear about God "opening the heavens" to reveal spiritual things to his people. In fact, when Jesus was baptized, "the heavens were opened" and God was in some sense revealed in Jesus.

That would make sense of a lot of the Bible. When Ephesians 2:6 says that we are seated with Christ "in the heavens" it doesn't mean that we have a spot reserved in that great picnic shelter in the sky, but rather that the spiritual reality of our lives has changed in a way that is at least partly hidden from us but is potent and important nonetheless.

So if this is true, God is not bound by the spiritual world, but he created that as well. He created both the spiritual and the physical. He is not limited by his nature as a spiritual being any more than he is limited by Jesus taking on physical flesh. And especially if you take 2 Peter seriously, when God decides to redo all of creation, it will mean a total recreation of not only the physical world but the spiritual realms as well.

Creator

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created. It's part of what God does.

A cabinetmaker designing a corner china cabinet to custom-fit a space in his mother's house. A farmer manufacturing a part to coax a few more years of life out of old equipment. The consummate hostess planning a party. The chef creating a masterpiece. Painters and musicians, writers and mechanics and city planners and teachers and architects and plumbers all bear the image of God by creating stuff.

What is this act of "creating"?

Luther's explanation of the first article of the Apostles Creed in the Small Catechism says this:

"I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, my reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them; in addition thereto, clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and homestead, wife and children, fields, cattle, and all my goods; that He provides me richly and daily with all that I need to support this body and life, protects me from all danger, and guards me and preserves me from all evil; and all this out of pure, fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me; for all which I owe it to Him to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him. This is most certainly true."

Creation is a diverse and complex business. It involves everything from aardvarks to zebras, from shoes to family, the spending money in your pocket and the Himalayas. Seeing God as creator is a view we will never fully grasp, for we can never fully grasp creation itself. Yet God stands over and outside his creation (as well as being deeply present within it and to it in some sense) as the Creator.

When we think of God as Creator we are often tempted to envision him in a static pose much like Michelangelo's God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, reaching out his finger to touch Adam and bring him to life. But I like Tony Campolo's picture of God as creator. He says, have you ever watched a little child playing a game? Swing them in the air and they giggle and as soon as their feet touch the ground they say, "Do it again!" Campolo pictures God making something simple, trivial, like a daisy, and out of his thought, his hands, his words springs a flower, and he's so excited he giggles and says, "Do it again! Do it again! Do it again!" And over and over again until pretty soon there's a whole field of daisies. Think how many times you have to rinse and repeat this idea to get just Minnesota, let alone the universe!

Two key ideas we can't leave this word "created" without touching:

First, God created you. He is absolutely madly crazy in love passionate about you, because you are his creation. You look in the mirror and see a worn leather bag of sin, fault, trouble, wrinkles, failures, disappointments, and tragedy. God looks in your face and sees the pinnacle of his creation. I am not making this up. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what it means when we say that God loves you. Just the tip.

Second, (jumping ahead a little bit) God made you in his image. We'll have a lot more to say about that later. But for now suffice it to say that you are creative because God has made you creative. There are activities that bring you deep down joy because God wove those into your being. Yes, there has been some trouble along the way, and yes, there are some things you do that maybe aren't what God intended. Don't focus on those things for the moment. Right now, we need to see that we are created -- you and me -- to do certain things that bring joy to us because God wired that desire and that appetite for joy into our beings. Maybe it's teaching. Maybe it's rebuilding an engine or talking with a lonely person or baking pumpkin bread. Knowing God as creator means that you acknowledge his Godhood by doing what he created you to do. Coyotes are created to hunt. Trout are created to swim. What are you created to do? What activities bring deep, deep joy to your heart? This doesn't mean you have to make your living at these activities. (Why do we make this so complicated?) It just means you find a way to do that stuff that's deep in your heart.

A few years ago I got down on myself in serious fashion because when I go to the Boundary Waters (one of my joy activities) I sometimes neglect to read my Bible or even pray much. I came back from a canoe trip and had a really rough time getting back into the spiritual disciplines of prayer and Bible reading. I started to beat myself up pretty badly, and for a while I thought maybe I need to cut way back on my wilderness time. Finally one morning when I couldn't sleep for worrying about this, I got up, made a pot of coffee, and watched the sunrise from my screen porch. Sitting out there listening to the cardinals and robins, I began to think about all the "wilderness" stuff in the Bible. Reading that book, it sounds like God has an interest in the natural world. (I wrote a 30 page paper on this in seminary, by the way -- you'd think I would know by now.) Finally as I sat, a little confused, God's Spirit nudged me hard. "You think I'm afraid of your love of wilderness?" he said. "I created you that way. I wired that love into you. Stop worrying so much. Be who I created you to be."

God has a deep delight in creating. He is passionate about his creation, like the cabinetmaker or the chef. He created you to be passionate about some part of his creation as well, and to live in his image. Following that design will bring you joy and will benefit the rest of creation.

Who did God create you to be?

Starting Genesis

Genesis 1:1

My World Literature class at NDSU was a 90-minute class period devoted to literary works, mostly from the ancient world, not written in English. Included were several passages from the Bible, notably Genesis and Isaiah. The afternoon we began to discuss Genesis still hangs in my mind. We spent 45 minutes talking about the phrase, "In the beginning ..."

What did it mean? Why not give a date? What about setting a foundation for the rest of the work? Why just jump in like that? When is the beginning? Is there anything before the beginning? Could there be anything before the beginning? How does or doesn't this mesh with scientific understandings of the Big Bang and the primordial formation of galaxies, solar systems, planets and all the rest? What is the agenda of the writer here -- why choose this phrase?

We spent the rest of the 90 minutes talking about the word "God" and I recall walking out of class that day totally amazed at the candor and depth of the discussion at a secular university. We talked in depth about the nature of God as we understood it, and various people in the class shared their assumptions about what they think when they hear the word "God." We talked about the personal God of the Hebrews in contrast with the non-theism of the Buddhists and the multiplicity of gods in Hinduism and the impersonal God of deism. It was quite a discussion.

I find it fascinating that the Old Testament makes no argument for the existence of God. In the 1300's Thomas Aquinas, building on the foundation of Aristotle's work which had just been reintroduced to European cultures, came up with several "proofs" for the existence of God. For example, everything has a cause, said Aquinas, and that cause has been caused by something else, and if you trace that back far enough you come to an uncaused Cause or a first cause -- and that must be God. I've never found Aquinas' proofs very helpful. I like what the Bible does. "In the beginning, God ..." No arguments, no proofs, no logic, just presence. Just a story, if you like. Or if you don't like.

It almost sounds like "Once upon a time," doesn't it?

Yet God seems quite content to let the Bible tell this story about him without appealing to logic, without appealing to proofs. In the beginning God. Here he is, and if his presence makes you uncomfortable, it's just a story, so you can blow it off. But the story hangs in the back of our minds and the back of our hearts and doesn't let us escape so easily. Stories have power like that. Ever tried to forget an off-color joke? They keep coming around like a bad penny because stories are powerful. And this story of God keeps haunting us until the only way we've been able to bury this story as a culture is to create so much noise, mental and emotional and spiritual noise, that we don't think very often about God.

I heard an interview yesterday on the radio with a woman who said she had just found herself, after a long period of atheism, believing in God. And she said every morning she wakes up and asks herself the question, kind of like taking her temperature, "Do I believe in God?" She said she takes such great comfort in finding each day that yes, she still believes in God. The interviewer asked her if she attended a church. "Oh, there's no way I could do that," she said. So she is content just believing.

This seems strange to me. If you find yourself believing, wouldn't you get to know the stories about this God you believe in? And if you're struggling with belief, wouldn't you check out the stories of what the God you maybe don't believe in has purportedly done?

I think the best way to read the Bible is to arrive as if it was an enormous negotiation, carrying all we have and all we are to the table, or in my case the recliner, and then opening the Bible to encounter all God has for us. We may find that some of what we bring to the table is totally useless and needs to be discarded. But we may find that other things reflect the very image of the God we meet in these stories, and these things are of supreme value.

The important thing, however, is to keep showing up, questions and certainties and all. Read the stories. Chew on the mysteries. Laugh at the jokes. It's not the fastest way to read the Bible, but this isn't a contest.

Happy New Year!

I'm very excited about the number of people at Central who have committed to doing their best to read the Bible each day in 2010. It's not some legalistic requirement, it's just a commitment to take the Bible seriously and dig into it each day as much as possible. I know some people have hesitated to make the commitment because they're worried they'll miss a day -- but that is so not the point! Mostly, though, the response has been amazing. Last count I heard we have 577 people making this commitment. (If you're part of Central and haven't made that commitment but would like to, shoot me an email and we'll put your name on the list!) That kind of digging into Scripture is going to bear huge fruit, and I'm excited to see what God does with this in 2010.

I've been asked often what the best way is to read the Bible. I usually discourage people from starting at Genesis and reading straight through, though that method works well for some people. Usually newbies get bogged down about Exodus 30, after a few chapters of tabernacle blueprints, or in Leviticus when they can't stand reading about ritual laws and "he shall bathe and be unclean until evening" one more time. For newbies, and sometimes for old hands, I usually recommend starting with one of the gospels. John is my favorite place for people to start, because it's possible to read it at so many different levels. One thing I've done as a medium-length reading project is to read through John, then simply continue through Acts (the stories of the early Christians and how God grew the church) and then plow right on through Romans (the best summary of Christian belief and practice in the whole Bible). So that's one idea.

Some people want to take their time and read something short, but read it in depth. Mark's gospel is a good option for this. A few years ago we did a sermon series preaching through Mark and I wrote a study guide to go along with that. Those reflections and questions might be helpful to some who want a guided way to work through a book of the Bible. If you'd like a copy, let me know and we can get one to you. Email me.

Another possibility is to slow waaaay down and read and reread a short section of the Bible in order to ponder and dig deep into it. That's my winter project, as I've alluded to before, with Genesis 1-12. Those initial chapters set up so much that makes sense of the rest of the Bible, and makes sense of me & my life as well. So I'm looking forward to that digging. If you want to join me in that, I'll be posting a lot of those reflections here.

So if you haven't decided to already, I encourage you to do your best to read the Bible every day in 2010. I heard a few years ago about a priest who, immediately after a wedding ceremony was finished and before the guests filed out of the sanctuary, would pull the newly married couple aside and pray quickly with them. Then he would say to the couple, "Now you have prayed together every day of your married life. Don't let the habit die." Bible reading is kind of like that. So if you haven't started yet, here's a Bible reading for January 1st, 2010:

From Jeremiah 29:

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.