Marking Time

“Be glad to. Any idiot can read a bible. I had a great-aunt who could quote anything in the bible chapter and verse. I have people in my own church who take great pride in the fact they can quote any passage chapter and verse. They have memorized every word. What a waste. If you were to ask them what that chapter and verse actually means, they don’t have the foggiest idea. They will sound like a first grader trying to explain quantum physics. They take untold pride in knowing the words. But, that’s all they know, the words. What a meaningless effort. That is not what I’m talking about.”
“My step-father, who did know what the words meant, said that in any group of Christians there are actually three groups. One group of people believes that every word in the Bible came straight from the mouth of God. The second group believes it’s a nice book with some enlightening stories. And, the third group sincerely believes that from cover to cover it’s nothing but bull. He said not to worry about the last group because the last place they would ever want to be is in a church. He said it’s the other two groups you concern yourself with.”
“That makes sense.”
“He said that the ones who believe that every word in the Bible is accurate and true are never the brightest bulbs in the package. But, if you play to them, the others will be satisfied.”
“Play to them? What do you mean.”
“The first group believes the words are absolutely literal. The other group doesn’t really care. They don’t care if Jesus was riding on a donkey or an ass, they’re educated enough, and smart enough, to look at it simply that Jesus was traveling. If you say that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, the first group will correct you and tell you that the Bible says that Jonah was swallowed by a huge fish. As far as the second group is concerned, Jonah could have been swallowed by the shark in the movie Jaws, it wouldn’t matter. The gist of the story is that Jonah was swallowed by something. What it was really doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. So, you try to satisfy the literalists, you satisfy both.”
“It does make perfectly good sense.”
“Yes it does. Anyone with a shred of good sense knows it would be impossible to flood the entire world. The water has got to come from somewhere and wherever the water comes from is dry. But, you tell a literalist that and you’ve got a pissing contest started. You just say the whole world was flooded, the literalist is happy and the other guys will concern themselves with the story, not where the water came from.”
“All this time as a priest and I’ve never thought. . . never mind.”
“Okay, next, avoid bear traps.”
“What pray tell, is a bear trap?”
“A bear trap is something that will slam shut and not let go. The television preachers get caught in bear traps all the time, just listen to them. They constantly say, ‘God wants us to. . .’. If you’ve got a church full of people who can’t tie their own shoes, saying something like that is okay. They’ll take what you said as true and move on. But, if you have one person in that church who has the ability to think beyond his next meal, he’ll know that what you said God thinks is just your opinion and anything else that you say will just be opinion and therefore, wasted air. At no place in the Bible did God say ‘I want you to’.”
“Amazing, damn amazing.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Okay, but how do you make the Bible exciting, even motivating?’
“By not trying to make it anything but what it is.”
“Glad you explained it. That makes no sense.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t over examine the Bible. We don’t have any idea who wrote what or why they wrote it. They might have been inspired or someone may have waved a few silver shekels at them. We don’t know. We don’t know how many changes the monks who copied the bible for a thousand years made, but it is still the best collection of moral stories ever compiled. Just find the story and tell it. Who cares if it actually happened or it didn’t? Who cares if it happened on Mt. Ararat or on top of Old Smokey? It’s the story that matters, not the details. The Good Samaritan helped the traveler. That’s all that matters. Whether he was laying on the left side of the road or the right doesn’t mean a thing. Whether he was knocked in the head or had a broken leg doesn’t change a thing. Whether it actually happened or not doesn’t mean squat.”
“No it doesn’t. And the second you concern yourself with that, you miss the whole story.”
“Bingo!”
“You want to do the sermon Sunday?” asked Davy. “You want to pick out something and bring it down to the basics. Just like we said about Lombardi. . . ‘Gentlemen, this is a football’.”
“Yes, I want to do it. Believe it or not, I’m excited about it.”
“Good, just make it a good Baptist sermon.”