Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
June 7, 2009

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

“We take the Bible seriously, not literally.” We proclaim that way of looking at Scripture every Sunday on our bulletin. Indeed, it is one of the things that distinguishes this church from most, if not quite all, of the other churches in the area. Most Christians in these parts are Biblical literalists. We are not. Most Christians today are unaware that there is any way to understand the Bible other than literally. Most people in our culture today are unaware that there is any way to understand anything other than literally, and that cultural assumption determines even how Christians see their sacred text, the Bible. Now, it is no surprise to any of you who have read the work of Marcus Borg, or the work of my favorite author—me—that there is indeed another way to understand the Bible. It is the way of metaphor, of analogy, of myth, with myth understood as a story that serves to mediate God to us and to connect us with God.

All of those Biblical literalists among us, of course, would want some Biblical warrant for understanding the Bible some way other than literally. If you can’t support your non-literalism with some Bible text that we can understand literally, they would say, there’s no reason for us to listen to you and your heretical nonsense. Demanding something that can be understood literally to support non-literalism is circular reasoning of the worst sort, but never mind.

You may be surprised to learn that there actually is a Biblical text that rejects literalism. We just heard it. It is the story of Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus from the third chapter of John. In that conversation Jesus says to Nicodemus: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The Greek that is translated here “from above” can also mean “anew” or “again.” That verse is the source of the phrase “born again,” as in “born again Christian.” Nicodemus understands Jesus literally. He thinks Jesus is talking about literal, physical, biological birth. He says: “How can anyone be born after they have grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Nicodemus is a literalist. He just doesn’t get it that Jesus is speaking metaphorically here. He thinks: If Jesus said it, I must understand it literally, just like all those Christian literalists of our own day.

And Jesus will have none of it. After a few more rather enigmatic lines that clearly show that Jesus is speaking metaphorically Nicodemus says: “How can these things be?” Jesus, apparently running out of patience with Nicodemus’ intractable literalism, says: “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Then he says if you don’t understand what I say about earthly things, how can you understand if I tell you about heavenly things? There is in these words what I think is a clear and necessary inference: The only way to speak about heavenly things, that is, about God, is in the language of metaphor, symbol, and myth. That’s what Jesus is doing here, and his message is that such language is indeed the only possible way correctly to speak about the divine, about the spiritual, about God.

So there you have it. A Biblical warrant for non-literalism. Indeed, a Biblical mandate for non-literalism. The Gospel of John, that favorite Gospel of conservative, evangelical, literalistic Christianity, tells us right near the beginning that we need to understand what Jesus is saying non-literally. We need to understand what he says, indeed we need to understand the entire Bible, as metaphor, indeed as myth in the sense of myth as story that connects us with God.

Friends, our world today so desperately needs that word of scriptural non-literalism. Literalism is killing Christianity by locking it into untenable factual claims that no thinking person can really accept. Scriptural literalism leads to religious extremism, and religious extremism leads to violence. The best example of that phenomenon today is Islamic extremism expressed in acts of terror, but it’s not hard to find Christian examples of the phenomenon as well. Think of northern Ireland, or the violence against clinics and doctors who provide medical services to women. Yes, our world today badly needs a way of understanding scripture, indeed of understanding religion, that is non-literal, that is not locked in the straightjacket that literalism creates.

So the question arises” Who’s going to bring our world that message that there is a better way to understand faith? Well, consider the passage we just heard from the prophet Isaiah. In that story Isaiah has a vision of the throne room of God in heaven. It’s a frightful scene, full of shaking and smoke with giant, fantastic winged beasts flying around and singing out to God. In that scene God says: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And there’s Isaiah standing in fear and awe, and when he hears God’s question, what does he do? Does he shrink back? Does he say “But people won’t like what you want me to say. People will disagree. People might even get angry with me.” No. None of that. God hasn’t even specifically asked him to be the one to go, but Isaiah says: “Here I am; send me.” He knows that there is divine work to be done. At this point in the story he doesn’t even know specifically what that work is. Nonetheless he says: “Here I am; send me.” God calls for someone to go on a mission, and Isaiah answers the call with alacrity.

And here’s the lesson for us today: We know that God is asking: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us, to spread the word that there is a better vision of the faith. And the only possible response we can make is: “Here we are; send us.” We’re small. We’re not prominent in this place. We’re outnumbered by the literalists all around us. They are energetic, committed, and zealous for their vision of the faith. That’s fine, for them; but other people need the message God wants to send. And Isaiah was even smaller than we are, only one person not a whole congregation, not even a small congregation like us. And he didn’t hesitate. He said “Here am I, send me.” And we read his words to this day, some 2,700 years after the words we heard this morning were written.

Isaiah didn’t let all the reasons why he shouldn’t be the one to answer God’s call stop him from answering that call. There are, I suppose, all sorts of reasons why we shouldn’t be the ones to answer God’s call either, but here’s the thing. God doesn’t want any part of our reasons, of our excuses. God says: Be unreasonable! God says: Go ahead. Consider all your reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t do it. They may on one level all be perfectly valid. But then stare all your reasons squarely in the eye and say a loud and hearty “Nonetheless!” Do it any way! God says “Whom shall if send, and who will go for us?” Are we ready to answer with Isaiah “Here we are; send us”? I hope so. Amen.