Opening the Scriptures
Luke 24:36-48(With reference to Luke 24:13-35)
Two weeks ago, when we listened to the story of Thomas, I mentioned that we can often learn more from the Bible when a familiar story becomes unfamiliar. I have to admit that I didn’t expect to be personally learning from that experience so quickly after the fact.
Last week, the Mission and Outreach Committee, along with a number of volunteers went down to Evangel Hall for what has become a yearly event for us. Many of you helped contribute to a meal that we hosted at Evangel Hall for those in need in the area west of Downtown Toronto. In all, I think we served on the order of eighty or so people last Sunday. I am grateful for all the work Mission and Outreach has put into this effort. Bev tells me that we have already booked for the last Sunday in April for next year.
As part of our hosting, following the meal, we lead a service of worship for those present who wish to stay. It is not a large gathering in comparison to the meal, but it is still a unique and powerful experience. Last week, I offered a few thoughts and reflections on what I thought I might be preaching on for this morning, but I have to admit they weren’t all that well formed. It was on the well-known story of the Road to Emmaus. When I got back into the office on Monday morning, I realized that it was not the Road to Emmaus, but the story that immediately follows it. When the disciples are discussing what had just happened with the two who encounter Jesus on the road.
Because of this mix-up in readings, I ended up taking a closer look at both… There is one thing that really stood out in both stories… but they weren’t the familiar bits at all.
I think most of the time when we read the resurrection stories, we focus so much on the encounter the disciples have with the Risen Christ, and we miss some of the more subtle themes that are there. To make matters worse, we tend to read or listen to these stories in small chunks rather than together, so it makes it that much more difficult to pick up what Luke, or any of the other is trying to tell us.
In the stories that Luke tells of the Resurrection, in both cases when Jesus appears, these are not stories of Jesus showing up and saying “hey! look at me!” In fact, in both cases, in both stories, when Jesus appears in the flesh, even that is not sufficient for the disciples to really get what is going on. Instead look a little bit closer: when Jesus appears in both stories, what does he do with the disciples? He does two things: he eats with them, and, as it says, “he opens the scriptures” to them.
Opening the Scriptures… now what on God’s green earth does that mean? I think when most of us hear that we think of Jesus reaching into his robes, and pulling out a Bible that looks like this, and flipping it open.
But while there is great value in that, this was not what Jesus was doing. After all, in those days books didn’t exist in this kind of form. The only printing press that existed was sheep skin, ink, and a reed as a writing instrument. Written scrolls were fiercely guarded by the elites… and were not accessible for common people outside of the Temple. Even so, when it came to the Scriptures, the Hebrew Cultures knew their Scripture well... The stories they shared with word of mouth, oral traditions… it was very much engrained into who they were.
So when Jesus “Opens the Scriptures” to them, he is not simply sitting down and having a Bible Study with them. He is doing something much more profound. He is helping them connect the dots. He is showing his disciples the connections between their own circumstances and stories in the moment with God’s ongoing story of creation and redemption. It’s how we all fit into what really is the big picture.
I have to admit that the timing of this passage… of talking about Opening the Scriptures… has to be more than just a coincidence. It’s one of those moments where either our ears perk up or the hair on the back of our neck stands up, because maybe we’ve just heard God whisper something to us… If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, let me back up a little bit and fill you in on some stuff that’s been going on around here lately… so keep that Opening the Scriptures theme in mind… I’ll be coming back to it soon…
On March 28th we held our second congregational health survey. A year ago, we began a process called “Natural Church Development” which is a way for us to concretely measure our congregation’s health. Each survey is a yearly snapshot of where we are currently at. We learned a lot last year, and I will say after our first survey, we really had our eyes opened. One major question this process asks is “what does a healthy church look like?”
A guiding principle behind Natural Church Development is that God wants churches to grow, and has hard-wired them to do so. In the same way that the seed for a tree is hard-wired to grow into a tree… the same can be said of the church. If the circumstances are right, the tree can’t help but to grow all on its own. In the same way for a church, if the circumstances are right… a congregation will grow all on its own. Our task is to make sure the circumstances are as favourable as possible.
The information on this is backed up with literally thousands of churches surveyed, the people who originally developed this process discovered that there are eight characteristics that all healthy churches have: Empowering Leadership, Gift-Based Ministry, Passionate Spirituality, Effective Structures, Inspiring Worship Service, Holistic Small Groups, Need-oriented Evangelism, and Loving Relationships. The survey measures how healthy we are in each of these categories, and helps us focus on what the needs of the congregation really are… in a way that is objective… and not simply grounded in one’s personal opinion.
When we did the survey last year, not surprisingly, “Passionate Spirituality” was the area we needed to work on the most. You’ve probably heard some of that before… but what you haven’t heard is that when we did the survey last year, the overall congregational health was indeed quite low… and among that Passionate Spirituality was exceptionally low… So we set up a focus group for everybody to come to, so that we could start trying to identifying the barriers that were getting in the way of us growing freely and naturally in our Spirituality. It was from the discussions in the focus group last year that we started doing different things to try and remove those barriers to growth. You may be aware of a number of these activities… we recently asked for your feedback on them in a letter… Today is the last day to get those in by the way…
So with all that in mind, we held the second survey to give us another snapshot of the congregation’s health… to see what progress we have made over the past year… and to see where we need to go next. We will be doing this on a yearly basis to make sure we stay on track.
I have to say, when the results came back on the second survey, I was blown away. Wow… what an improvement… and I can’t emphasize that enough!
According to all the stuff we have learned about this process, we improved our congregation’s health significantly over the past year. In fact, we improved more than five times what is considered to be “significant.” This isn’t just because we did a survey, it’s because many of you came together in those focus groups and helped us better understand the things that are preventing us from being a healthier congregation. This is not something that I did… or that the Long Range Planning Team did, or that Session did… this is something that all of us are doing, in partnership with God. This is no small feat! This is why we’re celebrating with a cake during coffee hour… that’s the surprise we’re talking about!
We’ll be going into more detail when we hold our next Focus Group day on Saturday, May 23rd. Even if you didn’t fill out the survey this year, or even last year, this is open to everyone in the congregation. We are going to be asking more questions that will help us move forward over the coming year. As much as we improved over the past year the quality of Passionate Spirituality over the coming year remains as an area for us to continue trying to remove barriers to growth.
Now just before you say, “but we did that last year!!” I need to say that we improved considerably, and the whole quality of congregational life along with it. Everything went up, so it’s not surprising that our lowest last year still remains our lowest this year. Yet from what the survey seems to indicate, we have substantially improved our prayer life, but we still have room to grow in understanding our experiences of God, and our comfort level with the Bible…
So did you catch that? Our comfort level with the Bible… or perhaps to put it another way, we need to be more comfortable in opening the Scriptures. Where have we heard that before?
Oh right!! Luke! We now come back to the experience of Jesus that the disciples have at the end of Luke’s gospel. Where Jesus “opens the scriptures” to them… Maybe that’s the theme that we are looking at over the next year… which is why the passage from Luke seems to fit so incredibly well to where we are currently at. Maybe God is calling us to try and connect those dots a bit better… to try and focus on how the Biblical story connects to our own story.
But we need to do it in a way that is authentic to us… to who we are as a congregation… and to who each of us are individually. I think too often we hear something like this, and it means that we suddenly have to become those TV preachers. That’s not what this is about. It is about being real and genuine to who we are in our own walk and growth in faith.
When Jesus encounters the two companions on the road, and when he encounters the disciples a short time later, he is meeting them where they are at. He walks alongside people who don’t even recognize him, and opens the scriptures to them. He comes to the disciples who had been scattered, confused, and who had even betrayed him in his most desperate moment… and he opens the scriptures to them… in a way that they can understand. This is what opening the scriptures is about… it is encountering the Biblical story and connecting it to our own personal life and story… no matter where we happen to be at on our own journey of faith.
Amen.
Two weeks ago, when we listened to the story of Thomas, I mentioned that we can often learn more from the Bible when a familiar story becomes unfamiliar. I have to admit that I didn’t expect to be personally learning from that experience so quickly after the fact.
Last week, the Mission and Outreach Committee, along with a number of volunteers went down to Evangel Hall for what has become a yearly event for us. Many of you helped contribute to a meal that we hosted at Evangel Hall for those in need in the area west of Downtown Toronto. In all, I think we served on the order of eighty or so people last Sunday. I am grateful for all the work Mission and Outreach has put into this effort. Bev tells me that we have already booked for the last Sunday in April for next year.
As part of our hosting, following the meal, we lead a service of worship for those present who wish to stay. It is not a large gathering in comparison to the meal, but it is still a unique and powerful experience. Last week, I offered a few thoughts and reflections on what I thought I might be preaching on for this morning, but I have to admit they weren’t all that well formed. It was on the well-known story of the Road to Emmaus. When I got back into the office on Monday morning, I realized that it was not the Road to Emmaus, but the story that immediately follows it. When the disciples are discussing what had just happened with the two who encounter Jesus on the road.
Because of this mix-up in readings, I ended up taking a closer look at both… There is one thing that really stood out in both stories… but they weren’t the familiar bits at all.
I think most of the time when we read the resurrection stories, we focus so much on the encounter the disciples have with the Risen Christ, and we miss some of the more subtle themes that are there. To make matters worse, we tend to read or listen to these stories in small chunks rather than together, so it makes it that much more difficult to pick up what Luke, or any of the other is trying to tell us.
In the stories that Luke tells of the Resurrection, in both cases when Jesus appears, these are not stories of Jesus showing up and saying “hey! look at me!” In fact, in both cases, in both stories, when Jesus appears in the flesh, even that is not sufficient for the disciples to really get what is going on. Instead look a little bit closer: when Jesus appears in both stories, what does he do with the disciples? He does two things: he eats with them, and, as it says, “he opens the scriptures” to them.
Opening the Scriptures… now what on God’s green earth does that mean? I think when most of us hear that we think of Jesus reaching into his robes, and pulling out a Bible that looks like this, and flipping it open.
But while there is great value in that, this was not what Jesus was doing. After all, in those days books didn’t exist in this kind of form. The only printing press that existed was sheep skin, ink, and a reed as a writing instrument. Written scrolls were fiercely guarded by the elites… and were not accessible for common people outside of the Temple. Even so, when it came to the Scriptures, the Hebrew Cultures knew their Scripture well... The stories they shared with word of mouth, oral traditions… it was very much engrained into who they were.
So when Jesus “Opens the Scriptures” to them, he is not simply sitting down and having a Bible Study with them. He is doing something much more profound. He is helping them connect the dots. He is showing his disciples the connections between their own circumstances and stories in the moment with God’s ongoing story of creation and redemption. It’s how we all fit into what really is the big picture.
I have to admit that the timing of this passage… of talking about Opening the Scriptures… has to be more than just a coincidence. It’s one of those moments where either our ears perk up or the hair on the back of our neck stands up, because maybe we’ve just heard God whisper something to us… If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, let me back up a little bit and fill you in on some stuff that’s been going on around here lately… so keep that Opening the Scriptures theme in mind… I’ll be coming back to it soon…
On March 28th we held our second congregational health survey. A year ago, we began a process called “Natural Church Development” which is a way for us to concretely measure our congregation’s health. Each survey is a yearly snapshot of where we are currently at. We learned a lot last year, and I will say after our first survey, we really had our eyes opened. One major question this process asks is “what does a healthy church look like?”
A guiding principle behind Natural Church Development is that God wants churches to grow, and has hard-wired them to do so. In the same way that the seed for a tree is hard-wired to grow into a tree… the same can be said of the church. If the circumstances are right, the tree can’t help but to grow all on its own. In the same way for a church, if the circumstances are right… a congregation will grow all on its own. Our task is to make sure the circumstances are as favourable as possible.
The information on this is backed up with literally thousands of churches surveyed, the people who originally developed this process discovered that there are eight characteristics that all healthy churches have: Empowering Leadership, Gift-Based Ministry, Passionate Spirituality, Effective Structures, Inspiring Worship Service, Holistic Small Groups, Need-oriented Evangelism, and Loving Relationships. The survey measures how healthy we are in each of these categories, and helps us focus on what the needs of the congregation really are… in a way that is objective… and not simply grounded in one’s personal opinion.
When we did the survey last year, not surprisingly, “Passionate Spirituality” was the area we needed to work on the most. You’ve probably heard some of that before… but what you haven’t heard is that when we did the survey last year, the overall congregational health was indeed quite low… and among that Passionate Spirituality was exceptionally low… So we set up a focus group for everybody to come to, so that we could start trying to identifying the barriers that were getting in the way of us growing freely and naturally in our Spirituality. It was from the discussions in the focus group last year that we started doing different things to try and remove those barriers to growth. You may be aware of a number of these activities… we recently asked for your feedback on them in a letter… Today is the last day to get those in by the way…
So with all that in mind, we held the second survey to give us another snapshot of the congregation’s health… to see what progress we have made over the past year… and to see where we need to go next. We will be doing this on a yearly basis to make sure we stay on track.
I have to say, when the results came back on the second survey, I was blown away. Wow… what an improvement… and I can’t emphasize that enough!
According to all the stuff we have learned about this process, we improved our congregation’s health significantly over the past year. In fact, we improved more than five times what is considered to be “significant.” This isn’t just because we did a survey, it’s because many of you came together in those focus groups and helped us better understand the things that are preventing us from being a healthier congregation. This is not something that I did… or that the Long Range Planning Team did, or that Session did… this is something that all of us are doing, in partnership with God. This is no small feat! This is why we’re celebrating with a cake during coffee hour… that’s the surprise we’re talking about!
We’ll be going into more detail when we hold our next Focus Group day on Saturday, May 23rd. Even if you didn’t fill out the survey this year, or even last year, this is open to everyone in the congregation. We are going to be asking more questions that will help us move forward over the coming year. As much as we improved over the past year the quality of Passionate Spirituality over the coming year remains as an area for us to continue trying to remove barriers to growth.
Now just before you say, “but we did that last year!!” I need to say that we improved considerably, and the whole quality of congregational life along with it. Everything went up, so it’s not surprising that our lowest last year still remains our lowest this year. Yet from what the survey seems to indicate, we have substantially improved our prayer life, but we still have room to grow in understanding our experiences of God, and our comfort level with the Bible…
So did you catch that? Our comfort level with the Bible… or perhaps to put it another way, we need to be more comfortable in opening the Scriptures. Where have we heard that before?
Oh right!! Luke! We now come back to the experience of Jesus that the disciples have at the end of Luke’s gospel. Where Jesus “opens the scriptures” to them… Maybe that’s the theme that we are looking at over the next year… which is why the passage from Luke seems to fit so incredibly well to where we are currently at. Maybe God is calling us to try and connect those dots a bit better… to try and focus on how the Biblical story connects to our own story.
But we need to do it in a way that is authentic to us… to who we are as a congregation… and to who each of us are individually. I think too often we hear something like this, and it means that we suddenly have to become those TV preachers. That’s not what this is about. It is about being real and genuine to who we are in our own walk and growth in faith.
When Jesus encounters the two companions on the road, and when he encounters the disciples a short time later, he is meeting them where they are at. He walks alongside people who don’t even recognize him, and opens the scriptures to them. He comes to the disciples who had been scattered, confused, and who had even betrayed him in his most desperate moment… and he opens the scriptures to them… in a way that they can understand. This is what opening the scriptures is about… it is encountering the Biblical story and connecting it to our own personal life and story… no matter where we happen to be at on our own journey of faith.
Amen.
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