To hear the Gospel and make a difference; it sounds familiar and it should.  It’s our Parish Mission Statement, what we’re about, to hear the Gospel and make a difference.  During Advent for four weeks we reflected on it; it was the theme for Advent. And here it is Lent and it’s our theme for Lent too, with a switch.  During Advent we focused on making a difference, but what we want to focus on the first five weekends of Lent is to hear the Gospel and we’ll be asking questions about each of those weekends.

          The first of the five is:  Does Hearing the Gospel Get Misheard?  Does it get misheard?  My reaction when I heard that was sometimes the Gospel doesn’t get heard at all.  You know, we believe in what we call the real presence and we believe in the real presence at a number of levels.  We believe that Jesus, not Jesus of Nazareth, but Christ who has risen, Christ who is a living spirit, the living life-giving spirit of Christ is really present, really present in the poor but only if we pay attention, really present when we gather in the name of the Lord but only if we do so in faith and in love, really present in the word of scripture but only if we pay attention.  You notice at the end of the reading the readers say, “The Word of the Lord”.  They don’t point at the book and say this is “The Word of the Lord”.  They say “The Word of the Lord” pointing at us which means The Word of the Lord and the presence of God is not in the print; it’s not in their enunciation; it’s not in their proclamation; it’s not in their vocabulary and it’s not in their vocal noise that they are making. It’s in the ears of our heart; it’s in us listening as a people with faith; it’s in our attentiveness and that’s why one priest I know always wants to hold up the scripture and say, “This might have been The Word of the Lord."  I don’t know looking at you if this might have been The Word of the Lord. 

          Last weekend, Fr. Declan mentioned how the scripture, and especially Jesus, comes to turn the world upside down, a quote from G.K. Chesterton.  Or he referred to the eight Beatitudes as a series of bombshells.  There is a great author, a writer, a believer, a convert, Kathleen Norris; and she says “When we go to church we should be wearing crash helmets and seat belts because we are going to be hit by the Word of Lord again and again”.  Well, by and large, that’s not my experience.  I have to talk for myself too, but maybe for some of you.  I think we have perfected the glassy stare.  We have perfected the pious look.  We have perfected the dismissal of the scripture as soon as we hear the first few words and we say, "Oh, I’ve heard that before; I know what that one’s all about."  That’s why it’s not a bad line to say, this just might have been The Word of the Lord.  Maybe yes.  Maybe no. 

          Does hearing the Gospel get misheard?  Well, obviously it does.  In today’s Gospel the Devil quotes the scripture.  The Devil misuses and mishears the scripture.  I think the test is when we listen to scripture do we allow it to change us or rather do we change it?  Do we use the scripture for something we already believe in or do we let the scripture teach us and learn something from the scripture.  For example, people take the line from scripture:  “The poor you will have always with you,” which is among other things a challenge to generosity.  And instead they say, “Jesus said the poor will always be here so we don’t have to do anything about it.”  I love my favorite quote from scripture:  “The Lord helps those who help themselves.”  That’s a great scripture.  First of all, it’s great because it’s against what all scripture says, “The Lord helps us and we help one another.”  But secondly, it comes from Aesop’s Fables and from Ben Franklin. It’s not in the scripture at all, but people quote it as from the Bible. 

          The three most common ways I can think of that we mishear and misunderstand the scripture all have the same cause:  literalism or fundamentalism.  Now you have to be careful about the word "fundamentalism."  It comes from a gathering in the early 1900’s of Protestants trying to agree what the fundamentals are and by that shutting out a lot of what the scripture says.  But it’s not a Protestant or Christian thing.  One of the worst problems we have in the world today around religion and for peace in the world are fundamentalists.  We have Muslim Fundamentalists. We have Jewish Fundamentalists. We have Buddhists Fundamentalists. We have Protestant Fundamentalists, and we have Catholic Fundamentalists, and they are all a major problem.  Please, don’t become one.

          When we look at the scripture these are the major mistakes I think people use to mishear the scripture.  First of all, they think of it as a scientific report, which it is not.  They think of it as a documentary, which it is not.  They think of it as a secret code, which it is not.  It’s not a scientific report.  If we want a scientific account of creation, or of the age of the universe, or of its formation go to science. Don’t go to the Bible.  It’s not in the Bible.  It’s not a critique of the theories of science, either of the theory of gravity or the theory of evolution; and nor is it a promotion of a new idea that just came up recently only in the United States called “intelligent design”.  It’s not a scientific report and was never meant to be.

          Secondly, it’s not a documentary.  The scripture, especially the Gospels, recount sections of history but always with a slanted view, always with a twist, always with an opinion that was formed after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  What we really have in the Gospels are sermons and faith statements.  We have a deeper truth, a truth for our lives.  That’s why a friend of mine always says, “All of it is true; some of it actually happened,”  because the scripture writers are telling us what our faith is about and what faith in Jesus is about. 

          Thirdly, the scripture is not a secret code.  It does not give us the number of those who will be saved and those who won’t.  It does not give us the timing of the end of the world and it does not reflect on current politics.  There are people who read the Book of Revelation and talk about the beast from the north and say, "Aha, that’s Russia."  And they say the Red Dragon has to be China.  That is not the secret code book.  It’s a book of hope for our present life.

          So, what then is the scripture and what should we be doing about it?  It brings us religious truths. It brings us truths for our salvation, and it brings us meaning for our life, for our wisdom, for our values.  That’s the question we have to always ask, what does it have to do with my life?  So I have three suggestions for us during Lent.
Number one,  try, try, try and it’s not easy.  So many distractions but listen to the readings and scripture and hear them with a question in mind, what meaning does it have for my life?

          Secondly, make use of those little black books that are outside.  We invite you to pick them up.  Six minutes of reflection each day taking you through the season of Lent and the scripture.

          And thirdly, one thing if you’ve never done it before you might want to do for this Lent is read one book of the Bible all the way through.  I would suggest you take one of the Gospels.  I’m going to take the Book of Mark because it’s the shortest.  (Laughter)  It’s the length of two-pages of the Contra Costa Times.  So, that’s all it is but say once in my life I sat down and I read a whole book of the Bible from start to finish and I asked the question, what meaning does it have for my life?  What does it mean for me?  And this may have been The Word of the Lord.
          Amen.

rjs