When it comes to the Bible, many, if not most, Anglicans feel uncomfortable and perhaps a little ashamed. We Anglicans tend to feel inadequate when it comes to the Bible and the knowledge of the scriptures. For me, in Lenten and other study groups, in discussion groups meeting in the comfort of a parishioner’s living room, I used to be very involved years ago with house church movements, and our congregation met in people’s homes on a regular basis. And after mass at the coffee hour, I’ve heard people say how they wish they knew more about the Bible.
Many of us Anglicans feel especially uncomfortable when we are put on the spot. Not just the clergy, but all Anglicans. Put on the spot by someone who sounds like they have a better handle on what the Bible is all about and just can’t say enough about what the Bible is saying. Many, if not all of us, have been confronted by a Bible-quoting individual somewhere at some time. Like answering that knock on the door when you’re up to your elbows in work around the house that just has to get done. But we answer the door and we are met by two smiling faces, tracts in hand—Jehovah’s Witnesses who have the knack of quoting the Bible chapter and verse non-stop. Although their quotes are from a Bible which has been adjusted to suit their own peculiar understanding of the divine will and of God’s purpose for humankind and for all creation.
Years and years ago, I made the mistake of once answering a knock on the rectory door. It was a bright, bright Saturday morning in spring. One of those mornings that you think, “Oh, it’s here. Spring and summer’s on its way,” and I answered the door. Well, I was greeted by friendly smiles and a warm hello, and it caught me off guard. I remember thinking something like, “Well, I have the time right now. I’m okay. I can leave the things I was doing. I’m okay with a conversation.” Of course, I made a big mistake in saying I was a Christian when I was asked, and I made an even bigger mistake by saying that I was a priest. Well, 40 long and tiresome minutes or so later, I ended the conversation and swiftly shut the door, aiming to clear my head and regain my peace of mind. And then, looking out the living room window, I saw them walking down the front steps of the rectory. And I thought they were probably talking to each other—which they were—and giving thanks that they had made a good witness to another poor, lost soul.
Conversations about the Bible can unnerve many an Anglican who feels that they’re not that well acquainted or confident with what the Bible says. To be honest, a quick recall of scripture passages accompanied by chapter and verse—something our evangelical brothers and sisters have prided themselves on—hasn’t been an Anglican characteristic or an Anglican forte. While Anglicans can claim to a fairly good knowledge of the Bible, most Anglicans, clergy included, get lost in all the details in obscure bits hauled out when the rapid-fire quoter of chapter and verse gets going.
Uncomfortable and embarrassed as we may be when it comes to Bible knowledge, Anglicans should never, ever sell themselves short. Grounding in the broad themes of the scriptures is far more important than a quick memory of chapter and verse applied to each and every experience, event, and moment of our lives. And thankfully, as our faith matures and as we work with it, we learn that is the wrong way to read the scriptures.
The Bible illustrates in the Old and New Testament, and in the Apocrypha, that God’s constant love is with us. God’s constant love was present in creation. God’s loving relationship with his people is illustrated throughout the pages of the Old Testament and the New. God’s love is present and active in Jesus. And God’s abiding embrace of this world, the real concerns of this world, and God’s love of all creation is there in scripture from beginning to end. After all is said and done, in God we live and move and have our being. Now, in no way do I say those words from Acts chapter 17 as a proof text, but they came to mind. For in God we do live and move and have our being.
You know, much of the wording of Anglican liturgy, whether from the Book of Common Prayer or the Book of Alternative Services, comes from the scriptures. Many scriptural phrases and sentences are knit together in the prayers of the Anglican liturgy. The spirit of the scriptures has inspired and undergirds our liturgies and the wealth of prayers that we have inherited from the past, as well as those that are written present. There are a few verses that generations of Anglicans know well and can quickly recall when asked, although we may not remember chapter and verse.
In the communion rite of the Book of Common Prayer, four verses from scripture follow the confession and absolution. Two verses are drawn from the Gospels of Matthew and John, and two are taken from the epistles, First Timothy and First John. Together, we Anglicans have come to know them by the moniker “The Comfortable Words.” These four sentences were incorporated into one of the first liturgies in the English language of the day by the architect of the Book of Common Prayer, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of the English Reformation. They appeared in a rite of confession, one of the first rites in English authorized for use in the churches of England. It was a rite to be conducted prior to the celebration of mass, which was said in Latin. It was a rite of preparation—preparation of God’s people for communion. And the Comfortable Words, as we call them, were included with an exhortation, the confession itself, and the absolution.
The Comfortable Words were included to give strength and encouragement. And encouragement is the key word to remember when we read scripture. Encouragement in the sense of inspiration, and in the sense of building up the individual and building up our faith. Encouragement in the sense of being strengthened. But comfortable also can mean giving solace, like comforting a crying child who’s just fallen and skinned their knees. That too, but much, much more.
One of the four verses that we call Comfortable Words appears in today’s gospel: “Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Or, as it reads in the rite of confession and in the Book of Common Prayer: “Come unto me all that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.”
For me, when I hear that sentence, the well-known 1850s painting by Holman Hunt in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, England, always comes to mind. When I hear the words, it’s that picture that I have in front of me. And the window here on the north wall of this church is based upon it. It reflects it. Not exactly, but it has basically the same image. It’s Jesus with a lantern in his hand standing in a garden, knocking at a door. As you look at the door, it can’t be opened from Jesus’ side. There’s no handle. The door can only be opened, obviously, from the inside. So, whoever is on the interior side—the other side of the door—must open it and let the one who knocks in.
Well, for me, when I hear those Comfortable Words, that sentence “Come unto me,” this is what I picture: Jesus knocking. The image of Jesus knocking illustrates for me God speaking directly to me individually, as he does to you individually, and speaking to us directly as his people, the church. God speaking to us personally, on the level of knowing and loving us just as we are. The image illustrates the immediacy, the closeness, and the constancy of God’s presence with each of us and among us.
So Jesus’ words, “Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens,” speak directly to human experience. The all-too-human experience of coping with the troublesome and taxing challenges that life brings our way day by day. Like all scripture, they offer hope and assurance that we are not on our own and that we do not have to make it on our own. God’s understanding and God’s support are there for the asking. In fact, God’s support is there before we even reach out for it. God, unlike ourselves, is always willing to ease the weight of another’s burden. Always there, always listening, always ready—ready for us to say, “Lord,” and reach out to him.
The words of Jesus can offer respite from the world, its duties, its responsibilities, its burdens. All of scripture can do that. But Jesus’ words always relate to the world and take us back to the real world. The world where we live out our days, this place here, this earth, this world. For our salvation isn’t worked out in a vacuum. And our salvation is not confined to a box. The words of Jesus when we hear them, and the words of all of scripture when we read it and hear it, root us in this real world. It doesn’t take us out of it. It roots us here and speaks to us directly about this place we call home, this earth.
I want to leave you with some words from a short book that I urge you to get your hands on whenever you can. It’s titled How Not to Read the Bible. It was published in 2019 by Novalis Publishing and was written by a Canadian biblical scholar and teacher, Professor Scott Lewis SJ (Society of Jesus). Until recently, Scott Lewis was an associate professor of New Testament at Regis College in Toronto, and he’s written a number of books. This book is really helpful in understanding the scriptures, so I will just share a few sentences towards the end of the book:
“We do not read the gospels,” he writes, “nor all scripture looking for information. We need to be willing to enter into Jesus’ story along with our own, allowing ourselves to be taken up and swept along by the narrative. This doesn’t mean naively or uncritically, but with the openness and the reverence appropriate to the message or word contained in the text. And that word is Jesus himself.” He says, “We don’t figure Jesus out or construct theories when we read scripture. We encounter him in the journey through the text.”
So we Anglicans, whenever it may be that we feel embarrassed, a little bit uncertain, or unsure of what to say about our faith or about the scripture, we never have to be embarrassed about our knowledge of the Bible. Our liturgy and our life together knit us with the words of scripture and its themes.
So you and I as Anglicans, believing Christians, we should never, ever sell ourselves short when it comes to the scriptures, when it comes to the faith, and when it comes to God’s purpose for us and his creation.
Indeed, blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.