© 2013 – Copyright © Jim Magaw, all rights rerved
D o N o t B e A f r a i d
By Jim Magaw
at the Unitarian Universalist PEACE Fellowship, Raleigh, NC
Sunday, June 30, 2013r
Perhaps the most popular one-liner in the Bible, a phra that some have said appears more than 360 times in the Bible, is this: “Do not be afraid.”
And that is the phra that I would like us to keep in mind as we think about the Bible this morning: Do not be afraid. It’s a big and important book, but there’s no need to be afraid.
One of the most dramatic and exciting stories from the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, occurs in the Book of Exodus. It’s a story that’s told each year during the Passover Seder.
The Israelites escape from Pharaoh's cruel slavery after the terror of the Ten Plagues. They take off in
a hurry, fleeing to the dert without even taking the time to let their bread ri. And then, as they t up camp on the banks of the Red Sea, Pharaoh changes his mind about letting them go. He decides to pursue the Israelites and slaughter them. His charioteers come charging across the dert.
The Israelites find themlves trapped, the impassable a on one side, the charging army of Pharaoh on the other. They cry bitterly to Mos, who rais his eyes to God in prayer.
God admonishes him: "This is not the time for prayer. Command the Israelites to move forward. And lift up your staff and hold out your arm over the a and split it, so that the Israelites may march into the a on dry ground".1
According to the Torah, Mos did exactly that. The people crosd in safety. And when Pharaoh's troops followed them, the a returned and drowned them all. Thus Israel was freed once and for all from the cruelty of Pharaoh. It’s one of the greatest redemption stories of all time.
But the rabbis of a later generation read the story more critically. They were disturbed that in the story as it’s written, God does all the work while the Israelites passively watch the spectacle. God nds Mos and tells him what to say. God brings the plagues and hardens the heart of Pharaoh. God brings the Israelites out of Egypt and then saves them at the Red Sea. Where are the Israelites
themlves in the story? Where is the human role in the bringing of redemption? To answer tho questions, the rabbis, as they often did, inrted a different story between the lines.
According to the rabbis' telling, Mos leads the people to the banks of the a. Then they hear the hoofbeats of Pharaoh's approaching armies. The people cry out to Mos. Mos prays to God. He is told to hold his staff over the a, an act that will cau the a to split.
1(Exodus 14:15-16)
And he does all that, exactly as he is commanded — but the a doesn't split. He tries again, but the waters still do not part. He becomes nervous. He tries to recall the exact words of God, the exact instructions. Once again he holds the staff over the waters. And once again they do not part. Mos panics. The people panic. Everyone is frozen in fear. And no one knows what to do. No one, that is, except one man. His name was Nachshon the son of Aminadav, one of the princes of the tribes of Israel. Nachshon understood that God was waiting. God had nt Mos. And God had brought the plagues. And God had led the Israelites out of Egypt. But now God was waiting for the people to take a role in their own redemption. God, Nachshon understood, would not part the a until someone moved — until someone moved toward his or her own redemption, until someone was ready to risk his or her life to bring about salvation.
And so Nachshon waded into the waters of the Red Sea. At first everyone looked at him in wonder and awe. "What are you doing?", his family shouted. But he paid no heed; he knew exactly what he was doing. And he waded out farther, until the water covered his knees. His family screamed and shouted and begged him to return, but he went farther still, until water reached his waist. And now everyone stood in silence and watched. He waded even farther, until water covered his shoulders. And then a few more steps. And only when the water had covered his mouth and no - only then did the a split and the Israelites crosd to the other side in safety.
This story points out two things I’d like us to think about this morning:
First, there are many ways of approaching the Bible, many ways of engaging with the Bible. It’s not a simple binary, not a matter of, on the one hand believing that every word is literally true, that every word was dictated by God to be strictly obeyed; or, on the other hand, believing that the Bible is dangerous or irrelevant superstitious, patriarchal nonn, and ought to be entirely disregarded. There are more choices than the two in how to approach the Bible.
The cond point I’d like to emphasize is that, while there is a certain amount of challenge and risk involved in engaging deeply with scripture, in wading into the Bible — much as Nachson waded into
the Red Sea — that there is also potentially much reward in doing so, that in fact such an experience can help start to heal some of the wounds that we may have experienced when the Bible has been ud by others as a weapon against us and tho we love.
In terms of Biblical literalism, I think it’s important to understand that taking every word of the scriptures as being literally true is a relatively new and particularly Protestant Christian concept. It was an idea that became popular during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. The reformation was, in part, brought about by the invention of the printing press and the fact that, for the first time in history, the scriptures were available to people who were not members of the clergy. Martin Luther and other reformers believed that religious authority and meaning making ought not to reside only with the priests and the church hierarchy but instead with all believers. But, of cour, the problem was that there are many, many different ways of interpreting the
scriptures. So, some of the reformers, in an attempt to move toward what we might today call democratization, but still wanting to control the message of the Bible, extolled the virtues of a literal interpretation of the Bible.
And this kind of Biblical literalism became the dominant form of Protestant Christianity and a strong p
art of the Calvinist tradition that ruled the day. Over the past 200 years or so, however, there has been a very strong and active tradition of biblical interpretation in the Christian Church — an engagement that has not been bad in biblical literalism.
What I want us to understand is that in our own tradition, both in Unitarianism and Universalism there have been other ways of understanding the Bible outside the binary of either accepting it as literal truth or completely rejecting it. And, of cour, there are many ways of interpreting the bible outside of our own tradition as well.
The story I shared is an example of a long-standing tradition within Judaism of midrash, or extra-biblical interpretation of passages from the Bible. In this tradition, the text itlf is only the beginning and is ud as a jumping off point for other stories and many layers of meaning, ultimately leading to deeper insights about the nature of creation and the working of the cosmos. Similarly, the Benedictine practice of lectio divina is a four-step process that begins with the text but leads one toward deeper and deeper engagement with the ideas and the universal underpinnings beneath the text.
In both of the traditions, the text itlf is en as a garment that must be lifted in order to e the truth beneath it.
All of which leads me to my cond main point, which is that, although it may be problematic for many of us, I believe that it is important for us to try to engage with the Bible in deep and meaningful ways.
It’s a challenging process for veral reasons, not the least of which is that the Bible has often been ud, wrongly, as a justification for various kinds of oppression, including justifying slavery, justifying the subjugation of women and justifying the denial of basic human rights to people who are lesbian, gay, bixual or transgendered, among others.
I do not ask you to ignore or forget about the various misus of the Bible. But I do ask you to consider engaging with the Bible on your own terms and in your own time.
And I also ask that you help provide our children and youth opportunities for engaging with the Bible. Becau, without some basic knowledge and understanding of the Bible, it’s impossible to fully appreciate some of the greatest achievements of Western culture, including much of Renaissance art, the music of J.S. Bach, the works of Shakespeare and Milton and even Emily Dickinson—all of which contain references to the Bible.
And, beyond this basic educational and cultural literacy argument is the fact that to ignore the Bible i
s to ignore the insights of countless thinkers and interpreters of the Bible on issues of universal importance, issues about the meaning of life and death and suffering and forgiveness and redemption—issues that are the heart of human thought and human existence.
In the story about Mos and Nachshon, we saw a beautiful illustration of the importance of human agency, the importance of participating actively rather than passively in what’s going on around us. This idea of the importance of human agency is one of the basic building blocks of liberal religion.
The concepts of human agency of continuous revelation, that the truth is not fixed or aled, suggest that no single interpretation of any sacred text is enough. We must learn to engage more deeply with the texts, or we are not doing the spiritual and religious work needs to be done. If we ignore the texts all together, we are leaving behind one of the best tools available to humankind for transformation, and we’re leaving an interpretive gap for the generations that follow us.
Becau no single interpretation of any sacred text is enough, discussions about the Bible are often very spirited.
There was once a discussion in the academy of rabbis concerning a matter of law. The rabbis differed as to the correct interpretation. Rabbi Eliezer, one of the greatest religious scholars of his da
y, offered every proof imaginable in order to support his position but still the other rabbis would not listen to him.
Rabbi Eliezer said to them, “If the law is according to me, let this tree prove it.” And the tree moved a hundred cubits, about 150 feet. The other rabbis were not impresd and responded, “We don’t learn proofs from a carob tree.” Then Rabbi Eliezer said to his colleagues, “If I am correct regarding this matter of law, then let this stream of water prove it.” At that moment the stream of water turned and flowed backwards. But Rabbi Joshua, Eliezer’s main opponent was still unimpresd. He said, “We don’t learn proof for a matter of law from a stream of water.” Rabbi Eliezer then called upon Heaven to demonstrate the correctness of his position. He said, “If the law is according to me, then let the heavens prove it.” At that moment a Heavenly Voice cried out to all tho asmbled, “Why do you argue with Rabbi Eliezer? The law agrees with him in every ca.” Rabbi Joshua was amazed and dumbfounded for a moment; then he ro to his feet and exclaimed to the heavens: “How is this your business?”
One of the points of this story is that “No one can claim to hold the key to unlock the meaning of a sacred text, becau what was intended was for each generation to read its story into the text, and to come up with their own meaning.”
There’s a Yiddish phra that means “being a Nachshon.” It refers to the importance of being an active participant in the world around you.
I encourage each of us to be Nachshons by wading into the a of wisdom from the past as well as the prent to deepen our understanding and to engage in the work of being human co-creators of meaning and redemption in our world.
May it be so. Amen!
Speaker:
Jim Magaw graduated in May, 2013 with a master of divinity degree from Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago. He recently finished a two-year ministerial internship at the Eno River UU Fellowship in Durham, where he will be ordained this November. Jim lives in Carrboro with his wife and daughter, and currently is a development writer for University of North Carolina’s Arts and Sciences Foundation.
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