[Parish] Tina's Sermon

[Malcolm Young]

Dear Friends,

I'm such an idiot.  I should have included Tina's sermon from the  
week before as I promised.  You'll find her script here below.

Boy, there are so many ways to communicate theologically nowadays...

In Christ,

Malcolm



========================================================


Reading Bible and Listening to Sermons

Are we a Bible teaching church?  N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham in  
England, recently said addressing  people from emerging churches,  
"You say you are Bible churches and we are not.  Let me tell you, we  
Anglicans read three lessons from the Bible each Sunday service.  Our  
sermons are focused on the Bible readings.  Our choirs sing the Psalm  
so beautifully.  You don't know what you are missing."

There are two senses of the Bible:  The literal sense --  what does  
it say?  and the spiritual sense -- what is God's plan in it? what  
does it mean to me?

During the Sunday service, and in our Bible study, we read snippets  
here and there, we pray and we think.  We get a lot of spiritual  
sense, but not enough literal sense.  Let me give you an example.   
Suppose we read Shakespeare in bible study.  The first reading is  
from Romeo and Juliet act three, scene one. Romeo said "O, I am  
fortune's fool!."  OK, what do you think?  How does it strike you?  
Everyone has something to say about fortune's fool.  Nobody cares  
where Romeo came from or where he was going.  We need to rush to the  
second reading, Hamlet act one, scene two. Hamlet said, "Frailty, thy  
name is woman." What do you think? Everyone has a lot to say about  
women.  Nobody cares which woman Hamlet was referring to. You can  
read Shakespeare like this for twenty years without knowing who  
Juliet is.

Why do we study Bible this way?  I can think of three reasons.   
Reason one: we don't have time to read the entire book together; we  
are supposed to read Bible on our own.  Reason two: a lot of the  
stuff in the Bible are too graphic, we only read rated PG passages in  
church.  Reason three: It is easier for a church to teach only a  
selected subset of the Bible that fits the church's doctrine.  Nobody  
says you need to read the entire Bible in order to go to heaven.  It  
is just that if you don't, you won't know what you are missing.

There are 66 books in the Bible plus the Apocrypha.  In these pages,  
we see blood, tears, joy and agony.  It is thousands of years of a  
love story between a real God and real people.  In today's  
politically correct society, even in movies we see fictitious love,  
artificial violence, robots fighting aliens wars.  Read the Bible,  
one book at a time, in its literal sense.  We can see how to run a  
refugee camp, what it is like to be a king or a widow, how an  
inspired prophet feels when his nation is on the brink of  
annihilation,  what a real war looks like, not robots, I mean, real  
stuff, elephants, phalanx, catapults.  The best way to enjoy a  
fascinating story is to read along with dramatized recordings with  
exciting background music, just like in a movie.  The easiest way to  
read a boring chapter like genealogy is also to read along so that  
you don't have to skip lines.  If you have 30 minutes to spare before  
or after service, come to my stand in parish
  hall, I will have everything set up for you.

In my hand out, I copied Jeff Cavins's Bible time line.  He selected  
14 narrative books to tell the entire bible story.  For example, if  
you want to read prophetic books, you should first read first and  
second Kings.  That will give you the background of the divided  
kingdoms and exile periods.  If you plan to read Kings or Maccabees,  
please come to me, I have other supporting material for you.

Many things in the Bible are hard to believe.  Don't let them bog you  
down.  You can leave them there or accept them and move on.  You can  
still get the full benefit from the Bible if you can't believe many  
things.  First, in the literal sense, you can learn what it says,  
just as you read any other ancient book.  Second, in the spiritual  
sense, the Bible is a communication code book used by God and the  
communion of saints.  That's why God often talks to people through  
the Bible, and Christians often quote Bible verses.

Some books are hard to understand.  In reading the Old Testament,  
Americans often have difficulty understanding idols and prophets.   
Come to me, I can tell you more.  Peter said that Paul's letters are  
hard to understand.  When the Bishop of Durham decided to study the  
letter to Romans, he copied the entire Greek text, stuck the pages on  
the wall and stared at them for several months.  Eventually he  
understood Romans and gave a 10-hour lecture which I couldn't  
understand.  So, I stared at Romans for several months, listened to  
it over and over again.  One day,  I suddenly understood it, in plain  
English.

We are a Bible teaching church.  Our sermons are usually centered on  
that week's Bible readings.  My late father was an Episcopal priest  
in Taiwan.  In the 60s, we had an English congregation and a Chinese  
congregation.  My father said that he enjoyed preaching to Americans  
because the Chinese always show this poker face, but Americans are  
responsive, they nod, they smile and they give feedbacks after the  
service.  He prepared his sermons diligently.  Then, the Americans  
left.  My father stopped preparing sermons and started talking about  
everyday life.  Trust me, you don't want to hear a pastor talk about  
his own children EVERY SUNDAY.  Then he learned Zen meditation from a  
Buddhist monk.  After that my father preached Zen and Buddhism EVERY  
SUNDAY, and nobody said anything until one day there came a crazy  
man.  After the service, the crazy man shouted at my father, "Is this  
a Christian Church? Why do you preach Buddhism? You are supposed to  
preach
  Jesus!"  That night my father said, "That crazy man was right, I am  
supposed to preach Jesus."  He was so happy that finally someone was  
listening.

Over the last two years, I have visited many churches.  Christ Church  
has the best sermons in town.  There is a 4000-people Catholic church  
that I really like, but  I cannot understand the accent of their  
order priests.  When they talk about everyday life, it's always about  
contraceptives.  I visited a Presbyterian church and a Lutheran  
church on two consecutive weeks, and coincidently, both preachers  
talked about football.  Most pastors write a simple outline and then  
ramble on and on.  In Christ Church, every sermon is carefully  
prepared.  Father Jim's sermons are always well-organized with  
introduction, development and conclusion.  You don't see this kind of  
discipline often elsewhere. Father Malcolm's sermons are usually rich  
in content, sometimes, overwhelming.  Fortunately, he publishes his  
manuscript.  Whenever I didn't understand, I printed out the English  
text, stuck the pages on the wall and stared at them for several  
months.  Just kidding.
  Usually I understand it after reading it three times.

If you think the stuff Malcolm writes is hard, wait till you see the  
stuff he reads.  Once I asked him who Paul Tillich was, and he e- 
mailed me a chapter from this 20th century theologian.  I fell in  
sleep on the first page.  After a few attempts, I gave up on Paul  
Tillich and  replied writing, "Malcolm, I will read everything you  
write, but I will not read anything you read."  Because I read his  
scripts carefully, I found that sometimes he puts too much stuff into  
one sermon.  Once I printed out one sermon and brought it to him.  I  
said, "I am taking an English as a second language class.  My teacher  
told us to write with unity and coherence.  Look, you've got 18 ideas  
in a 20-minute sermon.  If you put  these four paragraphs in one  
group, and these five paragraphs in another group and drop these  
three paragraphs, you can have two coherent sermons." He said, "Yea,  
it is because of the way I prepared it.  Those ideas came together  
all at once."  I didn't
  have the heart to blame someone who is over-prepared and over- 
inspired.  So I said, "Yes, they came together all at once, but you  
don't have to cram them in together all at once.  You can save half  
for future use."

I've never heard that you need to read the Bible in order to go to  
heaven.  But I have heard that you need to talk to your priest twice  
a year in order to go to heaven.  What if you say , " I haven't  
sinned, I have nothing to confess, nothing to complain,  and nothing  
to say."  Well, in that case, you can talk to your priest about the  
Bible and about his sermons.  I think that will make God and your  
priest very happy.

In this speech, I have already made three recommendations: 1. To read  
the Bible one book at a time. 2. To listen to sermons attentively  
and, if necessary, to read sermon manuscripts.  3.  To talk to your  
priest.  Now, I am going to bring up the last item on my agenda --  
What do we do when a priest disagrees with the Bible in his sermon?

If you were a Baptist, you don't need to read the Bible because your   
pastor will bore you with Bible teachings.  But the Episcopal church  
is a place full of great thinkers.  During our parish retreat last  
month, Fr Rick Fabian, a great Bible scholar, was our lecturer. He  
started teaching: God is this, God is not that, things in the Gospels  
about Jesus are made-up stories... So, on Saturday evening, I talked  
to him and said, "You are going to teach resurrection tomorrow.  If  
you deny the Bible teaching, I'll have to stand up and defend the  
Bible." And he said, "You'll have to be civil."  He explained, "You  
can always argue.  There will always be some people who agree with  
you and some people who disagree with you."  That night, I couldn't  
sleep.  I cried,"God, I don't know now to defend the resurrection.   
He is a priest, a scholar.  I am only a parishioner.  Why do I have  
to argue with a priest?  I am on vacation."  Then I realized, that I  
cannot defend
  the Bible; all I can do is to stand up, read out from the Bible and  
let God defend Himself.  I got up, in the middle of the night, and  
groped to the Ranch House library to find a Bible.  I marked Romans  
chapter one: "He was declared to be Son of God with power according  
to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ  
our Lord."   The next morning.  Fr. Fabian didn't deny resurrection.   
Coincidently,  he also quoted Romans chapter one.  And coincidently,  
because I had a Bible in hand, he called me to stand up and read out  
loud that exact passage.

For the past weeks, I have been pondering what Fr Fabian meant by  
"You can always argue."  The Episcopal church is not a fundamentalist  
church.  We do not force everyone to say the same thing.  From Godly  
Play to Bible study, we are not told "Thou shall believe." Instead,  
we are asked "What do you think?"  The Episcopal church is a place to  
cultivate great thinkers.

When the teacher is a free thinker and the class is a free  
discussion,  it is very important that we do know our text book.   
When I  was in high school preparing for our College Entrance Exam,  
all the teachers followed the official text books.  The text books  
were always right (infallible) because they were used in the College  
Entrance Exam.  In the Episcopal church, everyone can have something  
to say about God.  But when it comes to final judgment, it is God who  
judges us according to His word, not the other way around.  I believe  
the Bible is infallible because I believe it is the official text  
book used in the "Heaven Entrance Exam."

People in Christ Church want to be nice and polite, but more  
importantly, we want to go to Heaven.  So, if a preacher says, "God  
is love; you don't need to confess or repent.  There is no sin, only  
grace..." After the sermon, someone should stand up and politely tell  
the preacher that it is not true.  Today's second reading reads:
	"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth  
is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just  
will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness"(1  
John 1:8).

In Christ Church, when we discuss theological theories, or political  
or social issues, we want to make sure that every voice is heard, we  
also want to make sure that the Word of the Lord is always heard.

Finally, I'd like to read a passage from Isaiah and First Peter.

	All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.
	The grass withers, and the flower falls,
	but the word of the Lord endures forever.  Amen