Tag Archives: The Good Book

Sermon Transcripts, Sermons, The Good Book Sermon Series

SERMON: The Good Book (Pt. 3) – Pink Smoke (The Bible and Women)

A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Arthur M. Suggs
on the Third Sunday of Lent, March 4, 2018

This is the third in the series of sermons on The Good Book. Here is the Rev. Dr. Art Suggs’ Pink Smoke sermon.

Four Brief Bible Passages 
from the New Testament

First of all, over in my left-hand corner, we have The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 14: 33-35:

“As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”

Also over in my left-hand corner, is The First Letter of Paul to Timothy 2: 11-12:

“Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.”

Now, over in my right-hand corner, we have The Gospel According to John 20: 18:

“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.”

That’s the passage that makes Mary Magdalene the first apostle.

Also over in my right-hand corner is The Letter of Paul to the Galatians 3: 27-28:

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

A small Bible printed by Robert Barker in 1614, belonging to St Mary’s Church, Datchet.

Here are four passages that reflect the tension within the Bible itself.

They remind me of an old W.C. Fields joke.

He was quite the reprobate, you know, and there he is, on his death bed, when a priest comes in and finds him leafing through the Bible. The priest asks, “What are you looking for?” And W.C. Fields replies, “A loophole.”

When I was in seminary in the early 80’s, women preachers were coming into their own, and in many ways, it was hard and 
not welcomed.

One of the spiteful remarks that went around among the men was that 
female preachers were like a dog walking 
on two legs. They don’t do it well, but you’re surprised they can do it at all.

I laughed at that joke back in those days, but I was raised sexist, racist, and homophobic.

Having reflected all of those beliefs in the early part of my life, I soon realized that did not comport with the likes of Cynthia Jefferts, associate pastor of the Nassau Presbyterian Church, or Barbara Brown Taylor, a guest preacher in the area from time to time, who were among the finest preachers I’ve ever heard.

Then as now, over 30 years later, they are still two of the finest preachers I have ever heard.

Cursory Readings of the
 Bible Reveal Strong Women

Continuing this series on the Bible, the topic for today, the Bible and women, is brought to you by a white male.

Actually, it’s strange that the Bible has been used to subjugate women.

Just a cursory reading reveals that you have in the Old Testament Eve, whose name actually means “life.” Yet here is the mother of all living humans.

There are the wives of the patriarches, all of whom were forces to be reckoned with: Abraham had his Sarah, Isaac had his Rebekah, Jacob had his Leah and Rachel. You have the books of Esther and Ruth, the stories of brave and faithful women, their wisdom and their leadership.

Saint Sophia, Almighty Wisdom, by Nicholas Roerich. Roerich Museum, NYC.

And then there is the mystical text, found in Proverbs, regarding what is now called the Lady Sophia. The way the story is told is that you have God working with Wisdom, and Wisdom is entirely feminine. The Lady Sophia, or the Hokmah in Hebrew, represents feminine energy working with God in order to create all that exists.

Prominent Women in the New Testament

In the New Testament, you have stories such as Lydia in Acts 16, a seller of purple goods, basically a professional businesswoman, who was very involved in the early church in 
a leadership capacity.

There is Phoebe, recounted in Romans 16, referred to as having significant titles as adelphe, a brother and sister in Christ. She was called a deaconos, from which we get the word deacon, except, at that time, the word also meant leadership in the sense of preaching and teaching, also with the elders. Furthermore, she was called a prostasis, what we would call a patron, a benefactor.

In other words, she was a material supporter and establisher of the church.

Holy Women at the Sepulchre, 1611-1618, by Peter Paul Rubens. PD Wikimedia.

We also have the story of Priscilla and her husband Aquila, also found in Romans. The pair preached, taught, and established churches, and “risked their necks” for the early church.

These were some of the prominent ones mentioned in the New Testament, but beyond prominence there are two women who were venerated, the two Marys.

Venerated Women of the New Testament

You have Mary, the mother of Jesus, given two titles that are the highest the church can confer, the highest of all, well beyond the title of pope. Mary the mother is exalted in the Eastern church, to 
use their word, called theotokos, God bearer, the mother of God, and she is also given the title of the First Theologian because of her pondering the nature of her child.

Then you have the other Mary, Mary Magdalene, given the title of the First Apostle because she was the first one after the Resurrection sent out to bear the news of Jesus’ life after death. In addition to that title, Mary Magdalene was in all probability the wife of Jesus.

Except for the possibility of Mary Magda
lene being the wife of Jesus, all of these women are recognized throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Christ in the House of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Jacopo and Francesco Bassano, c. 1576–77.

Alas, there is one detail that eclipses all of that history, one that for some reason is seen to be of greatest importance. And that detail is Jesus’ choice of twelve men for his disciples.

Never mind that he traveled with an entourage that included not only the twelve but additional men and women, but no matter, 
the disciples were all men.

The interpretation of that was slam-dunk proof, Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum). Thus and therefore and henceforth, yea unto the end of time, the church shall be ruled by men only.

This is 
the way that has been interpreted.

But …

Download the full sermon The Good Book (Pt. 3) – Pink Smoke (The Bible and Women)

Featured Image Credit: The Bible used by Abraham Lincoln for his oath of office during his first inauguration in 1861. PD image by Michaela McNichol, Library of Congress.

Lent and Easter, Sermons, The Good Book Sermon Series

SERMON: The Good Book (Pt. 2) – A Hard Conversation

A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Arthur M. Suggs
on the Second Sunday of Lent, February 25, 2018

This is the second in the series of sermons on The Good Book.

“This is my second sermon in a series about the Bible, and today I want to look at both the use and the abuse of the Bible.”

“Early in my first pastorate, I had a best friend by the name of Greg. He was a member of my church, down in Pennsylvania, and we had a lot in common. Our wives and children were friends with each other, and he was what I would call a righteous man. He did well by his family, his business, his community, and his church.”

Greg’s home was on a hill, and it had a bay window with a view that overlooked the valley from an overstuffed chair. Given to being very devout, there he sat with his well-worn Bible as well as probably two dozen Christian books. He would spend at least half an hour every day there with his morning devotions.

During our friendship, we had dozens or perhaps a hundred, theological conversations. He was raised Catholic but sort of gave up on the strictures of that faith, moved toward Lutheranism, and later, when our paths crossed, he was Presbyterian. Finally, he went toward an independent Evangelical church.

While I knew Greg, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. There are four variations of that disease, and his was one of the bad ones among those that eventually get you. We remained friends for many years, but the time finally came for Tracy and me to leave that little town and go to the big city of Binghamton.”

“Here, I was handed a copy of Book I of Conversations with God, and it rocked my theological world. I was never the same after having read that book, and so I was anxious to give my friend a copy of it.”

He Gave Me a Sucker Punch
and Shot Back at Me: “Well,
What About John 3: 16?”

“A couple years passed, and finally we went back to his house for a visit, and I gave him a copy. About a month later, when we were together again, he was not amused about the book. Evangelical Christians have a big problem with Conversations with God and A Course in Miracles and virtually all literature of that genre.”

“Using two phrases, Greg accused me first of apostasy, a technical term meaning standing away from the faith, having left the faith, and that wasn’t enough. He also accused me of being a worshiper of Satan. That was a sucker punch to our friendship. It was hard to be friends after that.”

“More years passed with very little conversation, little contact. However, our wives were still friends, and our kids were still friends with his kids, and so the day arrived when we were down there visiting again. My relationship with him was pretty chilly, but we found ourselves in his living room alone for a moment, and he began the conversation with this question, “Art, are you still preaching a false gospel?”

“At that point, there’s not much left of the friendship, and there’s nothing left to lose, so I replied, “Well, I suppose so.””

“Then we entered into yet one more theological discussion. Let me tell you a little about that because he was an avid believer in the standard doctrine that we’re all miserable sinners, we’re all doomed to hell, and Jesus, by dying on the cross, is our redemption. God accepts that 100 percent perfect sacrifice on our behalf. By believing in that, we are covered, and we’re allowed into heaven after all.”

“I admitted to Greg that I see that doctrine in the writings of Paul, for example, in the Book of Romans and the Book of Galations. I see that, I don’t argue with it. I don’t subscribe to it, I don’t believe it, but I see that it’s there in the writings of Paul.”

“However, I also remarked, I don’t see it in the Gospels. I see lots of spiritual teaching in the gospels, the Parables and so forth, but I don’t see that 
program of redemption, that system of substitutionary atonement leading to salvation in the Gospels.”

“He shot back at me like he was prepared for me to say that, and now he’s going to tell me the truth, so he shot back at me and asked, “What about John 3: 16?”

I Want to Look at Use and Abuse
 of the Bible.

Download the full sermon The Good Book Part II: A Hard Conversation – Uses and Abuses of the Bible  (PDF)

Featured Image Credit: A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. The Bible was written in Belgium in 1407 AD, for reading aloud in a monastery. Photo by Adrian Pingstone. PD Wikimedia.

Lent and Easter, Sermons, The Good Book Sermon Series

SERMON: The Good Book (Pt. 1) – Enlightening the Eyes

A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Arthur M. Suggs
for the First Sunday of Lent, February 18, 2018

This is the first of a new series of sermons on The Good Book. Here is an excerpt from Enlightening the Eyes:

The Rev. Dr. Art Suggs begins this Lenten sermon about the origins, translations and challenges of interpreting scripture with two stories — The second story based on an awkward moment that occurred during a spiritual discussion group gathering in his backyard.

Rev. Suggs begins, though, with “a sweeping story that I’m quoting from Peter Gomes, formerly a chaplain at Harvard, who wrote a book under the title of The Good Book that I have also used as an overall name for this new series of sermons.”

The ‘sweeping story’ points to the original, admirable, virtue-centered intentions of the Puritans coming to create a ‘new model of Christianity’ in this new world.

You’ll find this ‘sweeping story’ in the full sermon (download link below), but for now, Rev. Suggs continues,

“We’re going to be looking at:

• uses and abuses of the Bible,

• the Bible and women,

• the Bible and homosexuality,

• the Bible and money (that will be interesting),

… and core principles. The series will then take us all the way through to Easter, when we’re going to look at the Bible and miracles.

Bible 101

The Bible used by Abraham Lincoln for his oath of office during his first inauguration in 1861. PD image by Michaela McNichol, Library of Congress.

Where should I begin? I wrestled with this because it’s logical to start at the beginning, and there are some fascinating stories about how the Bible came to be.

This is particularly true 
for the New Testament, up to the time of Constantine, when he finally pressed the bishops to get their act together and decide what’s scripture and what’s not. Constantine and the bishops did decide, and that led to the whole issue of Rome and the Middle Ages.”

In the full sermon, the Rev. Dr. Suggs shares more about how the bible came into being, and the various translations of it, about which he adds,

“Translations would be fun to go over in a sermon, but I can tell that you’ve had enough. There are great stories about translation in a different way.

For example, in Hebrew, there’s only one word for both “palace” and “temple.” Try to imagine that for a minute. To get a feeling for how closely church and state were united in ancient Hebrew culture, they didn’t even bother to have different words for the two of them.

Context was the only way that you could tell whether someone was talking about the palace or the temple.

Here’s where it gets tough if you want to know a problem in translation: That is, there is no one word for sexual deviancy. How do we translate that? Somebody came up with the term homosexuality, and that word for sexual deviancy, generalized, became very specifically “homosexuality” for centuries.

A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. The Bible was written in Belgium in 1407 AD, for reading aloud in a monastery. Photo by Adrian Pingstone. PD Wikimedia.

Thus, all the versions of the Bible based upon generalized sexual deviancy continued to use the word “homosexuality,” even though the deviance might actually have little or nothing to do with homosexuality.

For example, what would sexual deviancy have been in ancient Greek culture? Generally, it’s considered one of three things: Somehow or other, it was sex mixed in with violence like rape or bestiality or pedophilia. But no, it was decided that the best thing to do was just to call it homosexuality, therefore creating some of the pain and anger and hatred of the church by the homosexual community for centuries because of unwise and unthoughtful translations.

There’s great teaching about the organization of the Bible. You have the Torah and then the writings and the prophets in the Old Testament.

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, 16th-century painting, c1618-1620, Valentin de Boulogne, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX. PD Wikimedia.

In the New Testament you have the gospels and then Acts, which is sort of like Volume 2 of the Gospel of Luke and written by the same person, in all probability. Then follow the Pauline Epistles, and the scribes didn’t know whether Paul wrote Hebrews or not, so they tacked Hebrews at the end of what they thought were the Pauline Epistles.

Then it was followed by the general epistles, Titus, Timothy, Peter, James, and John and their shorter letters, followed by the book of Revelations.

We also have the Apocrypha, a whole bunch of other scriptures that come from the latter years but before Christ. These were accepted by the Catholics but generally not by the Protestants. And then, of course, the Gnostic documents came to light in the 20th Century from the discoveries of the Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

What Ended My Long Love Affair 
with the Bible?

To speak personally, I have had a long love affair with the Bible. I have studied it. I have memorized many verses. I learned Greek and Hebrew, and got an A in Greek and 100 in Hebrew, meaning that I did perfectly on every homework assignment and every test. I was the only one. I bought commentaries. I have preached from the Bible faithfully for over 30 years.

One thing I haven’t mastered: Some of my fellow students told me you need to preach with one hand and hold the Bible in the other, and you must buy a very expensive, floppy, leather-bound King James Version of the Bible, and you need to be able to grab it and flip it open. You need to flip it open to the middle, and I can’t do it to save my soul because you open up to the middle, and 
then you hold it while you’re preaching, regardless what verse it opened to. I never could learn the lesson.

So I’ve had a love affair with the Bible, but the love affair actually ended due to unfaithfulness.

It was all about three forms of unfaithfulness. One had to do with women, one had to do with gays, and one had to do with slaves. It is crystal clear that the Bible treats women in a second-class way.

It is also crystal clear that the Bible believes homosexuality is a sin. There are places where the text doesn’t use the word for sexual deviancy, but they describe it. A man with a man, for example, and they condemn it.

St. Peter Preaching in the Catacombs. Jan Styka, PD Wikimedia.

And it was hard for me to come to this decision, but I have decided that the Bible is just plain wrong. Men and women are to be treated equally, no matter what, and this is especially true in church. Women are not to be kept silent. They are not to have to cover their heads. They are to be treated equally with men.

Science has shown in so many different ways that there is a Bell curve of different types of sexuality, not just in human beings but across the mammalian phyla. Homosexuality is found in well over 400 different versions of mammals, not just among human beings.

And so the Bible is wrong. It’s just plain wrong. I will not preach from those passages ever again.

To Be Fair, the Bible Is a Product
 of Time and Place. We Divorced,
 Nevertheless Remain Amicable

Every single culture out of which the Bible emerged — ancient Hebrew, ancient Greece, ancient Israel — was anti-woman, anti-gay, and pro-slavery. So of course, it’s going to reflect that kind of moral compass.

The Second Letter of Paul to Timothy, 3: 16-17 says:

“All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

And I have been hit over the head whenever I have expressed my doubts with that verse. “All scripture,” it says, and it’s infuriating. It brings tears to my eyes.

Because what do you think scripture meant at the time that it was written? It meant the Torah. The first five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It might have meant maybe the Prophets as well and things like the Psalms and the Proverbs, but it probably meant the Torah.

I’m being beaten over the head because I expressed doubt about a New Testament document.

A page from the Gutenberg bible. Scanned by Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin. PD Wikimedia.

In that love-affair analogy, we fell in love, 
we got married, and we had many happy years. But then there was this emerging unfaithfulness, and so we divorced but in an amicable way. We became friends, and we shall remain friends, at least from my end, to my dying day.

I look with amusement at churches in particular that like to venerate the Bible.

For example, some churches have processions in which the Bible is held high, while somebody walks around with it. There are churches that want you to stand when the gospel is read, and you can stay seated for the rest of it, 
for some reason. There are churches that emphasize the red-letter edition of the Bible because what Jesus says is more important than what other Biblical figures have to say.

There are churches that put the Bible on the communion table and show that it is precious and worthy of being on the communion table. And of course, there are some people who make sure that, in a stack of books, the Bible is always on top.

My present understanding after all these years is that the Bible is a fine tool, but like any kind of tool there are things for which it’s useful and other things for which it’s useless.

The Buddha told a story when some of his disciples wanted to venerate his words. (Find the Buddha’s story in the full version of this sermon – download below.)

I would answer, “Like a makeshift raft, the answer is yes, it does do that, not perfectly, not completely, not always reliably, but yes, it does.”

The passage that Judy Giblin read during the Lectionary was the beautiful and eloquent Psalm 19, verses 1-10 and 14.

Here, she reads again the central portion of it, verses 7 through 10:

“The law of the Lord is perfect, 
 reviving the soul;

the decrees of the Lord are sure, 
 making wise the simple;

the precepts of the Lord are right, 
 rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the Lord is 
 clear, enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the Lord is pure, 
 enduring for ever;
the ordinances of the Lord are true 
 and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than 
 gold, even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey, 
 and drippings of the honeycomb.”

Amen.

Download the full Enlightening the Eyes sermon (PDF)

** *The series title of The Good Book is borrowed from Peter Gomes’ book by the same title.
**The raft parable appears in the “Alagaddupama” Sutta of the Sutta-pitaka (Majjhima Nikaya 22).

Featured Image Credit: The Gutenberg Bible, 1455, Johann Gutenberg; Rare Books Division, the Lenox Library. Image by Kevin Eng, CC-PD Wikimedia.