First Presbyterian Church
Bible Myths
Sermon for October 21, 2007
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Our gospel reading is on page 81. Jesus is teaching the disciples. In those days, a widow lived a precarious existence; once her husband died, she had nothing of her own; her sons or brothers-in-law would inherit any property. The widow had to rely on the charity of relatives. Listen to the word of God as it is found in Luke 18:1-8.

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.'

4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'"

6 And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.

And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

Our epistle reading today is from 2 Timothy, one of the letters called the Pastorals. The Pastorals identify with Jewish heritage, emphasize salvation as the goal, describe good church order and ways of ethical living. Our reading is advice to the congregation. Listen to the word of God as it is found in 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5.

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 15 and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: 2  to proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

3 For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

5 As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

This ends our reading of God's word.

Let's listen to the choir celebrate it.

Our reading from Second Timothy said that all scripture is inspired. ‘Inspired' can also be translated as ‘God-breathed.' You can hear that connection between ‘spire' and breath in our English word ‘respiration.'

Scripture means the writings we call the Hebrew Bible, or the old testament. At the time Timothy was written, the gospels and the epistles weren't considered scripture; just gospels and epistles.

But this verse about inspired scripture has been used by Christians for a long time to see the entire Bible, old and new testament, as without error, as inerrant. The problem is, scribes and printers are not inerrant.

In 1632, in London, Baker's edition of the Bible had a misprint. The seventh commandment, “thou shalt not commit adultery” was printed as “Thou shalt commit adultery.” It is called the “Wicked Bible.” The British parliament destroyed all the books it could find, and made it illegal to print Bibles without authorization.

And then there are unicorns.

Our English word comes from a Greek word, ‘monokeras' which literally means one horn. A monokeras was a Greek word used to describe the wild ox, like an Asian buffalo. Its horns were so even that when you looked at it from the side, it looked like it had just one horn. Ancient bas relief carvings show the animal this way. In Hebrew it was called a re'em. 1 When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, they used their word for this animal, monokeras, which dos mean literally, one-horn. In Latin, one-horn is unicorn. The King James translators put this Latin word into their version of the Bible in 1611. 2

I am not sure how this large wild ox got drawn as a delicate horse with a horn; apparently it happened in the middle ages, along with traditions of unicorns dying after being cared for by a virgin. There are lovely old tapestries of unicorns and maidens. Later, in church tradition, unicorns became symbols for Christ. We can't use The King James Version as proof that unicorns like those on the cover of the bulletin really exist.

But we believe that scripture is useful for teaching, so we have to work at interpreting it. Last week I heard a news report on Christians protesting some US policies, and on Christians protesting the protestors. One side used Jesus' words on feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger. The other side used Romans 13:1 “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.”

This scripture has often been used to stop people protesting the government. This reveals that interpreters make mistakes too.

In the context of Romans, Paul was speaking to the church about not repaying evil for evil, not avenging ourselves, but overcoming evil with good. Then he speaks of submitting to authorities. It means we honor their right to rule, not that we have to obey it no matter what.

In Acts 5:29, Peter and the apostles answer, "We must obey God rather than any human authority.” But the apostles were still there, in front of the police, priests, and council, recognizing their authority. In Romans, Paul meant not that all governing authorities were good and holy; he was just cautioning Christians from taking the law into their own hands; following Jesus is not about chaos, vengeance, violence, and hatred.

It doesn't mean we have to put up with injustice, and acquiesce to evil. Our gospel reading about the persistent widow shows us what to do. The widow respected the judge's authority; she knew he had it, and she kept knocking on his door until he gave her justice.

Years ago, the presbytery where I served took a vote that I thought was immoral and unchristian. I questioned whether I could stay in a denomination that did such terrible things. I felt like a traitor, and told that to the elder next to me. He said, “Susan, I just imagine myself the persistent widow, knocking on the judge's door.”

I thought, “Oh, I can be the persistent widow, too.” I didn't have to leave the church I loved; I could work for justice instead.

I thought of injustice and protest when I learned about the repression in Burma, now Myanmar. Buddhist monks there peacefully protested last month. As part of their protest, they turned their begging bowls upside down. A Vietnamese monk explained that “it was a powerful statement of denial to the regime leaders. ‘In Buddhist culture… offering food to the monk symbolizes the action of goodness, and if you have no opportunity to support the practice of spirituality then you are somehow left in the realm of darkness.'” They gave “the regime no chance to do good.” The monks were attacked, jailed, and some were killed. “…hundreds of Burmese soldiers had been arrested for refusing to shoot at them.” 3

Ye Min Tun, diplomat at Burma's embassy in London, has resigned to protest his country's “appalling” crackdown on monks at the heart of pro-democracy demonstrations. He “said Burma's military leaders had ignored the people's wish to negotiate. ‘I have never seen such a scenario in the whole of my life.' 4

We don't have to stay in situations that poison our souls and compromise our integrity. Sometimes the best thing to do is to leave the evil behind us. But sometimes, we can follow the advice in Second Timothy to proclaim the message and convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

The words of scripture, and our faith in God's righteousness can encourage us to do something, and not stand by. Yesterday, I read that women in Australia, Thailand, and Singapore are doing what they can to protest the violence in Burma. Apparently, junta leader General Than Shwe believes that contact with women's clothing, especially their underwear, saps them of power. Ying Tzarm said that the campaign was aimed at undermining the superstitious beliefs of the military regime. “The [leadership] is famous for its abuse of women, so this can be a very strong signal from women around the world supporting the women in Burma.” So these women are calling for women to send their underwear to Burmese/Myanmar embassies. 5 They're calling it “Panties for Peace” and encourage women to send early and often. 6

That's an interesting variation of the persistent widow knocking on the judge' door. But there are more productive ways of protesting and aligning ourselves with God's justice.

Jeannene Wiseman is a mission co-worker from North Carolina. She works in Guatemala and describes Guatemalan women “as courageous and enterprising, but battling despair, discrimination and abuse on every front, often at the hands of their own husbands.” She heard “stories of women who talked about seeing their fathers abuse their mothers and how their husbands abuse them. And about how they thought that's what love was supposed to look like. ‘It's a very macho culture and there's a lot of violence that's built into it….There is a lot of violence going on in the homes and those patterns are passed on from generation to generation simply because people don't know anything different.”

There's a Guatemalan proverb, …that says “women may be hit 150 times in their lifetime but they'll receive flowers just once: for their funeral.” Wiseman said “women don't know their own value.”

Some “courses developed by the [Presbyterian Church] …help women realize their true worth and capabilities. One, called ‘It's Wonderful to be a Woman,' teaches self-esteem by illustrating how women in the Bible used self-confidence to persevere in the face of adversity.

‘We're trying to assist the Guatemalan women in their own transformation so that they can make the Bible autobiographical,” Jeannene said. “So they know that God's intentions for them are not that they allow their husbands to beat them.' The class examines alternatives to domestic violence.

Wiseman said, ‘It's about helping the women make changes and knowing that their own self-respect can also help the men who are also not doing anything different from what they've learned…It's not that they have more violent intentions, it's simply cultural patterns that have been put in place.'” 7

And then there's Teresa Dafana in Zimbabwe, where women have traditional roles of childrearing, cooking, and water-fetching. She is the only woman in her country licensed to use explosives. Trained by Church World Service partner Christian Care, she directs a well-digging crew of five men to create reliable sources of safe water for remote rural villages. Married and the mother of two children, she has no trouble directing her five-man crew. She loves her work because, she says, “I'm providing my people with safe water.” She's just doing what women do, get water for families. 8

I know the story of the persistent widow is about the character of God; if an unjust judge gives the woman justice, how much more will God answer our prayers. Jesus encourages us to pray day and night. It can be a little discouraging, in the face of great evil, to be told to pray more. But prayer aligns us with God's priorities.

We can't truly pray and then ignore what we pray for. What we pray for, we have to work for. Scripture instructs us for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. God equips us for what we need to do.

1 it has two horns in Deuteronomy 33:17.

2 In the thirteenth century Marco Polo described an animal he saw in Sumatra . His description sounds like a rhinoceros, but he called it a unicorn, because that kind of rhinoceros has one horn. They are the only land animal that does.

3 Van Biema, “ Burma 's Monks: ‘Already a Success,'” Oct. 12, 2007 , www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1670911,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom

4www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/10/nburma110.xml

5 www.burmanet.org/news/2007/10/18/irrawaddy-%E2%80%9Cpanties-for-peace%E2%80%9D-campaign-wins-wide-support-violet-cho/

6 ttp://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ipzmeSRNu26jqvgWsdzltfxkzU5AD8SCHK380,

7 Silverstein, Evan, “Missionary tells stories about Guatemala :Helping women discover their innate value is Wiseman's top priority,” October 18, 2007 Presbyterian News Service

8 www.churchworldservice.org/worship-resources/worship-water.html