HOW JESUS READ THE BIBLE

I’ve been rereading Richard Rohr’s “the Divine Dance” the past couple of weeks. I came across this passage just this morning:

Does this Look like Jesus' abba?

“If you are still a black and white, rigid thinker, who needs certitude and control at every step— well, the Trinity will feel out of reach.… no matter what passage [of the Bible] is given you, you will interpret it in a stingy, vengeful, controlling way — because that’s the way you do life.” 138

Let me offer another passage from Richard Rohr, that can serve as my post for today:

In my book “Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality,¨ I described the Bible itself as a gradual progression forward. Do you see the narrative arc moving toward an ever-more-developed theology of grace until in Jesus it becomes grace personified? But it’s a concept that the psyche is never fully ready for. We resist it, and so you will see in most of the biblical text what the late anthropologist René Gérard calls a “text in travail,” a suffering text.  And we must see that is still true in the New Testament, where even John’s statements about God’s unconditional love are still interspersed with many lines that seem to imply a conditional love, too: “IF you obey my Commandments“ is either directly said, or implied many times. To grow in the ways of love, I think this shows real genius. Psychologically, humans actually need some conditional love to lead us toward the recognition of and the need for unconditional love. …

We get the promise of free love (grace) now and then, but it is always too much for the mind and hard to believe.

The biblical text mirrors both the growth and the resistance of the soul.

NOT a quote from Jesus!

It falls into the mystery, and then it says, “that just can’t be true.” Scripture is a polyphonic symphony, a conversation with itself, where it plays melodies and dissonance. — three steps forward, two steps back. The three steps gradually and finally win out; you see the momentum of our Holy Book and where it is leading history. And the text moves inexorably toward inclusivity, mercy, unconditional, love, and forgiveness. I call it the “Jesus hermeneutic.” Just interpret scripture the way that Jesus did! He ignores, denies, or openly opposes his own Scriptures whenever they are imperialistic, punitive, exclusionary, or tribal. Check it out for yourself. 137

One of the many interesting lines above is the description of what happens to the soul when it finally starts to comprehend the infinite all-forgiving love of God. The soul says, “that just can’t be true.” We need to pray for the gift of Faith, so that we can believe that the Good News that Jesus came to teach us is indeed true.

Obviously there is a lot of background missing from this post, but you can read more on this topic in the book mentioned above, “the Divine Dance” (which Amazon offers on ebook for $2.99). I also love another of his many books: “Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality,¨

Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

and may we all join them in the Divine Dance!