Hear, Read, Mark, Learn, and Inwardly Digest

A sermon preached by Father Dwight D. Duncan, ssc, Rector, St Matthias, Dallas, Texas
17 November 2002 - The Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Year A, Proper 28)

St Matthew 25:14-15, 19-29, and the Collect of the Day


We are coming to the end of the Church Year. Two Sundays from now, with the arrival of Advent Season, a new year begins. The lessons appointed for Mass on the three Sundays preceding Advent give us a jump on Advent's theme of preparation for the Lord's coming at time's end. They have an ominous tone, for they remind us that we should not presume upon God's mercy. He expects us to obey him, and he will hold us accountable.

Last Sunday, bridesmaids unprepared for the bridegroom's arrival were shut out from the feast.

Next Sunday, we will hear of the Great Judgment, when those who have ministered to the Lord by their sacrificial ministry to their fellow-creatures will have heaven opened to them, and those who have not, will not.

Today we hear of the accountability we have for our stewardship of every gift which God gives us. He expects us to enrich him by them. Enrich him how? By not hoarding these gifts for ourselves nor being stingy with them. Instead, we enlarge their power by using them in God's service for others.

One of God's great gifts to us is the one for which we have given thanks in today's Collect. What is the gift? It is the Bible: "Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning..."

For our learning. Sounds like we're ignorant, doesn't it, and need instruction? Yes, we are and we do.

• We are ignorant about God, about who he is and how he is. Which means...
  
• We are ignorant about ourselves: what kind of creature we are and how we are to be.
  
• We are ignorant of what our purpose is and how to achieve it.
  
• We are ignorant of what truly works to make us whole and what will ultimately destroy us.
  

We are ignorant because of Sin, our rebellion against the One who made us. Sin has clouded our minds, distorted our perceptions, so that on our own we can not know what is really real and true and beautiful.

So God in his infinite mercy has gone to a lot of trouble to provide us with the information we need: his saving Word. He has inspired the minds of some to set this Word down in written form: the Bible. And finally he wrapped his Word in human flesh and nature, so that we could both see and hear Truth in a form like ourselves: Jesus.

Today's gospel warns us that we are accountable to God for our stewardship of every gift he gives us. So how do we exercise good stewardship of his Scriptural gift?

Well, remember, this gift is given for our learning. Our good stewardship of the Bible requires us to become engaged with it, to use it, so that what God has to show us and teach us through it will get into our minds. Then, with his love warming our hearts and his grace strengthening us, we must apply what Scripture teaches us to our lives and to the life of the world. This is part of the way in which we are saved and help save the world.

My wife, Jean, remembers vividly the event which finally made her begin engaging with Scripture regularly. At a retreat she made when she was 29, one of the leaders spoke about the necessity of study in the life of a Christian. The leader asked the question: "On the Day of Judgment, when you face Jesus, what will you have to tell him should he ask you, 'Did you care enough to read the collection of writings I gave you for your salvation?'" To herself, Jean responded, "No. But I've read all of Barbara Cartland's!" So began Jean's engagement with Scripture, one to which she remains faithful.

So how do we engage ourselves with the scriptures? The Collect teaches us the Church's ancient five-step process for engaging with God's Word written, a process used by the saints which made them saints. Look at it: we are to hear the scriptures, read them, mark them, learn them and inwardly digest them. What's involved with each step of this process?

We are to hear the sacred word read to us. There are at least two good reasons for this:

1. Hearing the word read to us has a different effect on us from reading it ourselves. Sometimes it is only by hearing some truth spoken to us, that it's power is released into us. I've experienced this often in spiritual direction. My director has rarely given me any counsel which I could not give or had not already given myself. BUT when he spoke the counsel -- when it clearly came into me from outside my own head -- its truth was able to grab hold of me in a way it had not before.

2. In hearing the word, something we might have missed in reading it to ourselves will stand out through its being read to us.

Both these reasons, and others, are why the Church still requires the public reading of the sacred word in her liturgies, even though we now live in a time when most of us can read and at Mass will have the text of the word before us.

Next, we are to read the sacred word ourselves. This step does not mean you have to study the word. If you wish to, fine. But what is important, whether ever or not we engage in study of the word, is that we read it. You read it in faith and with reverence, slowly, lovingly, reflectively, as you would read a love letter from someone who had ravished your heart. Indeed, the most apt analogy for what scripture is to and for us is that of a letter written by a wonderful prince to the peasant girl he loves, who one day, when he returns from his labors abroad, will become his bride.

God is our lover. Scripture is a collection of God's love letters to us, his peasant girl. You know what we do with love letters: we keep them and read them again and again, and even if your lover shares with you in them things you do not understand or which are of no interest to you, you treasure them and read them over and over, because they are his words and testimony of his love for you.

So what if the scripture passage we read is difficult to understand or tedious for us! On that account we do not reject it. It was written to us, personally, by our prince. We continue to read it, again and again. If its personal implication for our life escapes us altogether, we sigh because of our dullness and continue to read his words. Eventually some passage will leap out at us. And when it does

We mark it. "Marking scripture" does not mean you highlight or underline the words, though you may. No, to mark the scriptures, means what we mean when we tell someone to "Mark my words." It means that when something in your hearing or reading of scripture grabs your attention, you give it your attention. You dwell upon it, you repeat it to yourself over and over, reflecting on it, thinking about it, searching out its meaning for you.

And also, we learn the word which we marked. That is, you memorize it, or remember a correct paraphrase of it, so that you've got it in your mind and can carry it around with you. In this way, the sacred word is available for you to feed upon and to aid you even when you don't have a bible.

Which is what inwardly digesting the sacred word is about. We feed upon it in our minds and spirits and put into practice what it teaches us to do.

This process of engaging with Holy Scripture is exactly the type of thing we would do with a love letter from a human lover. Think of it: If we were faithful in engaging with scripture and in this way, over a lifetime how much of the Word of God would get into our minds, warm our hearts, and direct our actions! Consider what this would mean in the re-formation of our characters into the likeness of Christ ...how much more of a blessing than a curse we would be to others and our world, how much less of a pain to ourselves!

I told you how my wife's regular, disciplined engagement with Holy Scripture began. I can testify to its benefit to her and to all whose life intersects with hers. Jean was a lovely young woman, who has only grown lovelier with the years, 55 full this day! And that growth in loveliness has been not only externally, but internally, spiritually. Should you doubt that, trust me: I knew her when!

So let us engage ourselves with the holy Word of God. Let us be faithful in worship so that we may hear the holy Scriptures read to us ... let us be faithful in reading them ourselves. Let us mark (pay attention to) whatever in them grabs us. Let us remember and feed upon them in our minds and spirits and act upon them in our lives.

Then, as the Collect says, we will come to embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which God has given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. It is that hope which can make us more than conquerors over whatever comes our way and bring us safely into the eternity of God.


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