Christ's Lending Library

Romans 15:4-13; Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12

Long before Google and Wikipedia became the go-to places for information and answers, long before Siri and Alexa adopted their know-it-all personas, we had questions. We would ask Mom or Dad. They were the authorities who had all the answers. And if they didn’t, they would say, “Ask your father,” or “Ask your mother.” There was a popular radio program called “Ask the Answer Man.” One of my joys as a teen was getting the annual edition of the Information Please Almanac. And the family lore also includes the fact that as a young child I would read the student’s encyclopedia by street light after I went to bed.

I love trivia. I know that I would flop on a live Jeopardy program, but at home I often get the questions to the answers faster than the real contestants. I’m an eclectic reader, mostly non-fiction beyond theology. Lots of subjects fascinate me. I like to read. Paula will tell you that when I’m desperate, I’ll read cereal boxes and soup cans.

Libraries are wonderful. It’s great that the Pike County Library – named after one of our very own Presbyterian saints, Garnet A. Wilson – is planning a new facility that will more effectively provide information services. Bravo to Presbyterians Gary and Evelyn Baker for helping to successfully head up the Bristol Village fund drive for the new library.

Libraries are wonderful. I won’t embarrass you by asking if you know that the church has a library from which you can freely borrow different translations of the Bible, commentaries on particular books, audio CD recordings of the Bible, and devotional literature. It’s in one of the coat rack areas of the Lobby and is a treasure.

Information doesn’t come only in printed or digital form, in written word or in graphic presentations. Long before those forms of media existed, people had to rely on a community’s collective memory for all the information that was needed. It was passed on from generation to generation. Special people carried that information: swamis, gurus, shamans, elders.

Imagine that a library could offer a resource in additional to printed matter and the internet. Imagine going into the library and borrowing a person who was a knowledgeable expert on some topic, not necessarily an esoteric one, perhaps one as simple as how to fold a fitted bed sheet or change the oil in your car. A person can’t learn brain surgery by reading a book. There needs to be some one-on-one mentoring and on-the-job training that only a live teacher can provide.

Perhaps the borrowed person could explain and demonstrate what it is like to be an undocumented worker or a refugee, what it is like to live in a homeless shelter or to live through a tornado, what it feels like to ride into space on the top of a rocket or experience weightlessness. Kindle books are great and so are You Tube videos. But there is nothing like getting the first hand experience of someone who has been there or has immersed herself in the deepest knowledge of something. That would be a “human library.”

A Human Library was tried in Denmark in the spring of 2000. It ran for four days straight at a Copenhagen location and offered some 75 “titles,” chosen to inform and to challenge stereotypes. More than 1,000 “readers” showed up. The idea is no longer Danish. Human Library events have now happened on every continent. At a Human Library happening in Rochester, New York, for example, borrowers got to hear from a Vietnam veteran, a martial artist, a British butler and a person paralyzed in a car accident, among many others.

Most of us think about borrowing from a library. But have you ever thought about being the item borrowed? 

Being a human borrowed for information that we have is not a new idea. Paul wrote this to the Corinthian congregation:

You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are Christ’s letter, delivered by us. You weren’t written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. You weren’t written on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:2-3)

We can be read. You have probably heard someone say to another person, “I can read you like a book.” Are your readable?

The original texts of the Bible were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The Bible has been translated countless times. The Old Testament books were translated into Greek. The books of both testaments were translated into Latin. Luther translated scripture into the German of the early 16th century. About the same time Myles Coverdale and William Tyndale were translating scripture into English. That was 75 years before the “Authorized” version was presented to King James. Several dozen English translations were done in the 20th century. The Common English Bible we use in the Sanctuary was published in 2011. There will many more translations during this century, perhaps as caches of ancient fragments are discovered, and certainly as English continues to evolve.

Translations of the Bible follow several methods. Some strive for exceedingly accurate word-for-word translation. These are good to study, but often are stilted and awkward to read aloud. Some versions are paraphrases, like the Living Bible of the 1970s and Eugene Peterson’s The Message. Other versions seek to translate ancient images and ideas into contemporary idioms while being faithful to the words

Paul would urge us to read scripture avidly. He wrote the Roman believers:

Whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction so that we could have hope through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures. May the God of endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude toward each other, similar to Christ Jesus’ attitude. That way you can glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ together with one voice.

It is of greater importance that you read the Bible diligently and of lesser importance which version of the Bible you read. It is often very helpful to read a passage is several translations so that you can benefit from a wider understanding of what scripture may be saying to you at a given moment in time. There are many different methods to read scripture in terms of a one-year or a two-year cycle. Another spiritual practice for reading scripture is to read a short passage and note the word, phrase, or image which strikes you. After meditating on that, the passage is reread, followed by a question, such as what does that word, phrase, or image say to you about God or Christ or the Spirit. 

Following Paul’s comment to the Corinthian congregation, I want to suggest that each of you is a translation of Scripture.  There’s a gospel song, “The World’s Bible,” written by Annie Johnson Flint: 

We are the only Bible
The careless world will read;
We are the sinners’ gospel,
We are the scoffers’ creed;
We are the Lord’s last message,
Given in word and deed.
What if the type is crooked?
What if the print is blurred?

I’m sure our scripture presentation is to some extent crooked and blurred. None of us perfectly represents the breadth and depth of the faith we profess. If someone were to read us, they would find gaps in our knowledge, pages missing, typos galore. 

However, if you and I are serious about following Jesus, our reader would likely read in us some things that convey that we are living differently from how we would if we weren’t trying to be disciples. Would it be clear to our reader that we have a hope that serves as a irresistible guiding principle for our life. Paul nails it down firmly in his comments to the Roman church people: “we could have hope through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures.”

Many of us are busy preparing our Christmas cards and letters. If we are Christ’s letter this Advent, are we giving as full and true a message as we can about the hope and peace which will “glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ together with one voice”?

If we put our Christian witness in the context of a Human Library, we don’t have to worry about reaching out. We can just wait for someone to check us out. Don’t hide in the library stacks however. Live your life as if you were on display on the new books shelf. Let people become interested in you, your cover, your title, the blurbs on the back of the dust jacket, the introduction on the inside of the flyleaf. “Christ in you” means that people can read about him in all you say and do. Christ lends you out to those around you so that they too may come to know him and know him as Lord. You, like John the Baptist, can be someone who goes before the Lord to declare his coming. Perhaps your title is Prepare the Way of the Lord.

General Resource: “Let People Check You Out,” Homiletics, December 4, 2016.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.