Father Richard identifies some of the paradoxes we encounter when reading the Bible:
After reading and studying Scripture for decades, my assumption is that the biblical text mirrors the nature of human consciousness. It includes within itself passages that develop certain great themes and universal patterns, as well as passages that fight and resist those very advances. We might even call it faith and unfaith—both are locked into the text.
The journey into the mystery of God is necessarily a journey into the unfamiliar. While much of the Bible is merely a repetition of familiar terrain, where nothing new is asked of history or nothing new given to the soul, there are also those frequent breakthroughs, which we would rightly call “revelations” from the Spirit (because we would never come to them by our own small minds).
Once we observe the trajectory, we are always ready to be surprised and graced by the Unfamiliar, which is why it is called “faith” to begin with. It might at first feel scary, new, or even exciting, but if we stay with the unfolding texts, we will have the courage to know them also as our own deepest hopes or intuitions. Such is the dance between outer authority and inner authority, the great Tradition and inner experience. This is the balance we seek.
I believe the prime ideas of Scripture are already revealed in capsulated form at the beginning in the Hebrew Scriptures. From that early statement of the theme, the whole middle part of the Bible is something akin to character or theme development. By the end, especially in the Risen Christ of the Gospels and in Paul’s theology of the Risen Christ, we have the crescendo, the full revelation of One we can trust to be a nonviolent and thoroughly gracious God, who is inviting us into loving union.
It takes all the Bible—and sometimes all our lives—to get beyond the punitiveness and pettiness that we project onto God and that we harbor within ourselves. We have to keep connecting the dots of God’s wisdom and grace. Remember, how we get there determines where we will arrive. The process itself is important and gives authority to the outcome. The Bible’s “three-steps-forward, two-steps-back” texts give us a deeper urgency to go forward and a deeper understanding when we get there.
I love the clear continuities between the two Testaments and clearly see Jesus as a Jewish man and rabbi, who brilliantly gave us a wonderful lens by which to love the Jewish tradition and keep moving forward with it in an inclusive way (which became its child, Christianity).
The ecumenical character and future of Christianity become rather obvious when understood in this way. We cannot avoid one another any longer, and we do so only at our own loss (1 Corinthians 12:12–30), and the loss of the gospel.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media, 2022), xiii–xv.
Image credit and inspiration: Image credit and inspiration: Paréj Richárd, untitled (detail), 2021, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Our relationship with the Bible may shift—sometimes clear, sometimes mysterious—yet still holding the promise of a greening, growing thing.
Story from Our Community:
Through my contact with the Daily Meditations as well as books by Richard Rohr, Mirabai Starr, and Thomas Merton, I have come to a “both/and” approach to reality. It also seems to be in sync with scripture. It has brought me a sense of peace, seeing multiple perspectives as a gift rather than a conflict needing a resolution. It has also made me realize that if forgiveness is real, so too are those people and things that have been forgiven. As Fr. Richard might say, “Everything Belongs.”
—F.L.
