Father Richard Rohr describes the Bible as a source of ongoing revelation and transformation:
This marvelous anthology of books and letters called the Bible is for the sake of divine transformation (theosis), not intellectual or “small-self” coziness or even righteousness. The biblical revelation invites us into a genuinely new experience. Wonderfully enough, human consciousness in the twenty-first century is, more than ever, ready for such an experience—and also very much in need of it! The trouble is that we have made the Bible into a bunch of ideas—about which we can be right or wrong—rather than an invitation to a new set of eyes. Even worse, many of those ideas are the same old, tired ones, mirroring the reward-and-punishment system of the dominant culture, so that most people don’t even expect anything good or new from the momentous revelation that we call the Bible.
The very word that the four evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and the apostle Paul chose to name this new revelation was a strange one. Gospel, which we now translate as “good news,” was actually a word taken from a world dominated by wars and battles. A “gospel” was a returning message of victory, announcing a new era to the winning party. Obviously, Jesus’s message was seen as something genuinely good and genuinely new. This is still true today—if we are asking the right questions and have a “poverty of spirit” (Matthew 5:3).
I’m sure there are times when many of us wish the Bible were some kind of “seven habits for highly effective people.” Just give us the right conclusions, we’ve perhaps thought, instead of all these books of kings, Levitical teachings, chronicles of various battles, and those Pauline letters that so many of us don’t like. “What does all this monotonous history, out-of-date science, and flat-out violence have to do with anything that matters?” That’s why an awful lot of people give up on the Bible.
But the genius of the biblical revelation is that it doesn’t just give us the conclusions! It gives us both the process of getting there and the inner and outer authority to trust that process. Life itself—and Scripture too—is always three steps forward and two steps backward. It gets the point and then loses it or doubts it. In that, the biblical text mirrors our own human consciousness and journey.
We always need what Jesus described as the beginner’s mind of a curious child. What some call a constantly renewed immediacy is the best path for spiritual wisdom. If our only concerns are for the spiritual status of our group, or our private “social security” plans, the Scriptures will not be new, nor will they be good, or even attractive. We will proceed on cruise control, even after reading them. They will be “religion” as we have come to expect it in our particular culture, but not any genuine “good news” with the power to rearrange everything.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, rev. ed. (Franciscan Media, 2022), 1, 2, 6.
Image credit and inspiration: Paul Macallan, untitled (detail), 2021, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like this bright flower, the gift of contemplation and action brings us hope in the midst of painful reality.
Story from Our Community:
I can feel my heart growing as I read today’s meditation. I am gleaning so much from it, and I appreciate how Richard constantly comes at the gospel in yet another way, another cut on the diamond, making my heart grow. The infinite attempt, the devotion, the brilliance, the love. It’s amazing and mirrors the very biblical passage included in today’s reading. Thank you, Richard and the CAC from the bottom of my enlarged heart!
—Jane M.
