“In one of his books, Robert Farrar Capon says that when human beings try to describe God we are like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina. We simply do not have the equipment to understand something so utterly beyond us ..... but that has never stopped us from trying.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Three Hands Clapping
The saying we began with today is clearly not from scripture as we would usually expect the reading before a sermon to be – it is, instead, Barbara Brown Taylor roughly paraphrasing from a piece by Robert Farrar Capon. Like Taylor, Capon was an Episcopal priest and author. (He passed on in 2017; Taylor is still very much with us.)
The saying caught my attention because we here are currently in the midst of our on-going conversation about scripture – where it comes from, who wrote it, how we can understand it? Is it just stories? How do we believe it? So many questions.
I’ve never read any of Capon’s stories that I’m aware of, so I’m grateful to Brown for mentioning it or I might never have met his bewildered oyster as it struggled to grasp something far beyond its ability to comprehend. That would have been a shame, because his story is a perfect analog for our often bewildered attempts to figure out God.
This is how I sometimes feel when trying to explain scripture, its function, and our response to it. It was written so long ago by people we know next to nothing about, and yet we’re taught that it is important. We have a terrible tendency to see these long ago people as “just like us,” and yes, in many ways we are the same, but in many other ways we are so, so different.
The social and cultural settings have always been the part of biblical studies that interested me most. The “Why” interests me much more than the “How”. Recently while reading Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis I came upon a chapter that truly grabbed my attention. I’d like to quickly skim over some of the particulars included there.
When reading a bible story I would imagine that most of us don’t put too much thought into why that story was told in the particular way it’s told in scripture. Bell points out that the writers – both New and Old Testaments – often had very clear reasons for presenting their stories as they did.
Take John’s Gospel account for instance. In this gospel Jesus’ first miracle was changing water into wine at the wedding in Cana, which is in Galilee. This was followed by some traveling around the surrounding area and finally, returning to Cana, where he met a high ranking Roman official whose son was dying. Jesus healed the boy ... from a distance. This was his first healing miracle.
And then on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus is said to have fed 5000 people with nothing more then 5 loaves of bread and a couple of dried fish. Again, the first of his miracles involving feeding crowds.
We are all familiar with these three stories, but do we know why John presents them in this particular order? Other gospels have them in different orders, but yes, there is a reason. According to Rob Bell, the author of John's gospel had a very good reason.
John was writing his gospel account specifically to a part of Asia Minor where for centuries the traditional three primary gods worshipped were Dionysus, god of wine and the vineyards, Asclepius, the god of healing, and Demeter, goddess of grain and the harvest. John’s agenda here is very clear once we put it together – Jesus can produce wine, like Dionysus; he can heal the sick and dying, like Asclepius; he can produce food to feed the masses, like Demeter. He can do anything their prior gods can do – and he does it better.
We today aren’t likely to immediately link John’s stories of Jesus with the ancient gods and goddesses who had ruled this land for centuries – simply because those past ‘gods’ have no place in our current culture – but the people John wrote his gospel for would most certainly make the connection and understand John’s claim, without him ever having to say it out loud.
There are dozens more examples just like this – connections that we today miss entirely. Things we pass right by without hearing the importance of the stories they tell of the Good News of Jesus and the ways in which those early Christians spread that good news far and wide without coming right out and challenging the powers that be.
I suspect we don’t even come close to understanding how much we don’t know. A lot of it is out there to be learned but it is up to us to seek it out and decide if it changes anything about what we see and believe.
Like Capon’s invertebrates -- “... when human beings try to describe God we are like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina. We simply do not have the equipment to understand something so utterly beyond us.”
May we always place enough value on our relationship with God that we keep on seeking to understand all that God’s word is telling us and may we hear more of it, all the time.
The saying caught my attention because we here are currently in the midst of our on-going conversation about scripture – where it comes from, who wrote it, how we can understand it? Is it just stories? How do we believe it? So many questions.
I’ve never read any of Capon’s stories that I’m aware of, so I’m grateful to Brown for mentioning it or I might never have met his bewildered oyster as it struggled to grasp something far beyond its ability to comprehend. That would have been a shame, because his story is a perfect analog for our often bewildered attempts to figure out God.
This is how I sometimes feel when trying to explain scripture, its function, and our response to it. It was written so long ago by people we know next to nothing about, and yet we’re taught that it is important. We have a terrible tendency to see these long ago people as “just like us,” and yes, in many ways we are the same, but in many other ways we are so, so different.
The social and cultural settings have always been the part of biblical studies that interested me most. The “Why” interests me much more than the “How”. Recently while reading Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis I came upon a chapter that truly grabbed my attention. I’d like to quickly skim over some of the particulars included there.
When reading a bible story I would imagine that most of us don’t put too much thought into why that story was told in the particular way it’s told in scripture. Bell points out that the writers – both New and Old Testaments – often had very clear reasons for presenting their stories as they did.
Take John’s Gospel account for instance. In this gospel Jesus’ first miracle was changing water into wine at the wedding in Cana, which is in Galilee. This was followed by some traveling around the surrounding area and finally, returning to Cana, where he met a high ranking Roman official whose son was dying. Jesus healed the boy ... from a distance. This was his first healing miracle.
And then on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus is said to have fed 5000 people with nothing more then 5 loaves of bread and a couple of dried fish. Again, the first of his miracles involving feeding crowds.
We are all familiar with these three stories, but do we know why John presents them in this particular order? Other gospels have them in different orders, but yes, there is a reason. According to Rob Bell, the author of John's gospel had a very good reason.
John was writing his gospel account specifically to a part of Asia Minor where for centuries the traditional three primary gods worshipped were Dionysus, god of wine and the vineyards, Asclepius, the god of healing, and Demeter, goddess of grain and the harvest. John’s agenda here is very clear once we put it together – Jesus can produce wine, like Dionysus; he can heal the sick and dying, like Asclepius; he can produce food to feed the masses, like Demeter. He can do anything their prior gods can do – and he does it better.
We today aren’t likely to immediately link John’s stories of Jesus with the ancient gods and goddesses who had ruled this land for centuries – simply because those past ‘gods’ have no place in our current culture – but the people John wrote his gospel for would most certainly make the connection and understand John’s claim, without him ever having to say it out loud.
There are dozens more examples just like this – connections that we today miss entirely. Things we pass right by without hearing the importance of the stories they tell of the Good News of Jesus and the ways in which those early Christians spread that good news far and wide without coming right out and challenging the powers that be.
I suspect we don’t even come close to understanding how much we don’t know. A lot of it is out there to be learned but it is up to us to seek it out and decide if it changes anything about what we see and believe.
Like Capon’s invertebrates -- “... when human beings try to describe God we are like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina. We simply do not have the equipment to understand something so utterly beyond us.”
May we always place enough value on our relationship with God that we keep on seeking to understand all that God’s word is telling us and may we hear more of it, all the time.
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