A twelve gauge Remington automatic shotgun, when I turned sixteen that was my birth day present.
When I turned seventeen I was given a leather bound Bible, the new King James version, the red letter edition, the words of Christ being in red.
The shotgun scared me, I’ve always been nervous around guns, though I am a pretty good shot.
It wasn’t until years later that I realized that the Bible was the much more dangerous of the two. We require all sorts of licensing around guns but there is no license required for using scripture. Unlicensed bibles are everywhere and they have caused more harm than guns will ever do.
The Bible is a big book, pretty much anything that can happen happens in there somewhere, pretty much anything that can be said is said in there somewhere.
It is very easy to use scripture to say pretty much whatever we want it to say.
It can be and is often used as a weapon to hurt, to control and to manipulate, used for hate.
After all, the devil can and does quote scripture.
This is not a new situation.
Jesus dealt with this same problem 2000 years ago.
A lawyer wanted to test him on how to use scripture, “What is the greatest commandment?”
In answer Jesus quoted scripture. First he quoted from Deuteronomy, “Love God with all your heart, soul and mind.” Meaning to love God with all that we are, all that we have, leave nothing out.
And then he quoted a second passage of scripture, this time from the book of Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And he said that this second commandment is equal to the first, they are of the same importance.
There is nothing unusual about these two quotes, but Jesus was the first to group them together and to call them equal and then he did something profound.
Jesus said that the love of God and neighbor are the two commandments that hold up all of scripture, the law and the prophets.
That means to read scripture the right way is to read it as being about loving God and neighbor. If we use scripture in another way then we use it the wrong way.
How often do we see Scripture used like a gun? We point it at one another, and if they don’t do as we say then we pull the trigger and we let them have it, both testaments, chapter and verse.
It’s an old problem.
But Jesus shows us another way to use scripture, another way to read scripture, another way to understand scripture.
It’s all about love.
It’s about God’s gift of love in Jesus Christ in whom we see what love is really like, in whom the law and the prophets are fulfilled.
Becoming all about love, that is what scripture is about, that is what God is about, that is who Jesus is about.
Too often in the Episcopal Church we have given up on this wonderful gift of scripture and have forfeited it to the unscrupulous, the ignorant and the hateful.
Don’t do that. Don’t give this pearl of great price, this precious treasure and gift, don’t give it up and feed it to the pigs. Don’t let them have it.
Love the scriptures.
May we let the Holy Spirit fill our hearts and spark our imaginations that we will find the love of God and neighbor, and that we will find many ways to live and express this love.
That would truly be Gospel, Good news to the world.
Become all love: heart, soul and mind.
It isn’t a gun. It’s a love letter.