Wednesday March 25th. – Lent 2009

An article by Frank    2 Comments

Yesterday I put up a post quoting a passage from the Message. That passage represented my first worthwhile introduction to Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible.

I have been reading the Bible since I was five years old. My mother didn’t start me on a children’s version of the Bible, she read the real deal to me and had me reading from it. I’ve grown up reading the Bible and hardly a day has gone by when I haven’t opened it up and read something. Granted, the understanding and interpretation of it hasn’t always been good. For a period I took cues from Eric Von Daniken and saw a whole bunch of stuff about aliens in it – the Ark of the Covenant was an early and powerful microwave oven; Jesus used laser technology to heal people and the cloud he ascended into heaven on was a spaceship hidden by a cloud etc. Nevertheless, through all the different stages of my relationship with the Bible I have never found it boring, dry or a struggle to read.

Growing up on standard translations of the Bible, I have never been grabbed by a paraphrase. I’ve had brief encounters with The Message before and whilst loving other works from Eugene Peterson, The Message has always felt foreign to me and to be honest, the snippets I had read felt like it cheapened the scriptures. I know that the works present in the New Testament were written in the common language of the day, but reading it in a common language of our day created a certain amount of dissonance for me.

Maybe it comes down to a next step in my journey with the Bible, maybe a small step in maturing has taken place, or maybe it was just that someone read me a passage from The Message completely along the lines of my passion in a way that took the language of scripture and made it completely relevant to issues that I care about. Maybe it’s a collection of all of that… who knows, but yesterday I was converted to The Message so at the end of the working day I acquired one. After only delving into it slightly last night, I think I have discovered a rendering of the scriptures I can just read without being pulled into word studies, commentaries etc etc. I have never been able to “just read” the scriptures… that may have just changed.

Last night I looked to see how The Message rendered some of the passages that have most influenced my life. A couple of them really stuck out to me and I thought them extremely relevant to this time of Lent and it’s process of examination, self denial and our desire to place God first. Let me share them with you… they are extremely challenging. Both passages are from Amos and reflect the prophetic tradition of putting a culture under the lens of God, drawing out its shortfalls and challenging those to the core.  Spend today considering them and reflecting on the challenge within them.

I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice – oceans of it.
I want fairness – rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.
- Amos 5:21-24 (The Message)

Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,
you who treat poor people as less than nothing,
who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming
so I can go out and live it up?
How long till the weekend
when I can go out and have a good time?”
Who give little and take much,
and never do an honest day’s work.
You exploit the poor, using them -
and then, when they’re used up, you discard them.
- Amos 8:4-6 (The Message)

Let me offer you a challenge as you continue to seek to be refined during lent. If you’re anything like me you’ll read those and think first about other people or groups that you think fit the challenge of those passages and you will consider how “bad” they are and how great it is to read something that rebukes them. But if you’re anything like me, your next question, as you continue to ponder them, will be “but am I somehow being spoken to in them as well?” Run with that question and if the answer turns out to be yes, seek to be changed and work to change. May you be open to the challenge and may you be given the character and find the strength needed to journey through the change.