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The Bethany Lutheran Church (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) Constitution refers to our scriptures (both testaments) as “… the written” and “inspired Word of God.” What does this mean? Get your Bible ready.

Does God speak in ways other than the Bible? Isn’t the Bible inerrant and infallible, a direct and unadulterated message from God? If something is not specifically authorized or allowed in our tradition’s sacred writings, does that mean we can’t believe it or do it? If it IS included, does that mean we must enact or embody the imperatives, be they executing a child who curses a parent (Exodus 21:17) or modeling modern society after the first communal communities of Christians (Acts 2:44)? And, if we “pick and choose” which texts to take as imperatives for ethics and life, won’t there be hundreds of different “denominations” or schools of thought within a religion like ours?

I mentioned in a sermon recently, that over Christmas, my family dedicated hours of a “free” trial of a streaming service, to watch some of the Star Wars franchise. Called by some “The Skywalker Saga” (after a family), there is in this often captivating story, a common thread. I don’t doubt that there are people in the world (maybe in my own family) who are at least as influenced by the story of the son of Anakin (Skywalker) as they are by the scriptural saga about the son of Joseph, the son of Jacob…the son of David… the son of Abraham (see Matthew 1). This one St. John called the living Word (“Logos,” John 1); the “Light” that was with God, even before the sunlight (cf. Genesis 1). German theologian, Paul Tillich, calls Jesus the “Ground of our Being,” the “Ultimate Concern.” Franciscan Richard Rohr refers to God as the divine “Blueprint,” the basis of life, the beginning and end of the story. Keep your mind open.

What is your “Ultimate Concern?” Who is the “Ground of your (very) Being?” What is the formative, foundational story that casts the vision in your imagination and energizes actions? Does it have much to do with the one who brought forth life, whether out of “chaos” or “nothingness?” Can this story reframe, even now, the way you look at creation, at other people, congregants, your children, enemies, strangers?

There are traditions that talk about the Bible as a “to do (or `not to do’)” list. I believe the blueprint shows that we earthlings, creatures in God’s very image, given the sacred trust of a story. Our epic story is of life to chaos (or death) to life. From the image of God, to the inevitability of “curving in on ourselves” (sin- seeking our own way, but see the famous wedding text in I Corrinthians 15, “love does not insist on its own way”), to the daily dying to sin and rising again in Christ. We are granted the very “mind of Christ” (I Corrinthians 2, especially the end of the chapter), but stories of consumerism, conspiracy and competition—ripe with threats—move us in the way of fear and away from Christ. As our sacred, inspired, written word of God needs a “decoder” ring/tool, we have our particular Lutheran lens through which we see not only the words, but God’s world and the ever-manifest ways of the Spirit. The schools of thought are not the same. We are not “literalists.” No Christian could risk life and limb for abolition, for instance, if his method was to count verses in favor, complicit with or opposed, to slavery. We are called to take in the story of God, humankind and creation, with the mind, eyes, vision and completion of the mission in ways that bend towards gospel… “good news of great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10).

A Jedi Master suggested that “fear…” is part of a very dark force. One who was called “Master” taught and embodied how “perfect love casts out fear (I John 4:18b).” Keep on loving!

God’s blessings of challenge and comfort; urgency and peace are yours. In Jesus’ name.