3rd Sunday of the Year - Sunday of the Word of God (C)

 

Some of the greatest joys of my ministry here at the Cathedral are the day-to-day encounters I have with students, teachers, and parents in our Cathedral school. In the fall, our third-grade teachers, Ms. Hurtt and Ms. Courtney, had their kids write down questions on slips of paper for me to answer; and sitting down to write individual responses to each of their questions was one of the most enjoyable ways I could spend an afternoon, because their questions were not only amusing but also deeply insightful and intriguing. Kids may sometimes say the darndest things, but I’d wager that some of our third graders might just be budding theologians. 

One of the best questions they asked was this: “Is the Bible telling the truth?” That’s probably a question you’ve asked yourself. In fact, it’s one that’s on my mind not infrequently. In seminary, I took at least 3 classes that tried to answer it, and even the bishops at the Second Vatican Council spent a long time forming their position on the issue of “biblical inerrancy”, as it’s known in theological jargon. And the way I see it, Pope Francis has invited the Church universal to reflect upon this very question by designating this third Sunday of the year as “The Sunday of the Word of God”. 

The Holy Father wants sacred Scripture to be at the very center of the life and mission of the Church; and for that to happen, the Word of God needs to be at the center of each of our lives as individual Christians. But this requires each of us to assess for ourselves whether or not what sacred Scripture (the Bible) tells us is true. Because if the Bible is not telling the truth, then we can put it on the shelf next to any book of the self-help variety we may own as giving us one opinion about how we should live and what we should desire among many; but if the Bible is telling the truth, then it deserves, by right, to be the only book that we allow to form us. 

So, is the Bible telling the truth? Let’s look at the beginning of today’s Gospel, in which we heard the opening four verses of Saint Luke’s account. These verses are, in fact, one long, beautifully crafted sentence which not only showcases Luke’s elevated knowledge of Greek language and rhetoric, but also tells us about Luke’s method as an historian. Allow me to read these verses again: “Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.” 

Luke’s method, then, is to go right ‘to the horse’s mouth’ to get the story of Jesus straight from the people who lived it. His goal is to provide eyewitness testimony of Jesus’ teaching, ministry, passion, death, and resurrection and to arrange all that into a narrative that inspires faith in Theophilus, his patron, and in us who are also ‘lovers of God’, as ‘Theophilus’ means in Greek. Because Luke’s Gospel is unique among the four in that it gives Mary’s account of Jesus’ birth, it’s most likely the case that Jesus’ own mother was among those eyewitnesses interviewed by Saint Luke. And there were no doubt countless others who told stories about the mighty deeds Jesus had done, recounted the parables he told, the jokes he cracked, and those mysterious predictions about what was to come that would only make sense in light of the resurrection. Luke wants us, his reader, to know that what his book contains is true: it actually happened, to real people, at a particular time in history, at a particular place in the world. It’s true, all of it. 

Very quickly, however, when one says that the Gospel is true or, more generally, that the Bible is true, any number of objections rise to the surface; and these objections are always posed on historical grounds. Although Luke presents himself as a diligent journalist and well-rounded historian, some of his Gospel’s historical claims are suspect. For example, Luke famously contextualizes Jesus’ birth within a worldwide census ordered by none other Caesar Augustus himself! And yet there is, outside of the Bible, no record that such a census took place at that time, thus calling the legitimacy of Luke’s narrative into question. (The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible dedicates an entire page to the question of the census, as it’s the topic of an ongoing debate among biblical scholars). 

Things get even more problematic when we look at the historical claims made in the Old Testament; and even within the Old Testament itself, there are contradictory timelines and narratives. So, we need to return to our original question: is the Bible true? If we accept in faith that the Church says the Bible is true, then how is it true when it’s filled with possible or actual factual error? 

I’d suggest that the truth of the Bible is found by searching for the truth that Luke wanted to convey in writing his Gospel. While Luke did set out to situate the events of Jesus’ life within an historical context, his primary concern was not to write a history book, but a Gospel, a proclamation of the Good News. And in what does this Good News consist? Let’s let Jesus speak for himself: 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” 

This is the Good News that Luke sought to convey to Theophilus and to us, his readers. I would think that, as an interviewer, his line of questioning had less to do about historical facts than it did with verifying this claim as true through the experience of those women and men who accompanied Jesus as his disciples. Jesus said to the people in the synagogue of his hometown that these words of the prophet Isaiah were today “fulfilled in your hearing” and Luke set ought to determine whether that claim was true; and true did he find it, and as true does he give it to us, that we may have certainty in the teachings about Jesus that we have received. 

For the Word of God, Jesus Christ, to be at the center of our life as individuals and at the core of the life and mission of the Church, we each need to evaluate for ourselves whether this claim has proven itself to be true in our own life. Has the Lord Jesus proclaimed liberty to me, a captive to sin? Has the Lord Jesus restored sight to me, one blinded by the deceit of worldly ambitions and pleasures? Has the Lord Jesus freed me, one oppressed by the kingdom of the world? Has the Lord Jesus announced to me, a sinner, that I am acceptable in the sight of God on account of his never-ending mercy? 

If the Lord Jesus has done these things for you, then you know that the Bible is true. You know it is true because what the Bible teaches at its core, beyond mere and trivial historical details, has been fulfilled in your hearing, in the very experience of your life. Then “Do not be sad, and do not weep” but rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord who has given his Word to you that you may have life and have life in abundance. And if these things haven’t happened for you, then maybe this Word of God Sunday is an invitation to let God’s Word have a greater place in your heart, that it may prove itself to you that it’s true.

Cathedral of Mary OuR Queen

January 23,  2022