Scripture Reading

I went back to visit my family in Malaysia a few weeks ago, and one of the things I wanted to do was to visit with my brother his fellowship group (or, "cell group") that meets one street down from his place.  My brother was particularly interested to get my gander on the theology of the group.  It was very interesting, indeed.  The group was very, very hospitable, they were very gracious and welcoming, and I was very blessed to be there.

The most interesting part of the evening fellowship, however, came when we read a psalm, preparing to discuss it.  We went around, each reading a verse.  To put it mildly, everyone read emotionlessly.  When it got to me, I thought I would read it kinda emotionlessly too, just so I don't stand out and come across as all snooty and stuff.  And so I read my verse semi-emotionlessly.  Right after I was done, however, everyone went, "Wha!  We all read and we all like fall asleep, but when you read, we all like, WOW... so beautiful!"  Some joked and went, "You can get girls with that voice! You got girlfriend?"  In other words, at least to them, I was amazingly eloquent in my Scripture reading.  Dr. Frymire would be so proud!

But their response befuddled me quite a bit!  After all, their comments on my reading suggested that they knew they read emotionlessly.  So why do they persist in their emotionless reading?  It became clear when they started discussing the passage.  The discussion was very, very shallow.  It was largely about how this passage spoke to them.  How?  It was always along the lines of "God is telling me in this passage that I should do X."  I should be nice to others.  I should come to church on time.  I should take him more seriously.  I should this, I should that.

Of course, if Scripture is viewed as a self-help book, then there's no need to pour emotion into the reading of it.  After all, self-help books serve to get you out of a rut.  Something's not working in your sex life, ergo you buy self-help books geared towards sexuality.  You have a self-esteem issue, so a self-help book addressing it will help you through it.  But self-help books are not interactions between the text and the reader.  They are, by definition, a prescriptive text - they essentially get the reader to change by telling him/her what to do.  And if it doesn't work, you toss the book and buy another one in hopes that the new book would do the trick.

Sometimes, religion is viewed as this self-help device.  In other words, it is viewed as a utilitarian gimmick.  For that reason, people convert from one religion to another relatively easily until they find a religion that "delivers" what they want.  One year it's the spiritual high promised by shallow Christianity, another year it's enlightenment promised by Buddhism, and so on.  For Christians, this is disturbing.  It is not disturbing because it affects our church numbers, but disturbing because the world we are operating in is trending towards such shallow "self-helpedness."  And when we read Scriptures assuming that it's a self-help manual, we read it emotionlessly, to the point where an injection of some emotion into a reading, like I did, elicited gawks and notes of admiration, as if my education led to this kind of reading.

How we read Scripture matters.  In fact, some scholars might argue that Scripture reading should be a high point in the service.  In the ancient church, nobody had brought Bibles to church - books were tremendously expensive in those days, and nobody could read anyways.  For almost 1,500 years (75% of church history), people learned Scripture by hearing it.   Even after the Reformation, the accessibility of the Bible was nowhere near its accessibility today.  Even 100 years ago, every family owned one Bible, because it was a pretty big investment (like a computer 10 years ago, or a plasma-screen TV today).  That we routinely own 3-4 (or even more) Bibles of different languages or translations is a historical anomaly.

Because of the extreme accessibility and amazing literacy today, we are used to reading Scriptures on our own.  But I think we've lost something from it.  You see, when we read Scriptures, we are responsible for reading it responsibly.  That's why in the days of yore, huge monies were spent to educate priests so that they can read the Scriptures responsibly and preach effectively from it.  It is incumbent on Christian leaders today to equip every member of the congregation to be such responsible readers of the Bible.  If we read an emotionally-charged psalm like a calculus textbook, we are being irresponsible readers because we are depriving the Spirit from reaching out through the psalm and speaking to our souls.  Indeed, there is a reason our lives are rarely changed through an encounter with a math equation - the equation, however useful it is in our lives, is emotionally neutral at best.  And so we respond to it with the same emotional neutrality.  But if we claim that the Scriptures speak to the soul, we cannot read and respond to it with emotional deprivation.

Psalm 137 is an example of such emotionally-charged psalm.  "By the waters of Babylon we sat and wept," the Psalmist begins.  But why?  This psalm was written during the Babylonian Captivity, when Babylon carted Israel's best and brightest off to Babylon.  This was repeated in China under the reign of Qin Shi Huang who, as he conquered all the kingdoms and united China, brought every royal family and noble from each kingdom to Luoyang where he built palaces in the architectural style of each conquered kingdom.  It was a cruel and lasting insult, a reminder that their kingdoms are now but museum showpieces.  The sorrow and utter despair felt by the royal families of the conquered kingdoms was like those felt by the Israelites during the Babylonian Captivity.  Did God forget us?  How could Babylon conquer Israel when we have God as our head?  Did God fail?  Will Israel be a museum piece?  When we read Psalm 137, we need to read it as a poem that was difficult to utter.  It is as if China somehow invaded the United States, carted off our government officials to Beijing, and allowed the mainland Chinese to freely enter the USA and make fun of every American, impugning them with racist jokes, reviving the N-word, and making fun of American accents.   Yes, that is the emotion that Israel felt during the Babylonian Captivity.  Potent anger mixed with hopeless despair.

Knowing this, it's obvious: how any reader can read Psalm 137 emotionlessly is quite befuddling, but the truth is many have. Chances are, the next time you hear this psalm read in church, it'll sound like another line from a calculus textbook.

To be a responsible reader of Scripture requires us to be faithful in conveying what the biblical author is trying to convey to the best of our ability and knowledge.  This requires some extra work on our part - or, requires talking to the right people.  But if we are a truly biblically-centered people, this is work worth undertaking.  After all, there is no point being Biblical when our reading equates biblical with boring.  And God help us if indeed we feel that the Bible is very much boring.