There was once two monks who lived in the same religious community. They were good friends.  One was the cook and the other was noted for his preaching. He was in great demand and each week, the cook would ask the preacher, “Where are you this Sunday, brother?”  And when Sunday came, the preacher knew that as his friend went about his work in the kitchen, he would be praying for him.  A time came when the cook was told that he had to give up working. He had become too old and frail. As he lay on his bed, depressed, face to the wall, his friend the preacher came to visit him. He tried to give comfort.  “After all,” he said, “although you cannot cook any more you can still pray. I’m sure that any good my sermons have done is due to your prayers.”  The old man turned and replied indignantly, “Good! I never prayed you’d do good! I prayed that you would do no harm! If you really preach God’s word, nothing but good can come of it.”

Apart from being an important story for anyone who tries to preach, it ends with a great truth. God’s word. That is what we must preach and that is what we must hear.

Words are actually a very difficult medium to work with – far more difficult than paint or music – for words can be misinterpreted all too easy – and they can be uttered without any real feeling behind them. Indeed, we can lie or tell half-truths or be totally insincere, just by using words.  We can use them powerfully to hurt others either to their faces as in arguments, or, more often, behind people’s backs as malicious gossip.

Think how many characters we have tried to spoil by the words we have said; how many people we have actually slandered. It’s so easy to give our tongues full rein. Small wonder that the writer of the epistle of James speaks of the tongue as something dangerous. “We use it”, he says, “to praise our Lord and Father; then we use it to invoke curses on our fellow-men” – even though, he reminds us, “they are made in God’s likeness.”

“Out of the same mouth come praise and curses” he says but begs us that it should not be so.  Perhaps he was remembering that it was words, spoken in hushed tones, behind closed doors that sealed the fate of his Lord.  Today, we are bidden to consider a different kind of word – the Word of God referred to in my story.

Today, the Church keeps ‘Bible Sunday’ and we are led to think of the place of the Bible in our life of faith – the very same Bible that I have just used to speak of the danger of words.  No doubt, from many a pulpit this morning, preachers will be encouraging people to a deeper, more faithful study and reading of the Bible. They may be suggesting, as I now suggest, that if we paid as much attention to the Good News of God as we do to the Bad news pedalled by newspapers and the media, then there would be less bad news to report.  Perhaps, too, these preachers will be extolling the virtues of regular Bible Study, using notes or schemes of learning produced by the various agencies – The Bible Reading Fellowship, the Scripture Union and so on.   This is good because we need to know more about what we read and the thoughts of others can help us.  But we might understand better if we consider what is actually behind the Scriptures. What are they telling us about? Or rather, Who?

It’s all too easy to use Scripture for our own purposes – I know lots of people who can quote lumps of Scripture off by heart or who use biblical texts as weapons against others.  If you have a pet cause you can be assured that the Bible will provide backing for it – whatever it is - and you can be equally sure that those taking an opposite view can do the same. One of the saddest things in the Church today is the way that people with some particular cause can just chuck scripture around, usually completely out of context.  So often it’s a case of: “Argument weak – throw Scripture at it.”

The Bible is full of contradictions because it is a collection of books written by human beings, however divinely inspired, and often addressing particular situations. The writings apply to us because they are timeless but their context should never be ignored. and certainly should never be used as weapons to defend our own particular causes, hatreds or whims.  Reading Scripture should ultimately lead us, not into throwing texts around but rather – it should lead us into silence.

Scripture is a profound gift in which we come face to face with the living God who through His sacred word speaks to our hearts and meets us in our lives.  The Church teaches that our Christian life is a Sacramental life. It has a number of acts which it calls ‘Sacramental’ – the Eucharist and Baptism being two obvious ones. The Classic Prayer Book definition of Sacraments is that they are outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual meaning. Another way of looking at this is to say that that they are ‘True meetings with Christ for a specific purpose’ and that purpose is to be in a relationship with God.

The Bible is also a Sacrament. As we take its outward form – the words on the page – and carefully meditate over them – then the inward spiritual meaning becomes clearer. Or, to put it the other way – as we ponder Scripture we meet God in Christ.  We are confronted with the action of God in history but we find that this action speaks to us now.  But the important thing is that God is speaking to us about Himself. The words become part of a spiritual conversation through which we get to know God and ourselves in context with Him.  Our Sacred book is not a text book for the learned – for theologians, philosophers, biblical scholars. It is accessible to all who approach it prayerfully.  We shouldn’t read the Bible – we should pray it.

Through such Prayer we find God communicating not just to our so-called ‘religious’ life but to All of our life – the whole of it – our work or occupations, our struggles, our every living moment. Through the Word, God involves himself totally in our lives and as we meet him in the sacred text we are drawn to a deeper involvement in His life.  The purpose of Scripture, therefore, is to lead us to know God – not just about Him, but really know him and that is why Prayer is important.

One of the main ways in which the Church reads the Bible is in the cycle of readings, known as the Lectionary. This is a carefully constructed scheme of readings which, year by year, Sunday by Sunday, Day by Day, take us through the Bible. It is a three-year cycle and at the end of three years we have read most of Holy Scripture. But it is never read in isolation. The readings are sandwiched by prayer.  So each day as those who minister in the Church say Morning and Evening Prayer or take part in the Eucharist, they encounter God in the Holy Word – not once but four or six times.  But this is not just for those who minister. The Lectionary isn’t a secret document – it is openly published and it takes the reader through all the important events in the life of the Church from Old to New Testaments.

Using the Lectionary as a basis for Bible reading will give the Christian a sound knowledge of God’s action of salvation. I know of no other way of Bible Study that can achieve this in the way the Lectionary does.  So maybe I’m doing a hard sell or perhaps I am pointing to a way of Bible reading which is often neglected.  But I re-make the point. The readings are surrounded by prayer and without prayer Bible reading is less effective. The kind of prayer I mean is the prayer of reflection not the prayer of bombarding God with all the random thoughts that come into our head.

The prayer of reflection is the kind of prayer which broods over Scripture, letting its words enter the soul. In an early spiritual tradition, known as the Spirituality of the Desert Fathers (and Mothers!), those who sought the solitude of the desert took with them only a copy of the Bible and they simply brooded on it – often on a verse or a passage. They memorized and recited verses or potions of scripture until their minds were stilled and their hearts warmed by what God was saying to them.

There is a story of a monk seeking out the advice of St Basil. “Speak a Word, Father” was his request and Basil replied: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.”.  With this verse of scripture the monk went away. Twenty years later, he returned, “Father, I have struggled to keep your word; now speak another word to me.” Basil replied, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” The monk took this second portion of scripture away with him. He never visited Basil again.

Now this may be an extreme example of brooding on scripture but for that monk, this single bible verse, given in two halves was enough for him to build up a relationship with God and with those he met in God’s name.

Mother Mary Clare of the SLG calls this ruminating on Scripture – chewing it over as a cow chews its cud. Scripture is to be treated with reverence – to be read slowly and prayerfully. Only so can it enter the heart and it is when it has entered the heart that it becomes not something we quote but something we live by. It is in this way that God gives the soul the message He wants it to hear.

Brooding or ruminating on Scripture is about Communion with God – a Communion which builds up a relationship of love.  That is why we read Scripture – to really Know God and love Him and Hear what his words of love are to us. Words which are unlike any we utter – for they speak to our heart from the depths of His heart.  Paul says in this morning’s Epistle that we should “Let the Word of Christ dwell in (us) richly.” That is what he means, for the riches of Scripture are but words which lead us to the riches that are Christ.  It doesn’t take a lot of effort to open the Bible – would that we did so more often – and if we pray the words then the fruit of our praying and reading bring a rich reward.   

Heaven and earth will pass away” says Jesus at the end of today’s Gospel – “but my words will not pass away.” That is the eternal fruit of Bible praying and it is ours for the taking.