Engaging Scripture and encountering the Lord of Scripture can be dangerous. Maybe that’s why many of us have learned the art of showing up Sunday after Sunday for “Bible study” without much risk of doing either.
That truth came home for me again on Palm Sunday as I visited a “BFG” (Bible Fellowship Group) at Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo. About a dozen adults took their seats around tables configured into a rectangle. They shared greetings, made a few introductions and offered prayer requests.
David Wilkinson
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Tim, the group’s teacher, then announced, “We’re going to do something a little different today.” Too often, he said, we chop the Scripture into bite-sized portions to study each Sunday rather than feasting on large portions that enable us to enter more fully into the purposeful, unfolding story being told by the author. Or, to use a different analogy, we study tree after tree but often lose sight of the forest.
For the next half hour, volunteers in the group read aloud chapters 21-27 from the Gospel of Matthew, beginning with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and ending with his bloodied and lifeless body lying in a borrowed tomb with a stone rolled against the entrance and Roman soldiers on guard.
“Just listen to the story,” said Tim. “As you listen, jot down a few words or phrases to remind you of things that strike you in the story.”
So, I listened.
Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey, a sign of humility and peace. But the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel is no milquetoast. He rides right into the front yard of his opponents, plops his soapbox down on every corner and lets it fly. He takes on the religious establishment, knowing full well that they have political connections that can and will shackle and silence him and send even his most loyal followers running for the hills. Yet Jesus refuses to back down or to mince words. He is bold and brash. He is controversial and confrontational. He challenges. He confronts. He offends. No wonder they killed him.
“They” killed him.
I was reminded again how tempting it is to hear the story with some false assumptions about “them” and “us,” about who is safely on the inside and who is left standing on the outside. Too often I approach the Passion — and the life and teachings of Jesus — with the attitude that I am one of the insiders and “those people” (make your list) are the outsiders. Too often I am guilty of assuming in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that God’s grace is about me while God’s judgment is about “them.”
The next day, sitting at the gate at the airport, I took out my New Testament and read the seven chapters again. But first I breathed a prayer that God would remove my defenses and suspend my assumptions.
I entered the story again. And it was even more dangerous than the day before. But I was also ready for the pain and the agony of Holy Week and the sound of the nails being driven into Jesus’ hands and feet on terrible Good Friday.
And the story was no longer about them. It was about me.
David Wilkinson is executive director of Associated Baptist Press, which distributed this opinion piece.