Fish Out of Water

Seeing the Bible as a liturgical book not a library book

05/15/2023

Jn 15:26—16:4a Jesus said to his disciples: "When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. "I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you."

The more you read and study the Bible, the more you discover it is truly a very bewildering book. For example, it did not come into existence in the conventional way with one human author, who wrote it from cover to cover. Now, it did have one Author, the Holy Spirit, but the 73 books of the Bible were authored by well over a hundred human authors.

Another unconventional convention of the Bible is that it began without chapter and verse divisions. Those were added later: Bishop Stephen Langton added the chapters in the 13th century, and Robert Estienne, a printer, added the verses in 1551. So, when you read the Bible, keep in mind the chapters and verses are artificial and not intended by the original Divine and human authors. All authors today clearly and intentionally divide their books into various chapters. But that is not how the Bible was written, and so the Bible can seem bewildering.

One way to cut through the unconvention of the Scriptures is to recognize that the true habitat of the Bible is not in a library but in the liturgy. What does that mean? Well, for one thing, while it is great to study the Bible, read the Bible, memorize verses of the Bible by heart, that is like taking a fish out of water. It is nice to catch a fish, and eat the fish, or maybe mount the fish on a wall as a trophy.

But the fish’s natural habitat is in the water, not on your wall. That is where the fish is most itself and glorifies God with every fiber of its being. That is why we read in Daniel 3:79, “You sea creatures and all water creatures, bless the Lord.” When we treat the Bible like a library book we extract it from the water of its natural habitat. But when we look at the Bible in the liturgy – how and where it is used in the Mass – it sort of swims freely and glorifies God and teaches us how to glorify him, too.

Our gospel today is a good example of how to stop treating the Bible like a library book and to start treating it like a liturgical book. Jesus is at the Last Supper and giving his final instructions to his disciples before he suffers and dies for them. To encourage them when this happens, he promises to send them the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to give them the same courage and conviction of Christ, so they, too, can suffer and die. So, they can be another Christ for other disciples.

But did you notice where this section of John is taken from? It is actually the end of chapter 15 and the beginning of chapter 16. Now, who reads a book taking the last sentence of a chapter and then reading only the first two sentences of the next chapter? That would make no sense in a modern book by John Grisham or Billy Graham. But the Bible, especially the New Testament, was not written originally with chapters or verses, which were artificially imposed on the text over a thousand years later.

And in a sense, that artificial division between chapter 15 and 16 inadvertently breaks up Jesus’ true thought about how the Holy Spirit would help the Apostles. In other words, if you stopped at chapter 15:27, and did not continue reading, you would miss Jesus’ real point. And what was Jesus’ real point? That the Apostles would suffer and die, but the Spirit would strengthen them.

If you read the bible like a library book – paying too much attention to the chapters and verses, breathing a sigh of relief when you come to end of a chapter, and pick up the next chapter later – you will miss that point. But if you read the Bible like a liturgical book – ignoring the chapters and verses, like we did in the gospel reading today – you will catch that point.

My friends, we have to reorient our thinking about the Bible, and how, where, when, and why we read it. What is the Bible’s natural habitat, where it is most at home? It is at home in the liturgy and not in the library. And by the way, the word “reorient” comes from “orient” which means “the east.” Traditionally, we have always faced east – ad orientem – when we gather to celebrate the liturgy (like you all are doing this morning). Why?

Well, because at Mass we are awaiting the return of Jesus, who will be like the rising Son. When we read and pray the Bible in the Mass, properly oriented - properly "east-ed" - as a liturgical text, the Bible becomes like a fish in water, and glorifies God with every letter of its being. And it teaches us how to glorify God, too.

Praised be Jesus Christ!