2 Timothy 3:14-4:8

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 15and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is inspired by God and is* useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: 2proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. 3For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, 4and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. 5As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

 As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Sola Scriptura?

I saw a photo of an exhibit by Jorge Mendez Blake, a Mexican artist. This piece of art is made up of a wall that is 75 feet long.  It is about 6 feet tall, high enough that I probably couldn’t see over it. It’s made up of red bricks, thousands of them put together without mortar.  It spans the length of the museum space and yet in the midst of this exhibit there is just one change: on the ground there is laid one small book.  The book in this exhibit is from Kafka.  It is laid on the ground as the bricks are placed and what it does is unsettles the bricks in their lay.  It starts subtly at first, in those first layers, where the bricks just slightly don’t fit together, but as it continues upward this disruption only exacerbates, increases until by the top the wall has buckled because of the book that was laid at its base.

This exhibit thrills me because I know that walls are built and intended in this world: the walls of empire that show power, the walls of separation that divide us from one another, the walls of oppression that keep us from who we are called to be.  And so, how thrilling is it that such a wall could be breached not by a battalion but by a book?

For today we are talking about a book, a collection of words grappled together across centuries and times and yet these words, this book, has unsettled empires.  And behold, what courage we have to hand them to children unabridged.  Beware the books you give to children for see what accounts they may call you to.

We are talking about the Reformation this month, our heritage in the Protestant tradition.  And one of the heritages that is the major shift involves how the church holds this book.  So to start, in the medieval Roman Catholic Church let’s just name the ways it was hard to read:  the mass was in Latin, the Scripture was read in Latin, literacy was very very low and so for the vast majority of folks faith was a mystery brought to them and mediated by the clergy.  Within the church as well, the authority of the church was that Scripture could only interpreted by tradition. Even while the church was in the midst of deep corruption, there wasn’t a way to call the church to account.  To quote Luther, who always had something to say, “The Romanists