Bible Stories
Randy Siegel
Raised in the South, church was a Sunday morning ritual and an important part of my youth. That said, church did little to enhance my relationship with God. When I went away to Camp Sequoyah in Weaverville, North Carolina, though, my understanding of God began to change. Taking solitary hikes in nature, I found a god with whom I could relate. Not the vengeful Zeus-like god of the Old Testament, or the New Testament god who would allow His only son to be put to death, but a god who loved me so much that God gave us a world so beautiful that it literally takes my breath away at times.
As I look back, I realize that my early Christian education failed me. I had a string of medals for perfect Sunday school attendance, but I had little understanding of the Bible, the church, and what it really means to be a Christian. One of my earliest memories is studying the Noah’s Ark story in second grade Sunday school. My practical and analytical mind couldn’t make sense of any of it. How could Noah get all those animals on one boat, and what about the poop?
When I asked questions, no one could give me a straight answer other than the importance of faith. Twenty years later, I attended a weekly Bible study on the gospels led by one of the priests. Again, my analytical mind couldn’t process the stories, and once again I was told to have faith. I see now that I had no context for how these stories could be relevant to my life.
How much richer my church experience would have been if I had been introduced to other world religions and taught about the power of myth and metaphor. How I would have benefited from understanding that since the Bible was written by humans, it’s normal to find inconsistencies and prejudices. How I would have enjoyed each Bible story, knowing the context of the time in which it was written, and how I would have delighted in knowing that the Bible has practical advice for how to live my life.
Episcopalians have many strengths, but for many of us, studying the Bible is not high on that list. I had to smile; when I taught at Christ Church’s Vacation Bible School, it was the kids from the other denominations who knew their Bible. My ex-wife, an Episcopalian, was asked as a middle-schooler to write a paper on Moses. She wrote a fantastical story about Moses and the Indians. She had mixed up Moses with the American Thanksgiving story.
Today, it’s theologians like Richard Rohr, Matthew Fox, Cynthia Bourgeault, Andrew Harvey, and James Hollis—as well as great thinkers such as Carl Jung, Russ Hudson, and Eckhart Tolle—who are helping me to shape my theology. They’re teaching me how to relate to the Bible, the Trinity, the Holy Communion, prayer, meditation, service, and self-exploration in new ways.
Key to keeping the church relevant, alive and thriving is Christian education. Together, we can find new ways of seeing the Bible, the Trinity, and being with God and one another. And, together, we can explore the Bible’s many layers and how those layers can help us embrace our wholeness and come into union, reunion, and communion with God.