Writing Your Own Bible

Elizabeth M. Hoster
December 31, 2006
First Sunday After Christmas

First of all, this is not a quiz. Will you get out a pen or pencil–or share one with your neighbor? I’d like you to write down any line from the Bible. It’s okay if you don’t know who said it, or where in the Bible it is. Just write down what comes to mind. There is no write answer, only your answer. Now, hold onto that for awhile.

I have a story for you -- A new year’s story for you, from Tales of a Magic Monastery, the story of a fictitious yet universal monk on a lifetime journey to the heart of Christ.

Our monk writes to us this morning:

I’ve been going on retreat each year for the past forty years. Each time it’s the same, yet somehow always different. The first time I went I forgot to bring my Bible. When I asked the guestmaster if I could borrow a Bible, he said, "Wouldn’t you care to write your own?" What do you mean?" "Well, write your own Bible — something of your own on the order of a Bible. You could tell of a classical bondage and the great liberation, a promised land, sacred songs, a messiah—that kind of thing. Ought to be much more interesting than just reading someone else’s Bible. And you might learn more."

Well, I set to work. It took me a month. I never learned so much about the official Bible. When I was finished, he recommended I take it home and try to live according to it for a year. I should keep a journal of my experience. But I shouldn’t tell anybody about the project, nor show anyone the books. Next year, after Christmas I could come back for another retreat.

It was quite a year. An eye opener. Most certainly I had never put so much energy and alertness into living by the official Bible as I was putting into living by this one. And my daily medidtations had never been so concentrated.

When I arrived back for my next retreat, he greeted me very warmly, took into his hands my Bible and my journal, kissed them with greatest reverence, and told me I could now spend a couple days and nights in the Hall of the Great Fire. On the last night of the year, I should consign my two books to the flames. And that’s what I did. A whole year’s wisdom and labor–into the Great Fire. Afterwards he set me to work writing another Bible.

And so it went, these past forty years. Each year a new Bible, a new journal, and at the end of the year–into the flames. Until now I have never told anyone about this. *

Tomorrow we start a new year. What would happen if each of us sat down and began to write our own Bibles–and then started living by them? It’s not as far fetched or as self-serving an idea as you may think. It may be the most God-serving thing you do all year. Look at this morning’s Gospel.

After learning from scripture handed down for thousands of years, our writer has the holy audacity to start his work with "in the beginning...In the beginning was THE WORD."

Think about our writer. We know that his was the last of the Canonical Gospels written–so he probably had some knowledge of one other Gospel. If he indeed was the beloved disciple, the cosmos was ripped open before his very eyes. No matter what, his encounter with Christ changed how he saw everything. It changed how he saw life on earth and how he saw eternal life, and how he saw the scriptures–what we call the Old Testament– on which he was raised.

So he goes back to the very beginning of creation, realizing that Christ was there all along. Long before there was any written word, there was the LIVING Word, which is Christ.

I imagine the Gospel writer as our monk, the guest in the monastery. And the old guest master says to him, "John, start at the beginning. Start where you first see Christ."

Imagine going back to your beginning, and realizing Christ was there all along. If that became real to us this year–then imagine the Bible we could write! Imagine the Gospel we could live!

Some of you might say, "I don’t know enough Bible to do this." You know enough, and you will learn more as you go along.

You have already started.

Start with whatever line you just wrote down.

Start with where you first see Christ. Is it in your beginning? Is it in THE beginning?

At the end of the year, the monk in our story is asked to throw it all into the fire. All he has done is not destroyed. Instead, he is given the grace of beginning again. We too are given that grace to start anew and live out our faith.

Each of us writes our own Bibles, whether we know it or not–it is the one we write out with our lives, the one we live out. And so, this year, especially with the changes we will be living through, I ask you to be more intentional about it. In the beginning, what will it be? What will be the most important stories? How will the Living Word be lived out in our lives?

And when we come to the end of the year, all that we have done and learned is not destroyed. We have lived it and have learned from it and give it back to God. God takes what we have lived, and turns it into heat and light.

Let our lives this year show God’s light, which shines in the darkness and which the darkness cannot overcome. Let the Word become flesh once more and live among us. Let the Bibles we write with our lives reflect the true light which is coming into this world, now and in the years to come.

* Theophane the Monk, Tales of a Magic Monastery. Current Printing: Crossroad Publishing, Lexington, KY, 2000. Original copyright 1981, Sistercian Abbey of Spencer, Inc.