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A conversation about Lectio Divina
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Hey, Jeremy here. So in this season called Lent where we are preparing ourselves for Easter, we've been spending time as a community in this sermon, this series of parables that Jesus gives in Matthew chapter 13. And this is all about the kingdom of God, this sort of mysterious presence of the divine that is mixed all through our world and that Jesus wants to bring our attention to. And what we've been doing each week in this series is looking at the ways that Jesus gives a parable that has a sort of obvious surface meaning to it, but then the ways in which Jesus has embedded sort of deeper, more hidden meanings into these parables that that only come out once we really sort of dig into them a bit. So the example this weekend was this pair of parables.
Speaker 1:Jesus says, The kingdom of God is like treasure hidden in a field that a mound found. And then he says, The kingdom of God is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. And on the surface, it is the same story over again. God is hidden in the world and we need to search Him out and find Him. And when we do find Him, it's worth everything that we have to grab ahold of that and keep ahold of that Kingdom.
Speaker 1:But if you look really closely here, what you notice is that in the first parable the Kingdom of God is hidden in the world like a treasure. And in the second parable the Kingdom of God actually isn't the treasure. The Kingdom of God is the merchant who is looking for the treasure. And so I brought out this idea in the sermon that these two parables are meant to work together to say to us that yes, we are stumbling around looking for the divine in the world, but at the same time the kingdom of God, God himself is looking for us. He's searching us out so that he can bring us back home.
Speaker 1:And once you notice that, you say, Oh, of course that's what it is. I see that all through Jesus. You you immediately remember those stories where Jesus says, Hey, you know what? He is like a shepherd who leaves the 99 to go and find the one that treasured sheep and bring it back home with him. And you say, Of course, that's what the kingdom of God does.
Speaker 1:Of course, that's who Jesus is. And yet, one of the questions that came up a couple times after that sermon was, well, how do you notice those things? People said they've read that story a thousand times before and never noticed that in the second story that Jesus is switching the meaning around. He's saying the kingdom of God isn't the pearl of great value. The kingdom of God is actually the merchant who's looking for the pearl.
Speaker 1:What does it take to be aware of those types of things? Now there's lots of different ways to do this and so this is not the only way. If you look online, you'll find many different guides to lectio and how you can incorporate that in your life. But here's one of the ways that I do it when I'm reading through a text. I will read through a text from front to end.
Speaker 1:I'll try to find the pericope. Where does it start and end based on on the flow of of what's happening in the narrative? But then settle in on that and read it front to back and then just sit with it. And spend maybe two, three, five minutes just thinking about that story. Where was the beginning?
Speaker 1:Where was the middle? What was the end? What was the climax? How did the narrative unfold? Then what I'll do is I'll go back and I'll read it again, but this time I'm looking for specific phrases that jump out at me.
Speaker 1:These don't even have to be phrases that drive the narrative forward. They don't even have to be particularly important. It's just whatever the spirit is sort of bringing to my attention about a little phrase or a sentence or something that just seems strange or out of place and I want to notice those things. Then I sit with those for another five minutes and I wonder, Is there something that I need to pay attention here? Is there something that God might be speaking to me here?
Speaker 1:Then once I've done that, I go back and I read it again a third time. And this time, what I'm looking for are just simply words that pop out at me. Things like in the parable of the treasure that it says the man found it and hid it and then in his joy he went and sold everything and bought the land. That word joy popped out at me. This is not an obligation.
Speaker 1:It's not a duty. It's not even a responsibility. It's a joy that this man, when he finds the treasure like what words jump out? They seem odd. They seem incongruous.
Speaker 1:They seem just for whatever reason to grab our attention in that moment. And then I will sit with those for another two, three, five minutes to reflect on them. And usually by the end of that, there are things that are coming out of the text that I want to be aware of. And so then what I will do is I will go back and read it a fourth time and this time I read it again for the narrative. But now I'm aware of phrases.
Speaker 1:I'm aware of words. I'm aware of different thoughts that the spirit has brought to mind as I've read. And I go back and I read it again and see if those things now line up with the totality of that section or that pericope that that I'm reading. Does it does it make sense when I put it back into the larger context? Now after that, you know, of course, especially if I'm preaching, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna read, I'm gonna study, I'm gonna say, you know, is this just a neat fanciful idea that popped into my head or is this something that's really there in the text?
Speaker 1:And there are ways that you can do that as well. But I think allowing the scriptures to live and breathe and speak to you, allowing them to pop off the page to you, really brings something unique into your spiritual journey. And my prayer is that helping you understand a few of these techniques, like looking at different English translations, slowing down and reading in different ways, and an electio process that can inform us, my hope is that that can actually make scripture reading something that's not just a discipline but it's actually a compelling thing that you do, like the joy of the man in our story here. So again go back read through Matthew chapter 13 look at these different parables that Jesus has been giving us and see if maybe there's something that God is speaking to you in these moments. Because especially with parables there's always a surface meaning, but there's something hidden there that God has buried for you to uncover.