The Bible is Not What You Think

We are, all of us, story formed people. Stories help us make connections and give us meaning. It is true at St. Patrick as well. As a community there is a narrative about who our community of faith is, as a people. What I am doing until Advent is, every Sunday, tell the stories from the Bible that have shaped us into a community of faith. The stories you have heard are familiar, but they never get old. They are the stories we have told for the past eighteen years.The past two weeks we talked about two stories that are behind every story, the story of Jesus and who he is, and the story of what Jesus came to do. This week we are going to talk about “The whole story of the Bible.” If there is any story that has shaped our community, it is the story of what the whole Bible is about. The reason I say this is that I talk to people around town all the time and there are several questions I ask these people I have just met. One of them is this, “What is the Bible about?” One of the reasons I do that is that when Jesus came to earth in the Incarnation, he came to the most religious, Bible reading people of his day and basically told them that they had missed the whole point!It really does matter. If you miss the main plot of the Bible then the Bible will not be a book that makes your heart sing opera! It will be a book of rules, do’s and don’ts, and something to kill your joy. But if you really get it - every page is telling a story that is too good to be true. Hope you will join us Sunday and we’ll talk about it. I can’t wait. I’ve been away for a week and am like a mule headed to the barn. This is going to be good.Blessings,Jim