“Wesleyan Rooted: Read Faithfully”
Third Sunday in Lent
March 23, 2025
Burnt Hills United Methodist Church
As Christians in the Wesleyan tradition—particularly as United Methodists in the Wesleyan Christian tradition—we are rooted in scripture. The Bible is both the source of our faith and the measure of our spiritual authenticity. We embrace a dynamic, not a static view of scripture. The Bible becomes the living Word as we engage it under the guidance of the Spirit and are transformed into the image of Christ.
Put another way, our holy scriptures are not just words on a page. They’re not just an old book.
Somehow, some way, these words are different. They’re set apart. When we encounter them, we join in a rich tradition that spans thousands of years. We join in a rich community of faith that transcends time and space and, in so doing, are animated by the Spirit of God.
And it’s worth remembering, especially during a season like Lent, when we intentionally slow down and return to the roots of our faith. Our Lenten series, Wesleyan Rooted, reminds us who we are and where we come from. As Wesleyan Christians, we are people of Scripture. Deeply so.
John Wesley, one of the founders of our Methodist movement, once said that he was “a man of one book.” Now, to be fair, Wesley read a lot of books. But what he meant was that everything he believed and practiced as a follower of Jesus was measured against the witness of Scripture.
For Wesley—and for us—Scripture is both the source of our faith and the measure of our spiritual authenticity. It’s not just something we read to reaffirm what we already think. It’s something that forms us, challenges us, and even corrects us.
That’s what our passage this morning is telling us:
“All Scripture is God-breathed and useful… for showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way.”
In other words, we don’t read the Bible just to gather information. We read the Bible for transformation.
But let’s be honest: transformation doesn’t always come easily.
Reading Scripture faithfully means we can’t skim the surface. It’s not enough to pick out the verses we already like and quote them in isolation. We’re called to read deeply, thoughtfully, prayerfully—engaging with the whole story, even the difficult parts.
Because if we were to just take the Bible at its surface, we’d be left with a lot of questions. We’d be left with a lot of wrestling to do.
The Bible, it turns out, isn’t always clear.
Consider Genesis 1. The creation story. God speaks order into chaos. God speaks creation into existence.
Then look at Genesis 2. A completely different creation story. God gets God’s hands down into the mess of creation. God forms creation and breathes the breath of life into creation.
You can put those stories side by side and they don’t match up. In Genesis 1, creation happens in one order, and, in Genesis 2, creation happens in a completely different order.
The ancestors of our faith were not stupid. We’re not the first people to notice this contradiction. They put these two stories side by side because, though they tell us the story happening in two different ways, they each tell us two different things about the nature and character of God.
A God who brings order out of chaos. Who speaks life into existence and declares it to be good—very good.
And a God who gets God’s hands dirty. A God who is intimate and close to creation. Who walks with the man and the woman in the garden.
Two different stories of creation, right next to each other, telling two different stories about God.
We have to read the bible deeply. If we just skim the surface, we miss out on that rich nuance, and that means we have to wrestle with the Bible. Sometimes the text will comfort us. Sometimes it will confront us. Sometimes it will confuse us. And sometimes, it will change us. All of that is part of what it means to read faithfully.
We read in community. We read with humility. And we read with the Spirit guiding us.
Because if Scripture is alive—and we believe it is—then that means the Spirit continues to speak through it. The words on the page don’t change, but we do. And God continues to speak to us through those same ancient words in new and surprising ways.
And that’s good news.
It means that we are not tied down by our ancestors’ interpretations of the text. It means that our descendants won’t be tied down by our interpretations of the text. Just like we are not tied down by our ancestors’ biases and prejudices, our children and great grandchildren won’t be tied down by ours. They will read these stories that we pass on to them and God will continue to speak to them in new and exciting ways through old, ancient stories.
It means that the Bible is not a relic. It’s not a museum piece. It’s a living, breathing witness to the ongoing work of God in the world. It’s a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It’s the soil in which our roots go deep, the nourishment that strengthens us to bear fruit.
As Paul says, “Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.”
Scripture shapes us.
It shapes our character.
It shapes our ethics.
It shapes our understanding of grace, of justice, of mercy, of love.
And because of that, we don’t approach it lightly or lazily. We study. We ask questions. We bring the fullness of our lives to the text—and we let the text speak into the fullness of our lives.
There are no shortcuts in faithful reading.
But here’s the gift: we don’t do it alone. We never do anything in this walk of faith alone.
God has given us one another—the community of faith—not just to hear the Word, but to live it together. To test it, to teach it, to wrestle with it, to apply it—to grow with it together into the likeness of Christ.
That’s the vision. That’s the goal. To be “shaped up,” as Paul puts it—for the holy tasks God has given each of us. To be more faithful, more loving, more just, more like Jesus.
So as we continue this Lenten season, as we return to our roots, let us also return to the Word.
Let us open our Bibles—not out of obligation, but out of longing. Let us listen—not just with our ears, but with our hearts. Let us read—not for certainty, but for formation.
Let us read faithfully.
And trust that the same Spirit who breathed these words into being will breathe through them again, to shape us into the people God has created us to be.
May the one who began a good work be faithful to complete it in us.
The work continues.
Amen.
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