My husband and I recently took our first-ever tropical beach vacation. We are more mountain and lake people, so we looked forward to the new experience.
In anticipation, I was determined to find a great beach read to dig into between dips in the ocean. I was especially delighted to discover a series of “beach” reads that are set on the exact island where we were. There was something especially fun about reading a book set in our exact location. I was uniquely able to imagine the smell of the air, the beauty of the hiking trails, and the friendliness of the people, because I was fully immersed in them.
This coming Sunday in worship, we will explore the ways that this phenomenon of imagining ourselves inside a story applies to the Bible as well. Our passage in particular tells of a pivotal moment in the lives of Hagar and Ishmael, Sarah’s slave and Abraham’s son.
The drama of the patriarchs and matriarchs, as ancient as it is, still portrays some of the exact same family dynamics, personal drama, and human foibles that we all experience today. Maybe we can’t imagine ourselves as nomadic shepherds living in the desert thousands of years ago, but the jealousy, the disappointment, the heartbreak, and the love between complicated people are likely present in one way or another in all of our lives.
This is one of the things that I love so much about scripture, and especially the stories of the Bible – that scripture pulls us in like any great piece of literature and invites us to imagine ourselves within the drama.
Can you imagine sitting down to read the Bible with the same enthusiasm as we do our “summer” reading: curious about the plot, swept up in the human interactions, surprised by the twists and turns, and compelled to consider what we would have done in the shoes of the major and minor characters.
I invite you this summer – maybe not to pack your Bible in your beach bag, though that would be a great idea – but to spend some time in the drama of scripture and see where it takes your imagination. The Book of Esther is always my suggestion for a dramatic and wild starting place for an exercise like that. The Acts of the Apostles has numerous tales of disciples getting in and out of trouble with each other and the world. And of course, Genesis, where we will linger for a time this Sunday, is full of stories of all of humankind discovering what it means to be God’s people on this earth.
I look forward to hearing all about your summer reading!