The Power of Language

AM Psalm 30, 32 • PM Psalm 42, 43
Ecclus. 15:9-20 • Rev. 10:1-11 • Luke 11:1-13

One of my favorite parts of the service at St. Paul’s are the scripture readings. I was an English major as an undergraduate and I am afraid that is something you never really get over. I still tend to read the Bible in the same spirit that I would read Edna St. Vincent Milay’s poetry or the Narnia Chronicles. Like any great piece of literature, there are stories in the Bible that you can explore over and over again and get something different each time, depending on where you are in your life. The writings themselves do not change; it is we who change in our perception of what we read.

Two things struck me about the language in the readings for today. The first was the incredible beauty of the nature imagery in several of these readings: Psalm 30 states “You, Lord, with your favor, made me as strong as the mountains” and Psalm 42 opens with the exquisite line: “As the deer longs for the waterbrooks, so my soul longs for you, O God.” I love how, in an age where so many Christians (and humans in general) seem to have fallen away from nature, some of the Bible’s most powerful passages still draw from images of the natural world that anyone, at any time can relate to: birds, water, mountains, the beauty of the desert. 

The second was the metaphorical language that Christ uses in the reading from Luke, likening the soul’s search for God to a quest: “Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you.” For me, this inevitably calls up images of the Knights of the Round Table or Ulysses struggling his way home to Ithaca. Like the nature imagery, the language of the quest or journey are also universal, ones which every single one of us can relate to. 

I think that both the imagery and the metaphors in these readings serve as a way to explain or describe ideas that we as humans have always struggled to wrap our minds around—ideas about the nature of God, the nature of our quest for the Divine. I think that the perennial appeal of the Bible lies in its powerful use of language in passages like the ones for today to describe these things in ways that keep us coming back for more, reading over again for new layers of meaning. 

Written by Stephanie Barr

I am the life skills teacher at Harrison High School and my husband Tim and I enjoy puttering in our garden, serving our cats, and bird-watching along the Buffalo River when we are not fleeing to Fayetteville for its walking trails, book stores, and of course St. Paul's.