Bible Study Can Be Fun

Every other week, I gather with a diverse group of people to talk about a small section of the Bible and sample a new beer or tea depending on your preference. Since I joined the group we have been making our way through Luke. I love this opportunity to sit and hear the many perspectives that can be brought to bear on this spare, yet complicated text.

Last night centered on Luke 22:31-46. This is a section leading up to the crucifixion. After the Last Supper, Jesus is telling the disciples to get ready and they bustle around trying to find stray swords and the like. It ends up feeling a little like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Later he finds them sleeping "because of grief" and entreats them to wake up.

After a lot of discussion about translation and a couple of verses that were added later (43-44), we came to a question that we sometimes ask as we are reading. This is a question one of our members learned from his involvement with the Ignatian tradition. What you ask yourself is, which character am I in this story? Or better, you put yourself in the place of each person of the story. (This mirrors a practice that many use to analyze dreams: imagine that each character in the dream represents a different part of you...) Try this with one of Jesus' parables. It's a great way to do a guided self-reflection.

Toward the end we spent some time trying to figure out Judas' motivation. I said that I see him as someone who found himself up to his neck in this powerful social movement and just couldn't take it and had to bail. In my imagination, some of the other disciples are relieved that someone is doing something to abort the momentum that Jesus has created. Others thought it was more a matter of Judas switching over to the horse he thought stood a better chance of winning. Others are more loyal to the Judas presented in Jesus Christ Superstar in which Judas is a necessary foil. Without him, the thought goes, the story couldn't unfold.