One of the great joys in life is reading aloud and listening to something being read aloud. One of the sublime joys in life is reading Paradise Lost aloud. Better yet, having James Sims read it to you. I was privileged to be in three classes where we studies Paradise Lost with Dr. Sims, one of the world’s foremost Milton scholars. I have taken to reading it to Melissa as we sit in the doctor’s office or at night before she goes to bed. Not only is it pleasing to the mind and ear, it is a stunning insight into the sinful mind. Satan and the rebel angels set about the work of Hell very quickly, and in a compelling way. Sad to say, you understand Satan and his motives, because so many of them are our own!

If you have kids, maybe even in spite of the fact that you have Good Night Moon memorized, you know how important reading aloud is. Joe, for example, cannot read, but he can take a long story like Arnold Lobel’s “Small Pig” and repeat it to you almost word for word. In some way, memorization is more important than being able to read. He has learned the story without having to resort to reading it again. All that is required is that it be told every so often.

There is great meaning in this for the disciple. We are part of Jesus’ story. It does us good to not just know where to find such and such passage of Scripture, but to know it the way Joe knows Small Pig. More than that: there was a time when reading aloud was the most common way reading was done. Even if you were by yourself, you read the words aloud. Reading is a solitary activity today. But it was not always so. In a time and place where perhaps only a few read or only a few had books, you relied on someone else to read to you. And there was not only the reading involved. There was fellowship because you were with others. You were, in listening to the Scriptures, being formed together. If what we Christians say we believe about the word is true, the Holy Spirit is the author of Scripture, and in the reading of the Word, all kinds of things may happen.

I think one of the things that shows the fellowship function of reading aloud is found in John 11. (as an aside, I would argue that even the great writers of today need to be read aloud. Maybe skill with writing a word to be spoken is a dying art, but reading Cannery Row last month, I realized that even that was meant to be read aloud to a group.) In John 11, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. But when John mentions Lazarus, he mentions that he is the brother of Mary and Martha, and glosses that by saying that Mary is the same Mary who anointed Jesus with oil. But, that scene happens in chapter 12. Why does John tell us that in chapter 11? I like to think that it’s because he was telling the story of Jesus and when he mentioned Mary and Martha, someone interrupted and wanted to know if it was the same Mary who… Maybe a child who fixates on a character or event is the one who breaks into the story and wants to know. And so John says, by way of deflecting the interruption, “Yes this is the same Mary who…”

Hearing the Word read aloud lets us know who we are in a very powerful way. It’s one thing for us to independently know the same stories and come together. How much better, tho, to learn them and hear them repeatedly together? The Spirit moves us in different ways at different times.

A year or so ago at Melissa’s grandparents’ house, John was having a hard time. He was upset and frustrated about something. I took him aside and we ate our lunch together. We were sitting on the ground and I told him how in Jesus’ day people sat back to back so they could sit up when they were on the floor. You were the other person’s chair-back, as it were. I told John a bit about the Last Supper, and how Jesus was reclining at the table, and John was backed up to Him. I showed him the closeness of how they could talk by turning and laying back their heads. Two things, ok maybe more, came from that. First, John calmed down and had a good time. Second, he heard an important part of the story. He thinks depictions of the Last Supper with them in chairs has missed the point! And when we come to the story, he finds himself in it somehow.

There’s a way to live it that I think is going to require us to get together and hear the Word more than we do. And not to do the whole Quaker thing where we sit around tell what it means to us. But rather, we hear the Word, and let it form us. Otherwise, we’re still going to be doing our own thing and trying to call it “together” all the while wondering why we’re not together.