Page 7 - Presbyterian Connection, Spring 2024

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SPRING 2024
Q&A with the Rev. Dr. Richard Topping
Connection
PRESBYTERIAN
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The Holy Spirit makes the point, well, no, let’s move these parts around. You might be the person who passes by on the other side. When I read the Good Samaritan, I get all playful and think about what I might do as a religious per- son. Maybe I pass by but when I get to the next town, I start a committee for the homeless and those beaten up by the side of the road, rather than getting engaged. Put yourself not in the hero’s place, but in all the roles.
There is a playfulness at work in the Bible with God that shows it not as dead letters but as living written word.
How can we be
more playful?
We can be playful when we realize that not everything is up to us—it is in God’s hands. We can be free to be human knowing God is at work in the world, and we are part of that work. Sometimes, playful- ness leads to serious change. We might say something offhand that we instantly forget, but later learn that someone else heard it in a way that profoundly impacted their life. This is God at work.
In the Bible, there are many acts of impossibility—Jesus tells the disciples that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go into heaven. Scholars got into dis- cussing the eye of the needle as a small entrance into Jerusalem, and this shows you how Biblical interpretation works. The disci- ples got it right away—it was im- possible. They asked Jesus who they could possibly save. Jesus says you can’t, but God can do it. God can do anything.
By Amy Dunn Moscoso
Grace Presbyterian Church in Calgary, Alta.
The Rev. Dr. Richard Topping was recently the guest preacher at Grace Presbyterian Church in Calgary, Alta., for the “Preaching Grace” event. Preaching Grace is a weekend with multiple in- person and online sessions, held every year through the generosity of the Montgomery family. This year’s event had the theme of “Scripture: Play and Possibility.” Details on the 2025 event will be posted in the Fall at gracechurch- calgary.com. The following is a Q&A with Dr. Topping about the event’s theme.
The Rev. Dr. Richard Topping, President and Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Studies in the Reformed at Vancouver School of Theology (VST), and other curious Christians explored the question, “Can we play with scripture?” at Preaching Grace, an annual week- end series that looks at big ques- tions in Christianity. In this Q&A, Dr. Topping shares his perspec- tives on play in scripture, faith and how playfulness can open us up to God.
What does “scripture: play and possibility” mean? Scripture is full of play. There are many examples of playfulness in the Bible. Women become preg- nant in their nineties, Jesus talks of impossibilities (it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter Heaven), Eutychus, whose name means lucky, falls asleep while Paul is preaching, drops out a window into the street and is injured, is healed and sent on his way, lucky fellow. The Bible is God speaking to us. It is a liv- ing word, and the playfulness in it
opens us up to God and the Holy Spirit.
The nice thing about play: it means that when preachers prepare to preach, or Christians read the Bible, we’re at home with what we’re doing and we’re not so nervous about the right procedures. We’re engaged in taking up a conversation. You can be playful when you know the rules and they are inscribed on your life. To play jazz, you must be classically trained. Oth- erwise, it’s a mess. When you have been formed—now you can be playful. You can be open to the alternatives that the Bible is offering. You can engage with- out constantly referring to the right way. It gets written on your life and now you can do improvi- sation because you know where the keys are.
Being playful means engag- ing—trying it on for size; finding delights in the Bible and even with a sense of humour and love. Reading something and thinking, “There’s a possibility I hadn’t considered,” rather than shutting it down. You’re seeing things you had never imagined before.
How do you think about scripture and play?
When I hear the word play, I think of a play, a drama. We do that in church in a liturgy. We have a script that we follow, and we’re used to it. There is a real sense of movement. People are standing and sitting, scripture is read in a certain pattern. We’re listening to texts that offer us a world that we don’t live in yet.
The disruption of that is incred- ible. Sometimes in church when a script is read where things are so out of keeping with the way the world is, you look up and you see everybody smile. There’s a kind
of delight in this real weirdness in the script we’re reading. An example is Advent. We often read about how sober and alert and awake we should be as Jesus is coming soon—at the same time, people are going to office parties. The disjunction is delightful if you are open to it. It’s outrageous.
How does scripture allow for play between people
of different eras, locations and generations?
Something that happens when you sit down to read the Bible, whether by yourself or in a group, is that it allows playfulness with others. You never read the Bi- ble alone. Even when you sit by yourself and read it, you read as the person you have become. There’s the influence of your par- ents, communities you may have worshipped in. Sometimes you consult other books, which I think of as a communion of the saints. You are always reading together with others who have read this before.
You can read about views and commune with others. When you commune with a Medieval person, such as Bernard of Clair- vaux—also known as Saint Ber- nard—he described the Bible as the wine cellar of the Holy Spirit. He must have found it intoxicat- ing. His view was that this was why people want to spend so
The Rev. Dr. Richard Topping.
much time there. He obviously found joy and delight in the read- ing of the Bible, not as an artifact from the past, but as a living re- ality. When you read it, you can commune with Bernard. If you think of the Bible as the wine cel- lar of the Holy Spirit, you have to ask yourself, “Okay, so how do I now interact with it?” You want to spend your time there. It’s all- consuming. It leads you to be open to God.
How do you see playfulness in the Bible? The Bible allows you not only to be playful, and playful with oth- ers, but shows the playfulness of God and the Holy Spirit. Both are active when we read the Bible and help us see things we cannot see.
When we read, we often place ourselves in different roles. We like to put ourselves in the role of the hero. This is when you read the Bible and see yourself as always being the good person while oth- ers are always the bad person. You are the Good Samaritan while someone else is the person who passes by on the road.