Every Scribe Trained for the Kingdom* NORMAN J. KANSFIELD Brothers and sisters in C hrist, you mu st already have some idea of.how new to me is thi s business of giving formal lectures . But I have preached some, so you will please forgive me if I make the transition from sermon to lecture a little slowly. For this , my first address, please a ll ow me to have a text. You may immediately presume that the text about whi ch I would like to have us think would be that famous verse from the book of Ecclesiastes : Of making many books there is no end , and much study is a weariness of the fl esh. For me, at least , it has a lot going fo r it. It is, aft er all , an O ld Testament text and it does, of course, speak of books. But thi s is the last week of the quarter here, and the ful l truth of that verse has become so existentially clear to everyone involved in the process of ministerial training that there would be little that I could say in addition to what a ll of the students already feel. So, wonder of wonders, I am going to go all the way to the New Testament for a text, and I invite you to think with me for a brief while about the fifty-second verse of the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew: Therefore, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who produces from his storeroom things new and things old. In the beginning-well maybe not quite at the beginning, but near the beginning­ there was a scribe. At least, very early in Israel's national experi ence the office of the scribe arose, and to be a scribe in those days meant to be able to write. And to be able to write meant that one held a very special place in the power structure of the nation, for in those days very few persons had such treasured skill s . Because of this, the office of the scribe became inseparably associated with the wisdom and insight of the culture. T he scribe was the person instructed in law, knowledgeable of national a nd social interaction, skilled in documenting the hi story of his people, a nd wise in the }Vays of God and of man. Throughout the course of Israel's hi story, the scribe grew in prestige and honor, as is indicated by Sirach writing in the second century before C hrist. On the other hand he who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High will seek out the wisdom of all the a ncients, and will be concerned with prophecies; and will preserve the discourse of notabl e men and will penetrate the subtleties of parables; *An address delivered by the Rev. Norman J. Kansfield, November 14 , 1974 , on the occasion of his installation as li brarian of Beardslee Library, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan. 3 he will seek out the hidden meaning of proverbs and be at home with th e obscurities of pa rables . He will serve among great men a nd appear before rulers; he will trave l through the la nds of fo reign nations, fo r he tests the good and evil among me n. He will set hi s heart to ri se earl y to seek the Lord who made him, and will make supplication before the Most High; and will ope n hi s mouth in prayer and ma ke suppli cati on fo r hi s sin s . If the great Lord is willing, he will be fill ed with th e spirit of understa nding; he will pour forth words of wi sdom and give thanks to th e Lord in prayer. He will direct hi s counsel and knowledge a ri ght , and meditate on hi s secrets. He will reveal in struction in hi s teaching, and will glory in the law of the Lord's covenant. Ma ny will praise hi s understa nding, and it will never be blotted out ; hi s memory will not di sappear, and hi s name wi ll liv e through a ll generations. Nations wi ll declare hi s wi sdom and the congregation will proclaim hi s praise; if he liv es long, he will leave a name greater than a thou sand , a nd if he goes to rest, it is enough fo r him (Ecclesiasti cus 1.11 ). It is, then, over against thi s background and function that Jesus begins to spe ll out for hi s di sciples what a C hristi an theologian should look like . Our text begins with dia 101110-meaning "Therefore" or "For this reason." S uch a tiny little phrase is of utmost importance beca use it always links what follows with that which has already been said , and makes what has been said the ca usal force of what is going to follow . It is a favorite little trick in Pauline literature, a nd Matthew uses it here to good advantage. What has already been said is recogni zed as the reason for, the cause of, that which C hri st is now about to say about the role which he is spelling out for hi s di sciples. In the present case , we have to look a ll the way back to 13: 11 if indeed we are going to come to a thorough understa nding of how our Lord was spelling out the mini stry of the C hristi an scribe: T o you, he said, it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of heaven, but to them (that is, the people) it has not been give n. This is then followed by a long seri es of parables about the kingdom and con­ c ludes with C hrist's question as to wheth er the di sciples had understood a ll that he was saying in these parables . To be give n the privilege of knowing the secrets is what it means to be discipled- to be trained , to be educated- for the kingdom of heave n. And our Lord would have us recogni ze that we are so to work at under­ standing that we finally , by the grace of God and the inspiration of the H oly Spirit, begin to surpass the wi sdom of the scribes trained for the reli gion of the kingdom of Israel. C hrist 's kingdom is set o·ver against that kingdom as hi s scribes will be set 4 over against those scribes. T he scribe prepared fo r the kingdom of heaven is not ti ed to things old- that was, after all , a preoccupation of the scribes in the time of C hri st. O ne of the things which most bothered them about him was that he was constantly saying new things about God and they wondered where he had found hi s authority. What was hi s doc ume ntation ? From what source did he obtain this kind of in­ formation? But the scribes who will fo ll ow him , these scribes will not be so preoccupied with th ings old but will also be able to bring to a ll whom they meet things new: fresh , clear understandings of God. How dare we, he would ask us, how dare we be li eve in a God so sma ll that we could begin to suspect, as the Jewish scribes tended to think, that everything about him had already been di scovered? Or that hi s word, hi s o wn self-revelation, had been perfectly perceived? How dare we commit ourselves to a God who would confine him self to what was already understood ? C hrist says that every scribe trained for the kingdom is one who pledges himself from the very outset to develop the new. You and I are charged with the responsibility of seeing theology as a research science. We are expected , as we go about the process of continuously learning theology , to expand the borders of what is already known of God in C hrist. Our task here , at Western Seminary , is so to prepare persons to work with the gospel of our Lord Jesus C hrist that , as they live out their liv es in the fabric of C hrist's parishes across this nation and around the world, they wil l bring to each day and each ne w situation a fresh word about God , a clearer understanding of hi s kingdom, and a mi ghti er conviction of hi s power to handle a ny event that comes their way. C hri st would have us understand that our determination to develop the new ought to occur only in relationship with the old. Part of the communion of the saints links us with saints who are now dead but who spoke in their time and in their place with the vital freshness which we now seek for our time and our place. T hat, dear friends, is the major function of a library. L ib rari es are those treasure stores of the best that previous ages and the elder statesmen of our craft have left to us. O ur library here, while it is not among the largest in theological schools, is , I a m pleased to say (and I fee l I can say this since I have had so little so far to do with it) a superbly chosen lib rary.