Our epistle for today tells us: “ . . . the word of God is not chained.” God is forever speaking the Word of Love to each and all day by day. We, however, are often unaware of that “still small voice” (I Kgs.19:12, KJV), “the sound of sheer silence” (NRSV) calling our name. In fact, we seem to be quite adept at chaining the Word up where it won’t rock the boat of our secure existence.

If we think of the Bible as the Word of God, we can put it on a high shelf in another room and never go near it, never allow our children to see it, let alone read it, and it is chained. On the other hand, if we realize the Bible is sacred, too precious to be handled by folks like us, we might put it in a treasure chest encrusted with gold and fine gems to keep it safe. We might place the chest in a place of honor, but if we never open it, the Word remains chained. Even if we have the Bible available, if we only pick it up from time to time, it may as well be chained for all the good it does for us. If we want to unchain the Bible, we need to read it every day, paying attention to what it had to say to the original audience and noticing what message God has for us today. That means not speed-reading just to say we’ve gone through the motions, but letting it soak into us as we sit with it.

We also know Jesus as the Word of God (Jn.1:14). We can keep him chained in similar ways. If we want to unchain Christ Jesus, it is up to us to incarnate God’s love here and now, to follow in Jesus’ footsteps of self-giving love, of reaching out to the marginalized, of speaking truth to power, of sharing the good news of God’s grace. The question for each of us is whether, in our own personal experience, we are working to keep the word of God chained or unchained.