Posted on by Rod Benson

If Christ came to the Library

An address by Dr Rod Benson at the Faculty & Staff Christmas Party, Moore Theological College, held at Petersham RSL Club, 6 December 2023

As a wordsmith rather than a mathematician, I must confess that when I was asked to step into Dr William Hood’s statistically significant shoes and manage the bell curve of today’s proceedings, I was filled with trepidation.

But then I experienced a rare moment of illumination, literally off the footcandle scale, and I reached for my trusty pocket idol and Googled, “verbal equivalent of mathematical problems.” To my astonishment, up came a website that read as though ChatGPT had been reading my mind![1] It said:

Applied Verbal Problems

Mathematics is really about solving problems, not just about moving letters and numbers around. Most real-world problems are stated using words and we need to translate them into mathematical statements. You need to:

  1. Read the problem carefully
  2. Sketch the situation (since a picture is worth a thousand words)
  3. Estimate the solution where possible
  4. Assign letters to the unknown quantities
  5. Form an equation (or equations)
  6. Solve the equation (or equations)
  7. Check your solution against your estimate and against the original statements
  8. Write a sentence answer

For this section, you will need to know:

  1. Solving equations
  2. Simultaneous equations
  3. Ratio

Enough! I cried, and just like that, inspiration surged, a new light dawned, and the title of my address appeared as though written in the stars in giant equation-free letters:

If Christ came to the Library.

You don’t need to have solved the Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture to know that I was in familiar territory. As we all know, or would if we did, in 1894, a journalist named William T. Stead published a celebrated book titled, If Christ Came to Chicago. His aim was to show how a living faith in the “Citizen Christ” would lead directly to the civic and social regeneration of Chicago.[2]

One hundred and three years later, in the Year of Our Lord 1999, on the other side of the world, a history professor named William Baker delivered the New College Lectures at the University of New South Wales on the topic, “If Christ Came to the Olympics,” published as a book in 2000.[3]

In a remarkable though previously unremarked coincidence, the Sydney Olympic Games were held that very same year. A further astonishing coincidence, which you will no doubt now have observed, is that the given names of the author of the 1894 book, the author of the book published in 2000, and our very own William Hood are, one might say, statistically equivalent.

But I digress.

If the Living Word came to our humble repository of non-living words, the Donald Robinson Library, how would he respond? What would he think? What would he say? What wisdom might he wish to impart?

Let me first observe that neither Augustine of Hippo, St Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin nor Broughton Knox imagined that Jesus would truly appear on earth except in glory at the end of the age. Not even the venerable T. C. Hammond conjectured what Christ would think, say or do in certain literal situations – although Principal Davies may have entertained the odd liberal thought.

But I standardly deviate.

Jesus walks into the Library. All is calm, all is bright. In this temple of learning, what tables will he overturn?

“Seek, and you will find” (Matt 7:7), he says to the startled student at the computer catalogue searching for books on the Jesus tradition in Q.

To staff at the Library service desk, taking a call from Kyle and Jacki O’s producer, he says, “A worker is worthy of her wages” (Lk 10:7).

To students at the peanut tables, surrounded by books on verbal aspect in New Testament Greek, he says, “There is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body” (Ecc 12:12).

Straightening the necktie of an wide-eyed ordination candidate, he says, “Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth” (1 Tim 2:15).

To the Youthworks student: “Let no one despise your youth” (1 Tim 4:12).

To the faculty gathered in an orderly manner beside the self-check machine, he says, “Have mercy on those who waver” (Jude 22).

To the Archivist, showing him a first edition Luther from 1521, he says, “I was there in the room as he wrote this.”

To the Collection Development Librarian: “Watch out and be on your guard against all greed” (Lk 12:15).

“And another thing: That was a fine PhD thesis you wrote on G. H. Morling and union with me. Stuart Piggin was right (again): you have established the new orthodoxy on Morling. Get the thing published. Let me know if you want an endorsement.”

“And now,” he says, addressing the assembled throng with arms open wide, “I have other libraries that are not of this fold; these too I must visit” (Jn 10:16). And behold, he was gone.

The impact of such an event would be challenging even for differential calculus. The Library would find itself confronted with the living embodiment of the faith that inspires its holdings.

The event spurs a tsunami of visiting scholars eager to research the life and teachings of Jesus. New frontiers of research emerge, exploring the interface of faith and reason, spirituality and the academy.

The Governing Board resolves not to note a petition to rename the institution “Christ College.”

The Library becomes a crucible of unparalleled intellectual exchange, not to mention an evangelical shrine of sorts, as people from diverse backgrounds come together to engage in conversation and book proposals on theology, biblical studies, and the Diocese of Sydney.

In the wake of Christ’s visit, the College achieves its strategic plan in six weeks, enrolments quintuple, John Chapman House rises in 24 stories of glistening concrete and glass, and Archbishop Peter Carnley quietly pulps his autobiography and releases a new one with the apposite title, Miracle on Carillon Avenue.

Of course, it is presumptuous to put our words in the mouth of the Saviour, and to guess what he might say or do in a contemporary situation. We have Scripture to testify to the truth of his teachings and example, and that is sufficient.

And yet, today and every day, in every workplace, in every profession and vocation, in every purposeful endeavour, we do well to welcome Christ Jesus our Lord into our lives, and to faithfully follow where he leads.

Amen.

References

[1] https://www.intmath.com/basic-algebra/6-applied-verbal-problems.php

[2] William T. Stead, If Christ Came to Chicago: A Plea for the Union of All Who Love in the service of All Who Suffer (London: Temple House, 1894), viii-xiii.

[3] William J. Baker, If Christ Came to the Olympics (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2000).