Proper 28A November 13, 2011

“Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.”

          Reading the Bible will change your life. Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky lived on the edge. His life was changed by reading the Bible, and his life changed the lives of millions of people.

          Schereskewsky was born May, 1831 and died October 15, 1906. He was born in modern southwest Lithuania, on the edge of the Russian and the German empires. His parents were Jewish, his father from the eastern European German and Yiddish speaking Askenazi community, his mother, his father’s second wife,  from the Spanish and Ladino speaking Sephrdi community, on the edge of two cultures. Both parents died when Joseph was young and he was raised by an older half brother on the edge in his family.

          The 25 years between 1790 and 1815 were a transitional time in the history of European Jewry. The philosophical Enlightenment, the French Revolution and Napoleon brought Jews out of the shetels and ghettos where they had been forced to live since the Middle Ages and forced them into new relationships with their neighbors.  Jews in western Europe began to share political and economic freedom. They could now own property and engage in all kinds of business. Schereskewsky learned to work with window glass.

          There were conservative, liberal, and moderate responses to the new situation. The liberal responses included the Reform movement. Some Jews became Christians and several societies were formed to support and encourage these new Christians. The New Testament was translated from Greek into Hebrew.  Moderate responses included a new system of Jewish education focused equally on study of the Jewish Law and on study of modern science and culture. When he was 16 Schereskewsky began to prepare to teach in one of the new schools.

          He was given a copy of the New Testament in Hebrew and read it over several years at school and university in Germany.  Schereskewsky later said that he was converted by reading the New Testament over several years.

Still a young man, he came to New York. A spiritual experience at Passover meal led him to be baptized and to study at the Presbyterian seminary in Pittsburgh where he became a friend of the Rev. Theodore Lyman at Calvary Episcopal Church. Lyman was later Bishop of North Carolina. Schereskewsky could not accept Presbyterian teaching on predestination and Bishop Wittingham of Maryland recognized his language gifts and sent him to General Seminary, New York. (I was ordained in Maryland and studied at General, but don’t have Schereskewsky’s gifts). Schereskewsky was in many ways on the edge of the church, a European Jew on the edge of a white, Anglo-Saxon church.

At graduation the Episcopal Church sent him to be a missionary in China. China had recently been forced to allow foreign commerce and foreign missionaries. It was on the political and economic edge. The missionary work was new and Schereskewsky and others saw the need for a Chinese translation of the Bible.

He learned spoken Chinese on the trip and joined the Peking translation committee using his knowledge of Jewish tradition of interpreting the Old Testament.

In November 1867 Miss Susan Waring arrived in Shanghai from New York. They met in January, and married in April.  In 1877 he was consecrated as Bishop of Shanghai where he established St. John’s University. In 1881 he suffered sunstroke and was an invalid until his death in 1906 in Tokyo.  Despite his illness he continued his Bible translation work typing with the one finger of his right hand that he could control. For 25 years he lived on the edge of death, but by determination, and God’s grace, shown in the missionary support of the church, he accomplished much. His translation is the basis of all modern Chinese translations of the Bible, and the

Four years before his death he said, “I have sat in this chair for 20 years. It seemed very hard at first. But God knew best. He kept me for the work for which I am best suited.”

They had two children – a son Joseph 1873- 1949, a doctor with the Public Health service, and a daughter Caroline 1874-1942. Caroline taught in a missionary girls school in Tokyo until 1941, died in Asheville and is buried at Calvary, Fletcher.

We don’t know as much about the ministry of Susan Waring Schereskewsky. She died 3 years after her husband. Her daughter Caroline wrote, “Had it not been for her sympathy, her unflagging devotion, and thoroughly consecrated Christian character, it would have been impossible for my father to have done his work. As nurse, secretary, companion, she was by his side for the 25 years of his life as an invalid. When he died her heart seemed to be buried with him.” One of her talents was an interest in keeping up with people.  The Tokyo chaplain said, “there as never a sick person or one needing a visit from me that she was not the first to advise me of.”

So what’s the point of this long story?  Today’s gospel is about the talents. Each of us has some particular talents given us by God our creator to be used in his service. Our times are as difficult and challenging as were the times Joseph and Susan Waring Schereskewsky lived in. Their use of their talents is an example for us in our use of our talents. Our lives have their own excitements and opportunities. God converted Bishop Schereskewsky through his word written, the Bible. Let us also read the Bible looking to our own conversion to Christ’s service.

“Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.”

          Reading the Bible will change your life.