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Just got back from a sweet time in Sugar Land, Texas, home to the Sugar Land Vineyard and the headquarters of Vineyard: A Community of Churches.  It’s the deep South.  Tom DeLay’s old congressional district.  Senior Pastor of the Sugar Land Vineyard is Reagan Waggoner, named after you know who.  A talented younger pastor who has the Jesus nerve to teach on social justice.  A church I’d gladly attend every Sunday.  And a place I learned the wisdom of that Southern phrase, “y’all.”

Y’all, I heard it every day, many times over.  Server at the restaurant said “y’all” 4 times in 30 seconds. Favorite iteration, “How are all y’all doin’?”

Boom, it hit me: these people have a plural form of the word “you.”  We need to stop, drop, roll, and adopt this.  We need a Thomas Nelson “The Y’All Bible Translation.”

Because we often read the Bible falsely.  “Christ in you, the hope of glory” we read, hearing “Christ in you [singular you, as in me, myself, and I] the hope of glory.”  So that one of our contemporary worship songs makes it “Christ in me, Christ in me, Christ in me, the hope of glory.”

But the “you” is a plural you, y’all.  Christ in y’all, the hope of glory.  Christ in the gathered you, Christ in the communal you, Christ in the networked you, the hope of glory.

And this happens often when we read the Bible.  The “you” in English can be singular or plural.  But with our individualism lenses on, we almost always hear it as singular.

Can you imagine a more pernicious confusion?

Wonder why we have an I, me, my Christianity?  A consumer Christianity? A “What have you done for me lately?” Christianity? A church conceived of and engaged in as though it were a collection of individuals?

The South is a more communal culture for its use of “y’all.” And it’s no surprise that the South is also a more mystical culture. Because the mystical parts of the brain are the ones that connect the self to the beyond-the-self, as though the self in itself is perhaps the first hint of hell, and the self connected to the beyond-the-self is the first taste of heaven.

So pastors, when you’re reading the Bible or teaching from the Bible, get your bearings straight on the meaning of the yous.  When the you is plural, specify that it is. Adopt the y’all, y’all.  And see if it doesn’t change everything.

Tags: bible, communal, individual, plural, reagon waggoner, singular, sugar land vineyard, y'all

This entry was posted on Friday, July 9th, 2010 at 10:59 am and is filed under advice to young pastors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.