reading

 

The biographer Luke records an occasion when Jesus read aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth. We encounter Jesus in a synagogue several times in the Gospels, but here (chapter 4) Luke gives a particular insight into communal reading.

Contrary to popular belief, people in antiquity knew how to read silently (the difference between seeing a text and listening to a text) but the predominant form of reading was out loud.

Between the ages of five and twelve, Jesus would have learnt to read by reading extracts of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) aloud, and, eventually, committing them to memory. This was the core of what we would call primary or elementary education. Then, as a teenager, he would have done the same with the Prophets.

Over the centuries our reading has shifted. Reading aloud and reading silently are both open to us but reading silently has become the norm. Reading has been moved from a communal act to a private act. For many, the primary purpose of reading is, in fact, to escape from others, from the demands of the community around us. Reading opens up horizons that do not actually exist in our lives, though they might, one day.

And reading silently has certain positives, not least as an act of rebellion against unjust demands on our time and our bodies by other people. But it also has a cost.

Reading aloud has several benefits, benefits that we have largely lost. Reading aloud can improve our memory; can improve our comprehension of complex texts; and can strengthen the emotional bonds between people (which is why we still read out sentences that strike us, and memes that make us smile, even if for the most part we sit scrolling our individual screens). Reading aloud could build resilience against dementia and offer early signs of its onset.

If you have bothered to read this, this far, you have almost certainly read it silently. When we read silently, we do the minimum work necessary for comprehension. We do not pay close attention to the difference between, say, prophecy (noun: prophetic content, which may be written down, such as the book of Isaiah) and prophesy (verb: the act of delivering a prophecy, out loud, such as Jesus reading the words of Isaiah and then declaring that they were fulfilled in his presence in his community). You may have found the repetition of read, in the first sentence of this paragraph, once pronounced reed and once red, jarring.

Reading aloud, whether alone or in the presence of others, is good for you. And reading aloud in the presence of others is good for them. For us. We hold back, feeling embarrassed, lacking confidence and perceiving ourselves to lack competence, perhaps because you read aloud at primary school and someone laughed at you for getting it wrong (you did not get it wrong, you were practicing, which is the only way to grow in confidence and competence; you were stretching yourself beyond what you already knew) and you fear (sadly, perhaps with good reason) that you will be judged harshly if you read aloud in public now (who do you think you are, to stand up there like that?) (ha! they said that wrong). But confidence and competence are grown by practice.

I would love to see the local church community of which I am a part rediscover itself as a place where stories are read aloud, by a diverse range of people, for their good and for the communal good. Where riches are uncovered, where newfound freedom is experienced, where things lost are restored.