A few thoughts on the impracticality of faith

There is nothing worse than being “proof-texted” by someone who wants to challenge your opinion. There is a popular refrain in our house, during a meal that occurs during hunting, butchering or other occasions when fire-arms are in use. “No guns at the dinner table!” Of course, this kind of humor is not so funny to those who don’t like guns, and it implies some sort of dangerous behavior may occur due to our carelessness.

However, the quote comes from a scene in the movie “Matewan.” There is a very tense moment between a young union coal miner and a company gun. When the young miner is offended by the degrading tone of the company agent, he rises to strike his persecutor. Immediately, the persecutor draws his pistol, and aims it directly at the youth’s forehead. Grandma is sitting at the table, and when she sees what occurs, she states, in a matter-of-fact tone, “Ain’t no guns allowed at the dinner table mister.” Of course, as we might assume from various Thanksgiving holiday stereotypes, the fact may very well be that not bringing guns to the dinner table may be a wise decision with attention to extended- family preservation.

So, when my family was sharing hospitality with a friend from seminary, we were bantering back and forth about life and my daughter Emma said something that was quite “challenging.” After some back and forth, I recited the commandment concerning the honoring of parents, and Julie from the seminary said “Oh, no! You can’t proof-text at the dinner table.” We shared a laugh, and to this day, when we are talking around the dinner table and someone uses a Bible quote to make a point, even a light-hearted one, someone will quote Julie about dinner-table Bible references.

Yet, there is among Christians, especially in the United States, a tendency to resort to guns and proof-texts to resolve conflict. While the above story exhibits an example of my family’s perhaps limited sense of humor, it also represents the nature of how we view the Bible and the potential for violence to deal with conflict, especially within the confines of our families and faith communities. This spills over into our relationships with others.

Few proof-texts, which quite often take a specific text out of context to support an argument of some sort, are able to resolve any king of disagreement, yet our use of them as supports for our own thinking means we view the Bible as a tool to support our beliefs about God, and not necessarily vice-versa. Quite honestly, there are few things less credible than a pacifist saying that there is never any legitimate use of violence, and quoting Jesus’ exhortation to love one’s enemies. Simply because Christians may be called to non-violence does not mean that others should be somehow coerced to assimilate to such an ethic. Followers of Jesus have been chosen to follow a specific ethic that is worked out within the context of a faith community, and the community’s reflection on the words of God might be quite different than the reflection of another. Proof-texts, like gunshots, are not proof of truth. They only serve to end a conflict until another family member comes along.

Yet, as far as religion and truth goes, we are still levied with the burden of how human beings access God’s truth. We have the stories of Jesus, and how he lived his life of total faithfulness, even though such faithfulness ended in his execution. It is fairly obvious from the life of Jesus that self-sacrifice is a foundational aspect of God’s desire for those who confess that Jesus is blessed over all. However, when we discuss the nature of Christian decision making and perspective in regard to disagreement within our congregations and faith communities, one can hardly prove a point by saying that Jesus told us to “take up our own cross.” Quite honestly, telling another person how they should bear a cross individually generally implies that it’s your own cross you expect them to bear. Proof-texts are not proof of anything other than, perhaps, self-absorption.

That being said, the fact remains that there are aspect of the Bible, in both Testaments, that make us a little uncomfortable with the expectations of humanity that the text attributes to the Creator God. The fact remains that Jesus does ask us to pick up our cross, and turn the other cheek, and love our enemies. In light of this fact, Christians have had to do some theological and spiritual gymnastics to live with the book that is the primary informant of our faith perspectives. In light of this uncomfortable truth, the gymnastics often reflect the following thinking:

Jesus lived a perfect life, and we cannot be perfect.

Jesus lived in a rural and agricultural community and economy. We are not peasants of the first century, so the ethic does not apply to us.

Jesus had no political or spiritual authority, therefore he could not direct or coerce justice from a position of power. We have a different obligation in regard to maintaining justice.

And for some, the perspective is such: Jesus’ life, as recorded in the Greek Testament, is God’s representation of “normative” humanity. Thus, when a Christian community is confronted with threat, brokenness, or injustice, it is the life and ministry of Jesus that represents God’s response. Of course, believing that Jesus has as much to say about living and being in relationship to one another is as important as believing that his death has significance. There would be no record of Jesus’ ethic if they were not important to the reasons for which he was executed, and then, resurrected. Of course, we all know that the teaching of Jesus cannot be reduced to proof-texts. It takes some investigation and some interpretation to reach an understanding of God’s desire as we experience the risen Christ.

Many folks will use the easiest proof-text of all, “Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Such a statement is not only a limited and unhelpful response now, but it was in the first-century as well. The person that Jesus was discussing those words with needed an interpretation. “Who is my neighbor?” In the 21st-century, we have the advantages of historical criticism and place-in-time expertise to make better sense of this. The parable indicates that even Israel’s biggest enemies, the Samaritans, were neighbors. This, of course, is like saying that Americans might view Al-Quaida as our neighbors, and that such folks cannot be immediately rejected from relationship. In fact, the stories of Samaritans, tax-collectors, Roman soldiers, leperers, prodigal sons, and prostitutes are all intended to show that those who we feel are representative of the worst sorts of folks are welcome in our midst. Perhaps Jesus is telling us that stretching boundaries and bridging borders make it easier for others to feel like they are in a safe place.

Welcoming enemies, and acutely broken, or, evil persons, is not an easy task. A church certainly should not decide that all behavior is appropriate for a community and that all boundaries should be eliminated. Identity is important. So is accountability. The church requests, and even demands, specific behaviors that indicate an ethic reflective of Jesus’ life. Yet, the fact that we feel more comfortable with certain boundaries does not mean we can disregard the biblical text as it relates to identity, boundaries, and sin or evil. And, when confronted with parts of the Bible that disagrees with our sense of justice or propriety, we say it is an unachievable ethic, or that Jesus really understood what the 21st century was like, and we can re-interpret in a way that makes it meaningless to our own time. We can easily do this with proof-texts. After all, God does a lot of smiting here and there.

I think the story of Jonah indicates the real problem for modern day Christians. It is not so much that we run away from God. I believe we all do that at one time or another, and God’s faithfulness can bring us back into perspective when we are right to receive grace. Remember, Jonah’s biggest concern was why he ran from God’s righteousness. God wanted the prophet to preach salvation to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire that totally destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and initiated the Diaspora status of the Israelites. Indeed, Jonah in the 21st-Century is akin to Elie Weisel, the Nobel Laureate who wrote Night, preaching to the Nazi’s about the grace and mercy of YHWH to all who repent. Weisel himself was a Holocaust survivor.

The real reason Jonah ran from God, which is indicated by his acute anger after Nineveh repents and is speared by God, is that Jonah hates Nineveh, because it destroyed his home, and scattered his people. Genocide and murder occurred, and God tells this prophet to go preach repentance that the evil of the empire might be saved. “That is why I fled to Tarshish,” said Jonah to God. “For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” As such, not only is Jonah mad that God forgives evil after repentance occurs, but that God sends a humiliated and victimized prophet to lead the murderers to saving repentance and mercy. If we ever feel like Jonah, we know the feeling of a divine knife in the back.

Of course, you know the end of the story, and it does not end well for Jonah, because it appears as though he rejects out a stubbornness God’s faithful forgiveness, mercy and grace. God tries to teach Jonah a lesson by growing a comforting shade while Jonah sits in the heat and hopes against hope that Nineveh will somehow turn into the salt pillars of Sodom. The shade is killed of, and Jonah is terribly angry, for not only is Nineveh saved, but his only comfort is gone, that of material comfort. Jonah can take no comfort in the presence of God, he simply wants to die. When God asked why Jonah would not anticipate God’s love for a part of creation, which God labored to create and was home to life which God values, Jonah refuses to understand. “Yes, I am angry enough to die,” he says, and leaves it at that. Jonah, just as Wesley states is possible, rejects God’s grace out of hand.

So, when we are confronted with the call to love our enemies, we tend to either excuse away the matter of the stories, or simply find proof-texts to dismiss the importance of reconciling with enemies. We will find as many proof-texts that allow us to continue on mired in anger and resentment, and reject those that indicate otherwise as being inapplicable. What might be worse, however, are those Christians who preach reconciliation, and simply use proof-texts to exhort others to change their behaviors, why not working to provide any example of what it looks like to be a peacemaker, or love one’s enemies.

What proof-texters don’t realize is that brokenness and angers is not a simply sinful behavior, but a state of being that has roots in significant issues related to evil, voicelessness, marginalization and personal or family trauma and injury. Christians cannot expect others, even other Christians, to just assume everything they feel is wrong, sinful, and should rejected as illegitimate. The Bible can only be made true by living it out. The words are never enough.

The choice remains, however, when the texts are pointed out and we are confronted together with the realization that God asks us to renew our hearts, that this is what God intends for all who claim Jesus as Messiah. While we know this, we suddenly have choices. We should not expect an immediate change in our hearts, but simply recognize that Jesus has been given to us so that we may access truth. Jesus shows us that we must also sacrifice our assumptions and feelings of comfortable chaos if we are to fully understand what God’s forgiveness and grace me to each of us as individuals. Because we do not want to change, however, does not indicate that we should not identify the life and ministry of Jesus as fully representative of God’s truth for us. Ww simply must work together to find ways to support one another and live this truth the best we can, and when we fail, admit to ourselves that it is our sin, and not that of our enemies.

Our choices are very difficult, and one of those choices are to reject God’s mercy and grace out of spite. But it is not us who God sent Jesus to vindicate, for many of us already claim faith. It is us that God is sending, that enemies may know divine grace and mercy. Our choice is to burn with rage, rage at our enemies and God, and then we may choose to wither on our spiritual vine. God will reign sovereign at any length, and God’s purposes will be accomplished. It may only be a question of whether or not we want to do the work.

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