A Counsel of Despair?

In a comment posted today, David Graham–for whom I have the greatest respect–writes:

Other questions to ponder are, “Would Joshua – in any of his battles – have done this?”  Or “would Ezra – he of the forced divorces for any Israelite married to a foreigner – have done this?”  Or “Is this how David treated Goliath’s body?”  Or “Would the Apostle Paul – he of the ‘if anyone preaches a different gospel, let him be damned’ – have done this?”  Deciding what is “biblical” behavior all depends on where the reader turns her gaze in the scriptures…

It’ s true what David notes: there are quite a number of horrifying things done and said in the pages of the Bible, and some of them are said to have God’s endorsement.

The way David frames it, though, seems to me to be a counsel of despair, as much as to say, “You can find any morality you want in the Bible.” Which I don’t think is quite true.

There is a strong, clear moral thrust in Scripture, which finds its heart in Jesus. And then there are acts and words that are hard to put together with Jesus, if not impossible. The right way to read the Bible is in Jesus, not in the spirit of suspicion, or in the mind of Enlightenment rationalism. That is the method that Jesus used with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, when he “explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:29)

In fact, I think that is the way David reads when he raises  horrifying examples. They stand out because they  seem to stand against the story concerning Jesus.

We should read this way with humility. One would not want to imitate Thomas Jefferson, who snipped out of the Bible all the parts he did not like! We do not have permission to edit out the horrible parts any more than the miraculous. There may always be parts of the Bible that trouble us. Nevertheless, we read the Bible not so much to question God (though that is permitted) as to question ourselves. That generates increasing humility. That, too, is a reading we should do in Jesus.

Jesus’ Silence

I heard it again a few days ago. “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, only Paul did.”

People say this thinking that Jesus’ silence is a point in favor of affirming homosexual behavior. But they really haven’t thought it through. The silence of Jesus, if it is meaningful at all, is a point against affirming homosexual behavior.

Jesus was a Jew who spent almost his entire ministry among Jews. It’s well known that 1st century Jews had a strong ethic of heterosexual marriage. Like many conservative communities through history they did not accept homosexual behavior. Their Scriptures were against it. Their social structures made no space for it. Homosexual behavior was common and approved in Greco-Roman culture, but Jews found it decadent and abhorrent.

I assume that some Jews in first century Judaism had homosexual desires. But it is very unlikely that those who lived in Judea had opportunity to act on those desires, except in the most secretive way.

Jesus might have spoken up against this. He did speak courageously against his culture and religious tradition on other issues. For example, he opposed the tightly restrictive understanding of Sabbath, a volatile subject. He opposed the way men used divorce. He was never shy about speaking out against the status quo. But he didn’t speak about homosexuality. Why not? Probably for the same reason he didn’t speak about many other issues. The community had a settled policy that he had no quarrel with. If he disagreed, he would surely speak. Since he didn’t, the most likely explanation is that he was, regarding homosexuality, a conventional 1st century Jew.

You can’t prove anything from silence, but that’s certainly the most likely explanation.

Why was Jesus silent while Paul addressed the topic several times? That’s easy: Paul’s ministry was in the diaspora, where Jews mixed with Greeks and Romans. Homosexuality was prevalent. Paul addressed the topic because it was a question, in a way that it was not in Judea. He, too, reaffirmed a traditional Jewish stance.

We are in the midst of a social revolution regarding sexuality, and I don’t find it at all easy to know what to say on many issues, including homosexuality. It would be easiest to dispense with religious traditions and simply affirm the 21st century ethic of individual liberty. For those who retain respect for (let alone obedience to) Jewish and Christian traditions, however, it’s important to be honest. Jesus didn’t speak about homosexuality, so far as we know. That leaves us with the Jewish tradition unaltered and carried forward into Christian tradition.

Where Is Mrs. Jesus?

I liked Ross Douthat’s commentary on the recent “Mrs. Jesus” media frisson caused by an obscure, late, possibly forged document mentioning Jesus’ wife. The only reason this made the news is because it suits us to reimagine Jesus in our image, and “our image” is certainly not celibate.

Douthat points out the classic “scholarly” move (scholarly only because it is made by scholars) in puzzling over why none of the original sources mention Jesus’ marriage. He cites the Smithsonian piece quoting the document’s discoverer, Harvard’s Karen King:

The question the discovery raises, King told me, is, “Why is it that only the literature that said he was celibate survived? And all of the texts that showed he had an intimate relationship with Magdalene or is married didn’t survive? Is that 100 percent happenstance? Or is it because of the fact that celibacy becomes the ideal for Christianity?”

Two options: either random accidents of history have misplaced those documents, or else there was an early church conspiracy to erase them. The possibility that no documents mention Jesus’ marriage because he wasn’t, in fact, married, is too simplistic, too unsophisticated, to consider.

Stunning Assertions about Prayer

You know how sometimes you innocently look over a biblical text and it just flattens you?  My pastor, Dale Flowers, preached on prayer, using Jesus’ words from Matthew 7: “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Once again I was swept away by Jesus’ absolute confidence, his sense that the universe is open to us and to our hopes.

*Consider his audience: Jews deeply conscious of their long history of oppression. “How long, O Lord?” was a prayer most deeply engraved on their souls. It takes considerable chutzpah to tell this group, “Everybody who asks receives.”

*Jesus’ explanation is rooted in the character of God as Father. Even we bad fathers don’t respond to requests with perversity–giving stones in place of bread, snakes instead of fish. And God is a much better Father than we.

* Jesus doesn’t here offer a single hint about how to pray to get results. It’s not, “prayer works!” Prayer isn’t transactional, it’s relational. God will answer because he is your father–not because you are so good at praying.

*The series–ask, seek, knock–points toward the surprise that marks relationship. When you ask, you receive, but rarely just exactly what you imagined. This is particularly so with fathers. The better the father, the less transactional and the more personal the giving.

Seeking goes deeper. You seek what already exists whole, which has mystery attached to it–otherwise you would not be seeking it. We don’t want mere stuff that we already know all about. We seek what we don’t know. Prayer is exploration.

Deeper still is knocking. You knock in order to be welcomed in to someplace you have not been. It is a new reality, belonging to the one who welcomes you. When the door opens you must enter in and see what you find.

Jesus is no fool. He knows the reality of this unkind world, in which people struggle against adversity and rarely eat their fill. But Jesus is telling us how it really is underneath this hard surface.  At the heart of existence is a waiting Father. Therefore ask, seek, knock.

It is a stunning assertion. Lots of evidence runs against it, and Jesus makes no effort at proof or argument. He immediately acknowledges that he asks his disciples to walk through a very narrow gate. (7:14) Will they ask, seek, knock? He puts it to them to choose. 

More on Heaven

I like this piece from Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary. While agreeing completely with N.T. Wright’s stress on the earthly reality of our ultimate destination, he notes two differences in emphasis. One is that the “intermediate” state–life after death with Jesus, but before we are resurrected–is very much to be appreciated, not deprecated. The second is  the reason for the first: our focus ought to be not simply our new sphere of activity in God’s new earth, but the real presence of the Lamb. To be with Jesus, whether in the in-between or in the Kingdom, is devoutly to be desired.