Saving Lives

Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 18.5)

Altering Behavior

There’s no way we who lived through HIV/AIDS’ early years can adequately convey how helpless we felt. The virus emerged from nowhere, yet stayed under cover for nearly a year. Experts could only confirm formerly rare sightings of Kaposi’s sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia were surfacing in urban gay males with alarming frequency. Although everything pointed to deficient immunity, what triggered it wasn’t clear. Hearing it was unlike anything ever seen intensified anxiety as cases mounted. The longer it took to identify the cause of what was rapidly becoming a public health crisis the more it seemed like we’d entered a sci-fi nightmare, a real-life “Twilight Zone.” While most of the world watched from a presumably safe remove, panic overtook the gay community. We couldn’t combat our silent stalker until we knew exactly what it was, whence it came, its method of attack, and how it proliferated. Then the mystery grew more perplexing with outbreaks among Haitians, hemophiliacs, and IV drug users.

As researchers raced to find the deadly pathogen, public health officials rushed to solve the transmission puzzle. They had four distinct patient types and lots of dots connecting two or three, but never all of them. Even though the highest concentration of targets continued to be gay, the virus’s leap into predominately straight groups changed its name from GRID (gay-related immunodeficiency diseases) to AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). It also changed how AIDS was perceived. Its expanding range of victims raised fears we’d gravely underestimated it. We left “The Twilight Zone” to step into a looming apocalypse.

The four-year wait while investigators narrowed transmission down to bodily fluids left no time to wait for bureaucrats to craft and approve a cohesive public policy. The gay community launched its own campaign to disarm the virus and end its long night of grief. Driven by will to survive—fueled in large part by deep-seated anger at preachers and propagandists heralding AIDS as Heaven-sent justice—the community set a course that intuitively subscribed to biblical methodology for containing disease. Leaders and activists poured all their energy into altering behavior. Their unvarnished message was crystal-clear: practice safe sex or die. With the subtlety of a sledgehammer, they pounded two hallmarks of gay defiance—reckless sex and rampant promiscuity—into cultural taboos. And though it’s doubtful they caught the irony, their motive and message were identical to those in Leviticus’s infamous health and hygiene regulations.

But the irony gets sweeter. Leviticus 18, whose ban on same-gender sex (v22) is routinely misappropriated to condemn same-sex orientation, serves as the Bible’s safe-sex manual. As with other passages forbidding dietary and hygienic practices that germinate and spread infectious diseases among nomadic tribes, chapter 18 is not to be read as doctrinal edict. It’s a public health measure to alter behaviors endangering community survival. Yet, as AIDS prevention strategists recognized and Leviticus plainly acknowledges, when asked to choose between private pleasure and public safety, pleasure wins. Thus we note how strenuously the text marries unsafe sex with personal danger and converts previously acceptable acts into taboos. Like the AIDS safe-sex campaign, Leviticus 18 raises specters that won’t vanish when the lights go out.

What God’s Talking About

Pursuing a faithful (and faith-full) relationship with Scripture is a two-step process. First, we access God’s word through Scripture as the sacred medium by which God authoritatively speaks. Second, we hear God’s voice in Scripture. That’s why context is crucial. Scripture is a conversation, not a compendium of sound bites, loose facts, and freestanding ideas. To hear God accurately, we consider each verse, sentence, and phrase in light of the topic at hand. This is true for all Scripture, regardless of literary form (history, poetry, prophecy, gospel, or letter) or author, each of whom is divinely inspired to convey messages God wants us to hear. “Above all,” 2 Peter 1.20-21 says, “you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

As it was recorded so it must be read—without imposition of human will, following the Holy Spirit’s guidance, acknowledging Scripture is prophetic in that it not only speaks to its time, but also to all times. Therein lies the mystery of God’s Word, as well as the reason for our struggles to hear God correctly. Without being sure what God’s talking about, how can we be certain we hear what God is actually saying to us today? Freezing Scripture in time is a far different thing than freeing it from time in order to receive what God wants us to hear now. Insisting God’s message to the ancients is immune to human progress and social change is to denigrate Scripture as an antiquated response to primitive problems. In order to free the text from time and apply Scripture’s current relevance to our lives, it’s essential we listen closely to the whole conversation, identify the topic at hand—doing the historical and linguistic homework to understand the original situation and its nuances as best as we can—and then prayerfully allow the Holy Spirit to “carry us along.” (I love that!)

Preparing the People

So what is God talking about in Leviticus 18? Let’s listen attentively to how the conversation begins. Through Moses God tells the Israelites: “I am the LORD your God. You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices.” This word comes to Israel when it’s neither far enough from Egypt to forget the dominant culture and customs it left nor close enough to Canaan to fathom what’s ahead. At present, Israel as a nation and society doesn’t exist. Once it reaches the Land of Promise and overthrows the Canaanites, its primary duty will be establishing legal and cultural guidelines that promote social stability and welfare. Like similar talks about dietary and hygiene policy, this conversation is all about preparing the people for statehood.

God says, “I am the LORD”—all-caps, i.e. the One True God, all-powerful and all-wise, Whose word cannot be questioned. The premise for everything that follows, then, is to instruct the Israelites to follow God’s direction in founding their nation. It must not borrow from the Egyptians, nor adapt to Canaan’s current environment. [As the conversation ends (v24-25), God states, “Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.” Note the national emphasis and allusions to disease: “defile” (tame in Hebrew: “to be or become unclean; to contaminate”): “drive out” (meshalleach; “to send away,” in this case, “to isolate or quarantine”); “vomit” (qo; “to regurgitate”).] Then, just before prohibiting a long list of imaginative—in most cases, seriously warped—sex practices, God reasserts supreme authority. “You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees,” God says. “I am the LORD your God. Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD.” (v4-5)

Rules for Living

What read like redundancies in English (“decrees” and “laws,” “obey” and “follow,” “obeys them” and “live by them”) are anything but redundant in the original Hebrew. Decrees (mishpat; “case, custom, decision, practice, etc.”) are verdicts rendered case-by-case to set or overturn precedent. Hence, God explicitly retains right to modify opinions, redefine terms, and reverse decisions as needed. Laws (choq; fixed patterns; ordinances) are statutes—constitutional edicts that undergird divine principles. Now things get really interesting, because Old Testament “obedience” comes in four flavors: to keep or protect; to listen closely and intelligently; to do or perform; and to consent or be willing. The first three are contractual, suggesting mutual agreement and honored trust. Only the last term approximates our concept of obedience as voluntary compliance to prescribed standards. Yet even that misses the term’s meaning. It employs a negative (“to refuse”) to indicate consensual action—a willingness to refrain, if you will. Leviticus 18 uses the three contractual verbs, but not the fourth, which would be the obvious choice if God were laying down commands. The chosen verbs leave no doubt Leviticus 18 provides rules for living that shouldn’t be misread as divine edicts. They’re verdicts, not statutes, and as such, are subject to modification, redefinition, and reversal at God’s discretion.

God invites Israel to agree to these guidelines. “The person who obeys [asah; does or performs] them will live by them.” While the phrase, “live by them” (va-chai) isn’t related to obedience at all, it flags the chapter. Va-chai (from the root chayay) means “saving life”! Given what God’s talking about and the topic at hand, both of which are plainly stated in English and even clearer in the original Hebrew, why we would dare suggest—let alone believe—Leviticus 18 is anything other than a roster of safe-sex practices to protect Israel’s public health, ensure its people’s longevity, and thereby preserve its stability as a nation?

The Original Audience

Since space is tight and the exercise isn’t especially instructive, we’ll skip enumerating the 17 sexual variations Leviticus 18 lists. Still, I advise anyone who’s been clobbered by Leviticus 18.22 (or concerned about those are) to review them here: Leviticus 18. When read in the correct context, a pattern emerges and an overall message comes to light. Interspersed through the guidelines we find several “shameful” phrases: “dishonor your father” (v8); “dishonor you” (v10); “dishonor your brother” (v18); “wickedness” (v17); “detestable” (v22); and “perversion” (v23). Both the list and the reproaches make a number of things patently clear. These activities are sufficiently prevalent in ancient culture to merit mention. Either their persistence or adoption will escalate the spread of infectious disease, wasting life instead of saving it. Since Leviticus 18 presents verdicts, not statutes, adhering to them is a personal choice, one unlikely to be made if the activities are acceptable. (One trembles to imagine living in an era where incest, child sacrifice, and bestiality are accepted; yet such were the times.) The reproaches convert health-endangering practices into cultural taboos. If God pronounces them dishonorable, wicked, detestable, and perverted, who would argue the verdict?

Hang on. Have we not just validated 18.22 as a trustworthy prohibition of same-sex orientation? It would seem so—until we check this reading against the context. Now that we know what God’s talking about, it’s equally important to establish whom God is speaking to. Who comprises the original audience? When we include the guideline against child sacrifice (v21), it’s apparent the chapter targets husbands and fathers, i.e., heterosexual men—with the understanding ancient cultures don’t categorize sexual behavior as straight or gay. Thus, the issue is traditional male responsibility for the community’s wellbeing. (Which is why men who knowingly put their community at risk are expunged from the populace per Leviticus 20’s death penalties.) To misappropriate 18.22 as a statute forbidding same-sex orientation, when it’s actually a verdict on same-gender sex, indicates one neither understands the enormous difference between identity and activity nor accounts for the text’s stated intention to save lives. The error of those who abuse this text to clobber homosexuals surpasses unlearned handling of Scripture. It represents flagrant disregard for Scripture’s statutory commands to love God and one another. Anyone so audacious and/or confused to break God’s Law in the name of righteousness and justice is in dire need of our compassion and prayers.

Leviticus 18 is a conversation between God and Israel in which God presents the community with safe-sex standards to promote its stability and wellbeing. Its prohibitions are not to be confused with divine edicts.

All or Nothing

All who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” (Galatians 3.10-11)

The Slippery Slope

If find yourself in our fair city of Chicago, here are a few tidbits to stay clear of strict police officers steeped in civil code. Don’t dine in a burning building. Avoid sharing your whiskey with dogs. It’s OK to ride a giraffe as long as you refrain from fishing while doing so. Leave your kite at home; flying kites is illegal in Chicago. If you’re in the Pullman neighborhood, whatever you do, don’t sit on a curb and drink beer from a bucket. Go ahead and rip off all your clothes to protest whatever vexes you in front of City Hall—provided you’re 17 or younger and secure a permit. If you’re of age or haven’t filed the paperwork, nude protests aren’t such a good idea. Of course, you’re free to do any of these things and run for the border when the cops show up. But should you cross into the suburb of Cicero and it’s a Sunday, contain your glee at eluding arrest. Sunday humming on Cicero streets buys a ticket to the hoosegow.

I undertook my search for arcane Chicago edicts facetiously, thinking it might be a fun way to introduce today’s clobber text: “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.” (Leviticus 18.22) Yet given what I found, I confess a double-edged discomfort. First, some of the city’s blue laws are just too silly; comparing them to the goofier Mosaic ordinances (of which there are many) would demean Scripture, which is unacceptable. Additionally, a few ordinances raise concerns about my civic duty, as none of the crazy-law lists provides rationale for their enactment. Without this information, I’m uncertain of how to interpret them and my responsibility to assist in their enforcement.

For instance, I have a neighbor who, before driving with her dogs, spikes their water with a little beer to sedate them. Otherwise, she says, they jump around, endangering her and other motorists. Assuming the ban on serving dogs whiskey is a humane ordinance, does it strictly mean distilled liquor or all alcoholic beverages? Does it also apply to other pets? Should I warn her she’s headed for trouble if she keeps it up? We live across from Lake Michigan, where a warm day rarely passes without happy children flying kites. Obviously, they think it’s okay, and many would argue it’s natural for kids to fly kites. But the city forbids it. Am I careless to observe their lawlessness from my window without crossing the street to tell them they’re doing wrong? I know several adults who plan to protest global dependency on oil by joining the Chicago Naked Bike Ride two weeks from now. As with similar events around the world, the route is kept under wraps until the day-of. While the city promises not to interfere, shouldn’t they know they risk arrest if they cycle past City Hall?

Preferring not to upset well-meaning people with evidence they’ve gone astray, should I just ignore it and let the chips fall where they may? Perhaps I should alert proper authorities and let them deal with it. Yet that feels cowardly and dishonest. Maybe the best way to “help”—as a dutiful Chicago citizen—would be mounting or joining a campaign to raise awareness of overlooked laws. Once people hear these laws exist and read them for themselves, compliance is on their heads. More important, I can’t be blamed if they suffer the consequences of scoffing at them. Best of all, I don’t even have to worry with why the city put these laws on its books. The law is the law and must be kept—all of it. The minute we start choosing which ones we think are valid is the minute we slide down the slippery slope. Before you know it, we’ll have drunk dogs, kite flyers, and nude protesters everywhere. Who knows where it will end?

Achievers or Believers?

I’ve made my point—up to a point, that is, since comparing civil law with Biblical law only works up to a point. Proper integration of Old Testament wisdom with New Testament doctrine raises the concern level substantially higher than how we assess applicability of specific edicts, or our duty to obey and uphold them. When discussing Mosaic Law, the slippery slope’s gate opens much sooner than we think. Long before we slide into defending and disputing this law or that, how we define ourselves determines our course and positions we take. Based on Paul’s instruction in Galatians, we have a choice. Are we law-abiding or faith-driven—achievers or believers? Either we’re convinced it’s in our power and best interest to abide by the whole Law and conform to its demands, or we’re confident it’s in God’s power and best interest to free us from Law and reconcile us to God’s purpose. Paul says it’s an all-or-nothing proposition. And we’re foolish to imagine it’s not, because a law-abiding, achieving life shares nothing in common with a faith-driven, believing one.

The law-abiding life scrutinizes behavior and trusts what it sees. The faith-driven life looks beyond behavior to trust what it can’t see. The law-abiding life places primary importance on human achievement as proof of belief. The faith-driven life believes God achieves what we can’t when divine grace intersects with human frailty. The two ways of life could not be more opposite—so much so that Paul describes one as… Well, let’s let him say it: “All who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’ Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because ‘the righteous will live by faith.’” (Galatians 3.10-11) In a nutshell—with humble regrets to those who don’t agree with Paul and won’t like hearing this—achievers are cursed, believers justified.

The New Promise

Alluding to humanity’s struggles before God’s grace is revealed in Christ—i.e., life under the Law—Titus 3.3-6 explains: “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.” God’s kindness and love, our rebirth and renewal are not obtainable by achievement. (Not by righteous things we had done, but because of God’s mercy…) We must believe.

As the Law evolved over centuries, piling up commands and remedies for every imaginable religious, social, and cultural dilemma, its vastness became a recipe for failure—which the Titus correspondent depicts as foolishness, disobedience, deception, and enslavement that became endemic to life, setting off malicious, envious conflicts among God’s people. Relying on their power of achievement set them on a collision course with self-defeating sin. Paul succinctly explains it like this: “The sting of death is sin, and power of sin is the law.” Before his readers give up, admitting they can’t possibly meet all of the Law’s demands, he hastens to add, “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15.56-57) These texts—and innumerable ones like them—form the cornerstone of Christian doctrine. They’re essential to the New Testament, the new promise that supersedes the Old Testament by reorienting our understanding of how we please God from what we achieve to Whom we believe. And ironically—though not unintentionally—freedom from the Law through faith in Christ ultimately frees the Law from the deadly, sin-inducing force it became. Therefore, to read, respect, respond or relent to its edicts as de facto commands is to revert to a cursed, grace-free existence, because obedience to one law presumes submission to all the Law expects.

An Inconvenient Obligation

This all-or-nothing perspective isn’t a freewheeling, liberal rationale to discredit conservative "Old Testament" values. Nor is it opinion Paul invents to neutralize legalism’s encroachment on Early Church doctrine. It’s the Law, explicitly decreed in Deuteronomy 27.26: “Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.” (Emphasis added.) And that’s where law-abiding Christians who conveniently pull out Leviticus 18.22 crash into an inconvenient obligation—one I daresay no sane person could possibly consider keeping. The buck doesn’t stop with citing one sentence to prove God detests gay people. That little sentence in chapter 18 is inextricably linked to a literal sentence in Leviticus 20.13: “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

By law, Christians who clobber gays with Leviticus 18.22 are obliged to execute them! While a few may fantasize about it, no sincere Christian would willingly kill for this cause—simply because murder is the ultimate Christian taboo. When the buck stops at execution, the flimsiness of Leviticus’s anti-gay edict gives way. More than that, the curse of the law-abiding achiever’s life becomes self-evident. It’s a troubled existence plagued by half-truths and irreconcilable contradictions. Sadly, it saddles many good-hearted, earnest, sorely misled Christians to the Titus profile: “foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures, [living] in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.” It’s no way to live—certainly not how we want to live and, above all, not how Christ calls us to live. Through Christ, we place full trust in what we believe, giving no credence to human behavior as a reliable indicator of righteousness. In John 7.24, Jesus conclusively ends a legal debate with advice every Christian should bear in mind: “Stop judging by mere appearances, judge correctly.” (v24) Jesus says faith cannot be visibly observed, assessed, or confirmed. Hence, it can’t be legally proven. Case closed.

Jesus surrendered His life and triumphantly waged our war with sin and death so we might be free from sin’s mortal sting and the Law’s power. The resurrection and new life it brings cancel any need to revive decrepit statutes. There’s no reason to defend Calvary’s singular achievement against those who refute it with doctrine that reflects their fears and naïveté. Partial adherence to the Law negates the entire Law. No response we offer could speak more persuasively to the error of their ways than that. Leviticus fans need no help exposing their folly. Which is why they need our compassion and prayers.

By its own decree, Old Testament Law is not available for slicing and dicing to suit our purposes. Either we live by all of it—including its inconvenient obligations—or we escape its curse by faith through Christ.

Postscript: We’re Not Done Yet

With Leviticus 18.22 rapidly becoming the favorite sound bite opposing same-sex orientation, it’s not only important we understand why Mosaic Law is unavailable for use by anyone who doesn’t abide by its totality. It’s equally important we’re clear on what the Law says and whom it targets with purportedly anti-gay statutes. So we’re not done yet. A follow-up post will examine Levitical texts as a whole, as well as verses many (most unknowingly) abuse.

Sodom and Gibeah: A Tale of Two Cities

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. (Matthew 10:14-15)

Body of Work

When coming attractions of Joel and Ethan Coen’s Burn After Reading (2008) hit theaters, I couldn’t wait for it to open. Primed by the preview for a maniacally funny political farce, I stumbled out of the picture in a daze. The clips shrewdly strung together to market the film turned up in its subplot, yet the primary story involved a woman’s desperation to get a face-lift. With not a glimpse of this in the preview, I left the picture uncertain about what the Coens wanted me to see and what they meant to say. Being a veteran film student, I fell back on a discipline I learned long ago: auteurism, which holds a filmmaker’s body of work reveals perennial themes that surface in every film. The most reliable means of understanding Burn After Reading’s moral would entail comparing it with other Coen films: Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou? etc. There it was, plain as day: vain ambition turns nice people into morons.

Oddly enough, the auteur theory also works remarkably well in identifying the morals of deceptively marketed Biblical texts. Approaching Scripture as a “body of work” is fundamental to our belief it’s the divinely inspired medium through which God speaks to us. Recurrent themes, perspectives, and motifs become prominent fixtures. While we may note variations in style and tone, the voice and message we hear are astonishingly consistent. Thus, when texts leave us befuddled, rather than project onto them or read into them what we want to see and hear, we’re wise to survey the entire body of work. If our skew doesn’t square with Scripture’s portrayal of God’s nature and message, we’re confused.

More Far-Reaching and Disturbing

If the God of Scripture doesn’t suit our agenda, we may splice together previews that prime others to view tales and texts our way. The most egregious example of this, hands down, is the account of Sodom’s destruction. The coming attractions promise a lurid tale of perversion—which figures into the story (though not as advertised)—with not a glimpse of the primary story line. Those unfamiliar with Scripture’s recurrent themes, perspectives, and motifs are apt to leave the story seeing only what they’re told to find. But the sensational gays-gone-wild promos don’t fool believers sufficiently versed in Biblical imperatives. They know what the story’s really about long before the posse pounds on Lot’s door, demanding he release his angelic houseguests into its mean hands. They’ve already connected it to a nearly identical episode in Judges 19, what God says about Sodom in Isaiah and Ezekiel, and how Jesus characterizes the city. And (surprise!) these texts define Sodom’s sin as more far-reaching and disturbing than same-sex attraction. In fact, not one scriptural reference to Sodom explicitly mentions homosexuality; those alluding to the city’s depravity describe it as “perversion” vis-à-vis the posse’s violent intentions to wield sex as a weapon.

The astute Bible reader easily recognizes what we see in Sodom is no different than what we see in Abu Ghraib and observe in prisons: intent to commit dehumanizing gang rape that defies orientation and gender. The previews may prime us for oversexed gay men prowling for fresh flesh. But the story isn’t about sexual gratification, gay or straight. It’s about extreme violence fueled by paranoid fear of strangers. How can we assert this with any degree of certainty? Judges 19’s story of the Levite’s concubine replicates Sodom’s circumstances and reveals exactly what the hostile crowd had in mind for Lot’s visitors. Then God and Jesus explain what Sodom means.

Lasting Harm

Scripture at large detests hostility toward strangers (passive or aggressive) as gross sin. We note this consistently in Old Testament texts and Jesus’s teaching. That’s the moral crisis portrayed in the stories of Sodom and Gibeah, a village in Judges that carries out Sodom’s intentions to their gruesome extreme. For brevity’s sake, we’ll stick to the key events. Yet I urge reading the two texts (Genesis 19; Judges 19) in tandem to discover their many eerie similarities. A Levite travels home after visiting his concubine’s father. Seeking a place where he, she, and a servant can stay the night, he follows the custom of his day. They enter Gibeah and sit in the village square, waiting for someone to offer them shelter. But they’re ignored—a bad omen, especially since he’s a Levite, a born priest. Finally, a local takes them in. Wicked men surround the house, shouting, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” (v22) The owner pleads, “Don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing.” (v23) As Lot does, the host offers them his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine; like the men of Sodom, the Gibeah posse has no use for the women. (True to their time, they regard women as replaceable property.) The men seek to do lasting harm to the Levite’s person. The two cities’ tales diverge due to the nature of the guests. Lot’s visitors are angels; they blind the men of Sodom and the city is razed. No such supernatural intervention occurs in Gibeah.

The Levite surrenders his concubine. Judges 19.25-26: “They raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.” The Levite finds her corpse clutching the threshold. Enraged, no doubt stricken with guilty regret, he dismembers her body into 12 pieces, sending one to every tribe in Israel. The national outcry indicates the horror of Gibeah’s sin: “Just imagine! We must do something! So speak up!” (v30)

The men of Gibeah carry out what would have transpired in Sodom had Lot’s guests been mortal. They violently act out their fear of people whom they believe threaten their security and way of life. Their hostility is primal, embedded in human fight-or-flight response to fear. Like all rapes, it employs sexual aggression to express perverse desire to dominate another, physically and psychologically. Sodom and Gibeah are all about leveraging power—not pandering to libido. Both brutally violate God’s command to welcome strangers and treat them respectfully and compassionately. (As Jesus defines it, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”) Israel’s reaction to the Gibeah atrocity says it all. It’s unthinkable, intolerable, and must be dealt with.

Sodom’s Lesson

How is it, then, that Sodom (and its ally, Gomorrah) gets all the attention—in Scripture and pop culture—while Gibeah goes missing? We answer that with a modern parallel. Why do we talk about 9/11, yet seldom mention the 1993 World Trade Center bombing? Both sprang from identical motives. Both cost innocent lives. But 9/11’s epic destruction eclipses 1993’s collateral damage. If we told both stories in tandem, the villainy of a tiny terrorist cell would be so obvious vilification of Muslims we've witnessed since 9/11 would be utter nonsense. Nine-eleven, 1993, Oklahoma City, and other terrorist attacks would be seen for what they are: mass violence perpetrated by wicked lunatics. Like 9/11, Sodom’s spectacular demise makes better copy. Unfortunately, also like 9/11, ignoring Gibeah invites homophobic believers to cast a wide net demonizing an entire community rather than dealing with the real lesson Sodom teaches. Exploiting the tale to excuse LGBT prejudice and exclusion merely proves how woefully they abuse the text. For are they not perverting Scripture to promote the very sin that destroyed Sodom?

The true nature of Sodom’s lesson cannot be questioned because Scripture authoritatively seals it from alternative readings. In Ezekiel 16.49, God declares, “This was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” In Isaiah 1, God scandalizes Israel’s disobedience by calling its people “rulers of Sodom” (v10), reviling their hollow piety and unequivocally demanding they repent: “Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” (v16-17) Jesus confirms this message in Matthew 10.14-15, when He tells the disciples to leave any home or town where they’re not welcomed and “shake the dust off your feet.” (In Luke 10.10-11, He instructs them to “go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you.’”) The warning: “Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” The Gibeah parallel notwithstanding, these texts clearly define Sodom’s sin and its consequences.

To hijack the narrative as rationale for LGBT condemnation and exclusion not only replicates Sodom’s wickedness, it brazenly contradicts what God and Jesus say about it in no uncertain terms. There is no Scriptural basis for this reading. Instead of being troubled by people who’ve been seduced by this wickedly naïve distortion of Scripture, we pray God opens their eyes and speaks to their hearts. Whether or not they realize it, they’ve got extremely urgent, spiritually crucial, and intensely personal conflicts with God and God’s Word they must resolve. They need our compassion and prayers.

To interpret the Sodom story as a gays-gone-wild tale is to misread it entirely—and to disregard all that Scripture, God, and Jesus say about it.

Postscript: Facts to Know

As we test the contextual and theological legitimacy of anti-LGBT clobber texts, there are a few enlightening facts to know about homosexuality and Scripture:

• No words or phrases that strictly translate as “heterosexual,” “lesbian,” or “homosexual” appear in Scripture. None exists in ancient Hebrew and Greek, as “straight” and “gay” categories didn’t exist in pre-modern cultures. The terms—and identification of people by sexual preference—are recent phenomena, having been coined and instituted by 19^th-century psychologists.
• The number of scriptures that mention same-gender sex (which is not the same as same-sex orientation) totals 15. Those calling for compassion, justice, equality, and hospitality exceed 3,000.
• No unified sex ethic exists in Scripture, let alone one that sanctions heterosexual orientation to the exclusion of all others.
• Dozens of sexual practices ordered by Biblical edict are now universally banned in Christian circles, outlawed in most nations, and socially regarded as dangerous taboos. (We’ll review several of them in an upcoming postscript.)

Beefs

The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. (Romans 14.3)

Today’s post runs twice the usual length to cover essentials we’ll need as the next post commences our study of “clobber texts” used to alienate LGBT and other Christians. I trust you’ll overlook the wordiness and hang with me. Upcoming posts will return to the typical length.

Personal Ethics

My medical ethics professor was a soft-spoken woman who gently guided our debates on hot topics like reproductive rights, life support, and assisted suicide, seeing each opinion received equal weight and respect. Near term’s end, the syllabus noted a session on “dietary ethics” with no assigned reading. “In-class film” was all it said. The half-hour film graphically documented grossly inhumane methods of industrial husbandry and slaughter. When the film ended, it was clear our professor had drastically departed from her trademark style. We heard a 15-minute tirade on the evils of meat consumption, followed by a stilted exchange in which she shut down any objection before it was fully tendered. The class dried up. Finally, a brave young woman asked, “Is this a test?” The instructor asked what she meant. “You don’t seem to want us to discuss this objectively,” she observed. “It’s more about your personal ethics, which you’re obviously passionate about. But, unless this is an exercise in approaching someone with set opinions, I don’t get the point. Isn’t this issue like the rest? It also has many aspects: medical, cultural, moral, pragmatic—“

The professor stopped her. “My point is some issues leave no room for debate because no morally legitimate exceptions exist.” The class exploded. What about vitamin deficiency? That’s what supplements are for. What about leather? She pointed to her rubber shoes and fake leather belt. Then someone asked if she had pets. “Three cats,” she said. Were we to assume she never fed them meat? After an uncomfortable pause, she replied, “Almost never.” Why would she ever give her cats meat? She explained, “If they go too long without it, they start to shed, and get listless and grumpy.” (As was the case then; vegetarian friends tell me nutritional quality of meatless pet food has greatly improved.) “So,” the student asked, “is it safe to say, for the sake of their health and happiness, no moral alternative to meat consumption exists?” She smiled with relief. “You could say that.” Another pause. “I should give this more thought,” she said.

Meat and Vegetables

Although time has stolen the professor’s name and much of what she taught, my memory of the “dietary ethics” session remains vivid, thanks to regularly revisiting Paul’s treatise on faith ethics in Romans 14. In part, it’s because he discusses the same issue: morality of an omnivorous diet versus vegetarianism. But, more than that, it’s because his conclusion verifies what ultimately came of the class discussion: absolutes are only helpful in firmly defined contexts. Under different circumstances, they may not hold up as soundly—or we may have to admit the complete opposite is the correct position. Many times, our disagreements escalate so quickly—we come out swinging—we don’t consider the possibility we’re confusing absolutes with personal ethics and/or personal ethics with what philosophers call situational ethics, flexible application of absolutes that set aside personal misgiving to serve higher principle. (Basically, it’s trying to do the right thing in any given situation.) As one might expect, many refute situational ethics out-of-hand as unscriptural and inconsistent with God’s immutable nature. They’re convinced right is right, wrong is wrong, and no gray area exists between. Yet how can this be, when Scripture teaches we’re incorrect to assess others’ faith by rigid standards, since no two believers’ circumstances are alike? That’s the crux of Paul’s instruction. He deliberately cites the meat-and-vegetables issue, as it’s one of the most inflammatory problems the Romans grapple with.

A little background helps us grasp the topic’s gravity. (Examining the text without it is close to useless, since the matter looks trivial in our eyes.) The question isn’t as simple as whether Christians eat meat or confine their diet to vegetables. Meat is a rare commodity in Rome, the known world’s largest metropolis. It’s too costly for average households and very difficult to procure. The best sources for fresh meat are pagan temples, where leftovers from animal sacrifices are served in affordable portions or distributed for sale in public bazaars.

Therefore, meat consumption is theologically questionable for Gentile converts, as many presume it’s tainted with paganism. (Contrary to popular myth, animal sacrifice is nothing like a Texas barbecue, with the entire beast sprawled atop a sacred slab. Priests slaughter and eviscerate the animal and bring its vital organs to the altar, where they’re burned. The carcass is butchered and eaten.) For Jewish converts, the issue is twice complicated. Beyond pagan contamination, Judaic law forbids anyone other than the presiding priest and his sons from consuming sacrificial meat; and they’re to eat it inside the Temple, as it isn’t to be publically consumed.

Trusting Each Other

What happens in the Roman congregation is what always happens when faith communities attempt to mandate inflexible standards based on religious ideology and outmoded edicts. One group dismisses the issue as irrelevant. They believe if eaten with thanksgiving, meat is harmless. The other group isn’t so sure. To be on the safe side, they endorse restricting diet to vegetables—since one can never say with certainty where marketed meat originates. “Live and let live” is just too hard a concept to abide. It puts the onus for assessing and complying with Scripture on the individual. For many, that’s a surefire road to ruin. Someone’s got to be in charge, lest the whole thing falls apart. One group must be declared “right” at the expense of the other being declared “wrong.” Naturally, both believe they’re right and since neither can definitively prove it’s correct, each tries to prove the other is not.

Thus begins the Roman diet drama, with meat-eaters looking down on vegetarians, accusing them of being too spineless to bear responsibility for freedom in Christ. Vegetarians condemn omnivores for trampling sacred principle in pursuit of self-indulgence. Before we cluck at both for rushing to judgment, we should note two things. Their stubborn fervor is born of earnest desire to please God. And much is at stake in how they resolve this, as it will decide to what degree (if any) the Roman church and Roman society overlap. How much of the “outside world” is too much? How little isn’t enough? These are defining questions with no definitive answers. Which is why Paul tells them to quit pretending they know what God thinks, says, and expects and prove their trust in God by trusting each other.

God Can and Does

Paul calls off the meat-and-vegetables debate in four quick verses (Romans 14.1-4). How he characterizes the drama is a revelation all by itself: “Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.”

Let’s walk through this. Step One: Our obligation is to embrace weaker believers. “Quarreling over disputable matters”—i.e., beefs over valid faith and practices—harms those who lack strength and experience to accept how we practice our faith. It’s a fruitless endeavor that sullies our witness. Step Two: The more seasoned and sure our faith, the more we can digest. Freedom isn’t free; it requires great courage and confidence. Those not strong enough to exercise freedom in Christ seek stability in restrictions. Strong believers must not criticize weaker ones for relying on hard boundaries and fast rules. Yet withholding criticism does not amount to concession that restrictive lifestyles are exclusively “right.” Weak believers who find definition and assurance in restrictions must not overstep and vilify believers who live more freely.

Step Three: God’s acceptance of those who defy limits and stereotypes is a fact. Step Four: Strong or weak, we have no right to judge, because all our service—in its many shapes and expressions—belongs to God. We may not agree with, understand, or be like one another. But condemning or expressing doubt in each other assumes status we don’t possess. When I say you’re wrong, I kick God off the throne so I can have a seat. It’s a foolish, perilous assumption we can’t afford. Step Five: Like it or not, we all serve the same God. Honor God receives from our faith rests entirely in God’s power to raise us in righteousness. How this happens confounds human understanding. It makes no earthly sense that God ensures we stand equally as worthy vessels and reflections, when all we see are contradictions. Yet God can and does.

Causes for Concern

Shouldn’t we be marginally concerned our need to prove we’re right only arises when we’re compelled to prove another wrong? Doesn’t the phrase—“need to prove we’re right”—reveal causes for concern about the strength of our faith? If we’re truly confident our beliefs are founded on Scriptural truth and please God, why the need to prove it at all? Shouldn’t it trouble us just a little that judging or challenging another’s faith gives lie to our confidence in God? Attacking anyone whose faith ethics and practices don’t align with ours locks us in the perilous and (dare I say it?) pathetic position of misappropriating God’s role as Master. We ignore the principle of inherent equality for all believers by supposing we’re more righteous or knowledgeable than our peers. We forget faith is logic’s opposite. Trust creates certainty. Submission grants authority. Humility brings respect. When stronger Christians contemptuously regard weaker ones as ignorant and arrogant, and weaker ones accuse stronger ones of sin and arrogance, both groups err by imposing logic on faith—and both reveal they have no idea what they’re doing. If they did, they wouldn’t do it.

Finally, if we’re aware we’ve overreached, yet continue on, lack of concern about our hubris and damage our beefs inflict is a grave concern. In John 13.16, Jesus draws a clear, indelible line between God and us: “Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” We must be very wary about eagerness to speak for God; it takes all of a second to cross the line and start talking like we are God. That’s the falsehood cleverly disguised in the credo “Love the sinner; hate the sin.” Both “sinner” and “sin” are baldly prejudicial terms based on insight and authority we don’t have. Who are we to judge? Worse still, who are we to justify scriptural abuse with a patently unscriptural premise? Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves—attaching no right to qualify our love based on their attitudes or behavior. He answers the “sin” question by teaching us how to pray: Forgive our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. We need to hear “against us” loud and clear. We respond to personal offenses with mercy. Nowhere does Scripture authorize us to mount a preemptive strike against “sin.” Again, challenging those whose beliefs and practices don’t align with ours—or answering their challenges in kind—only shows we don’t know what we’re doing.

Close examination of exclusionary “clobber texts” starting in the next post by no means intends to arm us with materiel to settle beefs with fellow believers. We must be very clear about that. Value from our studies will emerge when informed understanding of clobber passages shields us from scriptural abuse and unprovoked attacks. Accurate knowledge of what God’s Word says enables faithful obedience to Christ: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5.44-45)

Paul calls off Rome’s meat-and-vegetables debate, telling both sides judgment and condescension exceed their authority. There is one God, one Master, and God ensures we all will stand as equally worthy servants.

Tradition!

You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.” (Matthew 15.6-9)

Slipping Away

It took 30 years, five productions and several viewings of Norman Jewison’s superb film for me to warm to Fiddler on the Roof. Why the show held the top spot in Broadway’s Greatest Hits list for more than a decade was never a mystery. It’s a smashing piece of theater with enough heart and soul for a dozen musicals. As everyone knows, the songs are splendid—not a dud in the whole lot. Its greatest strength, however, is tough-mindedness. The poor Jewish milkman, Tevye, his wife and five daughters, and the rest of their tiny Russian village are very aware their way of life is slipping away. Peasants are deserting their farms for big-city factories. Urban diversity is dissolving ethnic ties, while young people flock to universities, where they learn to question time-honored values and customs. Political unrest hangs in the air. Soon the masses will seize power, hurling the entire nation into chaos. Although Fiddler has more laughs than most musicals scramble up, nearly every one catches in the throat. Laughing in disaster’s face can only be so funny for so long. Then it starts to hurt.

I got all of this when I first saw the show as a 12-year-old kid straining with all his might to be a “sophisticated” theatergoer. Looking back, laughing at disaster was the decisive criterion I used to measure a musical’s greatness—a reasonable position for an adolescent sensing a huge, potentially disastrous life-change around the corner. With hard-edged hits like Gypsy, Cabaret, Funny Girl, and A Chorus Line sending me into swoons, Fiddler on the Roof should have as well.

Why did Fiddler leave me cold? I couldn’t figure it out—until writing an essay on movie musicals a few years ago. Fiddler hews to the formula without fitting the mold. It’s not about defiant non-conformity. It’s about mourning loss of certainty as everything you’re told to believe swiftly fades into the past. The show’s opening number, “Tradition,” tells us all about the characters’ lives and expectations. When the final curtain falls, none of it remains. A young person can’t relate to such sorrow. One must rack up a few miles and experience a few losses to feel the full blow of watching tradition slip away. It’s a terrible, painful thing to face, which is why so many would rather cling to obsolete traditions than let them go.

Outlasting Significance

Suppose we think about tradition for a moment—not specific customs, beliefs, and rituals, but tradition itself. It’s an odd, intriguing thing. Rarely does tradition burst to life unassisted. We call suddenly popular practices “trends” or “crazes” to indicate they’ll be short-lived, which most are. Tradition is typically introduced in adjunct with something greater: a principle, milestone, celebration, or imperative. Its initial purpose revolves around promoting the significance and continuity of whatever it’s meant to uphold. Yet over time, tradition tends to supplant what it was created to signify because social and scientific progress moves the culture away from its original reason for being. “God bless you” is a great example. It became the traditional response to sneezing as the result of medieval superstition that the millisecond a sneeze preoccupied our senses was all the time the devil needed to sneak into our bodies. “God bless you,” then, started as a counterstrike to diabolical possession. We stopped believing that when we discovered why we sneeze. But we never stopped blessing sneezers.

By and large, preserving hangover traditions that enhance our comfort and sense of continuity is a benign habit. In arenas of faith, however, misconceived or outmoded tradition can easily become the enemy of faith by creating confusion that fosters discord among believers. Isolating beneficial faith traditions from insignificant ones can be difficult, as transmission of faith from person to person and generation to generation most often occurs via tradition. Because faith—like love, truth, and patriotism—is abstract, a veritable garden of traditional symbols, rites, vocabulary, and (yes) superstitions crop up around its towering principles.

Enduring Christian traditions, such as baptism, Communion, and Lent remain sacrosanct due to their timeless significance; they’re immune to culture shifts and social progress. Yet there are also traditions many adamantly maintain that lost their value long ago. They now alienate believers and, in some cases, actually subvert Biblical principles speaking to issues we currently confront. Perhaps the most prominent examples exist in traditions that base ministerial rights on gender, marital status, and orientation. While scriptures can be found to justify some (though not all) of these criteria, opposing scriptures nullify such practices in principle. Thus, they’re doctrinally unsound. Furthermore, their legitimacy has always been dubious, as they were instituted as policies to safeguard church coffers from estate suits by spouses and children of deceased pastors. Given the shortage of dedicated ministers, abuses of power by men with no familial duties, huge advances in social equality, and the advent of the insurance industry, these traditions make no sense. They’re detrimentally unsound and obsolete. Yet they persist, rigidly upheld on the rickets of selective application of Scripture. And many, like Tevye and the other Fiddler characters, cling to them for no better reason than fear of letting go. In Matthew 15, Jesus confronts a group of tradition-bound Pharisees and boldly (some might even say angrily) challenges their customs’ significance—not that they were ever significant to begin with.

Dirty Hands

The unpleasant little dust-up starts with the disciples’ dirty hands. For centuries, Jews have practiced an elaborate washing-up ritual at mealtimes, presumably as an act of worship. No reliable Scripture supports their custom—certainly no bona fide law or commandment—yet over time the tradition has become regarded as law. At best, it’s an extrapolation of Temple protocol ordained in Exodus 30.17-21, which commands Aaron and his sons (the priestly caste) to wash their hands and feet before preparing food offerings. One might think of it as a lovely tradition that preserves worship in the home between high holy days—a nice-to-have, but certainly no legal obligation. Due to their makeshift existence, the disciples have no home. As such, the custom holds no significance for them. When some Pharisees and legalists learn the disciples often eat with dirty hands, they make a special trip from Jerusalem to accuse Jesus of irresponsibly allowing His followers to “break the tradition of the elders.” (Matthew 15.2) By the time He’s finished with them, they probably wish they’d stayed at home and minded their business.

Jesus gives them less credit than we have here. He doesn’t bother pointing out the exaggerated use of irrelevant Scripture that gave rise to the practice. Instead, He indicts their legalistic proclivity by refuting another tradition that has no scriptural basis whatsoever. He replies, “Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.” (v3-6)

Here’s what Jesus is talking about. In ancient Judaism, family wealth is held in common for all members of the extended family. What belongs to the father belongs to the son and vice versa. This is a divinely ordained practice per the laws Jesus cites (Exodus 20.12 and Deuteronomy 5.16, respectively), also evidenced in repeated commands to care for widows and orphans. Over time, however, some legal eagle devised a loophole that became instantly popular. If a son formally pledges his entire wealth will be given to the Temple at his death, he can refuse requests for assistance on the grounds all of his money is “devoted to God.” Designating his wealth as a “personal vow” (2 Kings 12.4) shields him from legal obligation to care about his family's financial security. And it's a major contributor to the widespread neglect of widowed mothers and abandoned orphans. (Essentially, it's a cleverly conceived version of current tax shelters that encourage people to hide their money rather than reduce their tax liability by writing off family dependents and charitable contributions.)

Jesus negates the nosy Pharisees’ challenge by questioning the validity of tradition in general. He says they're all worthy of reevaluation to test their legitimacy vis-à-vis principles of faith, not just legal acceptability or literal conformity to Scripture. Jesus sets the standard for tradition far above chapter-and-verse citation or customary beliefs and practices handed down over time. “You hypocrites!” He hisses. “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’” (v7-9; Isaiah 29.13) Jesus shows us it’s entirely possible to construct far-fetched scriptural rationales for attitudes and behaviors that directly oppose the principles of God’s Word. In the end, if our words, worship, and teaching contradict eternal truth consistently found in The Bible, we’re clinging to detrimental traditions at our peril. We’re hypocrites. We honor God with our lips, but our hearts are far from God. Dirty hands are one thing; distant hearts is another.

This Process

With regret for this post’s length, I believe it’s essential we prepare our hearts and minds for upcoming discussions that will deconstruct the “clobber texts” many use to condemn LGBT and other unorthodox believers. (We’ll begin in earnest next week, after a second prefatory post to ensure we’re approaching the texts from a balanced perspective.) What we see in Matthew 15 is an example of culture wars that often arise within the halls of faith. Adoption of traditions that transmit faith’s principles opens the door for other traditions that either blatantly contradict faith’s truths or outlast their usefulness. Without question, those who wage cultural wars of exclusion and condemnation within the Church fit the Pharisees’ profile. They go out of their way to attack anyone who doesn’t conform to customs and selectively upheld beliefs. Yet we must also recognize the majority of those who question our faith don’t fit the profile. They don’t come looking for fights. Nor are they adequately equipped to respond to many of the points we’ll raise against erroneous or obsolete teaching they’ve received. Despite the virulence of their words, they mean no harm. And even when they do, it’s our duty in obedience to Christ’s commands to do no harm. (We’ll cover that in the next post.)

As the Holy Spirit steers the Church back to the lavish inclusion, equality, and compassion that set it apart from every human institution—in keeping with God’s stated will and purpose—many who cherish baseless, outmoded traditions face the same kinds of sorrows we see in Fiddler on the Roof. Life as they know it is slipping away. They’re aware of that. Yet they’re uncertain what it means. What we hail as progress feels like loss to them. We hear notes of grief in their hostility, shrieks of panic in their insistence. They must go through this process for themselves, trusting God’s grace to bring them through. Our responsibility is threefold. First, we must uphold them in prayer and love. Second, we must remain steadfast in our humility and faithfulness, serving as worthy examples of acceptance and tolerance. Third, we must never yield our commitment to be obedient to God’s Word, His Spirit’s guidance, and Christ’s commands. Faith isn’t a matter of being right or wrong. It’s our means of being reconciled to God.

Blessing a sneezer is a prime example of tradition that outlasts its usefulness. Yet tradition is nothing to sneeze at. As the Spirit guides people of faith through change, we recognize the fears that accompany letting go of baseless, outmoded traditions.

Postscript: Fiddler’s “Tradition”

Fiddler on the Roof’s fabulous opening is something of a set-up. It invites us to relish the “balance” its villagers enjoy because of long-held tradition and then yanks the rug from beneath us by showing how clinging to tradition often causes us to lose our balance. The world turns. Times change. Progress pulls us along. Traditions outlast their usefulness and slip away. (From the 1971 Norman Jewison film version.)

The Good Book and Bad Intentions

Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.” (Matthew 22.29)

Monkeying with God’s Word

Oh, how we love to argue Biblical truth by inflicting personal opinions and preferences on what God wants us to hear! Whoever first observed it’s possible for anyone to support anything with Scripture was a genius. The disjointed, non-collaborative process by which it came to be, centuries involved in its writing and assembly, unparalleled range of topics and information it contains, and—most of all—the profound mysteries thrumming through its lines and around its edges make The Bible a handy, all-purpose tool to excuse or defend whatever suits our fancies. Because we (supposedly) believe the Bible is God’s Word, one would think we’d approach it reverently and apply it cautiously, even fearfully, as its authority exclusively rests on belief in God’s infinite wisdom, power, and supremacy. Otherwise, if we suspect God is anything less or something other than GOD, what God says to us through Scripture holds little to no consequence for us.

Taking God out of God’s Word reduces The Bible to an encyclopedia of ancient history, poetry, and proverbs—surely the greatest volume of human insights ever compiled, yet human nonetheless. Were this so, we could shelve The Bible beside The Sayings of Confucius, Poor Richard’s Almanac, Bartlett’s Quotations, and other ready-made resources of mortal wit. We could pick and choose from it as we please, as though its pages stored a treasure of quips for every occasion and rationale for any earthly idea, from noblest to basest—if The Bible were a hodgepodge of philosophical tidbits, fables, and trivia. But that’s precisely what The Bible is not. Despite the extraordinary factors affecting its gradual creation and eventual shape, God’s pervasively consistent voice is the Binding Force that unifies and balances Scripture as all of a piece. It’s one Book comprised of 66 books penned by different people addressing many issues in wildly different times and places, all witnessing the miracle of divine inspiration by advancing one theme with one focus: restoring humanity’s hope by reconciling its relationship with God. From cover-to-cover, the message remains the same. To do what pleases our Maker, we must undo everything that displeases God and inevitably precipitates our own undoing.

Thus, The Bible isn’t amenable to selective reading, nor its contents available for selective use. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work,” Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3.16-17 (emphasis added). Usage that detracts from The Bible’s overarching theme and/or undermines its overriding objective serves no godly purpose. It’s an illegitimate product of those who ignorantly mate The Good Book and Bad Intentions. Since they’re monkeying with God’s Word, the grave danger they invite should make Scriptural abuses very rare. Yet it happens all the time.

Silly Riddles

Flagrantly manipulating Scripture to manipulate hearts and minds—along with its flipside, exploiting Sacred Writ for material gain—constitutes unrivalled audacity. Therefore, we aren’t shocked that those bold enough to attempt it are equally fearless in their determination to succeed. Nor are we surprised that they target people who are scripturally gullible and susceptible to imbalanced doctrine and baseless dogma. Naïve, non-inquisitive recruits make the bravest of soldiers once they’re convinced they’re defending the “truth.” We observe this dynamic in Matthew 22.

A company of intrepid Sadducees engages Jesus in a battle of words on their pet topic, resurrection. Belief in life after death is where they part ways with the Pharisees, who teach resurrection, while the Sadducees refute it. Given the Pharisees’ overwhelming majority, Jesus’s mastery of their doctrine’s finer points, and His own comfort with preaching resurrection—for obvious reasons—most scholars presume He identifies as a Pharisee. (Nothing like our popular I’m-spiritual-but-not-religious default position exists in first-century Palestine. There are no non-denominational synagogues or ecumenical groups, either. Every Jew publicly embraces a theological tradition and sticks with it.) So the Sadducees confront Jesus not as God’s Son, but as a Rabbi from the opposition. And their challenge is no off-the-cuff premise. It’s one of those silly riddles Bible abusers cook up to corner opponents—the Sadducee equivalent of “If God meant people to be gay, why did God create Adam and Eve instead of Adam and Steve?”

Here’s what the Sadducees propose: A woman marries a man with six brothers. When he dies, in keeping with Mosaic Law, she marries one of his brothers. When that husband dies, she marries another brother. On it goes until all seven brothers are dead and then she dies. How does this scenario get resolved in the afterlife? Whose wife will she be? Jesus refuses to dignify the riddle by attacking its naked intention and outlandish scenario. Instead, He cuts right to the chase. The Sadducees have selectively pounced on one scripture (Deuteronomy 25.5) and cleverly manipulated it to pose an argument they think sufficiently disproves Pharisaical belief in the afterlife, when their riddle proves how oblivious they are to Scripture’s overarching message. “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God,” Jesus replies. “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” (Matthew 22.29-32) Harping on one verse to condemn those who worship the same God, yet hold differing beliefs, misses the point. Wakefully doing God’s will in this life far outweighs dreaming up scenarios of what God will do in the life to come.

Fellowship and Right Relationship

Paul’s instruction to Timothy about proper use of Scripture is wisdom we all should take to heart. “Keep reminding God’s people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene.” (2 Timothy 2.14-17) The Bible isn’t an armory; it’s God’s Word. We don’t rifle through its pages in search of weapons to deploy in defense of personal opinions and preferred dogma. It’s the height of audacity to imagine we can pull one scripture over here, another over there, and weld them into a club with which to clobber fellow-believers who hold differing views.

In Psalm 119.130, David exclaims, “The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” God’s Word gives light. Through it, the Holy Spirit speaks promises of hope and reconciliation that open our eyes and illuminate our lives. That’s Scripture’s purpose in a nutshell. While we’ll never grasp how this happens, why it happens is so basic anyone can understand it. In 2 Corinthians 6.14, we’re asked, “What do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” And 1 John 1.7 gives us the answer: “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” The light of God’s Word is given to bring us together in fellowship and right relationship with God. Misusing The Good Book with Bad Intentions divides us and blinds us to God’s power. Those who manipulate and exploit Scripture for such purposes merit our pity and forgiveness. By no means do they deserve our attention or respect.

The Bible is not a weapon we deploy in defense of personal opinions and preferred dogma. It’s a light that draws us together and reconciles us to God.

Postscript: “Clobber Texts”

In tandem with a two-part study my pastor is conducting on “clobber texts”—i.e., scriptures taken out of context and erroneously used to condemn other believers (especially gay ones)—we’ll spend the next few posts examining them. I pray everyone who’s been frustrated, intimidated, or outraged by this practice will benefit from what we discuss in order to dismiss “clobber” manipulation and irrelevance out-of-hand.