Christians interpret the scriptures through the lens of Jesus. We claim Jesus is the human face of God. When we look at Jesus, we get a glimpse into the nature and character of God. What do we see when we look at Jesus?
We see a life characterized by compassion. Jesus was remarkably hospitable toward the unclean and the outcast. He was generous and gracious to foreigners and those of different faiths.
He gave the same gifts of healing and feeding to foreigners as he offered to his own people.
Like the great Hebrew prophets, he was an advocate for the poor and vulnerable, and he challenged the wealthy and powerful. The only people he was critical of were thosewho were certain of their own piety and those who ignored the needy at their doorstep.
The church says, “Look at Jesus. This is what God looks like.” The church came to characterize Jesus as “love incarnate.” It is through the lens of Jesus - love incarnate - that we see God. The first epistle of John puts it simply: “God is love.” (1 John 4:8, 16)
St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.) may be the most significant theologian in Western Christian tradition. Augustine insisted scripture taught nothing but charity.
“Whoever thinks he has understood the divineScriptures or any part of them in such a way that his understanding does not build up the twin love of God and neighbor has not yet understood them at all.” (“On Christian Teaching,” 1.36.40) For Augustine, the purpose of reading scripture is to love God and to love one’s neighbor for God’s sake. It’s all about love.
Augustine taught that any passage in the Bible that seems to preach hatred must be interpreted allegorically in order that it might speak of charity, for God is love.
Through most of Christian history, students of the Bible were taught to reflect on every passage of scripture in four ways: the literal message, the moral lesson, the allegorical sense and the mystical meaning.
Such a rich practice invited creative, intuitive and imaginative reflection on the sacred texts.
Sometime in the late modern period, Biblical literalists flattened theBible into an anemic, one-dimensional text that insisted on the primacy of a literal interpretation. In doing so, literalists caved in to the secular academics of the scientific method and rationalism who said that the only truth is objective, literal truth.
Literalists devalued devotional reading of scripture as myth, metaphor and allegory, and started abusing the Bible as if it were an encyclopedia.
So now we have preachers calculating the date of creation and predicting the end times in graphic and literal terms. We have churches insisting membership depends on believing Jonah was really swallowed by a whale and evolutionary biology is a pack of lies. And we have triumphalists insisting their interpretation is the only truth and all others are fatally mistaken, Christians and non-Christians - all doomed to hell. Some ofthem imagine a monstergod, demanding correct belief and threatening genocide upon anyone outside their narrow circle.
In the name of Jesus, stop such nonsense.
What if Christians could just be more like Christ?
What if our ethics were motivated solely by Jesus’ summary of the law - love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. What if we accepted Jesus’ definition of neighbor as anyone in need, including the foreigner or immigrant, as he taught us in the story of the good Samaritan?
What if Christians were as concerned as Jesus was with daily bread? He fed multitudes, both in Israel and in the Gentile Decapolis.
What if Christians made healing our primary activity and priority as Jesus did?
Would we accept a health care system which excludes anyone?
What if we were asgenerous as Jesus was toward the unclean or the fallen - the addict, the bankrupt, the lost sheep.
What if we challenged the proud, the powerful and the certain, as Jesus did?
What if we fashioned our businesses and public policies in the spirit of Jesus?
What if we treated foreigners, immigrants and followers of other faiths with the same generosity and hospitality as Jesus showed? What if we saw the grace in other faiths as Jesus saw in the Roman Centurion whose daughter he raised?
(Matthew 8:5f)
There is a better way to be a Christian than preaching moralism, division, judgment and fear.
Love is the better way. God is love. Perfect love. And “perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18) LOWELL GRISHAM IS AN EPISCOPAL PRIEST WHO LIVES IN FAYETTEVILLE.
Opinion, Pages 13 on 06/12/2011