Anyone tossing out the adage, “The bible says it. I believe
it, that settles it,” has to struggle with Jesus’ words in the ninth chapter of Mark’s gospel.
If your hand causes
you to stumble, cut it off…
And if your foot
causes to you stumble, cut it off…
And if your eye causes
you to stumble, tear it out.
I ask this in all seriousness. What do biblical literalists
do when confronted with this passage? I have this gory, grizzly image of a
bunch of fundamentalists walking around with body parts missing like something
out of a low-budget Halloween thriller. Yet we know (or I hope to God I know)
that literalism doesn’t go this far. I read a blog recently describing “Christian” parenting resources that take the “spare the rod, spoil the child”
in the direction of child abuse, but I think I’m safe to assume that if a
child’s foot leads them astray, a parent won't be performing an amputation.
One evening last week, my son tested me. Not a testing as if
“you better not put your mom to the test” but a genuine challenge. He came out and said it: “I don’t believe it.
Jesus didn’t say these things because the bible is fiction. He couldn’t have
healed people like the bible says he did.”
I could have used this as a moment to tell him to buckle up,
pray and believe harder and better. I could have reminded him of his namesake,
“doubting Thomas.” But I didn’t. I tried to talk with him about facts and
truth. I attempted to relate his thoughts to Star Wars: It’s not “true” in the
literal sense, but in the way it gives us meaning. Otherwise it wouldn’t compel
his attention so. I stumbled around a bit, searching for words. I know I didn’t
satisfy him because I wouldn’t agree with his decree that “the church isn’t
real.” It was enough for one day.
I found it ironic (or the Spirit) that his church experience
following our dinner talk was with today’s gospel text about cutting off limbs. It
gave us an opportunity to learn about hyperbole over a brunch of biscuits and
eggs. Yet here’s the talk that will be hard for him to “get” right now. For
many Christians, literalism is still the way. The adage about the bible “settling
it” is used to justify all kinds of hatred and anti-intellectualism. To be
fair, all of us, liberal Christians like myself included, harbor our
literalistic tendencies. Yet I hope that the gem of truth in all of this was
the in the questions themselves. Instead
of quoting chapter and verse, can we, as Rilke asks, “live the questions?”
…I would like to beg you dear Sir… to have patience with everything unresolved in
your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked
rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the
answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to
live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps
then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
Teaching my son and myself to live the questions. That's more than enough for every day.
