Is Scripture Still Our Guide?

One of my colleagues recently posted that the Bible is simply a human word. The phrase came from author and frequent speaker at United Methodist events, Marcus Borg. I want to be quite careful here, for many of my colleagues would agree with this assessment. Most UM pastors, including this one, recognize the human dimension of the Bible. The books, letters, wisdom, and poetry of the Bible occur in historical contexts and written by people. Yet, the Bible has always had a special role in the church. The “authority” of the Bible does not mean the Bible is "perfect." It simply means that the pastor and church have a responsibility to lay their lives alongside what we read in the Bible and allow the Bible to check their views of God, self, and others. They recognize that their way is not always best, and in fact, that they often get God and discipleship wrong, if left to their devices. To accept this special role for the Bible is to have a degree of humility concerning your life. Whatever guidance you need as to who God is and who you are to be does not simply well up from inside you. In fact, you admit that the guidance you most need comes from outside you. The reason is that you recognize in the Bible a special working of God in Israel and in Jesus Christ. Such witnesses to what God is doing in history and in human lives become that “check,” that external reference that gets you out of yourself and directs you to God.

Consequently, when I read one of my colleagues (and assuming that many others agree) concluding that the Bible is simply a human word, I find myself in different terrain. Some of this feeling arises from personal experience. The beginning of my journey involves a testimony that as a mid-teen I started studying the Bible, beginning with Romans. The Bible has been my companion ever since. Thus, it feels like the person is saying that the Bible is more like an opinion piece in the newspaper, or insight from poetry, or maybe providing debatable philosophical points. Regardless, if I understand correctly, it means the Bible is not a reliable witness to what God wants in the world. The pastor and the church of today would then have much freedom to pursue their own understanding of what God wants. Quite likely, pastor and church today may go directly against the Bible, having no check or reference outside themselves to correct them.

In preparing for a sermon that involved Matthew 5:17-20, I found some interesting comments from two theologians, Karl Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg, which I thought I would share. While they differ on many points, they are quite close in how they read this passage. Matthew records sayings that have the theme of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law. Most scholars today think of these verses as reflecting a controversy in the early Christian community over whether the Law was still binding on Christians. The relationship of Jesus to the Mosaic Law is in debate here. I will point out the passages unique to Matthew and the passages that Matthew shares with Luke.

Jesus begins (from Matthew) by saying that he has not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them. Barth[1] takes the occasion of this verse to reflect upon the notion that the early church accepted the canon of the Synagogue. For the early Christians, it was the New Testament that was added, enlarging a canon already given, extending it as a new action of God. He notes that the early church did not try to adopt the sacred writings of other religions as such a “preface,” an approach that would have made the missionary task much easier. Yet, it is not just a preface or introduction to the New. It is Scripture. He[2] notes that what Jesus has in mind was not the piety of other religions, but that of the Israelite religion of revelation. He does not intend to dissolve that religion. He accepts it. He does not require his disciples to abandon or replace it.

Then, in a saying from the source common to Matthew and Luke, Jesus says that he truly tells them, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, an iota or serif, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Barth[3] points out that given the regard this passage shows for the smallest letter of the Hebrew Bible, “we must be on our guard against trying to say anything different.” These words belong to revelation and their writing by the Spirit.

Then, in the material unique to Matthew, Jesus says that whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be the least in the kingdom of heaven. In contrast, whoever does them and teaches them will be great in the kingdom of heaven. The point seems to be that Jesus exercises his lordship in such a way that the Torah remains valid. He tells them that unless their righteousness exceeds that of scribes and Pharisees, they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. This notion of “entering,” as Pannenberg[4] says, contains a future element to the teaching regarding the kingdom. The decisive element for Matthew is that the love commandment becomes the center of these intensified individual commandments. Based on the antitheses (you have heard it said … but I say to you …) in the rest of the chapter, the higher righteousness of the disciples is not only a quantitative increase of the fulfilling of the law - measured on the Torah - but also primarily a qualitative intensification of the life before God - measured on love. The concept that Jesus fulfills law and prophets completely and perfectly means at the same time that for Matthew there is no longer any other way of access to the Bible of Israel than by way of Jesus.  Therefore, this preamble to the antitheses has at the same time the effect of a reprimand of Israel.  Matthew, for whom the authority of the Bible is fixed through Jesus, can do no other than measure the scribes and Pharisees by the standard of the higher righteousness that is set by Jesus.  Measured by this standard, which is not theirs, their righteousness is found as not enough. Barth,[5] in substantial with Pannenberg on this point, says that although Jesus accepts the Law, he does demand that the followers of Jesus should go a new way in its exercise, a “better righteousness,” than did its greatest champions. Of course, that better righteousness is following the two great commandments of love toward God and neighbor.

The challenge that I see here for the pastor and church today is that we need to exercise great care with Scripture. I find it one of my great responsibilities, sometimes with fear and trembling, to stand before people and share the Word of God. The church always wrestles with what this Word means for today. Pastors do so in a quite personal and public way.

My concern is that if we conclude that this Word is simply a human word, then we will be quite free to say something different from it. We become the judge of the Word. This feels arrogant to me. However, if pastor and church have a bond with Scripture in a way that it remains our guide, our check, or our external reference in what we believe and how we live, we must exercise enough care that we do not say something substantially different.

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[1] (Church Dogmatics I.2 [19.2] 489)

[2] (IV.2 [66.3] 551)

[3] (Church Dogmatics I.2 [19.2] 517)

[4] (Systematic Theology, Vol 2, p. 328)

[5] (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 551)

Influence of Disciples of Jesus

When Jesus speaks of the difference his people make in the world, he uses two rather small, often unnoticed, seemingly insignificant substances-salt and light. Today, we come by both quite easily. Some areas complain of having too much light, calling it light pollution. Some of us must limit our intake of salt. Personally, I rarely salt anything anymore, having discovered that most meats have plenty of naturally occurring salt. I have a good friend and colleague who surprised me when I saw him put enough salt on his meat to turn it almost white.

In any case, in the days of Jesus, these metaphors took on a quite different meaning. Light can be very fragile, but even in small quantities it makes quite a difference. During my one experience exploring a cave in southern Indiana, as we descended into the darkness, I looked at the tiny lights we had been given to shine along our way. They were just miniature flashlights, but in the darkness of the cave they made all the difference. When the darkness is particularly great, one does not need a huge amount of light to make a great difference. 

Bishop Willimon, in a 1999 sermon, said he finds it interesting that when Jesus spoke of us, seizing upon some metaphor to characterize who we are, he did not say, "You are a great army marching into the world." He did not say, "You are a loudspeaker put up in the marketplace to shout my message to everybody." Rather, Jesus said that we are "salt," and we are "light." Small, fragile, and yet both of these substances go a long way. They can make all the difference. 

In both cases, light and salt depend upon their environment in order to have the influence they are to have. The church is not everything you need. Your families, your neighborhood, your work, your government, are all vital parts of your life. Yet, the church has a message and a life that is to enlighten and salt every part of your life.

A grandfather told this story to a child.  Once upon a time in a land far away there was a lighthouse that sat on a rocky shore and helped ships get through the water safely without hitting the big rock.  One day the lighthouse operator got sick and a substitute was put in charge of the lighthouse.  When the big storm came, he got out a large piece of canvas and covered up the lantern in the lighthouse so it would not get wet in the rain.  So the lantern stayed dry, but no one could see the light to guide them through the dangerous waterway.  The boy thought about this for a moment.  "That new guy did something pretty silly, didn't he!"  The grandfather said, "Honey, Jesus told a story like that once.  He would agree with you."[1]

It would not be natural to hide a light when you need it to show the way. It would not be natural for salt to lose its ability to affect its environment. Yet, it seems so easy for disciples to find ways to hide their faith.

I can illustrate the struggle with an article from the New York Times, around Christmas 2010, by Ross Douthat. He begins by discussing the difficulty of being a Christian around Christmas time. This quickly expands, however, into the notion of the changing culture in America, and the difficulty amidst the changes. He refers to two books that have helped him wrestle with this. One book is American Grace by Robert Putnam (Harvard) and David Campbell (Notre Dame). The book is quite technical. It takes much work to mine any nuggets one can find, according to some. As if to spare me the hard work of reading its 550 pages, he summarizes the book by saying that it examines the role that religion plays in binding up the social fabric of the nation. Society reaps enormous benefits from religious people engaging it, while suffering few of the potential downsides. Widespread churchgoing seems to make Americans more altruistic and more engaged with their communities, more likely to volunteer and more inclined to give to secular and religious charities. Yet at the same time, thanks to Americans’ ever-increasing tolerance, this country has been spared the kind of sectarian conflict that often accompanies religious zeal.

All of that sounds like the church is being what it is supposed to be, at one level. It is being salt and light in American culture.

Another book, by James Davison Hunter, To Change the World, presents a different picture. By the way, the United Methodist Church says it makes disciples “for the transformation of the world.” Yet, this author discusses the vain attempts by Christians, whether from the political Left or Right, to engage the culture from a “populist” perspective and have lost. Both groups express themselves in the “language of loss, disappointment, anger, antipathy, resentment and desire for conquest.” Thanks in part to this bunker mentality, American Christianity has become what Hunter calls a “weak culture” — one that mobilizes but does not convert, alienates rather than attracts, and looks backward toward a lost past instead of forward to a vibrant future. He argues that the Christian churches are mainly influential only in the “peripheral areas” of our common life. One of his central theses is that "culture" does not usually change in a populist, bottom up manner. Rather, it changes by the influence of a small network of elites with symbolic power to create and change the institutions in which we live. Churches used to be among such elites. They are no more.

            Douthat concludes that believing Christians are no longer the influence they once were, either upon popular culture or upon the elites with symbolic power. The term for this is secularity, as the culture and the political class remove themselves in an increasingly open away from the church. Christians need to find a way to thrive in a society that is becoming less friendly to Christians.

Here is my struggle. The church is rapidly becoming a minority movement in a culture it helped create. I would be among those who feel some loss there. Yet, in the process, we may actually feel more connected to the tiny band of followers to whom Jesus first spoke these words concerning being salt and light.   

Karl Barth[2] suggests that the way salt loses its savor is the process of secularization. He does not find it surprising that the world is secular, for that is what it is, and always will be. The world will naturally live its life without God. However, “when the church becomes secular, it is the greatest conceivable misfortune both for the church and the world.” For him, this is what happens when the church wants to be only “for” the world, nation, and culture. It loses its importance, meaning and reason for existence. The secularization of the church, in all its attempts to connect to the world, is actually its alienation. The United Methodist Church wrestles with the relevance of this notion of influence in the world. As a denomination, we have long sought to learn new ways of being disciples in this world. One can also see that as “progressive Christianity” continues to expand, it keeps favoring current political movements of the political Left, trying to erase the distinction between itself and a part of the culture, and yet, runs the risk of this alienation. The reason, of course, is that if the church is only “for” the world, it is no longer “for” Christ and “for” God. Later, Barth[3] offers the opinion that sometimes, the church may be at peace with the world precisely because it has lost its saltiness. Barth[4] also says that the Christian community has a simple and unassuming task in being light and salt. If God wills to accomplish much through its labor, that is the affair of God. The Christian community can neither bring this about nor enforce it. It has no right to ask for successes. It must simply hold itself in readiness for God.

One author imagines a speech by Jesus to the church of today:

 

How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you!  How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe!  I should like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence.  You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity.  I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful.  How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.  No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, although not completely.  And where should I go?[5]

 

Light can be very fragile, but even in small quantities it makes quite a difference. The metaphors Jesus uses here challenge Christians to live the Christian faith in all areas of their lives. Indeed, the church has a simple and unassuming task that can make all the difference in our personal lives, those closest to us, and in a world that needs to see as well as hear.

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[1] (Emphasis, Ja-Fe 1993, 42-43.)

[2] (Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [67.3] 688)

[3] (IV.3 [71.5] 619)

[4] (III.4 [55.3] 487)

[5] (Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes.)