What’s left of church after removing layers of customs & cultural traditions?

 

screenshot of image search for "Mark 7"

Men’s study of Mark only got a few lines into chapter 7 before one tangent after another came up to understand Jesus’ interaction with the Sadducees and Pharisees as a demonstration of God’s authority and power. Each week this lively conversation is a high point in person or via Internet. Here is one question: Jesus faulted the church leaders for obsessing about handwashing (not part of Leviticus or Old Testament instructions from God) rather than obsessing with something that matters for expressing and receiving God’s love. Modern-day worshipers eagerly reach for routines and comfortable expectations week after week, rather than fixating on the main prize: God’s love, spiritual maturity, care for one another. It is impossible to worship like free-floating “jazz improvisation,” although Quaker silent meetings do that sometimes. But to obsess about rigid liturgy is misguided if you read Mark 7 as an indictment against worshiping institutional features instead of worshiping God’s power and untamed wildness. Putting God’s words into a well-worn box or Sunday morning time slot does not help anybody to embrace and grow and reach out to others. So there is the question: what would it look like to peel off the customs so that only the teachings remain visible? Would worshipers clean themselves up for church on Sundays or instead “come as you are”? Would favorite seats in the sanctuary matter much? And would the same cycle of functions, efforts, and concerns preoccupy people between one fiscal year and the next? Maybe the Puritans were on the right track by obsessing about purity and discounting anything that gets in the way of God and his people. Then again, they were puritanical sinners, too. 

On top of this balancing act between externals like Order of Worship and weekly worship with others & the most important thing: hungering to know God better, there is a biographical dimension or growth path for each person: “going from the spiritual milk to the spiritual meat” as experience, knowledge, suffering, and love extend into one’s life. Some beginners DO need simple externals to grab onto that later are less necessary for relating to God, hour by hour and year by year. In other words, customs and traditions might not be Christianity, but they present a source of meaning and express (Worldly) certainty.

Another question that came up is about “gatekeepers” who set standards or expectations about what it looks like, sounds like, feels like to “be” a Christ follower and God seeker. On the one hand Jesus, again and again, criticizes the “white washed tombs” of death that the Pharisees represent, saying that those kinds of sanctimonious externals are wrong-headed and can lead others to the wrong idea, as well. It is not what sacred foods you eat or impure things you avoid that matter so much as what is in your heart. Heart not stomach is what counts in Mark 7. So this idea that God can work with just about anybody and any situation is another way of saying that there should be no gatekeepers; the bar is set very low to encourage everyone to come into relationship with God. At the same time, though, we read “the gate is narrow” as a visual image to mean that, yes, anything is acceptable if your heart is in the right place, but that The Way calls for effort and devotion. Another related image that came up during the discussion uses the radio receiver analogy: God is broadcasting eternally, but each of us needs to turn on the radio and tune the dial to hear the Word. It is there for everyone day and night, but so few make a commitment or know the first step to take.

Finally, branching off the Mark 7 passage about the difference between externals (like Sadducees washing hands in a ritual formula) and what is in a person’s heart, the analogy from legal trials came up. When a person dies as a result of someone’s action (or inaction), then judges want to determine if this is Murder (1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree) or Manslaughter. For the deceased and all  those who are bereaved as a result, calling the event murder or manslaughter makes little material difference. But if the killing is a premeditated ambush versus spur-of-the-moment versus completely unintentional then the perpetrator is labeled differently and will see him or herself differently, too. When it comes to actions & intentions, maybe the same is true of worship routines: going through the motions (your heart is not in it that day) differs a lot from doing it “like you mean it.” The same is true of weekly Bible study – showing up and going through the motions yields less fruit than being fully present and speaking purposefully with words well chosen. Necessarily, this summary of September 28, 2021 only scratches the surface of the tangents, ricochets, and fireworks that go off in the space of one hour. It is not a conversation to be missed.

The Living Word, Way, Love, Light ---diverse images

 

"Trust" in Japanese: person (red dot) stands by word (blue)

When reading the Bible with others in a small group, certain interpretations are offered and fine-tuned in dialog as each person brings insights, life experience, outside readings and other sources to the discussion. Gradually a fresh understanding comes into view, sometimes unexpectedly. English language versions of the original Greek (New Testament) and Hebrew (Old/first Testament) carry some resonance of modern times by choice of word or way of phrasing the meaning on the page. Likewise, other languages do something similar, not only rooted in a culture and a landscape, but also reflecting the moment in history (compare King James to the Good News Bible). This role of language in both bringing God's word closer, but paradoxically separating us from the full and long-lasting meaning is a topic that came up today in the Men's Bible Study on Zoom (and in person, for those at the church this morning).

On the one hand the Gospel, including God's only begotten son as a Living Word, is how humans learn new things and interrelate to one another. Just pointing out the limitations of spoken and written words, and the strong urge to frame logical propositions in linear chains, does not mean that non-verbal forms of knowing God (loving God) and getting to know one's Neighbor (love they neighbor; love they self, equally) are discounted. It seems natural and normal and transparent to privilege the verbal medium, especially when comparing it to alternatives like musical expression, immersion in the glory of the natural world, and visual art forms. From the printed page and spoken teaching/preaching we learn how to be God's people, the hands and feet of the Lord on earth, functioning as witnesses and agents authorized to enact God's love. And yet, on the other hand, words have limitations and can be pulled up from their context or be seized in ways that are unloving so as to be used to puff up one's pride or diminish another's worth. Spiritual babes hunger for clear lines of demarcation and simple formulas to follow. But with wider and deeper experience and knowing Jesus' life and examples and teachings, that same person may grow and require less of the "spiritual milk" and more of the spiritual meat so that what may have seemed at first contradictory, paradoxical, or baffling now can be seen without any fear or sense of threat. Differing ways and interpretations, so long as they hold to the core understandings that unite seekers of all kinds, can now be viewed for their value on their own terms, not be discarded for failing to fit into one's own container. 

Mere mortals may try (and should try) to encompass God's meanings and God's will. But clever words or hearts hardened by fixating on one narrow interpretation will never understand all of the Truth. Only humility, vigilance, and persistence will take a person closer to the goal, even when nobody can fully know God in a totalizing and infinite way. Words are what we rely on, but these same words can lead to delusion or instead to clarity. Heavy handed versus having a light touch when wrestling with God's meaning can lead to different outcomes. Perhaps the truth, when it comes to the limits of words, is to be found when the words are treated like temporary vehicles to a larger and much bigger meaning; knowing the words is only part of the way into God's meanings. By memorizing a passage or by rereading a text or by vigorously wrestling with it in the company of others those words sometimes begin to blur and instead there is sometimes a sense of reading "between the lines" (what is not articulated; what is conspicuously absent) and word-roots, Hebrew imagery or Greek choice of words may intersperse with the passage being scrutinized. The result is the words on the page begin to melt and mingle with related meanings and instances from elsewhere in the Bible and in outside sources, too. As such the Word turns into a liquid; something alive, not frozen solid.

Great care, scholarly effort, publishing history has gone into the Bible and many translations to distribute copies around the world's many languages and locations. That is surely important. But while it is necessary, it is not sufficient. The Word of God lives in people's hearts, not in the ink marks on dead trees pulped and bleached for paper. And without people to wrestle with those words according to the lives they live, then the Word is not being lived or being enlivened. Only when the Word meets readers and listeners and those who reflect on it will something valuable arise. Hence, God DOES need people in his universe, not just as hands and feet to carry out teachings, obedience, and be the "show and tell" of Christianity. There is a kind of mutual dependence: People need God, but also God needs flesh and blood, fallible mortals to be the ones who (voluntarily) accept the grace being offered when sin was paid for by Jesus' sacrifice. And His Word (the one between the covers of the bound edition of the Bible) only has reality and consequence when humans open the covers and wrestle with it: Word + engagement = living interpretation rooted in a time and place and language.