ARE WE TO TAKE THIS LITERALLY?

(Preached on August 17, 2003)

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.                                                                                            -John 6:56

 

A school teacher tells the story of a class of five-year-olds in England who were lining up to receive their inoculation against one of the childhood diseases.  They all had their sleeves rolled up and were waiting for the dreaded jab.  After a while the teacher noticed that one child was missing.  She walked back along the line of children round the corner, and discovered the missing child out cold on the floor where he’d fainted.  Naturally she was horrified, and asked the other children why they hadn’t told her that this little boy had passed out.  “Oh,” they replied, “we thought he was dead, so we just stepped over him.” 

Children have such literal minds!

 

This makes the task of the Sunday school teacher quite difficult, because much of Christianity is far from literal.  Bible stories are fine, but trying to explain some of the similes and metaphors used is well nigh impossible. 

For instance, we’re told in the bible that Jesus sits at God’s right hand on high. 

That statement is obviously a metaphor, a figure of speech, but children will usually take it entirely literally, and will probably imagine a very static tableau of God on a throne in heaven with Jesus sitting next to him.

And heaven will be somewhere in the sky because it’s “on high.”

 

That literal interpretation is probably as much as children can understand, but problems arise with it later in life. 

Unfortunately, many youngsters lose any real interest in religion, or church, or the Bible, from early in the teen years. 

This means that for many, many adults (probably most) in our society, everything in the Bible is taken literally. 

This leads to one of two reactions for most adults.

Either they deny God because all they have ever learned about God has been at the literal, primary school age and as thinking adults they reject something which, though acceptable to childhood ears, sounds like simplistic nonsense to adult ears.

Or, they continue to have a very literal Christian belief.

It’s much easier to simply believe without thought, than it is to make the mind work through some of the difficulties of Christianity.

For instance, it’s easy to oppose divorce by reading Mark’s gospel and quoting Jesus as saying, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” (Mark 10:11) 

It takes a little work to discover that in Matthew’s gospel the quote is slightly different.  It’s already been modified, so that Jesus is quoted as saying, “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.” (Matt. 19:9) 

It takes a little more work to discover that Matthew’s gospel was written some ten or twelve years later than Mark’s gospel, and to reach the conclusion that maybe the quote was altered by the early church because Jesus’ words in Marks’ gospel were already proving too difficult to handle.

And those who dig even further will find that the accepted practice of the Israelites was for anyone who wanted to divorce his wife to give her a certificate of divorce and turn her out on the street, probably because she was too old and the husband fancied a younger model. 

Once you’ve reached that stage of investigation it begins to become clear that when Jesus spoke about divorce he wasn’t necessarily condemning people to a lifetime of married hell, but was probably protecting women from the abuse of being thrown out of the family home with no means of protection or of earning a living.  Thus being thrown out to die. 

But to find out all that requires work and thought. 

It’s much easier to take the Bible literally and to condemn divorce under all circumstances because it says in the Bible that Jesus condemned divorce.

 

Literal interpretation of the Bible is extremely dangerous because it can actually twist the words of Jesus, and the intention behind them, into something condemnatory and sub-Christian.

Take this passage of scripture from John’s gospel. 

Are we to take this literally? 

There are people who have real trouble with the imagery Jesus used here — imagery which has also been applied to the sacrament of Communion. 

The clear “cannibalistic overtones” lead some people to even reject participation in Holy Communion.

Of course John’s gospel also records that even people in Jesus’ day had trouble with this teaching.  After all,  the Jews who were taught by the law of Moses not to eat anything with blood in it, let alone drink blood.

This imagery would have been abhorrent to them.

 

Obviously Jesus is speaking in metaphors. 

In eight verses there are 13 references to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus.

Strong language for a strong point: we need to be totally immersed in the life and teaching of Jesus if we are to truly live life in a wholesome, holy, liberating way. 

We can’t just nod our heads towards God and towards Jesus and say, “Yes, that’s nice, I’ll think about that.”

No, Jesus knows that if we are going to have the life God intends us to have, we have to take seriously the teachings he shares with us, to the point that we ingest and digest them so that they become part of us, just as the meat and drink we take in to our bodies becomes part of us.

When Jesus and his teachings abide in us, Christ’s spirit permeates our hearts and minds. 

When Christ’s word, love, and forgiveness fill us, we can begin to become all that God intends for us to be.

 

But literal interpretation of the scriptures doesn’t just affect issues of how we understand Holy Communion. 

It also affects how we treat other people. 

People who are filled with anger, fear, prejudice, and hatred, who read the Bible literally, are using it as a weapon against those they wish to control or push to the fringes of life.

Mel White, an advocate for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender rights, has been warning us for four years of the takeover of our churches (and our nation) by Fundamentalist forces. 

He is issuing a new warning: the gay community is facing a furious backlash to the Supreme Court decision and to Bishop Robinson’s appointment in the Episcopal church. 

Here’s what is happening:

First, the televangelists (with their massive media influence) are dedicating the next six months to adding a Federal (Anti-Same-Sex) Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Mel White was called by ABC TV at 9:30 p.m. recently asking his response to Jerry Falwell’s promise to collect a million signatures.

Second, pastors and priests are following suit. 

Fundamentalists are using the gay issue as a test of orthodoxy. 

If you support gay marriage/ordination you are NOT a “true believer.” 

If you oppose gay marriage/ordination then you are a “Bible-believing keeper of the faith.”

To demonstrate their loyalty to “biblical truth,” fundamentalist clergy are using their pulpits to warn of the growing “threat to traditional marriage” and they will collect millions of signatures for the amendment in towns and cities across the U.S.

Third, with the Presidential election just around the corner, President Bush has already weighed in, supporting the Marriage Amendment and making this a hot-button issue for the election.

All of this means a new storm of religion-based, anti-gay rhetoric in sermons, speeches, newspapers, books, pamphlets, radio and TV talk shows. 

This new flood of untruth will have tragic consequences for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans. 

Many of them will be driven back into their closets by this new war of words.  Many gay youth will be discarded by their families, harassed, injured, kill themselves or be killed by gay bashers.

All of this will be supported by a literalistic reading of the Bible.  Anti-homosexual words and actions by religious leaders are the primary source of homophobia and homo-hatred in the nation today.

 

Non-literal interpretations of the Bible are able to reach much greater depth than literal interpretations, and are much more likely to be somewhere near the truth.

They are, however, much more difficult to arrive at and develop. 

They require more serious, in-depth study and they require the spiritual disciplines of openness and imagination.

It is only through openness and imagination that we can truly experience the sacred and holy in life.

 

Once upon a time there was a little boy, about six years old, who decided to go look for God.  He thought the journey might be long, so he packed a bag with root beer, granola bars, and Snackwells.

He hadn’t gone very far when he grew tired and decided to rest for a while on a park bench.  There was an old, old woman sitting on the bench.  He climbed up beside her and the two sat there without saying anything for the longest time.  Then he turned to her and asked her if she was thirsty. 

She smiled at him and nodded.  Out came the root beer. 

They shared the root beer along with the cookies and granola bars. 

They were together about an hour, and she didn’t say anything at all, just smiled at him every once in a while. 

So he talked.  He told her stories of his mom and dad, brothers and sisters, first year at school, his pets, everything. 

Finally, he realized it was getting late and his mother was probably worried about him, so he decided he better go home. 

He got down from the bench, said goodby to the old woman and turned to go, but then thought to himself, “She has such a lovely smile.  I want to see it again.” 

So he turned around, ran up to her, put his arms around her, and gave her a big hug and kiss.