You cannot be a follower of Christ and read the scriptures literally, as a fundamentalist. Actually, fundamentalist interpretations shrink the richness of the text and distort our experiences of God.
\nI have longed wanted to preach a sermon on how does Jesus read the scriptures. What principles does he use to interpret his sacred texts and ours?<\/p>\n
It raises a more fundamental question. How did Jesus interpret his own scriptures? What principles did he use? You notice that I do not use \u201cread.\u201d Jesus probably did not read or write though Luke portrays that he can read from the scroll of Isaiah. Jesus probably could recite large passages from the Hebrew scriptures from memory. Very few folks in his culture\u2014less than 5% of the population\u2014could read and write. Other great religious founders such as Siddartha Gautama the Buddha and Mohammed the Prophet both were unable to read. Inability to read means that they did not have access to learning how to read and write. It was specialized area for the more wealthy folks in the ancient world. Papyri paper would cost a person in the ancient world the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars for parchment.<\/p>\n
But many rabbis and learned religious leaders did not read the scriptures. They learned the scriptures by memorizing scrolls of the scriptures. They memorized thousands of lines and repeated them in lessons. Even today young Tibetan Buddhist monks memorize thousands of lines of scripture, and they are tested on their ability to remember particular lines and use them in arguments for debate.<\/p>\n
Jesus learned his scriptures in this fashion and studied various interpretations of the particular scriptures from itinerant rabbis and teachers.<\/p>\n
When I ask the question \u201chow did Jesus interpret the scriptures?\u201d I am asking a significant question. Many Christians ask \u201cwhat would Jesus do today?\u201d But they fail to inquire about how Jesus interpreted his scriptures.
\nIn fact, I have never heard a sermon ever discuss how Jesus used or understood his scriptures. As disciples, should we not imitate the style or principles of interpretation that Jesus employed? Should we not read the scriptures as Jesus read them? This morning\u2019s gospel presents us with some of the principles that Jesus used to interpret his Jewish scriptures. Perhaps the principles that Jesus used may instruct our own readings and avoid the pitfalls of fundamentalist interpretations.<\/p>\n
The story this morning illustrates two ways of interpreting the Jewish scriptures: The Pharisees and Jesus\u2019 way.<\/p>\n
Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and they began to pluck heads of grain to eat. The Pharisees saw this, they said to him. \u201cLook, your disciples are doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath.\u201d The objection comes from the scriptural commandment not to work on the Sabbath.<\/p>\n
The Sabbath celebrated the seventh day when God rested from creation and delighted in creation. It anticipates the completion of God\u2019s designs in creation. Rest on the Sabbath recognized God\u2019s reign over the created world. The Sabbath celebrated also the deliverance of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. It is first used when the Hebrews are in the wilderness and God has supplied food \u201cas much as each of you needs\u201d and double for the Sabbath. The Sabbath celebrated God\u2019s provision of sufficient food. Jews celebrated the Sabbath, and they remained distinctive from their Gentile neighbors. Each week they took the time to rest on the Sabbath and remember the goodness of God in an evening meal. Jews today celebrate a Sabbath meal each Friday evening and continue to observe the Sabbth until sundown on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The emphasis on food with the Sabbath is found in today\u2019s gospel. God\u2019s sovereignty extends over the food producing earth. The disciples are hungry while traveling through the fields and pluck grain to eat. The Hebrew scriptures allowed that the hungry could take some pick some food or glean the field after the harvest. The disciples\u2019 action to alleviate their hunger raises profound issues. Work on the Sabbath was not permitted according to the law, but the Sabbath also celebrated God\u2019s provision of food that alleviates hunger.<\/p>\n
The disciples violate the commandment to observe the Sabbath. The Pharisees assess the actions of the disciples as serious violations of God\u2019s covenant. Jesus\u2019 disciples have acted contrary to the will of God. If Jesus has allowed them to act this way, he cannot be from God. Jesus\u2019 credibility and authority as a religious teacher are at stake.<\/p>\n
Jesus does not defend his disciples\u2019 behavior to gather food out of hunger. Rather, he contests the Pharisees\u2019 logic of their scriptural interpretations. They literally interpret the commandment and never allow for other interpretations than their own. The Pharisee are fundamentalists, practicing an embattled form of spirituality that protects what they cherished from selective retrieval of certain commandments and practices from the past.<\/p>\n
Religious fundamentalists do not regard this battle as a mere conventional political struggle, but experience it as a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil. The Pharisees practiced a holiness like the Temple priests, keeping themselves holy at all costs and maintained the practice of tithing and maintaining purity as the priests practiced. Ordinary folks could never practice such purity and holiness without hardship.<\/p>\n
What we know from the gospels is that Jesus was constantly in conflict with religious fundamentalists and legalists in his culture? They criticized him for breaking religious rules and laws that they considered to be important to their understanding themselves as holy and pure.
\nJesus disputes the narrowing down of interpretation of the scripture and tradition of Sabbath observance. He suggests that they do not understand the scriptures. \u201cHave you not heard\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
The first scripture that Jesus cites is David on the run for his life from King Saul. The future king and religious hero, David, breaks the law by entering the house of God and commandeering the sacred bread of presence, reserved only for the priests to eat. Jesus pointed out that they ate the bread reserved only for the priests. Jesus draws the parallel between his disciples and David and his companions. They break literally the law out of basic human need, hunger. The Hebrew scriptures always allowed violations of the Sabbath in time of war, emergencies, or to save life.
\nJesus cites a second example of Sabbath violation. \u201cOr have you not heard in the law on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath yet are guiltless?\u201d The priests are guiltless, but some Sabbath work must be permissible if the Temple is to function. The Sabbath ideal gives way to something greater or more importance, the service of God.<\/p>\n
Then Jesus does two remarkable things in his argumentation with the Pharisees. He points out exceptions to strict observance of the Sabbath. A restrictive interpretation of scripture does not allow for exceptions. It is my interpretation only, not yours. We hear this often in contemporary debates on marriage and homosexuality from Christian fundamentalists.<\/p>\n
Fundamentalists claim that there is only way of interpretation, and that it is their understanding and all others are liberal, secular interpretations. Other interpretations are wrong.<\/p>\n
Jesus has presented two arguments against the Pharisaic fundamentalists. First the disciples\u2019 actions in taking food is legitimate. After all, the Sabbath is the day that celebrates God\u2019s provision of the food-producing world, God\u2019s provision of manna in the desert, and the Sabbath year of justice and economic renewal in forgiving debts.<\/p>\n
Jesus then says, \u201cI tell you something greater than the Temple is here.\u201d He refers to his mission from God to Israel. If the Temple priests can set aside divine commands, how much more can Jesus with his disciples violate that commandment for the sake of God\u2019s reign.<\/p>\n
Despite all of these arguments, Jesus attacks the narrowness of the Pharisaic fundamentalists: \u201cBut if you understood what this means, \u2018I desire mercy and not sacrifice,\u2019 you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Child of Humanity is Lord of the Sabbath.\u201d He blatantly states that his disciples are guiltless in the eyes of God. God has always mercifully made exceptions to the law human necessity. The Sabbath ideal of not working has become a narrow law without exceptions. It becomes do not do or avoiding certain actions; rather, the Sabbath is about committing oneself to living God\u2019s compassion within the world.<\/p>\n
Scriptural literalism neither takes into account the intention of God in this commandment to observe the Sabbath, nor does it comprehend God\u2019s greater revelation of God\u2019s mercy and justice. Mercy and justice, Jesus claims, are the interpretative lens for comprehending scriptural texts. The necessities of life should not be restricted by literalist obedience to the scriptures. Meeting human need is the divine will for the Sabbath celebration. It celebrates God\u2019s gracious generosity and compassion for us.<\/p>\n
Mercy and justice expresses the divine intention of the Sabbath. Fundamentalists, who presume to do the divine will, by literal and aggressive adherence to the Sabbath, cannot allow for mercy and justice to enter their interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures. They use scriptures as weapons to keep people in check and fail to understand divine mercy and compassion to provides resources and food to people in need. They measure their own holiness by a literal and strict observance of a commandment.<\/p>\n
In John\u2019s gospel, the Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery, they literally bring a woman to justice while ignoring the male accomplice. Blame the victim and further victimize her. Jesus starts writing in the sands, prophetically illustrating how God\u2019s laws are not meant to be written in stone but written in sand. They can change with the wind blowing, or they can change for the purpose of compassion.<\/p>\n
Fundamentalists feel that they are battling against forces threatening their sacred values. If we allow Jesus and his disciples such leeway here, what will be next infraction? We will slip down the slippery road of relativism.<\/p>\n
The Pharisee battle with Jesus was over the control of God. They boxed God into a set of rules and regulations. But God cannot be boxed in because that is a form of idolatry. It attempts to control God and God\u2019s grace. How many fundamentalists in the ancient world and in our culture have attempted to regulate God and God\u2019s grace! In the prophet Isaiah (55:8) God states, \u201cFor My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways.\u201d And Jesus broke the boxes and walls to point to the freedom of God\u2019s unconditional love and grace. No human can control or regulate God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n
When we critically examine the dynamics of religious fundamentalism whether the Pharisaic opponents of Jesus or contemporary fundamentalists\u2014we discover that fundamentalism exhibits deep intrapsychic conflicts. Fundamentalists read scriptures from a perspective rooted in fear and threat.<\/p>\n
In a massive study religious scholars Martin Marty and Scott Appleby argue that fundamentalisms all follow a certain pattern, and their spiritualities emerge as a response to a perceived crisis. They discovered that fundamentalists whether Christian, Muslim, or Jewish have certain common features – common fears, anxieties and desires – and that they share a reaction against scientific and secular culture. They are engaged in a conflict with enemies whose secularist policies and beliefs seem inimical to religion itself. Fundamentalists do not regard this battle as a conventional political struggle, but experience it as a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil. They fear annihilation, and try to fortify their beleaguered identity by means of a selective retrieval of certain doctrines and practices of the past.<\/p>\n
Marty and Appleby rightly understand that people or peoples or groups feel deeply threatened by the present and future possibilities. Change is frightening, and the future becomes terrifying. Fundamentalists are challenged people, disenfranchised people, displaced people, embattled people, refugees from the present world, and fragile peoples in all walks of life.<\/p>\n
In a state of intrapsychic turmoil, people cannot bear uncertainty or ambiguity. They want defined doctrines, established borders, legal fences to protect a sacred enclave where the law may be stringently observed.
\nWhat fundamentalists do when they feel under threat is to simplify, choose the easy answers. They read scripture literally and simplistically, and faith becomes assent to clear cut values without question and doubt. Psychoanalytically, such people go through a regression, eliminating ambiguous middle or the twilight space. They divide the world into safe and threat, good and evil, life and death. To be a fundamentalist is to see the world perpetually in these terms to cling to certainties drawn from sacred texts or the pronouncements of charismatic leaders.<\/p>\n
Now back to our Gospel! Jesus was not a fundamentalist. He refused to interpret his scriptures from a perspective of fear and threat. Behind the conflict with the Pharisees over the Sabbath is the underlying question how do we experience God? Do we experience God as a ruler-maker, who expects us to literally obey the rules and commandments? Do we box in God\u2019s grace and mercy? Or do we humbly admit God\u2019s grace is wider than we can imagine; it is not found chained to past and narrow readings of the scripture. We admit that God\u2019s grace is to be found in the past and the future, and we stand up unchained, unshackled\u2014encountering our God in the ambiguities of life, when in the deepest moments of doubts and uncertainties because God\u2019s messenger took on a human body and experienced them in his flesh and yet trusted in faith in the one who sent him. Can you stand with freedom and faith and trust God\u2019s unconditional grace?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You cannot be a follower of Christ and read the scriptures literally, as a fundamentalist. Actually, fundamentalist interpretations shrink the richness of the text and distort our experiences of God. I have longed wanted to preach a sermon on how does Jesus read the scriptures. What principles does he use to interpret his sacred texts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunday-sermons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Cgaj-3D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mischievousspiritandtheology.com\/tgt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}