Through the Lens of Christ
There is a saying that I remember but of an origin I’m unable to recall that goes, “All scripture should be viewed from the lens of Christ.” What this means is that when one reads the Bible, we don’t just read and obey but actively engage with the text. While I’m sure there are some who are raising an eyebrow at this, please be patient and I will explain. God wants a loving, healthy relationship with us and blind obedience to an authority is abusive. If we are to believe that God is love, then we cannot abide with a god desires an abusive relationship. While there are encounters with the Holy Ghost that has lead some to a deeper understanding of God; not everyone has such experiences and such experiences cannot be reliably reproduced or guaranteed. So we are left with scripture as a primary source of knowing about God since the people who wrote these texts are people who we believe to have been inspired to share their understanding and interaction with God. So then we have the Bible, the Word of God but there is a lot in there. It describes God’s relationship with humanity that ranges over thousands of years and across different cultures. Given this diversity, we’ll see understandings that are very localized to the time and location of the authors and some subjects that are down-right horrendous. You have stories claiming of God commanding genocide. You have a psalm about dashing babies’ skulls against rocks. You have a servant of God saying slaves should remain enslaved. And we Christians will say these books are the word of God. While these books could be said to be the written word of God since we believe them to be inspired, we have the Living Word in which to view the written word and we have the Holy Spirit as a teacher to aid us in our reading.
When looking at scripture we have to ask ourselves how would Jesus view that scripture. What we know of Jesus from the Gospels and sacred tradition is that he stood with the oppressed and used scripture in a way that defended such people and condemned people in power in his life and ministry. He was willing to be a ransom for sin and died a shameful death and through his resurrection changed that shame into something glorious. Though this lens, the lens of enlarging the Kingdom of God, we go from seeing God endorsing slavery to showing that it is a great evil. We go from not seeing any positive portrayals of gay marriage in the Bible, we now see passages of David and Johnathan making a covenant (marriage) with each other because they love the other more than themselves (1 Samuel 18:1–4). We go from seeing no trans people in the bible to seeing Eve as the first trans woman in scripture. I know there is an argument that such views are somehow changing the Bible, but it’s not the Bible that changes, but it is our understanding of God and his love that changes and grows. A wise man I used to know told me that God is referred to as living because God is constantly “growing,” or rather our understanding of God grows. It is the light of Christ that allows this understanding to grow so that we see that the Kingdom is now and that we are living in that Kingdom that God has given us.
Scripture is a gift for building our relationship with God, and since we are all made in the image of God, and with others as well. Do we use this gift to continue supporting the abusive relationships with rigid hierarchies that the world glorifies and declares as just and God ordained; or do we use this gift as a foundation for a radical new way of living life and forming relationships based on mutual understanding, compassion, and respect with all we interact with? What are the relationships you want in your life? If you find yourself siding with the rigid hierarchy remember that mustard was regarded as weed, something to be eliminated. It takes a mustard seed of faith the move a mountain and the weeds will outgrow the other plants. Glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
