18 August 2018

One of the benefits of growing up Catholic is that I don't have any of the baggage of growing up evangelical.  I started studying the Bible seriously, for the first time, as an adult– apart from any strong doctrinal or catechetical influence.  My reading of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures was a case-study in what the Reformers called the 'perspicuity' of Scripture.  That's a $25 word that means anyone is able to be read the bible and understand its meaning.  

I learned Scripture in much the same way that I learned music: by ear.  Before I became a worship pastor, I could play just about anything on the piano, but I had never learned the musical terminology for what I was doing.  In other words, I could play a C# minor 7 flat 9, but under no circumstances could I look at my fingers and tell you that's what I was doing if you had asked, "Hey, what's that chord you're playing?"  Similarly, as I began to read the Bible, I didn't have any authorities looking over my shoulder, teaching me to read passages from an Arminian or Calvinist perspective.  I didn't know what it meant to have a high or low view of the inspiration of Scripture.  I just read the Bible, began to internalize it and develop an understanding of it, and–most importantly–began to live in accordance with it in the best way I knew how.

20 years later, at least that many times reading the Bible cover-to-cover, and after tens of thousands of pages of commentary and theology, I hope I can say that I have journeyed consistently along a path toward being a more faithful reader of Scripture.  Not faithful only in the sense of reading it every day, but in the sense of understanding it in a way that is in accordance with the intended meaning of the Author.  And I hope this history of 'studying to show myself approved, that I might rightly teach the Word of Truth' gives me a little bit of credibility as I get ready to challenge one of the poor interpretations of Scripture that has taken quite a prominent place in evangelicalism over the past 50 years or so.

First, a disclaimer: while I would never diminish the power of God's Word to impact the lives of any and all who read it (it certainly did mine!), irrespective of their level of Biblical or theological training, I would say that the Bible is an incredibly complex book, and it is extremely difficult to interpret well.  If you're familiar with red-letter Bibles (the ones that put the words of Jesus in red print so you can find them easily with your eyes, or so that you know that those are somehow the words of God in a way that the other words in the New Testament aren't?), you'll be able to appreciate this illustration:

One morning, I was doing what every good, new, evangelical believer does when they read their Bibles.  It's called, 'Bible roulette'.  That's when you sit down, flip open the Good Book to whatever page it lands on, and start reading wherever your eye happens to fall on the page.  (You have to be very careful to make sure that you don't let your eyes stray even a line or two up or down – you might just miss God's word to you that day if you do!)  My eyes rested on the following words: "Now as for those wicked men who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and execute them in my presence!"  Now, as shocking as those words would be in any context, here I was reading them in my Bible.  And–as if that wasn't already disturbing enough–those words were written in red ink.  That was Jesus talking! (Luke 19:27.)  I slammed my Bible shut in .1 seconds flat.  I think it was probably a few days before I dared open it up again.

Now, to be fair, I've never heard anyone in the church spout off some bad teaching on this particular verse.  (In fact, I've never heard anyone teach on it at all.)  But, as I mentioned above, there are certainly some glaring examples of misinterpretation/misapplication that I have heard.  One of the most common ones people quoting Jesus' saying that "The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me", with the intent of minimizing any sense of responsibility that Christians might have that caring for the less fortunate is a non-negotiable aspect of our faith.  The problem with this application of Jesus' words is that He is quoting a passage in Deuteronomy where it says, "The poor you will always have with you; therefore I command you to open your hand to the poor and the needy" (Deut 15:11, italics mine).  It doesn't take a Bible scholar to feel embarrassed for anyone trying to use Jesus' words to suggest that giving to the poor doesn't need to be a priority for Christians.

Which finally brings us to today's reading.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard that we need to examine ourselves before we take communion, or else we risk eating and drinking judgment upon ourselves.  I have never heard it used to refer to anything other than a warning to make sure I don't have any secret or unconfessed sin.  Because that, after all, is what will make me unfit to partake in the Lord's Supper.  My individual sin.  My guilt.  My hidden motives.  My unconfessed failures.  Only a culture that could produce the word 'selfie' could arrive at such an individualistic and self-centered view of this passage, in spite of Paul explicitly stating that the direction of his thought is running in exactly the opposite direction.

Following on the heels of, 1 Corinthians 8-10, where Paul's extended focus on surrendering our personal freedoms for the benefit of others could be summarized as, "I would rather die than allow the use of my freedom to harm another believer, or to make Jesus unattractive to someone who doesn't know Him", it should come as no surprise that Paul continues the same theme here.  The entire passage is about the way that some members of the church (namely, the wealthy) are treating other members (namely, the poor – do you notice a pattern here, by any chance?)  According to the Scripture, at least (despite what you might have been taught), the sin that puts us in danger of eating and drinking condemnation on ourselves has to do with us acting in a way that is opposite of what Paul has been drilling down on for 3 chapters now: putting the needs of others first.  "Being rich, He became poor for our sakes, so that you might be enriched by His poverty," Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:9 (the same idea of Jesus 'becoming a slave' from Philippians 2, expressed in yet another way).  THIS is what the character and nature of God look like in action; and the Church is supposed to re-present, re-image, God's character to and for the world.  And when the Church's interior life is exactly the opposite of God's own interior life, then it stands under His judgment along with the rest of the world.  It fails at exactly the mission God called it into existence for in the first place.  

I don't know when you will take communion next, but between now and then I hope you will grow in your awareness that what matters is "faith working itself out in love" (Gal 5:6).  What matters is that the Church is God's plan to demonstrate His wisdom to the world (Eph 3:10).  Yes, yes, and again yes: you ARE the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and God dwells within you.  YOU, as an individual, are capable of putting God's character and love on display, and it is your incomparable privilege to be chosen by God to be used for this very purpose.  But as important as your personal relationship with God is, what is far more important is the degree to which the Church as a whole functions like a window into the character and love of God.  Because to the extent that the Church reimages God to the world, people who encounter the Church will experience what the Bible calls 'the foretaste of heaven.'  The Church is designed to be the place where heaven literally meets earth, where people can stand as though their toes are just over the line into eternity and experience in their hearts what that eternity will be like.   And for the Church to fulfill that mission, we must examine ourselves.  

Of course the question, 'Do I have any unconfessed sin?' is important, even critical.  But it doesn't go far enough.  The larger question is, 'Does the worshiping community of which I am a part put the inner life of God on display for the world?'  Are we pursuing that kind of unity?  And are we achieving that unity be the 'strong' among us becoming weak for the sake of the 'weak'?  ...by the rich among us sharing our resources so that God's design that there should be no needy people among us (Deut 15:4) can become a reality once again (Acts 4:34)?  ...by the educated, sophisticated, and cultured refusing to think that they are too good to associate with those who aren't on their 'level' (Rom 12:11)?  By those in 'high' positions 'coming down' as Jesus did, and taking the position of the servant of all?  If that's what we are pursuing in our churches, then and only then have we begun to understand the importance of examining ourselves before taking communion.