Never the Answer

Yesterday in church we heard Jesus say one of those things that we aren't particularly fond of:  he calls Peter, the rock upon which the Church is built, Satan.  He calls him Satan!  Think of the worst possible thing you could call another person, and THAT'S the equivalent here.  It's a disturbing moment, and more than once I've heard clergy say how uncomfortable they are with talking about it, almost to the point of either ignoring it or--God help us--changing the reading altogether.  This is never the answer.

The Gospel from yesterday speaks to a bigger issue:  what do we do with passages of Scripture with which we do not agree?  I experienced this once in seminary when I set up for a service of Morning Prayer and listed Psalm 137 as the prescribed Psalm for the day on our song board.  Two minutes before the service began an older seminarian walked into the sacristy and exclaimed, "We can't say that psalm because it's the one about bashing babies' heads against rocks!"  Fortunately, the Prayer Book allowed us to omit the final three verses of that psalm, but that moment stuck with me.  Is that really what we're supposed to do with difficult Scriptures?

I was once in a planning session for a service, and both readings prescribed were not particularly "nice."  One of the other clergy asked, "Don't we want something more edifying?  We don't want people to be in a bad mood when they hear these."  But statements like these, and like the one the older seminarian said to me, are dangerous.  Here's why.

Firstly, it's picking and choosing Scripture.  If it's not ok for fundamental evangelicals to pick and choose what Scriptures they pay attention to, how is it ok for us to do the same?  True, we may not be trying to push a particular theology the way that folks  do who constantly raise up one passage of Leviticus while ignoring the passages around it, but in deciding what we should or should not read on a Sunday morning, we are making the Scriptures about us.  We are arrogantly proclaiming that we know better than the lectionary authors what we should and should not be hearing in a given service.  We don't get to do that!  That's not what catholic worship is about!  Catholic worship is about setting aside the emotions of the one and accepting the practices of the whole.  And the whole has decreed that we use a lectionary and not pick and choose our readings.

Secondly, it does a disservice to our congregations.  How can folks in the pews be expected to wrestle with difficult Scriptures if we are not doing it ourselves?  The Bible is full of moments that make me go, "WHAT?!" or moments that make me angry at its writers and question their motives.  But I cannot just put those passages down and pretend they are not there.  If we ignore the fact that the Gospel of John uses the phrase, "for fear of the Jews," then we are not fully communicating to the folks in the pews what John actually means by that phrase and we are failing them as teachers.

Finally, it's making worship about us.  Let's get one thing straight:  worship is NOT about us!  It is about God!  This is how those of us in the catholic tradition can come together and worship, even if the particular liturgical/worship style of the congregation doesn't fit with our own.  Those of us who identify as "high church" would never walk out of a service just because that community was not using incense or chanting the Gospel.  That's insane!  But that is what we do when we choose to change words of Scripture or leave out passages entirely.  We are projecting our own anxieties onto the Scriptures, using excuses like, "We'll catch flack from the congregation if we use this passage."  How about instead of worrying about catching flack we use it as a teaching moment?  How about we worry less about what the folks in the pews think and focus more on the agreed-upon customs of our tradition so that all of the focus and attention can be on God, not ourselves?

Changing Scripture to fit our own emotions is no better than saying that Scripture never changes and means the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Scripture is meant to be examined, studied, and wrestled with.  Methods such as textual and historical criticism help us put Scripture into its context and truly get at the heart of what is being said.  This is what we are meant to do with the Scriptures.  They are not there for us to use as our personal weapon, nor are they there for us to do with as we damn-well please.  They are there to tell us the story of God and God's people.  And it is our duty to care for that story and to respect it.  That means studying and critiquing it, but it also means letting it exist in its own time and not changing pieces just to suit ourselves.

Have you been faced with a piece of Scripture that you're not comfortable with?  The next time that happens, don't ignore it.  Don't just pick another one that will make you feel warm and fuzzy.  Sit with it.  Analyze it.  Ask questions about it.  And maybe you'll get to the heart of what is really being said.  And maybe your own spiritual journey will be enriched.