The Christian Imagination

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
–Luke 10:25-36

The lawyer was trying to trap Jesus, and Jesus, by answering with a penetrating question, trapped the lawyer. Lawyers are experts in verbal sparring. They don’t like losing.

The Jewish elite were very focused on avoiding impurity and sin. Israel’s religious idolatry and syncretism was a signficant part of why they lost God’s favor. In the process, they ended up creating a class system that devalued the impure and the sinful as second-class citizens. Samaritans were half-breeds with a syncretic religion, to be avoided at all costs. In their zealousness to follow God, they missed God’s heart: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” –Micah 6:8

The man on the side of the road, we don’t know who he was. It’s possible he was unclean, we don’t know. Mercy is a tough task, it requires risk, it requires time, it requires effort. Helping a person on the side of the road requires involvement. It’s also difficult to know whether it might be a trap, an ambush. Would it be worth it? The person was half dead, after all. Is it the type of person who’s worth helping? We don’t know. What we do know is that the Priest and Levite, not only saw him, but avoided him, passed by on the other side. Isn’t that what we often do when we’re around people or circumstances that make us uncomfortable?

Not only did the Samaritan, the unclean person, the person who Jews avoided, have mercy, but he took the time to help the person. He poured oil and wine, items of worth, on this man’s wounds. Then what? He brought him to an inn and payed them to take care of him while the Samaritan finished his journey. We don’t know where the Samaritan was going, but it certainly appears he had an agenda and some place he had to be. He seems like he was traveling on business. So, he interrupted his plans to help a man, but didn’t forsake his obligations to others, only delayed them as much as he could. It’s so easy to say we don’t have time. On the other hand, our existing commitments are important too.

Jesus said, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

Notice the phrasing of the question. The lawyer asked Jesus who his neighbor was? Jesus turned it around and asked if he was BEING a neighbor. No matter how you look at it, it is both challenging and offensive. The Samaritan, the person who I may feel is less than me, is more of a neighbor to others than I am. The Samaritan is my neighbor. The person beaten and bloody on the side of the road asking for help is my neighbor. People I have never met are my neighbors.

Am I being a neighbor, or just walking right on by?

Fiction: “The telling of stories which are not entirely based upon facts. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, “to form, create”, works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events.”

Parable: “The word ‘parable’ comes from the Greek parabol, the name given by Greek rhetoricians to any fictive illustration in the form of a brief narrative. Later it came to mean a fictitious narrative, generally referring to something that might naturally occur, by which spiritual and moral matters might be conveyed. A parable is like a metaphor that has been extended to form a brief, coherent fiction.”

I was having a talk with an indepedent, apolostic pastor several years ago in reference to a popular book of fiction written by a Christian. The pastor told me he didn’t see a point in reading something that wasn’t true.

Jesus, the savior and Lord of all Christians, certainly did a number of things that make you wonder. Like, with Him being God incarnate, why wait till he was 30 to start his public ministry? And then, in a world desperate for hope and truth, he tells stories, lots of them, primarily using a form of short fiction called a parable. In Matthew 13:34, it says, “Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable.”

So, instead of speaking the truth directly, and appealing directly to the intellect, he told stories that people could relate to, yet stories that many didn’t understand. Even the disciples weren’t sure what Jesus was talking about at times. It’s even harder for us to understand that sort of thing. We aren’t very patient people, and ruminating over a story or poem to find the layers of meaning is not very natural in a very busy society. Yet, these stories of Jesus gave people a chance to discover meaning for themselves. And we are more likely to retain and ‘own’ what we discover ourselves.

We say we believe the Bible is true, so is it? Are metaphors true? Are parables true? Is Biblical poetry true? If we define true as factual, then the answer is no. Yet, we can get really hung up on facts, and we can lose the story. We can also lose the heart. And Jesus, he knew the power of story. He spoke to many who were the least, and he gave them hope. And he told them truth, by using fiction.

In summary, I believe the Bible is true, and factual in regard to what should be interpreted as fact. The Bible makes great use of metaphor and short fiction as well in the wisdom literature, prophets, apocalyptic lit, and parables of Jesus. As such, I rejoice in both fact and fiction in the Bible.

We underestimate fiction and it’s place in our lives as Christians. We underestimate how well fiction can convey truth.

And if you have any comments, agreeing or disagreeing, feel free to share.

Are any of you familiar with the writings of Søren Kierkegaard? He was a deep Christian thinker and writer who lived not so long ago. Among his best known works is Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing. In his journals, as quoted on Per Crucem ad Lucem, he says the following:

Fundamentally a reformation which did away with the Bible would now be just as valid as Luther’s doing away with the Pope. All that about the Bible has developed a religion of learning and law, a mere distraction. A little of that knowledge has gradually percolated to the simplest classes so that no one any longer reads the Bible humanly. As a result it does immeasurable harm; where life is concerned its existence is a fortification of excuses and escapes; for there is always something one has to look into first of all, and it always seems as though one had first of all to have the doctrine in perfect form before one could begin to live that is to say, one never begins.

Christendom has long been in need of a hero who, in fear and trembling before God, had the courage to forbid people to read the Bible.

If you aren’t familiar with Kierkegaard, you might be inclined to think he doesn’t value the Bible or take it seriously. In fact, he valued it highly. There is, of course, a context for this quote, just as there is a context for many Bible verses we sometimes read out of context.

We talk a lot about Scripture, maybe even quote it (and that, I have to admit, is better than not talking about it at all), but sometimes make it out to be what it isn’t. The Bible sometimes becomes an end in itself, so much God’s word that we don’t need God himself. We may look at the Bible like a scientifist, forming a hypothesis and then looking to find a verse that appears to support it, so we can then use that verse to support whatever we are arguing at the time.

Kierkegaard, among others, wrote about meditating and reflecting on God, the One Thing, with Scripture being a tool in that regard to get to know God better. Today, we often lose our sense of wonder for life, the mystery in the Bible, and our awe of God. As Kierkegaard also says, “The problem is not to understand Christianity but to understand that it cannot be understood.” We reduce our ‘faith’ into a manageable ideology and God and the Bible along with it. We come to think we know the Bible, God, and ourselves, and sometimes stop there. The Bible simply becomes a manual, dissected and categorized…and yes, I disagree with the notion that the Bible is primarily a handbook, manual, or guidebook. It’s worth noting that the parts of the Bible that most resemble a rulebook (Leviticus) and history (Chronicles) are among the least read and quoted portions of the Bible.

As Kierkegaard says, we need to read the Bible more humanly, with all that we are, to reflect on it, really reflect on it and absorb it, to let God speak through it to us, and to make not the Bible, but God, our focus.

That, in its simplicity, asks a lot from us…

We hear a lot about holding to truth and absolutes. I believe in absolute truth, but I don’t think it’s as easy to discern as we make it out to be. Multiple communities come to different absolute conclusions at times. Reason seems to be a convenient excuse to not use reason. We, as Christians, often believe in truth that we a) haven’t reasoned out ourselves and b) have ceased to accept new input on.

Even in the scientific method, there are variables that pertain to the basis premise, the phrasing of the hypothesis, how the data is collected, and how the data is analyzed. And if I am to be intellectually honest, then if new data appears, I can’t just say, “Well, I’ve already decided what’s true.”

But I’ve also seen in my life how I can ‘believe’ something, but not live as if I believe it, and I’ve seen that in others. What’s troubling is that we get to a point where we don’t feel we can express the ‘wrong answer’ even if it’s really how we feel. Yet we have the Psalms where David expressed a number of things that weren’t true about God. And we have the Bible, which in a number of ways, cannot be reduced to pure reason (read the Book of Acts). Yet, we take this powerful, poetic, supernatural book and reduce it to a book of principles about how to live. In the process, we try to ‘reason’ and ‘will’ ourselves to obey God, despite our inclinations for sin, self-deception, and selfishness, and then lament how the world isn’t following God’s principles.

I think people like Richard Foster, whose writings I will be commenting on soon, are on to something when they talk about the weakness of the will, and how important it is to recognize our poverty before the Lord. Like the rich young ruler, we want a set of principles and formulas to follow, and while those can assist, most of them don’t require we humbly encounter the Living God. I don’t need principles. I need a savior. And my need doesn’t end there…