Just because I believe in the Bible doesn’t mean that I can totally relate to all the characters there. In plain fact, even when I think them admirable, I often have a hard time relating to them at all. In fairness to the Bible, I’m a backwoods kid from Louisiana who ended up as a college professor. Not sure I’m exactly “normal”. [Editorial staff note: He’s not.]
All the same, I really have a hard time finding folks in the Bible I can really sink my teeth into. Here’s a partial list of what I mean:
Peter? I identify with Peter when he denies Christ and loses faith on the water, but otherwise, I just don’t get having that much faith. Peter is thunder and lightning, and I’m…the half-dead wimpy bush the lightning strikes and catches on fire.
Daniel? No thanks. I have a healthy fear of starved animals that can eat me. (That’s not a phobia, folks. That’s just being normal.)
Paul? Seems super-arrogant and full of himself. I can’t identify with being arrogant at all. Wait…don’t say anything. That was a mean thing to think about me. [Editorial staff comment: Re-read his last post about believing the truth about oneself, and tell me the shoe doesn’t fit here? This guy is so arrogant and full of himself, he makes Jiminy Cricket look like the Easter Bunny. And we don’t know what that means.]
Noah? I’d be asking God questions like you really want me to save the stupid dung beetles? I mean, here’s your one chance to get rid of dung beetles forever, and you’re tanking it? And do you think it’s wise to only bring two antelopes when we have two lions, two cheetahs, and two leopards? That’s like, what, six fierce cat predators to just two antelopes – you sure that’s a good plan? And if the ark gets a leak and sinks, am I allowed to use the panda bears as a flotation device? Wait, what? You mean the rain’s started while I was asking questions and you decided to let my neighbor Jimmy build the ark? Jimmy – really? What kind of name for posterity is “Jimmy”? If THAT’s the only link between the old humanity and the new, don’t you think the new humanity will just die of shame anyway? Our hero…Jimmy? I mean, do you really want Russell Crowe in a movie called “Jimmy?” Not gonna sell tickets, you know.
Moses? Seriously, think of the snakes, man.
David? Been in one fight in my life – over whether Terry Bradshaw was a good quarterback – and it was a two-hitter. He hit me, I hit the ground, went home crying to my dad. Not a proud day. But seriously, you think I can understand facing Goliath?
James? The pursuit of perfection? Taming the tongue? I’m just happy when I don’t yell at my co-workers and get fired on a given day.
Matthew? The guy was a tax collector. No kidding. I’m not working for the IRS, you know? That’s bad enough, but then he basically follows Jesus one day because Jesus says “follow me.” I mean, really, just follow me and he’s gone? I know tax collecting is an embarrassing and disgraceful profession and all, but I have a hard time with just up and leaving because some person with kind eyes and an authoritative manner says “quit your job and follow me!”
John the Baptist? The guy ate locusts. You lost me right there. The Bible could go on and say “…and he was a Griz football fan with a huge ego and a love of all things donut-y,” and I’m still never gonna identify with a guy who eats locusts. That kind of thing just ain’t natural.
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My point is, though I love the Bible and often can find points of overlap with most of the characters above, and certainly can find inspiration from almost all of them, there are also points at which I have a hard time understanding them.
There is really only one Bible character that I think I really identify with at some deep emotional level – my story is not hers, but I feel, I’m sure, what this character felt. I feel that in some way, this character’s experience with God has been basically my own experience with Him. She was given no name in the Bible; but I’m sure I will learn her name in Heaven.
That character is: The whore at Jesus’ feet in Luke chapter 7:36-50.
The story goes like this. A woman who had “lived a sinful life” came to meet Jesus at the home of a supposedly-righteous religious person. She stood behind Jesus, at his feet, weeping. She had brought perfume to pour over his feet and she kissed his feet and wiped them with her hair.
This shocked the sensibilities of the religious folk Jesus was supposed to be dining with. In fact, the Bible says that his host thought to himself that Jesus should know this woman was a sinner and keep his distance from her.
Jesus read his thoughts and rebuked the host. Jesus’ words to him are worth reading, but I’d like to focus our attention on the woman. At the end of the chapter, Jesus turns to her and says, right in front of the uber-religious snobs, “your sins are forgiven…your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
I am that whore. I am someone who lived a sinful life, devoid of anything meaningful. And I found Someone who loved me anyway. And I came to that Person, broken, unworthy to do anything but weep at his feet. And He forgave my sins and told me to go in peace. And I did.
So I take comfort. Atheists and religious people alike rage around me; but they do not trouble me. I sometimes go to academic conferences and see all these famous, sad, anti-religious agnostics lambasting away at God, seeking – like children on a playground who want their peers to think what a fine fellow they are – their esteem in the approval of the world. Some of them get the approval, and some don’t, but both are equally unhappy. As for me, I just ignore them – their insults fly past my head – because I have found what they are looking for already; I am at the feet of the Creator of the universe; I am already at peace.
On the flip side, religious leaders often seem to think that people like me don’t belong in the church; they seem to think that I’m not quite what they had in mind; but their long-winded judgments and long surly faces just go right past me. I hardly take notice: The Creator of the universe has approved me, so why would I care about their hollow and trumped-up self-righteousness? (I’d like to note that none of those long-faced people go to my church, where I have been loved and accepted beyond all hope of love and acceptance for a pony-tailed windbag.)
So let the world spin out of control on its axis for all I care. Let the arguments about God’s existence rage, the empty religious judgments fly, the hate and lies and everything else this world has to offer keep coming. I do not care: I will just remember my Jesus, remember that he has accepted my tears, remember that I am loved and that my sins are forgiven; and I am at peace.
I’m a Prodigal Son kind of guy myself, but I think that’s not dissimilar from your choice, what with the sinning and moral dereliction and all. The only difference, I guess (and it’s by no means trivial) is that you’ve found peace and forgiveness, while I’m holding out for the fatted calf–where’s my damned banquet, Father? Perhaps I should lower my expectations…in any case, may peace continue to be unto you.
Thanks, Jack — a perfectly reasonable and heart-felt response to which I of course have no reasonable answer, nor will I try to produce one directly. Rather, I’ll just offer a couple of additional thoughts that mostly could be summed up as “I don’t know.”
I believe in that banquet more than I believe in anything in this sad and lonely world — I just don’t know why you (and other people I know) don’t experience it (nor why it took me awhile myself to experience it, nor why I don’t experience it all the time even now). I will also add this about my own experience: It is not the dichotomous either/or thing that the post implies, and I was aware of that when I wrote it. (There are only so many qualifications one can make in a blog post that is supposed to be super-short). My post is more of a statement of faith, a statement of where my heart is in its better moments, what I gravitate to, than it is a statement that I am constantly happy (which is what I fear it sounds like when I re-read it). Anyone that knows me on a day-to-day basis knows that I am a shockingly up-and-down, emotional person that might not frequently look like I am at peace. My point is, I imagine that our experiences are sometimes, even still, not that far afield — I have plenty of doubts, plenty of anguish, plenty of “God where are you” moments in my life, believe me.
Nevertheless, I’d be lying unless I said that there is some real and deep thing in my life, peace as it were, that I can hold on to in dark times, and that’s what I was referring to here. In my life it has had only one Source. And, as you know, I have no valid explanation for our discrepant experiences. However, for what it’s worth, I’m sure that you are just as good a person as I am and that, if God exists, He views us identically in that regard. As to what He’s doing — or more accurately perhaps, not doing — in your life and the lives of others: I honestly don’t know! (Sorry — poor fare for an apologetics website).
Luke: I appreciate your elaboration and your candor. To be equally candid, I’ll admit that, despite what I said previously, I’ve actually experienced the banquet myself: it’s filled with life, it’s filled with friends, it’s filled with love, it’s filled with laughter and music and poetry and beauty. The banquet is like the “well of God” that Anne Sexton described: “Abundance is drawn from abundance / but abundance remains.” Or maybe it’s like the quote from “Auntie Mame”: “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.” Life is a banquet, life is abundance, and I’m grateful to have a seat at the table; but it just seems–to me–to have nothing to do with God, with a welcoming Father who embraces me. That part, I haven’t experienced. I respect the testimony of those, like yourself, who have; but I’m holding out, as I said, for my own embrace.
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