One of the many gifts of praying the Daily Office is being exposed to a lot of Scripture. Praying Morning and Evening Prayer every day, one is forced to reckon with large swathes of Scripture that are never encountered in the Mass readings and that one would probably not seek out for private study or meditation. We hear dry lists of purity codes in Leviticus but also humorous tidbits, like Jehu son of Nimshi, who “drives like a maniac” (RSV translation, 2 Kings 9:20) and Balaam’s talking donkey in Numbers 22.
And we hear things that we might never wish to hear again. We read of God’s people entering the Promised Land after their years of wandering in the wilderness and slaughtering all those in their path because they believed they had an unquestioned right to the land. We read of blatant xenophobia in Ezra and Nehemiah. We recite psalms in which horrible things happen to enemies, and indeed, where we ask God to do horrible things to those who have wronged us. We are confronted with the sometimes-violent language of the Book of Revelation. The list of such difficult passages is quite long.
But I, for one, am glad that we don’t have a Jefferson Bible, where everything we dislike is removed. I’m glad we didn’t go the way of Marcion, whom the early Church deemed a heretic because he excised the entire Old Testament, claiming it told of a vengeful, wrathful God who was different from the God of the New Testament. All this censoring of Scripture impoverishes us. How, you might ask? Why should we be forced to read of brutal genocide and pray psalms that entreat God for vengeance on our enemies? Well, because the omission of those offensive passages is dishonest.
It’s dishonest to pretend as if we’ve never had a wrathful feeling towards someone who has wronged us, and it’s false to pretend as if our ancestors in faith didn’t either. Which of us is immune from the many sinful impulses of which we read in the Bible? The Bible is, above all, an honest document. The formation of the canon of Scripture wasn’t intended to create a pure, logically-consistent document. It was intended to give us a clear-eyed testament, from the perspective of human authors working under divine inspiration, of how God’s people have come to understand his presence in their lives. The errors in judgment of those who committed atrocious acts in the past in the name of God shouldn’t be banished from our memory, even if we rightly abhor their sinful deeds. If we’re honest about our own sinful tendencies, we’ll continue to read the Bible’s uncomfortable passages and learn from them. We’ll see just how far removed human arrogance and violence are from the God who inspired the injunctions in Leviticus to leave the edges of the land unharvested for the neighbor in need. We’ll see how far removed all the nasty parts of the Bible are from the Shema. We’ll see how far they’re removed from the God who is revealed to us in Christ Jesus. And we’ll look inside our own hearts to acknowledge there the same sinful inclinations present also in others, at which we so often point our fingers in judgment.
If anything, holy Scripture keeps the Church honest. In a hierarchical Church such as ours, there’s a great temptation for authority and power to be abused. In an age of growing national exceptionalism in many corners of the world, including our own, it’s not such a large step from Biblical faithfulness (whatever that might mean for some) to secular exclusivity. Many modern-day Christians aren’t so different from our ancestors in faith who believed they had a divine mandate to destroy others. So, if we continue to confront the more horrendous passages from the Bible—corrected by the knowledge of God’s love and compassion revealed in Christ—we should be severely humbled. Scripture holds up a mirror to us in judgment.
I’ve been thinking about this aspect of Scripture over the past week, partly because we’re discussing the Bible in our Pilgrims in Christ formation process, and partly because I’ve recently learned of the horrendous details of the abuse scandal in the Church of England involving John Smyth and his numerous victims. All of this led Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to resign on Tuesday. Welby admits, in a spirit of repentance, to not doing enough to ensure that the concerns of the victims’ families were heeded. He has said that he failed to take necessary action to report the actions of Smyth to the proper authorities, which could have prevented further abuse. Inaction is in the category of “things left undone” that we confess regularly in our general confession at Mass.
For many people who have left the Church, they can no longer tolerate the Church’s longstanding culture of secrecy and hypocrisy. Many can’t see past centuries of abused authority and misused power, which has led to all manner of disastrous consequences. I understand the revulsion towards this tragic history. And yet, I have great faith in the Church. The Church is composed of fallible humans, but she is still God’s Church. Christ is Lord of the Church, not any bishop or priest or lay person. The Holy Spirit has not abandoned the Church either. The Spirit is alive and active, purging the Church of sin, nudging her to reform, and empowering her to mission in the world.
So, how do we remain faithful to the Church despite her past and current sins? This is where Scripture keeps us honest. We need to understand our own history so as not to repeat the same mistakes. We need to learn our own history so as to be humbled by the risks that come with power and privilege. We need to tell the truth about modern-day scandals, not as gossip but as a way of confessing the Church’s weaknesses so that she can live anew in the power of God’s forgiveness. To boldly confront the unsavory dimensions of the Church’s life is rather like bracing ourselves to stomach one of those offensive passages from the Bible. We shouldn’t ignore or cancel them; we should wrestle with them as a way of discerning how God has done something new, time and again, from out of chaos and human failure.
We have no secrets before God. God is calling us to utter honesty with ourselves and each other. The Church offers us ways of becoming more honest and humble, one of which is the Sacrament of Reconciliation (private confession). During times when our faith in the Church and her leaders is tested, God invites us not to give up hope but to remember that Jesus alone is Lord of the Church. Jesus alone is our Savior. And we’re his Body, his Church, called to holiness. Despite her complicated history, the Church is holy because she ultimately belongs to God. The Church is the living Body of Christ on earth and in heaven. Christ is calling us to repentance, forgiveness, and then thanksgiving for God’s abundant mercy.
We should pray for the victims of John Smyth’s heinous abuse, as well as for the victims’ families. We should pray for an increase of spiritual maturity and humility within the Church. We should pray for all who hold authority in the Church. We should pray for Justin Welby. Let us encourage one another to honesty and love, holding one another accountable as we seek to grow into the full stature of Christ.
Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen. (BCP, p. 816)
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle