Part 6: the complete lack of a conclusion
Historically, Rabbis of the Jewish faith were significant because their job was to study their holy texts and use that study to provide guidance in everyday life for their contemporaries in the community. Rabbis knew that the Torah was not written with the specific details that might help citizens navigate life in the 1800s, 1900s and 2000s. They understood their task was to read the Torah to understand the larger story that was unfolding. These very educated teachers would interpret the guiding ideas behind specific, perhaps outdated laws and rules and decide how the same principles might guide modern believers. (By the way, if you’ve never read A.J. Jacobs’ book “The Year Of Living Biblically”, you absolutely should. It’s a great illustration of the difficulties of attempting to live literally by laws written thousands of years ago.)
It is possible that a Rabbi could interpret scripture in a way that was contrary to that of another Rabbi. Both could use the guiding principles of scripture to arrive at different outcomes. When the historical Jesus, himself called “Rabbi” by his followers, studied in the Temple and debated other Rabbis, this is what was happening. He was fond of starting a sentence with “you have heard it said…” and then changing everything up with a “but I say unto you…” This was his manner of teaching during his lifetime, to interpret scripture and to provide some guidance based on the underlying themes of scripture. Many of his teachings flew in the face of what the most popular Rabbis were teaching at the time. He seemed to be saying, “Hey, y’all are doing it wrong. Let’s think about this a different way.”
Many of the other Rabbis saw Jesus as a problem, a rule breaker. To them, he was “out”.
As far back as I can remember, my mom would wake my brothers and me up on Sunday mornings and make sure we got ready for church. We’d eat breakfast, throw on our “Sunday clothes” and head out the door, leaving my dad in the bed at home. Often, when we’d return home, he was still drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper in his underwear at the kitchen counter. I had heard stories about my dad being a deacon in the church at one point in the past and I wondered in my big, naïve blonde head about why he didn’t go to church anymore. After all, I was being taught by my well-meaning Sunday School teachers that people who didn’t go to church on Sundays were probably “lost”. Thinking about my dad like that didn’t sit well.
When I got a little older and more indoctrinated, I started to worry that maybe it was true. I was encouraged to invite my dad to church. When I did, he would smile and say no. What the heck? Maybe he didn’t believe in God. Maybe he didn’t like God. I mean, why else would he refuse to go to church?
Men from the church would visit him from time to time. “Visit” is a euphemism for attempting to evangelize someone. Every Monday evening church members would meet in the church office and create a strategy for how they were going to go out into the community and “visit” people on their lists. This meant they were going to intentionally steer all conversations to the point where they could ask someone if they had ever accepted Jesus into their hearts. This later evolved into the class I mentioned earlier. Church people would come, not realizing they had met their match in my dad.
Most often they’d find him outside still working after 7:00 pm on a Monday night. They’d pull up, pile out and be all eager to engage when they’d walk into the brick wall that was my dad’s irresistible charm and humor. He knew what they were doing, but these were his friends from long ago and he would immediately have them derailed as he told them joke after joke after joke. I think most of these visits ended completely off script with the men scratching their heads and wiping away tears of laughter as they sheepishly drove away.
As a young adult, I got into a conversation with my dad about church. He was happy that I had recently been ordained as a deacon and he spoke about what a big responsibility that was. The conversation accidentally switched lanes and for the first time ever, I listened as he told me about how he had been a deacon in the same church and that it was a falling out with a certain minister that sent him away from the church.
The scales fell away from my eyes as his story unfolded. He was a man filled with love for others and he demonstrated that love in many ways to the people he encountered daily, especially his family and hist students. At a certain point in his life, he realized that the organized church was not always the best at leading with love. He saw himself to the door and decided to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and grace on his own. It was my naivety that had caused me to misinterpret his lack of desire to go to church.
I can’t help but remember the incredible crowd of people who showed up to my dad’s funeral. People I had never met lined up to share stories about something nice my dad had done for them and how much they loved him. All those years I thought he should have been in church, he was out in the world loving people exactly as they were. Doing kind things for them, refusing to accept payment, being the helping hand they needed, you know, exactly the way Jesus demonstrated. He never told anyone what they had to believe. He never told anyone they needed to do something to earn his love. What a sermon.
In fairness, my dad had a lot of shortcomings as well, but even those didn’t prevent him from loving people when it mattered. I am not out here trying to use my dad’s beef with organized religion as an excuse. I actually think it’s really interesting that we both ended up having similar experiences but even my dad would probably think my current beliefs are kind of kooky. He would probably tell me in a very funny and not appropriate for all audiences kind of way, too. He was funny like that.
Ok, but why write all this down and share it publicly if I haven’t come to any conclusions? One reason is to provide an example similar to my own father’s example. He was a man who had a great heart filled with love and lived a life that was more “Christian” than many of the church people who judged him. So what exactly is that an example of?
We have all helped to create a world built on binaries. Things are right or wrong, left or right, Republican or Democrat, masculine or feminine, black or white. When it comes to religion, particularly the one I grew up in, you were either Christian or you were lost. You were “in” or you were “out”. My dad lived in a world where he was considered “out”, yet I could easily argue that he was more “in” (as far as living a life like Jesus) than the people who considered him “out”.
Recent polls of Millennials indicate that this age group is separating themselves from the modern American Church in droves. They don’t support Christian Nationalism and they increasingly see themselves in disagreement with many policies and ideas the Church supports. As a Gen Xer, I can tell you that many people in my generation are facing the same situation. The problem is that we were always taught that you were either in agreement with the Church or you were “out”. My dad knew that was a false dichotomy and I know it too. You can be unsure of a lot of things about theology and still be love to everyone around you. You can disagree with your local church and still be “in” according to the Bible. In fact, I’m quite fond of something Bob Goff likes to say in his books on spirituality. I’m paraphrasing, but it’s something like, “Jesus draws a circle around us and says everyone is in!”
As for me, on a good day, I’ll show love to those I share space with through the day. On those days, I’ll be generous with kindness, grace, money and forgiveness. Hopefully some of the unsolicited advice I offer will help people avoid pain and discomfort. If I’m lucky, maybe I can be the warm sunshine in your otherwise overcast and rainy day. It won’t be every day, but maybe it could be most days. Hopefully it will not matter what you believe, who you choose to love, what clothes you decide to wear or how you choose to worship.
Hopefully, I will stay curious. I want to continue to live in and through the questions, content to not have all the answers. I may not understand you or your choices any more than I understand me and my choices, but I can still love you just as you are. Just as I feel loved by the God I don’t understand. Hopefully I’ll live the second half of my life feeling the magic and mystery of God. Hopefully I won’t reach a point where I think I have found the Truth and that the rest of you are idiots.
Who knows? I may change my mind about everything tomorrow. That’s the beauty of keeping an open mind. I invite you to question everything you were ever taught. Anything worth believing can withstand the questions.
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