Who's Right?

Father Roland Murphy, professor of Old Testament while I was in seminary, was the one who revealed to me that scripture is always in conversation with itself.  Rather than assuming that the Bible is a unilinear book without contradictions, what we find are a variety of opinions within the many books of the Bible, often at odds with each other.  Father Murphy’s favorite example was Proverbs 26:4-5.

Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself.

Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.

There are multiple, more complex, examples throughout the Old Testament as well as New.  One that has puzzled me is found in Luke 9:40.  The disciples tell Jesus they stopped someone from casting out demons in Jesus’ name because that person was not following them.  But Jesus suggests they should leave the person alone, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

Then we find Jesus apparently saying the opposite in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” and goes on to say that applies even to those who are casting out demons.  What are we to do with this contradiction?

Throughout my ministry I have tried to bite my tongue regarding judgment of other Christians.  The words of Jesus in Luke 9:40 have tempered my critique of different theological viewpoints and spiritual expressions.  Whoever is not against us is for us.  But in recent years I have been appalled by the words and actions of “Christians,” so-called, who have gained the lion’s share of media attention with what seems to me unChristian, or at least an un-Jesus-like, witness.  

Church history is filled with examples of the Church failing to follow Jesus, indeed, acting in direct opposition to the gospel.  The persecution of Jews, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and even in more modern times the surrender of the church in Germany to the politics of the Third Reich, are all sobering instances of what Jesus warns against in Matthew 7:21.  My present distress regarding the Church in America is that we are at risk for repeating the history of Germany in the last century with Christians crying out “Lord, Lord,” but espousing un-Christlike opinions and engaging in un-Christlike actions.

I caution myself in this regard.  After all, what if I am the one in the wrong?  What if gun-toting, anti-immigrant, gay-bashing, judgmental Christianity is what Jesus intended?  If so, then count me out.  This is not the Jesus who I found so compelling when I was in my young adulthood, who called me out of my self-centeredness to give my life in a vocation of service for the least, the last, and the lost.  I thought we were to be non-violent peacemakers, showing hospitality to the foreigner, and mercy for the outcast.  I thought we were to bind up the wounded, forgive the sinner, and proclaim liberty for the oppressed.  For over thirty years, was I wrong?