Tag: Matthew 5

Vote for Jesus over Leviticus

by Steve Harsh, posted in Faith and Politics, spiritual discipline, Uncategorized

In a recent blog post (Oct. 9, “Why I Vote the Way I Do”) I told the story of a very satisfying, respectful political argument I had with a friend who holds very different political views than I do. That story ended happily as we agreed to respect and affirm each other’s points of views.

Fast forward to 4 days before Election Day and emotions are running high on both sides of the political spectrum because there is so much uncertainty about how the votes will come out and how supporters of either candidate will respond to the results. I used to love staying up late on election night to watch the returns come in, but I have no illusions this time that we will have a clear winner Tuesday or for several days or weeks thereafter.

Given that context I have been posting everything I think might make any difference in stopping Trump from reclaiming the White House, and my friend from October took strong objection to a post I shared about old rich white men destroying our planet by ignoring climate change to protect their fortunes. I respect her right to disagree, but then she said that I should basically shut up and stop posting because my intelligence level is very low.

I am hurt, angry and disappointed by that attack. I thought we had a better relationship than that. So a few days later I am still pondering how or if to respond. My first instinct was to respond in anger and then hide her responses on Facebook. Then this still, small voice in my head reminded of Jesus’ command in the Sermon on the Mount that we are to “love our enemies.”

That’s probably great advice in these contentious days; so I am praying about what that might look like in this situation.

Meanwhile, the Sermon on the Mount, also was on my mind a lot with regard to Trump’s most egregious threat to date, namely a detailed comment he made on a Fox News interview recently. Trump zeroed in on one of his “enemies within” and suggested former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney should face a firing squad for her opposition to his fitness for office.

The closer we get to Election Day the more paranoid and unhinged Trump becomes. But his threats against his political foes come from a logical progression of his abysmal knowledge of the Christian faith he has co-opted to gain political leverage.

I first noticed this basic theological flaw in Trump’s use of the Scripture to fit his own narcissistic values way back in the 2016 campaign. Trump was asked what his favorite Scripture is. His response was “An eye for any eye and a tooth for a tooth” from the Hebrew Bible book of Leviticus.

Had he read the New Testament where Jesus corrects and updates our notions of God, he might have noticed in the Sermon on the Mount this direct dismissal of the Hebrew commandment.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:38-42)

And if we dare to read the next verses Jesus ups the ante even more.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5 43-44)

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not for sissies. We who claim Jesus as Lord and Savior strive for a higher standard; so no matter what unfolds after next Tuesday’s election, Jesus needs to win out over Leviticus.

An Eye for An Eye?

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, spiritual discipline

Ever since October 7 I have been pondering the irony of the Israeli response to the horrific massacre of 1200 Israelis by Hamas.  One of the most familiar tenets of the Hebrew law found in Leviticus says, “Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered.” (24:19-20). I learned two things about that Scripture in seminary: 1) It is very similar to another ancient law, The Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian King in the 1700’s BCE, and 2) both the Code of Hammurabi and the Hebrew law were meant not to justify revenge but to limit the amount of revenge one could seek for an offense to an equitable amount.  So, for example, if someone poked out one of my eyes I could not in return poke out both of his or hers. 

Jesus came along 3000 years after Hammurabi and 1400 years after Moses and raised the bar to a whole new level in the Sermon on the Mount where he says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also,and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well,and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matthew 5:38-43).

Now, I’m not expecting the Israelis to live up to Jesus’ ethics.  I can’t, and I’m not sure anyone but Jesus could ever do that.  But it seems like not killing your enemy’s innocent women and children might be a start.  And it does seem fair to hold the Israelis to their own Scriptural standards.  At last count the Israelis have killed 16000 Palestinians in Gaza.   That’s more than 10 for every Israeli killed on 10/7.  That’s a lot more than “an eye for an eye.”

I understand the horror of that dark day.  No, I don’t.  Thank God, I have never experienced anything like it.  I was even far removed from any personal suffering on 9/11.  So, I know I have no right to judge.  I don’t know what I would do in the Israeli shoes.  Nor do I have any idea how I would survive the God awful inhumane conditions the people of Gaza have been living under for the last 60 days.  I just know the insane suffering I see on my TV screen has got to stop.  Not just because it is morally unjustifiable but mostly because it is just plain counterproductive.

War and killing have never solved anything.  If the Israelis could actually eliminate Hamas and terrorism by use of force there might be an argument for their military campaign.  But it won’t work.  The anger being fanned in the Muslim world by the war in Gaza will produce far more terrorists can ever kill.  If history has taught us anything it is that revenge only begets more violence in return.  That’s the point of Jesus’ teaching above about turning the other cheek.  To resist the natural human urge to strike back in anger, as impossible as that seems, is the only way the cycle of violence can ever be stopped in its tracks. 

As progressive as it was in the days of Hammurabi, as Gandhi once pointed out, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth just creates a world of blind, toothless people.”

I know that too criticize Israel opens me to charges of antisemitism, but I assure you I am not anti-Semitic.  I am a Christian nurtured in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Jesus was a Jew.  I am constantly challenged and inspired by the Hebrew prophets.  I grieve for the hostages still in captivity, for the suffering of the Jewish people throughout history and on 10/7, but the killing needs to stop; the suffering of the people of Gaza must stop. 

December 5, 2023

Toxic Masculinity

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Government Reform

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war any more.”  Isaiah 2:4

“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. “ Jesus, Matthew 5:5

Are Isaiah, Jesus and pacifists simply naïve optimists, or are they visionaries making a theological statement and not an historical one, a warning more than a prediction?  By worldly standards such comments by Jesus are not taken seriously because most of us cannot begin to entertain the notion, let alone understand, that meekness and vulnerability can be and are the ultimate signs of strength.  

Three of my favorite authors, namely Matthew Fox, Richard Rohr, and Brene Brown have addressed the important topic of toxic masculinity in their recent writings, and those words could not be more timely and critical.  Toxic masculinity is nothing new, but seems to be as rampant and contagious as the Omicron variant of Covid.  The standoff over Ukraine, the January 6 insurrection, the epidemic of gun violence in our cities, violent conflicts over masks on airplanes, and the populist posturing of Donald Trump and his merry band of followers are just a few examples from today’s headlines caused by the “might makes right” way of life. 

My wife and I went to see the new “West Side Story” movie last weekend, and as you probably know the whole plot of the movie centers on gang violence and turf wars between the Sharks and the Jets.  I knew that of course going in to the theater, but this version of that story seems to make the violence and tragedy more realistic and painful than the 1961 version. Or maybe it’s just that I know a lot more about the futility of violence now than I did when watching the original movie through the rose-colored glasses of my youth.  

For my 15 year-old self West Side Story was just a tragic love story.  I didn’t notice anything in the film about racism or social injustice because I knew nothing about racism or pacifism.  I grew up in a pure white community playing cowboys and Indians and war games with my neighbor Jim Shockey.  When I couldn’t be outside my bedroom floor was often covered with little army men on the floor (our video game violence then).  My life ambition as a 4th grader was to be a marine and I dreamed of attending one of the military academies.  My worldview was so narrow that I had no contact with any people of color until I was 20 years old.  

Since West Side Story is more than 60 years old I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets when I say the movie’s tragic ending is a perfect and very moving depiction of how absurd and futile trying to solve conflicts through violence is.

Toxic masculinity is as old as the Genesis 4 story of Cain killing his brother Able.  And in all the millennia since we have made almost no progress at learning to beat our swords into useful implements of peace.  The statue depicting that verse from Isaiah that stands in front of United Nations Headquarters in New York City was erected just three years after the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and all the other horrors of World War II ended.  Hitler and Mussolini and Emperor Hirohito were defeated through force the likes of which the world had ever seen.

The world had been naive or gullible enough to believe WW I as “the war to end all wars,” but only 20 years after the Treaty of Versailles ended that war the sequel debuted with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland!  Sound familiar?  I do not mean to cast any dispersion on those who joined forces to oppose the Axis armies.  My father was part of that greatest generation who risked and/or lost their lives to stop the evil personified in Hitler.  

Force was met with greater force, but to what end?  History continues to repeat itself.  Hitler and Mussolini are replaced almost immediately by Stalin, the Kim Un gang, Pol Pot, Mao, and the brothers Castro just to name a few 20th century despots.   

We have cold and hot wars, guerrilla and urban warfare almost continuously all over the planet.  We have spent obscene amounts of money on deadlier and deadlier weapons of mass destruction, and greedy American capitalists lead the world in profiteering from making and selling those killing machines.  

How long will the human race pursue this madness?  Until we destroy ourselves and the planet we live on?  One can certainly offer plenty of evidence that our systems of patriarchy have failed to produce a world where we don’t learn war anymore.  I still hope that the emergence of more women in important leadership roles will help diffuse the toxic love of violence and force that has been the human race’s taken-for-granted business as usual for millennia.  But my hope is seriously tempered by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert who are just as power hungry, paranoid and militant as their male counterparts.

This is not just a gender issue; it is a moral and existential threat to the human race itself, and it must change because there will be no WW IV.  The U.S. 2022 defense budget is $700,000,000,000, and have you ever heard of any great debates in Congress about passing it?  We have huge partisan wrangling over what we spend on education, the arts, health care and other social programs which cost a small fraction of the defense budget.  The best way to start beating our swords into plowshares is to simply stop making bigger and more deadly swords and spears!  We have enough atomic fire power to destroy the world dozens of times over.  Why do we need more and more?  

Another example of toxic versus heathy masculinity can be seen by comparing these two statements:  1) “Happy is the one who seizes your enemy’s infants and dashes them against the rocks.”  2) “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.”  

Most people  may recognize the latter words as part of Jesus’ Sermon On the Mount in Matthew 5.  But you may be surprised to learn that the first statement is also biblical (Psalm 137:9). The two could not be more diametrically opposed and are exactly why when conflicts arise between Jesus and other biblical writings, as they often do, I choose Jesus.  Not because the way of Jesus is easy but because it is true and the only way to real peace.  As the world teeters on the brink of another cold or, heaven forbid, hot war over Ukraine, we better learn the difference soon.  

How Many?

by Steve Harsh, posted in Aging to Sageing, Faith and Politics, Uncategorized

As I watch the steady rise of the number of American deaths on the COVID scoreboard I remember the line from an old Bob Dylan song: “Yes, and how many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died?” It’s apparently more than 177,000. It’s apparently more than George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, and a host of other people of color cut down much too soon. It must be more than the police officers who fear for their lives because we live in an armed camp.

When I think about mounting death tolls I am taken back to the years of the Vietnam War. That war lasted on so long that I graduated from high school, college and seminary while it dragged on and then continued 4 more years! Like 2020 the death count in that war was served to us with dinner every evening on the national news. We thought we were winning because the scoreboard usually indicated we killed more of them that day than they killed of us. The scoreboard of course didn’t include the more than a million Vietnamese civilians killed, part of the infamous “we had to destroy the village to save it” mind set of our leadership. I guess Walter Cronkite thought that to know that ugly truth might have spoiled our appetites.

Dylan’s haunting question “how many?” can be asked about wars, hurricanes, floods, wild fires, even those caused by climate change, gun violence, racism, cancer, drunk drivers, and pandemics. How many must die before we say “enough!” What does it take to move us to action to correct the centuries-old injustices of racism? Or to suspend personal or political ambition to create a unified strategy for combatting a pandemic? Or meaningful reform of law enforcement? Or to enact reasonable gun regulations? How many, Lord? How long till we learn that violence in any form only creates more violence, over and over again in a vicious cycle.

For way too long we Christians have taken Jesus literally when he said, “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” (Matt. 5:39). Jesus didn’t mean we should turn ourselves into punching bags. He was talking about interrupting the cycle of violence which will never end until enough of us realize that as long as we keep trying to achieve peace by unpeaceful means we are perpetuating more of the same.

Just before that verse above Jesus says, “You have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you do not resist an evil doer.” Someone has said that living by the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth philosophy just produces a world of blind, toothless people. Instead of that outcome Jesus later in that Sermon on the Mount goes on to instruct his followers to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

2000 years later we are still trying to do things the old way and expecting different results. We have failed to learn the critical lesson that someone has to dare to go first to break the cycle of getting even instead of being peacemakers. And until we learn we will continue to ask “How many deaths will it take?”

John Wesley for the Supreme Court

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values, Faith Development, Government Reform

John_Wesley_by_George_Romney
It is a sad but expected reality that Justice Scalia’s vacant seat on the Supreme Court has become a political hot potato while it is still warm from his long years of influential service. My appreciation for Scalia has grown immensely since his death as I have read moving stories about his friendships and respect that bridged ideological divides with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Elena Kagan. Such bipartisanship is an endangered species in our polarized world and needs to be recognized and celebrated. I must confess that I was guilty of stereotyping Justice Scalia based on his conservative and often controversial legal opinions, and I vow to relearn yet again the danger of such narrow thinking.
(Follow this link to read Ginsburg’s tribute to her friend and legal rival: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/14/read_justice_ruth_bader_ginsburg_s_touching_statement_on_scalia.html, and http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/14/opinions/david-axelrod-surprise-request-from-justice-scalia/ for Scalia’s respect for Justice Kagan.)

Having said that, this unexpected vacancy on the court creates a valuable opportunity in this election year for all of us to learn and grow in our understanding of the importance of the court and the different philosophies represented in the selection process that have tremendous impact on the direction our nation will go moving forward.

I don’t know much about the judges who have been mentioned to fill this vacancy thus far, but it occurred to me that we United Methodists have a great candidate in one of the founders of our denomination, John Wesley. As you can see from his picture he has the wardrobe for the job. The problem of course is that Wesley is not available since he died over 300 years ago. But I would still like to propose that Wesley’s thinking can shed some valuable light on the selection process.

Wesley developed a very useful paradigm for making ethical decisions. Wesley’s quadrilateral, as it is known, lists four sources of input that should be consulted when making ethical decisions: Scripture, Experience, Reason, and Tradition. The balanced model Wesley provides honors the importance of all four components while realizing that they are all created by fallible humans and therefore can be found to be in need of correction by the other three legs of the quadrilateral.

Making ethical decisions with fewer than all four components of the quadrilateral is like sitting at a table that has one leg shorter than the others, and therefore wobbles like a teeter totter every time anyone leans on it.
There are many examples of complex ethical dilemmas that we postmodern 21st century citizens must come to grips with. Laws and traditions that worked in previous generations may no longer be viable when new knowledge provided by reason and experience is factored into the equation. Examples include biomedical decisions, the viability of military force to solve differences in a nuclear age, and attitudes toward people with a different sexual orientation. (I wrote about some of these issues in more detail in a July 22. 2014 post, “Tradition: Only Part of the Formula.”)

“Originalism” or “Textualism” are the labels used to describe Justice Scalia’s approach to the legal system and the Constitution. I am certainly no legal scholar, but my understanding of that philosophy is that it strives to interpret legal questions according to the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. That approach is loaded with biblical and theological implications, and Wesley’s quadrilateral speaks directly to the need to in both law and theology to keep learning and growing in our understanding of justice in the rapidly changing world we live in.

My problem with Originalism is that it seems to argue that a group of wealthy white men who accepted slavery and denied equal rights to women should have the final word on how to live in a democracy today. That’s like trying to live by Levitcal law in the 21st century. The framers of the constitution were men of tremendous vision and courage, but limited as we all are by our cultural and historical context they knew nothing about Aids, Zika, climate change, AR-15’s, black holes and gravitational waves, globalization, or nuclear annihilation, just to name a few. But like Wesley the authors of the Constitution did have the wisdom to know that the laws of the land must be flexible in the face of changing revelations about human nature and the natural order. Realizing the need for reason and experience to make mid-course corrections they made provisions for amending the constitution and did so immediately with the addition of the Bill of Rights.

With the same wisdom Wesley’s inclusion of reason, experience and tradition as necessary qualities for interpreting the Scriptures recognizes the on-going process of revelation. As the United Church of Christ reminds us, “God is still speaking.” Jesus did the same thing when he said repeatedly “You have heard it said…but I say to you…” (Matthew 5:21-48). Without the constant deepening of our understanding of God’s creation and God’s will as both our scientific and theological wisdom increases we would still live in a flat earth society with a vengeful, fearsome God and would celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday.

Does that mean reason and experience represent a straight line of upward progress toward a perfect just and peaceful world? Obviously not. We cannot escape our human fallibility in matters of faith or of law. There is no perfect candidate for the Supreme Court or any other office, but seeking persons who balance respect for our foundational documents, be they Scripture or Constitution, with the value of applying our God-given ability to reason and learn from our experience and past traditions would be my litmus test in the selection proces