Snowballs and Jihads

Sometimes we just know things, deep down in our hearts, though nothing official, recognized or "on the books" reflects it.  We don't expect "the system" to back us up.  Sometimes it does anyway. My friend Joel told me that there were two kinds of teachers when he was in school: the kind who, when kids threw snowballs, sighed, and if they were directly in vicinity, said like they didn't like this part of their job, "OK guys, c'mon.  You know you're not allowed to do that.  The principal told you that.  It's dangerous.  Gimme a break, alright?"   

      And there was another kind.  The kind who were hiding behind the bushes at lunchtime, eager with the delight of possibly being able to catch someone bending over for a handful of snow, just so they could triumphantly leap out to criticize, judge, punish and generally unleash what they felt was righteous indignation.  Someone with an axe to grind.  Someone with a cause.  Someone on a crusade.  Someone with no forgiveness, mercy and certainly no sense of proportion whatsoever.  

     On our bad days, we all run the risk of being the second kind of person. When it comes to rules and their enforcement, we see something interesting in the bible, of all books.  In the Old Testament, dealing with a barbaric, often nomadic desert tribe called "the Jews" or "The Children of Abraham" who, like everyone else, took a full, gleeful part in the slavery, genocide and butchery that was seen as a wholesome part of human civilization back then, God sets up quite a heavy-handed, black-and-white system of rules completely unlike what He brings with Him when dealing with the very same people in far more civilized ages to come. These desert people are told that there are certain specific things they shouldn't do.  Most of them would hurt people.  In some cases, if they do these things, rather than just needing to donate an animal sacrifice to the temple, the system dictated that someone would actually have to take the transgressor and kill him by throwing large rocks at him until he was dead.

Today

Some countries do the same thing to this day, but with cooler killing toys.  In other cases, they had to whip him (the number of lashes set always at "forty lashes, minus one" for mercy's sake).   If we were to meet observant Jews from "back in the day" who felt very strongly that they themselves were not going to break these rules, that they themselves were going to adhere to this system and see where it took them, and hope for blessing and peace and prosperity, we'd probably not be able to help feeling a fair bit of respect for them and their willpower and integrity.   

     In like manner, if we met a Jew who was taking his neighbor's wife a ham sandwich he'd shoplifted from the market, in hopes that while her husband was at temple she'd share with him the ass he'd been coveting, you'd probably feel a fairly natural disrespect, a bit of disgust at his hypocrisy, his unconcern for what he was doing to his neighbour and the shopkeeper, and just his general lack of integrity (integrity is a word that means "cohesive structural strength, the ability to remain in one solid piece" and integrity comes from internal consistency.  

     The opposite of a person of integrity is someone whose internal structure is shot through with lies, or with hypocrisy.  Stuff like that inevitably weakens them). If, however, the man with the ham sandwich en route to his neighbor's house on the sabbath day was caught and was to be stoned to death, and the official who was in charge of the event came solemnly up the man, with three tattletales peering excitedly over his official shoulder, and then a small gang of guys ran up all out of breath (guys who had for months now been longing for a chance to smash someone's head to pieces with large rocks) you'd find that you really felt very little love and respect for the people tattletaleing, nor for the sandalled rednecks showing up fer a good old-fashioned stonin'.  You'd feel their characters were lacking in something. 

     You see, being quick to judge, delighting in catching others in faults, delighting in taking part in or seeing punishments carried out, all those are weak and nasty personality traits.  The bible speaks out against these traits with just the same disapproval we all felt in grade 3 when Tammy Juniper said "Miss, Justin threw an eraser when you were in the hall talking to Steven.  I think he should have to miss snack time."  The very same disapproval.  Stuff about "judge not lest ye be also judged" and "feet that are swift to shed blood."  Stuff about treating others the way you want to be treated (unless you're a masochist).  Stuff about shutting up. 

     Being quick to judge, taking delight in judging and criticizing, these are things even God doesn't feel OK with.  We see Him repeatedly taking hundreds of years to lose His temper, and then cooling off and seeing that things get fixed, fences mended, the cats brought safely back inside afterward.  And His main focus is internal.  He wants us to get what we did that didn't work out, rethink and refeel the whole situation and be armed with better approaches and reactions for the next time.

Jesus Dodging Judging

When Jesus was walking around being a human being to show us how it was done, the religious assholes wanted to involve him in the judging and beating to death with big rocks of a woman they'd (no doubt with the help of some tattletale or other) managed to surprise in the midst of having sex with someone the boundaries of marriage marked as not for the taking.  You see, they knew enough about what sort of a person Jesus was (walking around showing us what kind of people God wanted us all to be) to know that he'd not be raining down judgment and criticism and punishment on anyone.  This, even though he no doubt felt that cheating on your husband was a really awful thing to do, which was also totally not how God wanted things to be.  He didn't do that.  

     He seldom judged, and when he did, it was to call the religious assholes names and tell people not to respect their hypocritical, self-serving displays of religious piety, nor under any circumstances to act like they did or make them role models of any kind.  Said assholes invited him to "help judge," hoping to be able to say they caught him condoning adultery, and no doubt he could have joined in with the throwing of rocks also, if he'd been that sort of person.   

     As we know, he wrote on the ground with his finger as they bothered him with the sordid details, perhaps trying to ignore them or express disinterest, or perhaps he was just thinking, I don't know of course and won't pretend to (unlike the people who claim to know that he was writing anti-adultery scriptures in the dust).  Of course, when they'd made their case, he did nothing to say she was innocent, or that what she'd done was perfectly or technically OK, nor that they were wrong to judge her.  He just said "He that is without sin among you cast the first stone."  

     I think he was just reminding them that they weren't, as they wanted to feel, in a position quite above and superior to hers.   We're all screw ups.   None of us has lived well enough that we deserve to judge others, have earned the job, and can now enjoy doing it, because that's what "truly good" people are supposed to do.  Only Jesus himself hadn't screwed up, so "deserved the job" but he didn't enjoy judging and generally left people alone unless he was doing a kind of "intervention" type accusation to lead them to self-awareness and the chance for change.  He was without sin.  He could have cast the first stone.  He refused to, and none of them were qualified, so they all left.   

     He then said "Woman, where are thine accusers?" which was both an interesting question to contemplate, and also a subtle way of not counting himself among those who wanted to accuse her.  She was guilty, but that didn't mean he was obligated to accuse her, or risk condoning her behaviour.  That's not how that works, apparently.  

    I don't have to speak out against homosexuals or whoever, or else be guilty of condoning their behaviour.  My opinion on their actions Just Doesn't Matter.  Because I'm just me.   Jesus then gently but directly told the woman to quit being a 'ho and sent her on her way.  Whether or not she continued in her whorish behaviour the record of history does not reveal.

Fundamentally, Fundamentalism is Terrifying

I'm reading Don Miller's Searching For God Knows What.  He makes this point about how, if we listened to Muslim fundamentalists on the radio or TV programs of the middle east (and, presumably, if we spoke Arabic) we'd hear them denouncing and hating the moral excesses of American culture (their "freedom" as the W puts it.)  They'd speak out against promiscuity, homosexuality and abortion, and how American music, television and movies, and even the news and some churches fail to judge these, but are, instead tolerant and accepting of the people who engage in such behaviour, and are therefore, they feel, guilty.  There would be no forgiveness, no sign of understanding what Jesus showed everyone.   

     And then, if we listened to Christian fundamentalists on the radio or TV programs of the American south, we'd hear...exactly the same feelings and ideas expressed in almost exactly the same terms, and with no more awareness of the barest...fundamentals...of what Jesus showed everyone when he was here. 

    And there's something a bit more scary about the American ones, because they are trying to take over the governing of the whole country legally and completely, rather than "merely" terrorist-attacking symbolic bits of it.  And the scary thing is, radical atheists have learned some bad lessons, and are starting to demonstrate some of the same dogmatic, closed headed, closed hearted, jihad/Crusade mongering nonsense that comes from a more savage time.  

     Henry Rollins is funny and has a lot of heart and no patience with fakery, but listen to the scary mirror-images thrown up between someone like him, and his Islamic and televangelist counterparts... Each one saying "No!  My way!  People need to see things like I do, or they're wrong and need to be silenced and kept out of any place where they might have say, sway others, be heard by children or make decisions that affect anyone."  Echoes of Tammy Juniper in Grade 3.  "No!  Be quiet!  Make him be quiet!  My way!  Like this!  Listen to me 'cause I know!  You're in so much TROUble and I'm not!"  

     And an equally forceful objection against anyone else being able to say certain true things in plain or even forceful terms, as was the manner of Jesus. Sometimes the best thing, what God wants from us, is to leave people alone.  Even if they threw an eraser when Miss Granger was out of the classroom.