Intorduction from Charlie Mays

God, War, and the Law

Introductory remarks from Charlie Mays

This Month in the Mountains is intended to be a conversation on the interrelationship of God, war and the Law. The conversation partners are those of us who have gathered here in the Village, the bible and now those of you who will be joining us on this blog.
In any conversation it is important to know those who are engaged with us in the discussion. For those of us who have been claimed to God to be disciples of Jesus Christ the bible is a critical partner in the discussion. What authority do we give to the bible? Why? What is the context in which a particular section of the bible came into being? How have people of faith in succeeding generations read the text? How might specific texts be word of God for us?
Often we fail to give consideration to our own context, be that our social or our personal context. What does it mean to read the bible as 21st century citizens of the most powerful nation that history has ever known? What role do our own personal needs, experiences, preferences, theologies, etc. play as we listen to and respond to the bible?
In our opening session we attempted to become aware of some of these factors. For help in doing this, we turned to W. Paul Jones’ “Theological Worlds” (Abingdon 1981). He suggests that the theological world we live in will both aid and hinder what we hear in and from the Tradition. He further suggests that our study is enriched when our conversation includes people from every one of his five theological worlds. Thus it is always best to study in community. (In the interest of full disclosure, I inhabit his second theological world, the world of social justice.)
We also set as one of our frames of reference a quote from Brain McLaren in “A Generous Orthodoxy” Zondervan 2004): “Remember in a pluralistic world, a religion is valued based on the benefit it brings to its nonadherents.” (Page121)
We began our bible study with the book of Genesis with the perspective that it might have something to say to us about how we regard those we name as enemies. All of Israel’s neighbors and enemies are introduced in Genesis and, at the outset, they were all members of the family.
A quotation from the New Interpreter’s Study Bible provides a good summary of our perspective:
“The conflict between Cain and Abel introduces a theme that runs throughout the book of Genesis: the rivalry between brothers. Such rivalry occurs among Noah’s sons (9:20-27); between Abraham and Lot (13:1-18), who are uncle and nephew but are called brothers (13:8), and between Isaac and Ishmael (21:8-21). But the primary examples are the rivalries between Jacob and Esau (chaps. 25-36) and between Joseph and his bothers (chaps. 37-50).
“This theme is so common because the stories of Israel’s ancestors are family stories. …
“The story of Cain and Abel, in the pre-flood era, is thus the model negative portrayal of sibling rivalry. In it the conflict between brothers, in spite of God’s words of caution to Cain (4:7), is left unresolved and reaches its ultimate outcome, the murder of one brother by another. By contrast, the stories of sibling rivalry after the flood are all resolved without bloodshed. … In each case, however, conflict is resolved by reconciliation rather than recrimination. The brother who has been wronged, and who is also the more powerful, sets aside his grievances in order to reunite the family.” (Page 13).
We set as bookends for this study the question of Abel, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (4:9) and Joseph’s words to his brothers at the end of Genesis: “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?” (50:19). We suggested that the answer to that question is “Yes” as indicated by the fact that Joseph provides for them and speaks kindly to them. He forgives them and meets there needs for living. He does for them what God does for all his creatures.
Genesis 18 provided us with a look at what it means to practice hospitality and in the doing it to receive the promise. And then to do “righteousness and justice” (18:19). Immediately upon hearing the promise of progeny, Abraham enters into earnest intercession for wicked Sodom. In his heartfelt pleading we hear our prayers for justice. In Abraham’s desperate questions about slaying the righteous with the wicked which are the heart and soul of his intercessory prayer, we hear our own cries as well as those of people in places where war, hunger, disease wipe out millions of children and adults.
Our final stop in Genesis was the reunion of Esau and Jacob in chapters 32-33. We gave peculiar focus to the word “face” that occurs a number of times often hidden in our English translations. As Jacob prepares to meet Esau he says: “I may appease his face with the present that goes before my face and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will lift up my face.” (32:20)
In the next scene, Jacob encounters the “man” at the Jabbok, he emerges from the struggle with a new identity and names the place Peniel saying, “For I have seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved.” (32:30). Following his meeting with Esau, Jacob says: “for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God.” (33:10).
Could it be that in the face of the reconciled sister or brother we see the face of God. Perhaps when we practice hospitality and serve the marginalized, we see God/Jesus. (Matthew 25:41ff).
As we move to the second section of our discussion of God, war, and the Law that will begin tomorrow, we intend to address the question posed by the title of Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s book “Is Religion Killing Us?” (Trinity Press International 2003): How might we deal with the images of violence that are found in both testaments? What can we do with passages that clearly image the violence of God who destroys not only our enemies but God’s as well? What place does a non-violent Jesus have in our faith and discipleship?
Nelson-Pallmeyer challenges us as he writes: “What if we saw these ancestors in the faith as both insightful and fallible and thus capable of both revealing and distorting God? This approach would encourage us to take our faith journeys seriously. It would allow us to learn from the ideas and experiences of our predecessors in faith without falling into the grave temptation of assuming that answers to important life questions are embedded in the past instead of unfolding in the mystery of the present and future.” (Page 134).
We’ll be talking with the bible, with one another, with theological works by folks like Nelson-Pallmeyer and Douglas John Hall and with you! We look forward to having your voice in our conversations.

Charlie Mays