Biblical... Or Christ-Like--August 31, 2022

Biblical... Or Christ-Like--August 31, 2022

"Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called.  Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it.  But if you are able to gain your freedom, rather, make use of it.  For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ.  You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters.  In whatever condition each was called, brothers and sisters, let them abide there with God." [1 Corinthians 7:20-24]

Well, here's a new sort of minefield altogether--or maybe, it's more like a battlefield, where you can see the scars of war and the terrible bloody cost in lives from what has happened on this territory.  It's hard, I confess, to read these words from the New Testament as an American Christian, particularly as a White American Christian [and yes, one whose children are Black], knowing that independently of what Paul's meaning and historical context were, these words have been used in my country's history, and in my religion's history, to justify enslaving other human beings, and to do so on the basis of skin color.  I can't honestly or seriously engage with this text without also acknowledging the monster in the room of America's history of racially-based chattel slavery, and how passages like this one were used to underwrite it as all God's will.

So, let's deal with the monster in the room first--we will have to face it before we can get any further back in history to what Paul had in mind in his first century context [where slavery, while still awful and exploitative, didn't have quite the same animus of racism as in our nation's historical legacy].  In our history, including the history of Christian churches, pastors, and teaching, passages like this have been used to say, "See?  Paul thinks that slaves should stay slaves and just think of themselves as free in a vaguely 'spiritual' sense.  No rocking the boat... no challenging the status quo... no cost to those who have owned slaves... and no clear confrontation of slavery as a moral evil.  For literally centuries, White Christian preachers in this country, across denominational lines, took this and a few other passages as a definitive answer to the question of slavery, claiming that God's verdict on the subject was basically to shrug with indifference, as if to say to enslaved people, "Tough luck that you are enslaved, but there's not much I can do about it for you--just try to have a positive religious attitude about it."

That whole approach, however, requires you to focus in on the "if you are enslaved now, don't be concerned about it" part and not the "Do not become slaves of any human masters" part of these verses [another example of what we talked about yesterday as "picking the worst cherries" in a text]. And besides the tension in this text itself, you also have to ignore that Jesus' inaugural address in Luke's Gospel takes as its central text the mission to "let the oppressed go free and proclaim liberty to the captives," along with the entire story of Israel as a nation of formerly enslaved families who were liberated by God over against the claims of Pharaoh.  In other words, while you can try to make an argument from this passage that Christianity permits [or even endorses] slavery, you have to do it with some pretty willful ignorance for the central figures of the whole story of Scripture [Jesus and Israel] and a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance.  It's a bad-faith argument, I'd say, even if I can still wish that Paul had been clearer or foreseen how his words could be twisted by greedy slavers and an economy built on that slavery centuries after he wrote them.

And again, this whole conversation pushes us once again to look at the difference between justifying something just because "It's in the Bible" versus what is in line with the character of Jesus.  As plenty of folks have noted before, there are an awful lot of things you can say are "Biblical" [in the sense of, "they happen or are mentioned in the Bible," or "figures in the Bible do these things and are not instantly zapped as punishment for doing them"], but which are not truly Christ-like.  And to be perfectly honest, we are disciples of Christ Jesus--we are called to be like Christ, which is not the same as "biblical." So yeah, slavery happens in the Bible; you can say slavery is biblically permitted in places in the stories of its pages--but so is freeing the enslaved [something that was supposed to happen in Israel's society every seven years at the sabbath and jubilee years, along with the outright cancelling of all debts].  But which is Christ-like:  enslaving people or freeing people from human bondage?  It seems pretty clear only the latter.  We could spend all day fleshing out the differences between what we can technically label as "biblical" and what we can see is authentically "Christ-like."  But suffice it to say that for an awful lot of this nation's history, a large number of people like me--preachers of White Christian Respectable Religion--were content only to ask, "Is there a loophole that lets me say enslaving other people is biblical?" rather than asking, "Can a follower of Jesus Christ ever dare to claim ownership of another human being?"

The difference between, "Can I use the Bible to justify it, even if it isn't Christ-like?" and "What does the way of Jesus look like here?" is the difference between death-dealing but socially-respectable religion and life-giving Good News for all.  So I am going to put all my chips and bet them on the position that Jesus does not endorse enslaving other people--that is the position, to borrow a line of the late Rachel Held Evans, I am will to risk being wrong about.  If you're not comfortable with reading someone who is willing to take that kind of approach to the Scriptures, then we may need to part company here.

But... if you're still here... this might have just opened up a window for a better understanding of what Paul is actually trying to do and say here in his letter to the Corinthians.  See, I think it's notable whom Paul doesn't address here in this passage--there is no direction given to slave-owners, only to those who are free, and those who were enslaved.  I don't think that's because he's giving a pass to slave masters--I think it's because there aren't any in the congregation, and quite likely because they knew that the Christian gospel was not compatible with owning human beings.  I think Paul doesn't address slave-masters in this passage for the same reason I don't address neo-Nazis, child-traffickers, or cross-burning members of the KKK as though they are sitting in the pews to hear my sermons on a weekly basis: I would hope it is clear that those kinds of affiliations are not compatible with the way of Jesus.  Rather, Paul writes to the people he knows ARE listening to his words:  the ones on the bottom of the social ladder, the enslaved, the oppressed, and the exploited.  The early Christian movement had a huge appeal among marginalized people, from tax collectors, sex workers, and lepers in Jesus' ministry, to Samaritans and Gentiles and eunuchs in the days of the book of Acts, to women and enslaved people in the wider spread of Christianity across the Empire.  And when you are writing knowing that your audience is largely made up of enslaved people, you write guidance for them, not necessarily for every possible reader who might ever happen across your letter.  So we don't hear Paul saying, "Hey you Christian slaveowners, you should let your slaves go," because quite probably there weren't any to be found [at this point in history].  He writes for the people he knows are there.

And Paul's direction seems to be, essentially, "You can follow Jesus from whatever social condition you find yourself in."  I would be of the opinion, from my reading of both English translations and from at least a rough look at the Greek underneath it, that Paul says, "If you can gain your freedom, use that opportunity [to become free]," although I'll note that not every English translation or commentator agrees. The inside baseball of that interpretive and translational question is probably a conversation for another time, but I do think Paul is open to the notion that someone who has the opportunity to become free would do so.  However, I think that beneath that, there is another point Paul is trying to make: namely, that whatever situation you find yourself in, you are already qualified and capable of living the Jesus way of life right now.  You don't have to wait, in other words, until you make it to a certain rung on the social ladder before you can be a Christian, and you cannot be excluded because you are currently in a position of low status.  

So while we have been using [and more often, misusing] this passage for centuries as a reference manual for the question, "Does the Bible permit slavery?" I think that's coming at it from the wrong angle--from "up high" in the position of privilege as would-be slaveowners, rather than "from below" for those who may find themselves already enslaved, oppressed, or marginalized, and are wondering if they can really be Christians in their current state.  There were and still are, for example, religious faiths, spiritual traditions, and philosophical schools that are exclusive in their membership.  Some religions grew out of particular ethnicities, for example, and you really couldn't practice the faith without being a part of that group--much like ancient Judaism has often been both a religious faith and a ethnicity.  Other faith traditions might only allow men, or only allow women, into full participation.  Other kinds of philosophies of life are only possible if you have enough wealth to be able to spend your day meditating, praying, or sacrificing rather than working for your living.  And of course, other religions divide the world into social classes and castes, where those in the lowest position could never hope to be regarded as on equal footing with those from higher ones.  So it's a big that for Paul to say to people who are currently enslaved, "You already are worthy of belonging. You are able to serve Jesus even while some foolish human calls himself your master.  You do not have to become something else to be beloved or a part of the Reign of God--you are already in it, as far as God is concerned."  In a sense, then, Paul is saying to enslaved people, "No matter what a so-called 'master' may think, they cannot own you, because you belong to Jesus, who came to liberate the captive and to let the oppressed go free.  And no matter what kinds of chains they put on you, they cannot shackle your spirit, try as they may." That is liberating, even while people are struggling in enslavement.

It really does depend on how we approach the Scriptures, whether we'll discover them to be liberating or supporting oppression.  If we come looking for reasons to justify exploiting people, we'll find them in the Bible.  But if we come remembering that Jesus himself says he has come to set people free, we'll discover a subversive witness in the Scriptures that is downright revolutionary.

May we read, always, through the lens of Jesus.  And then may we live in his light, too.

Lord Jesus, teach us how to ask the right questions of these ancient witnesses in the Scriptures, so that we will be both free ourselves and able to help others be set free.