As long as humanity has been telling stories, the theme of facing risk on either side has been a theme. Expressions such as “between the devil and the deep blue sea”, and “between a rock and a hard place” have long shaped our narratives. They bring to mind impossible choices, referred to with names like “Catch-22” and “Morton’s Fork”.
Yet it has always been the story of Odysseus, guiding his ship between the deadly sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis, that has always caught my imagination. For many years I misunderstood the expression “being between Scylla and Charybdis” to mean finding a centrist path between two extremes. Instead, I have come to realize that the path between these monsters is a resistance to the binary itself. Perhaps the expression “on the horns of a dilemma” makes it more clear. Having witnessed bullfights in Madrid as a teenager, the idea of being gored by a bull makes for a profoundly visceral concept. There is no “between the horns”. The only hope lies in refusing to get in the ring with the bull.
Whether it is politics or theology, when we engage in debates that are primarily framed around the questions “Who is right?” and “Who is wrong?”, we all too often find ourselves “on the horns of a dilemma”. Why? Because such a posture requires that both “sides” engage in a fear-based “othering”, that “they” are wrong and “we” are right. “They” are bad. “We” are good. Note that I said this is what happens when we make the binary position our primary approach. I am not suggesting that there is no place for debate, nor am I suggesting that there is no right or wrong. Instead, I am pointing out the fact that such a posture is fundamentally born out of and sustained by fear.
In his essential book, “The Slavery of Death”, Richard Beck describes it in this way:
“Because our worldview is the source of our significance and self-esteem, we want to defend it from the criticisms of out-group members. Those who are different from us implicitly or explicitly call into question the things we hold most dear, the cultural values that ground and shape the contours of our identity and self-esteem in the face of death. In this, out-group members become a source of anxiety, an existential threat. To cope with the anxiety, we rush to defend our worldview and become dogmatic, fundamentalist, and ideological in regard to our values, culture, and way of life. We embrace our worldview as unique and exceptional, as superior to other worldviews, which we deem inferior, mistaken, and even dangerous. This mindset begins the process in which out-group members are denigrated and eventually demonized, sowing the seeds of violence.”
Beck demonstrates what 1 Cor. 15:56 reminds us: that “the sting of death is sin”. In other words, it is that fundamental human fear of death that is at the heart of this impulse embrace tribalism, absolutism, and ideology as the means of our “salvation”. The rest of vs. 56 makes it even clearer- “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law”. Friend and theologian, Brad Jersak, drew this parallel as we discussed it this week, citing slavery:
“The slave owners were using the Bible in precisely this way. PRECISELY. It’s a law hermeneutic that regards itself as faithful while there’s something else creeping below. Meanwhile, the slaves themselves had discovered the story’s grand narrative–the Exodus as the archetype of redemption on which the whole gospel was replayed globally. The implications were not lost on them as they composed their spirituals in the cotton fields. They perceived precisely how Moses’ story was theirs."
Note that in this example that slavery is not one of the monsters- one of the horns. After all, if that were true, the other horn would be anti-slavery (or anti-racism). Clearly, we recognize the former as wrong and the latter as right. However, the fear-based response to the reality of slavery and the moral implications involved triggered a fear-based justification that, even in the name of God, led to a violent defense of it’s “rightness”.
Consider the debate among Christians about whether or LGBTQ+ people should be fully welcomed and affirmed into the church. I believe that well-intentioned Christians, responding out of fear and ignorance, are repeating this “law hermeneutic”. So what is the “monster” on the other side? What is the other “horn”? As a fully LGBTQ+ affirming Christian, I don’t believe that affirming theology is the other danger any more than I think anti-slavery is. So what is the “other side”?
Even if one holds to the belief that is ultimately right, both “sides” risk utilizing the fear-based impulse to demonize the other to reinforce our “rightness”. In other words, affirming Christian can (and do) fall prey to this same problem. Brené Brown demonstrated this dynamic when she cited these convictions regarding dehumanizing the other:
1. When the president of the United States calls immigrants animals or talks about grabbing pussy, we should get chills down our spine and resistance flowing through our veins. When people call the president of the United States a pig, we should reject that language regardless of our politics and demand discourse that doesn’t make people subhuman.
2. If you are offended or hurt when you hear Hillary Clinton or Maxine Waters called bitch, whore, or the c-word, you should be equally offended and hurt when you hear those same words used to describe Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, or Theresa May.
3. If you’re offended by a meme of Trump Photoshopped to look like Hitler, then you shouldn’t have Obama Photoshopped to look like the Joker on your Facebook feed.
4. When we hear people referred to as animals or aliens, we should immediately wonder, “Is this an attempt to reduce someone’s humanity so we can get away with hurting them or denying them basic human rights?”
The mistake we all too often make is to think that we are in a battle between right and wrong, good and evil. While there are dynamics that reflect this at work, it is false precisely because it suggests that the two powers are equal opposites at odds with one another. That kind of dualism keeps us locked into using the same “weapons” to defeat the enemy regardless of which “side” we are on. However, in Jesus, we must remember that the “weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world” (2. Cor. 10:4). As Beck says, “To follow Jesus, therefore, is to undergo a training that refuses to let death, even death at the hands of enemies, determine the shape of our living.” And the shape of that living is defined by self-sacrificial love.
To be clear, this is not that we cannot or should not take positions for what we believe is right nor against that which we see as wrong. However, when we frame that engagement as a zero-sum game of either being all in or all out, we betray the way of Jesus. Richard Rohr expresses it like this:
“The creating of false alternatives to force a person into an either-or choice, which can occur even with well-intentioned people, is even more characteristic of hostile or insincere opponents, as we see the enemies of Jesus exemplify. “Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Polarity thinking avoids all subtlety and discrimination and creates false dichotomies. If you fight dualistic thinkers directly, you are forced to become dualistic yourself. This is why, classically, Jesus sidesteps the two alternatives by telling a story, keeping silent, or sometimes presenting a third alternative that utterly reframes the false dilemma.”
Jesus always takes the path of love. Of course, when we hear that we often miss the gravity of this truth because we are overly familiar with such language. We forget how radical and offensive Jesus’ first teaching on love in the Gospel texts is: love your enemy. That is the bar for love, the starting point. When writing on that text (Matt. 5) for my book “The Cost of Community”, I said this:
What does it mean to love? Jesus is very clear about this, saving us from the risk of thinking that love is only some sentiment we must feel for those who call us enemy or from the rationalization whereby we perpetuate violence for their “ultimate greater good” in the name of love. Rather, he shows us again that out of pure hearts flows an active love that touches every aspect of our lives. Standing before our enemies, having relinquished our right to fight back in kind or even defend ourselves, we are called to demonstrate our love for our persecutors by praying for them. Consider the implications of that. True love means that we will stand between them and the judgment of God, which they fully deserve, and plead with God in their defense. We are to be for our enemies—the very people who least deserve or desire our love—what Christ is for us, who are even more undeserving of his love. What a magnificent, terrible and beautiful image of love! Imagine a world in which Christians truly lived this way, not only in the face of the threat of death, but in every moment in every relationship. If this is the love we must have for our enemies, what could surpass it? This is the love we are to have for everyone, just as it is the love that Christ so freely gives to all.
Love. It is toward this end that Jesus has been leading us all along. It is at the heart of his intentions from the dawn of creation and guides us to his final work. Love. Far from mere affection or attraction or loyalty, it is the inconceivable grace in which we are unable and unwilling to distinguish between sister and executioner. Love. It is the offensive grace in which we would extend the hope of forgiveness to both the child and the molester” Love. It is the unparalleled grace in which we find our- selves willing to give even our very lives for others with only a hope, but no promise, that they will repent. Love. It is the cross of Christ. It is Christ”.
When Little Flowers came to verse 48, we were all quite uncomfortable: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” However, we discovered the word perfect was better translated “complete,” “whole” or even “undivided.” We are all too aware that we are incomplete, broken and divided. We realized that we are made whole in love, for God’s love is absolute and undivided. Beyond the romanticism of loving one another in that shallow, back-patting way, loving each other has not been easy. In my role as a pastor to the community, I have all too often been impatient, unkind, arrogant, selfish and lazy. Yet, without ignoring or diminishing my failing, my community has loved me any- way, correcting me when I need it and forgiving me when I don’t deserve it. Between us, we’ve probably had as many conflicts as celebrations, but just as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17), it is precisely in facing those challenges with love that we become more and more like Christ each day.
The path between Scylla and Charybdis is not about balance or “agreeing to disagree”. Rather, it is about resisting the impulse to give into easy binaries and law-based “faithfulness” and embracing the disruptive, offensive, and radical invitation of love.
The question, then, is this: What does such a love look like?
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