It’s complicated. It’s messy.
Recently I listened to the entire Bible, yes all 74 hours, over the course of about 3 weeks. In the past, I would read the Bible in smaller chunks. Sometimes I would complete a reading of the Bible in a year. Sometimes it would take me multiple years. Reading the Bible the way I recently did was different for me than my past readings. I noticed things I’d missed in the past, recognized patterns woven through the text, and was reminded that the people and events written about in the Bible are complicated and messy.
Over the decades that I have been reading the Bible, I’ve come to appreciate that the Bible shows people as complicated beings. It doesn’t airbrush their flaws. It doesn’t cover up their sins. It shows that men and women of faith also said and did some terrible things. It also shows that some bad characters did good things. It would be much easier if the Bible had painted the good characters/events as always being good, and the bad characters/events as always being bad. Such binary would have been more compatible with how many of the people I grew up with viewed their religion, and people/events in general.
In the Bible we read Abram/Abraham’s faith as God asks him to pack up and leave his homeland for an unknown land. But we also see Abraham lying about his wife to try and safe his own life. We read about Moses’ faith in leading the children of Israel, but we also read about his anger and murdering of an Egyptian. David is said to have had great faith, yet he was a lousy father and murderer to boot. Simon Peter swings from moments of great faith to seeking political power, drawing praise and ire from Jesus respectfully.
If the Bible doesn’t scrub the undesirable parts of its characters, we shouldn’t either. It’s ok to feel conflicted regarding the legacy someone leaves behind. David did some pretty nasty things. And yet both Samuel and David say that David was a “man after God’s own heart.” I don’t feel comfortable absolving David for all of his sins. And thankfully, I don’t have to. The Bible acknowledges the tension between the man of faith and the sinner, and I think it's OK if we do as well. After all, it’s complicated. It’s messy.
Multiple public figures have died in recent months that were well known in the circles I’ve spent time in over my 47 years. Many of them were mixed bags. Some spoke fervently about Jesus, and in those regards I usually was in agreement. But there were other beliefs put forth by these individuals that were at odds with my understanding of the Bible. Some of their beliefs, I believe, are in opposition to the teachings of Jesus. So, how should I respond? One of these figures I called out many years ago, saying that even correct doctrine without love is to be in error. I received harsh criticism from someone close to me, saying that calling out such a person shows a “lack of respect” for those that came before me. I have no desire to disrespect others. However, I’m also not comfortable scrubbing the negative aspects of such people just to appease their followers. As a follower of Jesus, “The way, the truth and the light”, I believe that truth—the whole truth—is important.
I have said and done a lot of things I am not proud of in my 47 years on this earth. When I become aware that I’ve gone too far, or said something hurtful, I try to respond in a way that is consistent with my stated ethics. I’m sure I fail and fail often. I’m sure there are many circumstances where I am not even aware I was wrong. After all, life is complicated. Life is messy. Yet, I don’t want to throw my hands up and say, “oh well.” I hope to live by the philosophy that people do not scrub the bad I did, just to not speak anything negative about the dead. If I want people to speak kindly of me in death, I need to live a life that reflects that. If I want people to remember only the good, I need to work hard to correct my mistakes before my life is over. But I realize that both the good and bad I’ve done are part of my story. After all I’m complicated. I’m messy.
