Thursday of the Second Week of Easter
We humans have a tendency to think in binaries. Man and woman. Good and bad. Black and white. We tend toward them because they make what is a very complicated world simple. And that gives us a sense of power over a puzzling and complicated world. But these binaries can be very dangerous. Just think Hitler. Aryan and everyone else. Next thing you know, you have death camps.
Our readings for today traffic in binaries. There are those who preach the gospel. And there are those who try to imprison the gospel. There are those who obey God and those who obey men. There are those who hear the cry of the poor. And there are those who ignore them. There are those who are of the earth. And there is the one who comes from above.
Trafficking in such binaries continues. Our culture puts binaries before us all the time. Coke or Pepsi? Chiefs or Buccaneers? “Trending” or “so six months ago.”
In a work that I think has been underestimated or misunderstood, Saint Augustine wrestles with the really hard question of how we humans are to have any confidence in our interpretation of scripture. And that is a really good question! In On Christian Doctrine he takes very seriously the problem that while we have a sacred text before us we are but humans trying to figure out what it means.
His answer is simple and, perhaps, about a binary. He says that if you are reading the scripture and you think it means something other than love, then you must know that you are reading it wrong. Scripture, no matter what it seems to be saying, cannot be about anything but love.
That’s a simple binary, to be sure. A right reading of scripture tells us to love. A wrong reading of scripture tells us to do something else. And that is a binary I can love as it disrupts every other binary.
- Susan Trollinger
Love. Jesus calls us to it. He says it is the commandment. If I want to know whether I am on the “right” side of things I only need answer a simple question: Do I love my neighbor (even my enemy neighbor) as myself?