Every year, when another calendar year begins to wind down
in November, we begin to hear readings about “the end of the world” at our
weekend Masses ending with the Feast of Christ the King. The very next Sunday
after that, we start all over again looking forward to the coming birth of
Jesus.
This is also that time of year when fundamentalist
Christians come out of the woodwork searching the Scriptures, on their own,
looking for clues as to the coming “doom and gloom” as a way to scare people
into “shaping up before it’s too late.”
In spite of Jesus’ admonition that “no one knows” when and
how the end of the world will happen, these “fundamentalists” proceed with a conviction
of the validity of their own private and literal interpretations of these “end
times” texts and preach their conclusions with fervor and furor!
Just the other day, the man who came to my condo to conduct
the annual inspection of my furnace, saw an opening in the conversation to talk
about his interpretation of texts dealing with “the end times,” “the rapture”
and cited how “only 144,000 people will be saved.” He even told me that he had
translated the Bible into some native African language! He touted his trust in
his own ability to translate the Bible correctly from one language to another –
something even many learned Scripture scholars would find too hard to do! I
find these “private and literal interpreters of Scripture people” annoying, but
when they start announcing to the world that the Bible actually predicts, in
their rock-solid certain private interpretation, that one political candidate
was predicted to be a “savior of the world” while his opposing political
candidate is “the Anti-Christ,” I want to scream to high heavens!
Centuries ago, before the invention of the printing press and before the average person could read or write, there was often only one hand-copied Bible in a Cathedral Church, but no one but the educated could read it. So, “private interpretation” was not a big problem. Many of our pious devotions come from those days when illiteracy was common. (1) The 150 psalms were being sung by literate monks and read by literate clergy, while the illiterate laity were given the full Rosary, with its 150 beads. They could pray mostly repetitious memorized “Hail Marys” while reflecting quietly on the “mysteries” of Christ’s life from memory. (2) Instead of reading the Bible to children, illiterate parents would take their children to church and show them the Bible stories in the sculptures, paintings and stained-glass windows of their churches! Now you know why we have so many statues, paintings and stain glass windows in our churches!
With the invention of the printing press and its many
translations into the evolving national languages, private interpretation with
the spin-off of multiple new break-away churches, the Catholic Church resisted
the idea of Bible reading in general and the idea of competing private
interpretations as a way to stem heresies and the accompanying discord they
caused. Instead, they gave us a little book with its approved interpretations
of major Scripture texts and their meanings. That little book was what we knew
as the “Catechism.” When I attended our parish Catholic School, none of
us owned Bibles, we owned a small Baltimore Catechism that told us what the
Bible said and more importantly what its major passages meant! Even the
priest did not usually preach on the Sunday Bible Readings, but preached on one
of the themes in the Baltimore Catechism. One was not encouraged to “read the
Bible,” out of fear that “private interpretation” might lead to heresy. One was
given the “approved answers to Biblical research” in the Catechism. The message
to the faithful was “trust the Church,” but “don’t trust yourself” to
understand the Bible! History has proven that there was lot of truth in that!
Take the scary passage in today’s gospel. It talks about
“cosmic upheaval:” a darkened sun and moon, falling stars and the heavens being
shaken. There are at least three possibilities about the interpretation of that
passage. (1) It could be talking about the fall of Jerusalem and the
destruction of the temple which did come about in 70 AD! (2) It could be
talking about the passion and death of Jesus when “darkness came over the whole
land” that the Gospel of Mark describes, which did come about around 32 AD! (3)
It could be talking about some future “cosmic chaos” that would accompany some
unknown day or hour as a result of the arrival of the end of time. Private
interpretation could lead to at least three or more conflicting possibilities.
If I believe a passage means one thing and you believe a contradictory meaning,
one of us, or both of us, could be wrong!
“Private interpretation,” apart from the help of the
church’s teaching authority, can lead to some dangerous, if not strange,
conclusions. I know from experience. I kept a newspaper clipping about an
incident down in Russell County, Kentucky, when I was working in that area that
explains the danger of “private interpretation” of the Bible. A man read in the
Bible (Matthew 15:30) that “if your right hand is an occasion of sin to you,
cut it off and throw it away” so he took a chainsaw and cut off his right hand!
Is that passage to be taken literally or was Jesus using dramatic language of
the time about getting to the source of the sin? Committing sin, of course is a
decision of the mind apart from the hand itself! The cure is not in the hand,
but in the mind and heart where the decision to sin resides!
On the other hand, Jesus said at the Last Supper: “This is
my Body and this is my Blood!” Catholics take “is” literally,
while Protestants take it to mean, “this is only symbolic of
my Body and Blood!” Both can’t be right! Catholics have relied on history,
tradition and scholarship to inform us as to what it really means! “Private
interpretation” enthusiasts have relied on “private interpretation” as to its
“only symbolic” meaning!
There is an old saying that I think applies here. It says,
“You always find what you look for!” In
Scripture, you can find justification for both compassion and cruelty,
judgement and mercy! It depends on what you look for and why one interpretation
would be so important to you! Does it justify your already arrived at
conclusion or is it what the writer originally meant? The question then is why
would you apply such scary literalism to today’s Scripture passage and not
another passage that says: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the wonderful things God
has is store for those who love him.” and "God is love."? Is God a God of mercy and
compassion or a God of judgment and condemnation, a God of love or a God of
hate, a God of unity or a God of division? You can find both in Scripture, so
it can end up depending on what the looker is looking for and needs to believe
at the time!
Even today, now that most people are literate in this country, the Catholic Church encourages Bible reading with the guidance of its many good interpretation resources. It is important to remember that the Bible didn’t fall out of the sky nor did Jesus pass out Bibles as instruction books at the Ascension! The Bible is not one book, but a library of smaller books, written over 1,000 years by different people. The Bible as we know it took many years to assemble after the death of Jesus. Like a modern newspaper, which has facts, opinions, humor and advice, one who reads the Bible needs help interpreting which is which! To read it without the help and advice of biblical scholars is to invite all kinds of heresy and chaos into the church! In that case, it is probably better not to go it alone and run the risk of twisting the Word of God to make it mean whatever you want! Help is required and help is available!
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