Sun, Sep 02, 2018
But the Bible says...
Mark 7:1-23 by Craig de Vos
Series: Sermons

A report from a parliamentary committee in Western Australia has been tabled...

which recommends the introduction of laws permitting voluntary euthanasia and assisted dying.

In drafting its report the committee investigated how such laws operated overseas--

and found no evidence of a so-called "slippery slope";

nor any evidence that vulnerable groups were placed at greater risk;

nor that it led to a significant increase in people taking their own lives.

According to the committee's chair:

"Those who fundamentally oppose the introduction of voluntary assisted dying lack rigorous evidence to back up their claims".

But that didn't stop them from trying.

The committee received about seven hundred submissions...

with some fifty six percent opposed.

Without looking at those submissions...

and their overt claims and accusations...

I can almost guarantee that...

universally... 

behind their opposition lies strongly held religious convictions.

After all, the churches, on the whole, have been strident in their opposition.

Some suggest that it's wrong because "all human life is sacred"--

which, logically-speaking, is a non sequitur.

Some suggest that it's wrong because life is a "gift from God"--

also a non sequitur.

But, perhaps the clearest opposition statement comes from the Lutheran Church...

which claims to reject "euthanasia in all its forms, because such killing is contrary to the word and law of God".

Unfortunately, when we turn to the Bible...

nowhere do we find a condemnation of or a prohibition on the taking of one's own life.

In fact, in Biblical stories there are at least six characters who take their own life... 

but none are criticised...

and...

in the case of King Saul... 

quite the opposite.

In seeking to find Biblical support, then, opponents usually turn to the Ten Commandments...

and to the sixth prohibition-- 

often rendered into English as "You shall not kill".

However, the verb in the original Hebrew usually means to kill someone out of hatred, malice, or anger.

So, the commandment would be better translated as "You shall not commit murder or manslaughter".

As such, it is not relevant for a discussion of voluntary euthanasia.

Beyond that, opponents rely on Biblical notions of God's sovereignty over creation--

so that, to kill one's self is to usurp a privilege that only belongs to God...

because God alone chooses the hour of our death.

Of course, such a conception of God made sense in more primitive times--

in the world of the Bible...

a world that lacked a sense of impersonal causality--

but it isn't one that, surely, we can subscribe to today.

 

But, in a way...

the religious arguments against voluntary euthanasia are a good example...

of the way that the Bible has been used and misused through the ages.

On so many significant issues the Church has gone to the Bible...

only to pluck out some isolated verses, which-- 

on a superficial, surface reading--

seemed to support what they wanted it to say...

and then used it to declare, "But the Bible says...".

Throughout history, that's been the basis of so much of the Church's ethical thinking.

Without considering the cultural, historical, and literary context of the Bible...

the Church has plucked out bits and used them to condemn certain practices--

or even declare them illegal--

and to legitimise ones that are abhorrent.

We saw it in the Church's attitude to people who committed suicide--

which included not allowing them to be buried in church grounds.

It happened with slavery.

It happened with divorce.

It happened with pre-marital sex.

It happened with inter-racial marriage.

It happened with colonialism.

And we continue to see it in the horrific persecution of-- 

and discrimination against-- 

gay, lesbian, and transgender people.

Far too often the construction of Christian ethics has involved a cherry-picking of verses from the Bible...

ignoring their cultural, historical, and literary context...

and imposing our own socially, culturally, and theologically constructed biases.

 

The irony, of course... 

is that's exactly the sort of thing that Jesus is critiquing in this morning's reading from Mark.

In this story, the Pharisees criticised Jesus' followers--

and, by implication, Jesus--

because they didn't abide by their definition of purity...

based upon their interpretation of the Bible.

In response, the author of Mark's Gospel has Jesus cite Isaiah at them:

"This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines".

We can't simply take a piece of scripture...

strip it of cultural, historical, and literary context...

proclaim that we're following the "plain meaning"...

and turn it into some universal moral precept;

any more than we can take a piece of scripture...

impose our own biases and prejudices onto it...

and claim some universal moral precept.

In this quote from Isaiah...

and in the redefinition of their society's notion of purity--

that purity is not something external but internal...

that evil comes not from without but from within--

we begin to encounter a very different approach to ethical thinking.

In effect, what this story suggests is that morality is not something external...

and it can never be about following a set of rules--

certainly not a set of anachronistic...

restrictive...

biased...

and politically motivated rules.

As the situational ethicists remind us...

morality is, in the end, something internal.

It's something that flows from the will and from the heart.

Morality, at its core, is about love.

Rather than obeying some set of rules--

which will, inevitably...

reflect historical, cultural, religious or political biases in varying degrees...

and which can actually result in negative or harmful consequences--

acting morally is about seeking to do what is most loving.

That forces us--

at all times and in all situations--

to discern loving ways and means, and loving consequences.

The end can never justify the means...

but, as Martin Luther King JR reminds us, the reverse is just as true:

"It is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends".

Instead, as this reading suggests...

what is good or evil--

what is moral or immoral--

is something internal not external.

It's not about advocating, defending, or enforcing rules or precepts.

It's more basic, more fundamental.

It's about how we reflect the nature of God in all that we do and say.

It's about how we love...

and how we make love known.

In the end, morality is as simple, and as difficult, as that.