Reading the Bible Christologically

For those who follow the Daily Office lectionary of the Episcopal Church, you know we are now reading from Judges as the selection from the Old Testament. Much of the time we find ourselves rather taken aback with the bloodlust that seems to be endemic to such texts. One of the hermeneutical tacks that is taken to retrieve these stories as scripture is to receive them as metaphors for the life of faith. Thus Jael is less an instruction to drive tent stakes through the oppressor's head, and more a metaphor for bold women fighting injustice.

A good case in point is the story of Gideon when the LORD commands him into battle with only three hundred men against a much larger foe. The lesson, of course, quite explicitly stated is that the people know that it is the LORD who gives the victory and not their own power.

Certainly as a metaphor for Christian existence today this is a powerful image. We see the ebbing tide of faith in the West and we are encouraged that the faithful remnant can through God’s grace prevail in a secularist culture. Yes, my congregation is relatively small, I might say, but I should not see us as a small and powerless band in a rear-guard action in society, but as Gideon’s band of 300 (Peregrinator’s band of 185 ASA?).

But there is a problem here with this metaphorical application of scripture.

As I read the passage about Gideon and the 300 the other day what passed through my mind was not the story as a metaphor for the plucky 185 at St. Swithin’s. Instead I was wondering how Louie Crew and Bob Duncan were reading the text. Each could read it as a metaphor for their respective movements: and lesbian and gay advocacy group Integrity, or a group formed to combat Integrity’s agenda, the Network. Each has begun as a small group against a larger foe. Integrity has prevailed thus far in the Episcopal Church. The Network may prevail in time, if not in the Episcopal Church, then in the Anglican Communion. Both might claim, with Gideon, that this is a sign that the victory belongs to God, and not themselves, even though they pursue contradictory ends.

(Please note that I have no idea if either of them has read the story in this way. Probably not. The only thing of which I am relatively certain in this regard is that they have probably both been more faithful in saying the Office than I.)

My point is that such a common metaphorical application of scriptural texts is fraught with problems, not least of which is a sort of self-aggrandizement in which the subject of the Bible becomes me. Scripture becomes the breeding ground of hubris. And conversely, the other becomes the enemy in the text, whether Integrity or the Network. (And note here, I am not intending to rehash the continuing problems in the Episcopal Church, because if I do Kyle has promised to poke me with a stick.)

None of this is to say that the scriptures, here specifically texts from the Old Testament, do not have an application to our lives. It will not do to say that the story of Gideon is merely an ancient story of the conquest of Canaan. Such stories do function as metaphors, but not as unmediated metaphors. To appropriate the text as metaphor Christ must mediate the story to us. It functions metaphorically to us because it first pertains to first to Jesus.

Now, by this I do not want to suggest a crude eisegetical apologetics that I commonly read in high school, wherein the Old Testament served simply as direct prophecy of Jesus. Here I am thinking more of a patristic turn toward Irenaeus and his doctrine of recapitulation. In Christ the history of Israel is brought to a climax. He is faithful Israel, embodying the Covenant anew in his life, death, and resurrection. Thus, Jesus is the new Gideon, going into battle with sin and death on the cross armed only with his trust in God. (And the 300 are reduced to a true “army of one.”)

Now we can begin to appropriate Gideon as a metaphor for our lives. But we do so at the foot of the cross. And our approach is as the disciples, waffling between faith and faithlessness, at once a loyal follower, then betraying, denying, and fleeing. We read texts in relation and encounter with the crucified and risen Jesus.

And thus, with Bonhoeffer, we are forced to read biblical texts as against us before they are for us. The crucified one is Gideon. We may be the 300. But only first after we realize that we are the enemy, or the men of Israel who were not among the 300 (and indeed were later the grumblers). Through such a Christological hermeneutic our hubris is confronted and we cease being the primary referent of biblical metaphors.

Further, Christ redefines the metaphor of Gideon as an image not of antipathy and bloodshed, but cross-bearing and kenotic servanthood. We may see ourselves reflected in the image of Gideon, but only after we have been crucified with Christ and bear his marks in the world.

Of course, if we read the text in this way, it does not mean that Integrity and the Network will suddenly come to an agreement on the issues that vex the Episcopal Church and also much of Euro-American Christianity. But such a reading will help us to approach texts humbly, and, in doing so, find the transforming power of God within them.