Throwing stones and having them thrown at you too … giving pelters and taking them too … that’s not either/or, but both/and. (For those not familiar with the Scots language, a pelter is something thrown at you, hard and painful).
Before I launch into discussing the Bible (which I will), let me make this clear. This is how I’m reading and what I think I’m reading. I think the Bible is a human document, full of errors, prejudices, tedious passages and legalistic attitudes. I think it’s a product of the cultures which it was written in; it’s frequently outdated, offensive and downright weird.
It’s also a book of stories of such astonishing wisdom and (I hate the word but there isn’t a better one) spiritual truth. So much so that that my verdict is that my Gxd seems to make a habit of speaking to me there. S/he seems to speak more clearly there (and more profoundly), than in any other literature or poetry. I don’t need to buy into the misogyny, homophobia, racism, imperialism, legalism and the impossible reversal of them all in Jesus’ ideal kingdom of heaven. All I do is read these stories and imagine what might be happening in them. I try to dig underneath the layers of pious/sentimental/legalistic readings we’ve probably all been exposed to. And there’s absolutely amazing stuff in there, if you look.
On that basis, the liturgical reading in my church today was a truly bizarre one. An old pastor from my childhood used to stop sometimes halfway through a sermon and say “you’re allowed to laugh, you know!” And this story makes me laugh – and see the truth, as all good humour does, by telling it slant.
Here’s the story. King David of Israel is riding through town with his retinue; think President Trump with the security detail , the Beast (the car, I mean …), the whole motorcade. Suddenly, a man called Shimei starts pelting the motorcade with stones, shouting at David and calling him a murderer. What happens next? Shoot to kill? That’s what David’s aides assume, but he tells them an astonishing thing: leave him alone – maybe God even told the guy to curse him.
The truth is, Shimei is right. Shimei is a relative of Saul’s, and David has, in fact, murdered Saul. I feel like Shimei. I want to throw stones and scream and curse at the so-called leaders who kill in my name; I didn’t back that war with Iraq, or the next one with Iran, or whatever, and on and on. I don’t want children barrel bombed in my name, because I know enough to know that every wounded child or bereaved mother and father is my sister or brother. David, you murderer. You killed my brother.
But here’s the thing. I also feel like David. “Maybe Shimei’s right; maybe he’s speaking God’s truth.” Because after all, he’s telling the truth; I am a murderer.
What? No I’m not! But I wonder. Last night I was completely scunnered (another Scots word, roughly meaning frustrated and p**sed off) because the speakers on my phone weren’t good enough to join a video call, and my headphones have snapped. Then suddenly, after I gave up on the call, I remembered how a child labourer worked in a mine, to dig out the cobalt for my phone’s battery. It’s not unlikely that, indirectly, by buying that phone I’m a child killer. You’re right, Shimei; you’re telling God’s truth. I probably am a murderer, one way or another.
Is that crazy and what can I do anyway? Sometimes I want to be a hermit in a cave and escape Civilisation completely – but I’m not brave enough or selfless enough. The activist and journalist Roberto Saviano says we are all complicit. So I’m David too.
Extinction Rebellion activists have an interesting take on this. They don’t blame and shame individuals (however tempting) but campaign against the toxic system which ensnares us all. So they seem to be taking a constructive way forward, which doesn’t throw any stones or condone violence at all (damage to property, possibly, but strictly not violence to humans and other animals).
To summarise Jesus, the most famous Biblical character of all, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones; and not to let ourselves off the hook and be inactive for change, but we shouldn’t even throw them at ourselves. Maybe use them instead – and not to build walls, but to build houses, schools and hospitals.
