Adult Bible Study January 13, 2008

Lesson Text: Luke 6:27-36
By George Epp
E-mail: g.epp@sasktel.net

In November 2007, a British woman, Gillian Gibbons, a teacher in a private school in Khartoum, was arrested by Sudanese police and charged with insulting Islam by allowing her students to name a teddy bear “Muhammad.” Demonstrators in the streets called for her execution, and some waved machetes, but a judge sentenced her to 15 days in prison. Muslim members of the British House of Lords went to Khartoum and pleaded with the country’s president, who pardoned Gibbons and released her. She made it home for the Advent season.

Our pictures of God are reflected in our behaviour. Like our Bible, the Qur’an sometimes leaves its readers with the impression that God is a mighty, jealous God who exacts severe judgment on any who would dishonour his name. Laws against insulting his prophet seem right to people who see God that way.

On the Judeo-Christian side, such a view of God can cause us to support military options in settling disputes and warding off danger from, ironically, some Muslims whose view of God as warlike may be quite similar to our own.

Jesus’ teachings about God’s nature don’t support such views. Love your enemies, even lend to them without expecting recompense, Jesus says, and in so doing you will come to appreciate what your heavenly father is really like. Rather than striking back, know that turning the other cheek is more Godlike than plotting vengeance, Jesus says. Be merciful, just as your father is merciful (my paraphrases).

Can we expect world affairs to follow Christ’s example anytime soon? Can we imagine that American and Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan might lay down their arms and begin talking peace with the “enemy” who is hauling food into the mountains for the Taliban? Can we see our president and prime minister sitting down to dinner with the president of Iran and offering development assistance so his people may prosper? Can we imagine a dialogue about the nature of God with the religious zealots of Khartoum?

Absurd. And yet, it almost seems as if the gospel is calling us to witness actively to a God whose wish is that “they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks (Isaiah 2:4 TNIV).”