1. Women pastors/preachers? What does the Bible say about women in ministry?
2. What does the Bible say about homosexuality? Is it a sin?
3. What does the Bible say about tattoos/body piercings?
4. Once saved always saved? / Is eternal security biblical? / Can a Christian lose salvation?
5. Masturbation—is it a sin according to the Bible?

6. What does the Bible say about interracial marriage?
7. Who was Cain’s wife?
8. What is the Christian view of suicide? What does the Bible say about suicide? What about a believer who commits suicide?
9. Do pets/animals go to Heaven? Do pets/animals have souls?
10. What happens after death?
11. What does the Bible say about Christian tithing? Should a Christian tithe?
12. What is the gift of speaking in tongues? Is it for today? What about praying in tongues?
13. What does the Bible say about dinosaurs? Are there dinosaurs in the Bible?
14. What is the importance of Christian baptism?
15. What does the Bible say about drinking alcohol? Is it a sin for a Christian to drink alcohol?
16. What does the Bible say about gambling? Is gambling a sin?
17. What does the Bible teach about the Trinity?
18. What does the Bible say about sex before marriage?
19. Where was Jesus for the three days between His death and resurrection?
20. What does the Bible say about divorce and remarriage?

Image courtesy Wordle

What fascinates me is that not a single one of the 20 most frequently asked questions has anything to do with meaning. All of these questions have to do with doctrine—what does Christianity teach? What are the rules? What am I supposed to do? There is not one question that asks, “What is the meaning of life?” or even “How do we reconcile God’s omnipotence with the presence of evil in the world?”

Perhaps it was just a function of the ranking of the questions and the deeper, more existential questions would be revealed by looking further into the site. But not even that yielded any questions on meaning. Rather, the questions being asked were more of the same, and frequently about topics even more arcane and particular: What does the Bible say about voyeurism? What is Binitarianism? What does the Holy Spirit do? What does the Bible say about false accusations? How big is heaven? Who was Zacchaeus in the Bible? Why does it matter that Jesus rose from the dead? If God hates abortion, why does He allow miscarriages? Why do men have nipples? What is a levirate marriage? What is listening prayer? What is a cowboy church? Should a Christian pay into Social Security and/or accept Social Security payments? What is the Peshitta?

Again, the most striking thing about these questions is how few of these questions—if any—are related to meaning and purpose. The one that comes closest is “Why does it matter that Jesus rose from the dead?,” which is at least a question of eschatology, that part of theology concerned with the end times and the ultimate purposes of God. But that question is outnumbered by questions like “Why do men have nipples?” and “What is a séance?” So many of these questions seek to have answers to so many particulars, to make sure to get all the details right. And the website is certainly prepared to give the right answer to answer your question definitively.

II. THE TEXT

This wanting to figure things out perfectly is not new. There is something of this in the text from Micah we heard read earlier.

Now, this passage from Micah follows a particular form of text in Hebrew literature called the ריב riv which means a “dispute” or, more fittingly, a “lawsuit.” The riv format is often used by prophets to demonstrate God’s displeasure with Israel. And so the text begins:

Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.

In other words: “Oye! Oye! All rise. The Court of the Mountains and Hills is now in session. Comes now the case of Yahweh v. Israel.

“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”

Here the plaintiff makes his case for breach of contract. Under the Sinai covenant, Israel and Yhwh have an arrangement; God will provide steadfast love or covenant fidelity (חסד hesed in Hebrew) and Israel will provide justice and righteousness. Together this performs the contract and makes for shalom. God declares that the divine end of the contract has been upheld. God has been faithful: delivered Israel from Egypt, and sent them prophets Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to guide them. God foiled the plans of Balaam, and led them through the Jordan into the land. Why hasn’t the defendant performed their side of the contract?

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

The defendant responds: How much worship, exactly, are we supposed to do, God? How many burnt offerings, how many calves, rams? How much oil? Should we sacrifice our children to you? Will that make you happy?

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

God responds: the deal is the same: do justice, love mercy—actually that word hesed—and walk humbly with God. It’s simple.

III. MAKING THINGS MORE COMPLICATED

Now, I will be the first to acknowledge that religion is anything but simple. Just in Christian tradition, we’ve had nearly two thousand years of building it up into an immensely complicated endeavor. Where once Christianity consisted primarily of a simple proclamation (called the kerygma by theologians): Christ came as God’s anointed one, healed the sick, cast out demons, taught his disciples how to live, was crucified, died, buried, and raised on the third day, demonstrating that God’s kingdom was indeed at hand and that God was reconciled to humanity. That was it. Nice and simple.

And then a few decades later you get some musings by Paul about the nature of Christ’s saving death. And you get theologies of atonement. And then in the next couple of centuries you get Christological doctrine seeking to define the nature of Christ (“begotten not made; of one substance with the Father”), followed by the development of a Trinitarian theology to explain how the Father, Son, and Spirit are related to one another the doctrine of the hypostatic union of the persons of the Trinity is articulated. And then a century or so later some more reflection on how the human and divine natures co-exist in one individual (“one person in two natures”). And of course, over the ensuing centuries, canon law and church doctrine become codified through the developments of the medieval church. Elaborate hierarchies are established that become enmeshed with the prevailing feudal hierarchies of Europe, a state of affairs that leads to corruption and then the abuse of the church’s offices that leads to the Protestant Reformation, the development of even more doctrines: sola fide—justification by grace through faith alone, sola scriptura—the sufficiency of scripture for salvation and instruction, the “two times” of the world, and so on. And then Calvin describes the ways in which we come to knowledge of God (and the ways in which we are predestined to salvation). And then Wesley comes on the scene to describe the operation of God’s grace as prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying and the journey of the Christian to move on toward perfection in love. And then in his particular branch of religion we establish Annual Conferences, and General Conferences, and bishops, and systems of itineracy, and general boards and agencies, and so on and so on.

Religious is complicated. I won’t deny it.

But I wonder if that’s because God wants it to be or because we keep making it that way. God says: do justice and righteousness and Israel gets bogged down in how to properly perform sacrifices.

It is not the Jewish or the Christian traditions alone that grapple with this problem. This is a problem across religious lines. There’s an interesting story in the Qur’an that describes this problem well:

And remember Moses said to his people: “God commands that ye sacrifice a heifer.” They said:  “Makest thou a laughing-stock of us?” He said: “God save me from being an ignorant (fool)!” They said: “Beseech on our behalf Thy Lord to make plain to us what (heifer) it is!” He said; “He says: The heifer should be neither too old nor too young, but of middling age. Now do what ye are commanded!” They said: “Beseech on our behalf Thy Lord to make plain to us Her colour.” He said: “He says: A fawn-coloured heifer, pure and rich in tone, the admiration of beholders!” They said: “Beseech on our behalf Thy Lord to make plain to us what she is: To us are all heifers alike: We wish indeed for guidance, if God wills.” He said: “He says: A heifer not trained to till the soil or water the fields; sound and without blemish.” They said: “Now hast thou brought the truth.” Then they offered her in sacrifice, but not with good-will. (Qur’an 2:67–71)

Here, the people take what is a simple injunction—sacrifice a cow—and either through delay tactics or faithlessness assume that the requirements must be more complicated. If they had just done what Moses had asked at first, they could have been done with it. But perhaps part of them just couldn’t believe it could be that simple.

It’s not unlike the story of Naaman the Aramean king with a skin disease who comes to the land of Israel to find a cure by the prophet Elisha. When Elisha instructs the king to dip in the Jordan seven times, the king balks—aren’t the waters of Aram better than in Israel?

“But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.” (2 Kings 5:13–14 NRSV)

IV. SIMPLICITY

Why do we do this? Why do we seek to make more complicated what is simple? Why do we look at a simple requirement to do justice and righteousness and turn that into all manner of ritual obligation and theological doctrine? Why do we turn the request to sacrifice a cow into a sacrificing a cow of middling age, fawn-colored, that is not a beast of burden and that has no blemish?

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a student years ago. While walking home from work I ran into a couple of students I knew and we were catching up. One of them was struggling with his ex-girlfriend who was, having trouble letting go of the relationship. She told this young man that she wanted to continue the relationship because she was just trying to do “God’s will.” Talk about relationship pressure.

But his response was instructive: “God’s will? We know God’s will: ‘do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.’ It’s simple!”

And he was right. It’s simple. But that doesn’t make it easy.

I think back on the questions that were asked on that website. The questions there were not the time-honored practice of “religious questioning” so much as “getting all the answers.” It was not wrestling with the questions, it was simply seeking concrete information. There was no ambiguity or mystery sought; only resolution.

Perhaps there is a reason why the questions answered here are not of the grander, existential kind. Unlike the answer to the question What is the Peshitta? (answer: it’s the Syrian Aramaic translation of the scriptures), the answer to Why did my loved one die so young? does not have a definite answer. Nor does a question like What is the purpose of my life? Those questions have far more indeterminate answers and resist simple solutions.

In authentic faith, the answers are simpler but the doing of them is harder.

What does God want of us? Do justice, love faithfulness, walk humbly with God. Simple. But how does one do justice? What does it mean to love faithfulness? What does it mean to walk humbly with God?

And even when we figure out what it means doing it is really hard. Living a life of justice is not easy. It demands a lot of us. Choosing and practicing the kind of covenant loyalty that God exercises with us is really hard. And walking—which is a Hebrew way of saying “living”—humbly with God is really hard.

Sermon on the mount windows at Herzogenbuchsee Reformed church near Berne. Picture by Eugène Burnand 1910, glass by Emil Gerster of Basel 1911