The Good Book

For some reason, about two months ago, I started getting Newsweek in the mail. The thing was, I couldn’t remember ever signing up for it. Maybe I did. Maybe it’s a offer from a store or credit card. I did ask my mom if she signed me up, since my parents have received and read Newsweek for as long as I can remember. But she said she hadn’t and I stopped worrying about it. Since then, I’ve kind of paged through a few issues, but never really sat down and read many articles. Mostly, because they were all about politics and the economy. And I am not politic-minded and not smart enough to understand economics. Seriously, that was the closest I ever came to flunking in college. And it was a special econ class for journalism majors. Sad.

Anyway, last night, I opened up the magazine as I was preparing some after dinner coffee and read a few of the front of book departments (sorry, I’m dropping journalism jargon like CRAZY!) In Newsweek, one of those departments is “Belief Watch.” Having formerly wanted to be a secular religion reporter, I started reading. It was interesting, to say the least.

The story was about The Good Book, a book written by David Plotz, the editor of Slate. Plotz is apparently a non-practicing, unobservant Jew. But in 2006 he went to a niece’s bat mitzvah and came across the story of Dinah (Genesis 34, I think) . It’s a particularly disturbing story in Scripture in which Dinah is raped, forced to marry the rapist, her brothers then avenge her honor and kill most of the males in town. Plotz had never even heard the story and decided it was time he read the Hebrew Bible through. So , he did and blogged about it as he went,. All those posts were compiled into his book, The Good Book.

The writer of the article says, “Plotz is a naif wandering in a strange land full of eccentric people and incomprehensible rules. ” Some of what he writes in the book are the lessons he’s culled from Scripture. That women are heartless and deceptive, based on Delilah’s actions. And men are too stupid and sex-crazed to notice or care, based on Samson’s actions. at some point in the article, the writer talks to a rabbi, who says, “There’s humor in the Bible. It’s part of life. That’s why there’s sex in the Bible. There wouldn’t be life without it. There’s bad parenting and dirty politics—and faith.”

At this point, standing there in my kitchen, I started talking out loud to the article. “But that’s what makes it relevant. That’s what makes it speak truth.” Because the Bible over and over tells the story again and again of messed up people doing messed up things and being redeemed by a God who cares too much to leave them mired in the mess.

It’s here that I had to remind myself that these people were only reading what I know as the Old Testament. And the OT is a testament of God’s love, protection, and calling of a people. It’s God’s story of redemption played out again and again among sinners and outcasts and people who make the same mistakes I do. But it’s not the whole story. There’s the hope in Jesus Christ that is missing.

The story of Dinah is unforgivable. I don’t get it. I don’t know why it’s included. I don’t know why Dinah doesn’t have a speaking part in the whole saga of her life. I don’t know. I don’t get it. But I say those words to God often. I don’t get it, God. What am I supposed to learn from this. And the longer I walk on this journey of faith, I’m amazed at the less I “get.” And the fact that I’m sort of OK with that. Because I don’t have to understand everything. I don’t have to wrap my mind around every facet of God’s character because first of all, I can’t, and second of all, I couldn’t handle it if I could wrap my brain around it.

I think that’s why Scripture is so powerful. It’s a bunch of people who didn’t get it, who messed up, who did and said stupid things and got angry, frustrated, worried, and fearful—in the OT and NT. And God never gave up on them . He never got tired.of the whining, mistakes, and stupidity. Instead, He repeatedly instructed us to give it all to Him, to let Him carry our burdens, guide our steps, and plot a future for us that will profit not harm. He never gave up on them.

It’s how I know He’ll never give up on me.