Swallowing Camels

Matt. 23: 24You blind leaders! You strain out a small fly but swallow a camel.

I love this verse. In many translations it is stated, "You strain AT a gnat..." But it refers to an ancient practice of getting little bugs out of your drink - bugs that aren't kosher. The practice came from this verse in Leviticus 11:

20-23The only winged insects you may eat are locusts, grasshoppers, and crickets. All other winged insects that crawl are too disgusting for you to eat.

Jesus is, at least in part, referring to the religious tendency to be hyper-scrupulous while completely missing the point of faith. But I see more to this wonderful phrase than just that.

I think he's pointing out a human tendency here. We nit-pick and concentrate on the small stuff while completely missing what we really should be after. We think we're being wise when we're really being dumb.

Eating these small bugs was the same as eating camel: both were forbidden by Moses' law. In Leviticus 11: 4 - Nevertheless these shall you not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he chews the cud, but divides not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
So, in very simple terms, we can say, "You concentrate on small things while making a huge error."

I think the "blind guides" Jesus was talking to - the Pharisees who participated later in killing him - were glaring examples of this common fault frequent in all our thinking.

This is common, for instance, in politics, where pundits concentrate on pointing out some failure in an opponent - chipping away at their character or mistakes they made - while the pundit veers away from dealing with the information that actually needs to be dealt with. The Pharisees dealt with Jesus this way. They were looking to trip him up and degrade him in the eyes of his fans. Meanwhile, they swallowed the camel of missing the point that he was the Messiah they were looking for, and they wound up conspiring to have him killed.

Essentially, the point here is to use this verse as a reasoning tool to deal with how we process all information. For instance, science is built on studying minutia in order to reveal truth, but in the process can miss truth. It can dismiss that which it can't study as irrelevant, that is, for instance, the existence of God. Likewise, the Pharisees were focused on religion and missed the very reason they had a religion. They destroyed that which they were hoping for, and for the very reason that they were too concentrated on gnats. They couldn't see the forest for the trees.

They were so busy straining out gnats they failed to see they had swallowed the camel.

Hatred As Murder

Matt. 5: 21"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment (krisis, justice).'
22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother (adelphos, neighbor), 'Raca (spit, "idiot," heaping contempt on someone),' is answerable to the Sanhedrin (the court). But anyone who says, 'You fool! (immoral person)' will be in danger of the fire of hell (gehenna, full punishment, fires of ultimate justice).

To paraphrase: Of old, it was said murderers deserve justice. But if you are simply angry with someone else, you are no different. If you malign someone as an idiot or as stupid, you belong in court yourself. If you decide someone is in folly or immorality, you fail to see that you are in the same condition.

These verses come from the Sermon on the Mount. This entire "sermon" is really a set of teachings in which Jesus expands on the law of Moses and the ten commandments. He takes the behavioral aspect of the commandment and stretches it to motives - just the act of thinking about doing something wrong. So this teaching is like a sword piercing down to our motivations about why we do things. It exposes the deepest flaws in human character - the hidden, darkest areas of our human nature.

This teaching also really leaves nothing uncondemned. There is no human alive who can qualify after this examination. So we have to have something else to justify us before God. This exposes all human hypocrisy. We're all in this boat together, and Jesus came to visit.

We're all familiar with the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." It's primary religious education for all monotheists and, likely, all pantheists, too.

Apparently, the motive for killing is hate and anger. It starts there in these deepest recesses of the human psyche. At some time in our lives, we've probably all said to someone, "I wish you were dead," or "I hate you." Many of us harbor all kinds of prejudices. We despise people for a whole laundry list of reasons: skin color, cultural differences, education level, how much money they have, religious beliefs or lack thereof, political persuasions, and so on. All of this despising leads ultimately to all kinds of conflicts. This is evil. And apparently God isn't liking it. He doesn't want us killing each other. He doesn't want us to even hate other people. He tells us to "love our enemies." If he tells us that, he too has to love his enemies. And all available data says he does.

How many times and in how many ways do we call others fools and imbeciles? In fact, we find it humorous (think, Three Stooges). In that case, we are laughing at our folly - we all are potential fools. And that's the point Jesus is making.

Jesus is telling us to rise above the fray (as much as possible). "As much as lies in you, be at peace with all men," says Paul.

How does this translate into real-life application? If this is true, the church has strayed far from this teaching. How do we love our enemies, and seek peace with everyone no matter what they believe, and stop calling everyone who disagrees with us an idiot or immoral person. Instead, we have gone so far as to try to wipe them out or control them in a quest to build a "Christian" habitat on this earth. I think Jesus is saying here (and elsewhere) that he is against theocracy.

I wonder what would happen if the church actually grasped what Jesus is saying here. What if we applied it, and actually learned how to make peace instead of constantly cooking up wars among ourselves and with the world around us.