19 February 2010
The Bible is Like Lutefisk
And what can we do with these old frail pages
but tear them out
and chew on them slowly,
suck on the dry, leathery skin of truth
until it begins to soften,
until its sweetness begins to soak out;
probe like greedy fingers digging
into the husk to find the fruit?
What can we do
but touch gently these words that have wounded,
these words that were wielded as weapons,
carefully entwining our fingers with the thorns,
reaching deep into the thicket
beyond where our eyes can penetrate
except to catch a flash of red among pale green,
finding softness among the sharpness
as we pluck the rose within?
And what can we do but strive and hope,
pound at the walls of these words that were stacked
into prisons,
with power and fear and shame as the mortar
and souls shuttered up inside,
and break them down to build them up,
fit them together as they’re meant to be:
a temple with open doors,
held together by love?
What can we do but keep digging, if we believe
that these words, if we heard them rightly
would bring life?
Lutefisk, roughly speaking, is dried fish that has been soaked for a week in lye to soften it, and then for another week in water to rinse out the lye. It is something of an acquired taste.
To most of us, I think the Bible seems about as unpalatable as dried fish. We don’t understand how to get nourishment out of it. Worse, to many people the Bible has only ever been a weapon used against them. It would be awfully convenient to just throw the whole thing out. Or, for those who have the luxury of doing so, to simply ignore the way that the Bible has been used to hurt others. Or worse, to go on causing pain and claiming the Bible as justification.
The Bible says one thing about God over and over: that God is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.” Everyone from Moses to the Psalmists to the prophets agrees on that. Even Jonah is convinced of it, so convinced that he runs away from Nineveh because he knows that if he brings God to Nineveh, he’ll be bringing forgiveness, and he doesn’t want those Ninevites to be forgiven. How might we read the Bible differently if we started out by trusting in that sort of God?