In my role as a chaplain, people often ask me, “What does the Bible say about __________?” And you can fill in the blank. People have questions, and they want answers. Lately, you can imagine what those questions are. What does the Bible say about terrorism? guns? politics? black lives? cops’ lives?

The problem is that there’s often a misunderstanding about the role of the Bible when it comes to questions and answers. The fact is that the mysterious experience we call the Bible, whether we like it or not, presents just as many questions as it does answers.

Take for example, the life of a biblical character, David.

The same David whose name remains popular when we name our baby boys today. The same David of David and Goliath, to whom we refer when we talk about “facing our giants.” The same beautiful David Michelangelo sculpted in marble and tourists line up to view in all his glory under tasteful lights in Florence. The same complicated David who worshipped God with such single-minded clarity that he embarrassed his wife, and later with similar single-minded clarity ordered the death of Uriah, a good man, so that he could have his wife.

David was a complex God-seeker. His life was messed up. His relationships were messed up. His sex life was messed up. From the Bible’s narrative about David, it is clear that this is a messed up world, even for a person chasing God’s heart.

If you truthfully engage the story of God and David, you must live, not in black or white categories of good and evil, but in the maddening category of gray that comes when messed-up people attempt to live holy lives.

And lately, I’ve noticed that folks are particularly lamenting the messed-up world:

49 people were killed in Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Then 44 more died in Ataturk Airport in Turkey. And over 250 died in Baghdad while shopping for Ramadan celebrations.

Then, Baton Rouge man, Alton Sterling, was killed on July 5th. Philando Castile of Minnesota was killed on July 6th. and five Dallas police officers were killed and 6 injured on July 7th.

All the while, Syrian refugees drown by the thousands. And children are shot in Chicago and shoot themselves in California.

Violence. Terrorism. Political polarity. Ebola one year and Zika the next.

It feels like the breaking news is literally breaking us. We can’t keep up.

None of these things are going the way we wish they would.

I’ve even heard people talk about whether they should bring children into such a broken world. I was born in 1968, another time of volatility in American history, and I’ve heard my parents say they were worried then, as the world seemed to be falling apart.

David at one point asked about his son, “Is the young man Absalom safe?” and like him, parents still ask, “Are our children safe?”

As I scroll through Facebook today, viewing one post after another about our chaos, I can’t help but notice when parents post pictures of new birth and birthday parties for their little ones. Interspersed with messages of death are messages of life. And on the birthday of his daughter this week, my friend Gus observed:

Our daughter turns two today, and we are delighted by her every day. I wonder today about the world - and the country - she is growing up in. We are doing our best early on to cultivate her curiosity and kindness, but are we doing enough to model what it means to not only pursue justice, but to humanize the pursuit of justice with grace, strength and dignity? There is work to be done.

At this moment I despair that all she will know of this world - this country - is a toxic, angry, reactionary, and well-armed tribalism.

May we never settle for this as parents. May we never settle for this as human beings. May we practice all the more a boldness which actively confronts fear and violence with hope and love. May we all learn from our failures - both personal and systemic. Happy birthday, sweet Winefred. . . . .
Will our children be safe? Will we be safe? Will our world be safe?

We desperately want to know.

And yet life with God is not, and never has been, about being safe.

That’s what I like about Gus’ words. He clearly feels the effects of a screwed-up world but does not assume there’s some method of building a wall around Winefred or protecting her from pain. They simply plan to do the hard work of preparing their daughter to live a life of love and justice.

The original audience that heard David’s story was comprised of Israelites in exile. At that point, they were viewed as an inconsequential group on the margins of society. They did not have a kingdom, a country, or a government. They had zero political power and no way to assure their own safety.

And the stories of David were there to remind them that safety is ultimately found, not in political strategy, not in armies or violent retribution, but in God’s faithfulness alone. These stories were originally told so that people in the midst of chaos would get caught up in God’s story and ask,

What will happen next? Will David remain loyal to God? Will God’s people remain faithful?

And as they asked those questions, they were also supposed to turn the same questions on themselves.

That’s good storytelling.

Ultimately, the whole Bible asks the same of us:

Despite the cruelty that wants to swallow us, will we remain kind?

Will we stay faithful to God’s way of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?

Will we leave a legacy of love and reconciliation for our children, even if love is not safe?

May God give us the strength to rely on the Bible’s questions in our time and place.

“Good questions are better than good answers. Questions unite people. Answers divide them.” – Elie Wiesel

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