Of Snakes and Trees

One of the images that stands out in the Bible is that of a snake or serpent. In the third chapter in Genesis, the first book in the Bible, we've already encountered the devil embodied as one, and the last mention of this same serpent is in Revelation 20, the third-last chapter of the Bible.

Trees, bushes and vines - all of them hardy plants that endure multiple years and may produce fruit - are another image occurring frequently in the Bible. Before the first chapter of Genesis is half over we've encountered the first trees, and early in chapter two we meet the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This same tree of life appears at the end of the Bible in Revelation chapter 22.

Between these two ends of the Bible, numerous references to both occur, both literal and figurative. In the time of Moses (of Ten Commandments fame) the most famous bush is the burning bush from which God called Moses to his mission, though Moses' brother Aaron's staff also has a claim to fame of having blossomed like a tree and been placed in the Arc of the Covenant, and so is auspicious in its own right.

Interestingly, the most famous serpent from Moses' time is actually one that healed by being lifted on a tree. Specifically, a plague of snakes was let loose on the children of Israel due to their complaints, so Moses fashioned a bronze serpent and placed it on a pole, and anyone who was bitten by a snake could look up at it and not die from the snake bite. (See Numbers 21:4-9.) This serpent lasted a very long time, until king Hezekiah smashed it because it had become an idol named Nehushtan to which the Israelites had begun offering sacrifices. (See 2 Kings 18:4.)

Biblical references to snakes and serpents are generally not very positive, from the embodiment of the devil to a scourge against those who have sinned. And, as we look at ways that one might use a snake or serpent figuratively, three of its behaviors emerge as analogies to things we look at disapprovingly: biting people, slithering on the ground, and shedding its skin.

Stay with me here: I'm going somewhere with this.

Trees, bushes and vines, on the other hand, are generally symbols of good - either actualized or potential. In fact, in the gospel of John, chapter 15 verse 5, Jesus himself says he is the vine and his followers are the branches. There are also many references to bearing fruit and grafting new branches onto an existing vine or tree.

What you won't find anywhere is a reference to God's people being a snake that sheds its skin and emerges, a brand new snake.

You will find references to giving trees second chances to produce fruit, among many other images and directives that compel reconciliation with astranged kin.

You'll also find an interesting reference to a field of wheat being sown with weeds, and both being allowed to grow together rather than throwing out the weeds, in order to avoid accidentally throwing out the wheat.

OK, here's where I was going with all of that: many of my Protestant fellow-Christians, including some of my relatives, seem to have the attitude that, with the advent of the Protestant Reformation, God rejected the Roman Catholic Church and only accepted all, or some subset of, Protestantism as Christianity.

That's almost like saying the snake was rejected and the skin it shed was approved. Or like saying that the entire wheat field should be burned because some weeds had arisen in visible places.

The reason I've spent so much time getting to the point is that it needs to be understood: there's no Biblical precedent for rejecting over half of the Christians in the world as non-Christians based on the misdeeds of a few historical individuals in positions of authority. Even Israel, after a series of rotten kings and an ensuing exile, was brought back, and later redeemed by the Messiah, not discarded like a used snake skin.

To me, a much more self-evidently relevant image is of a tree that has diverged into branches while the trunk continues to thrive.

So, regardless of the historical reasons for schisms in Christianity, I see no valid precedent for a permanent rejection and uncompromising condemnation of the tree trunk by its own branches, or even of a fellow Christian who has been subject to sufficient punishment. See 2 Corinthians 2:3-11 for an elaboration on this theme.

For these reasons, I invite my Protestant brothers and sisters to open their hearts and minds to the possibility that the evil they think they're rejecting in the Catholic Church is based on historical and cultural differentiations and misunderstandings, not on some inherent evil that Protestant Christianity somehow mysteriously managed to rise above while leaving the rest of modern and historical Christianity in some unredeemed and rejected state.

Of course, part of this journey is getting to know the truth about these things which have historically been part of the Catholic Church but have not been included in some or all denominations of Protestant Christianity. That's a primary goal of this blog/book.

(Copyright (c) 2011, Reg Harbeck, all rights reserved)