Figs & Thistles: What is a Christian?

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel.” — Pope Francis on a presidential candidate’s proposals to completely seal the US southern border.

This statement raised eyebrows in some quarters and incited a riot in the Twitterverse. For many folks, I hope, it also raised the question: What is a Christian?

The Pope’s comments suggest that a Christian is known by how well their thought, word, and deed align with the Gospel of Christ. The response from those offended by his remarks suggest that a Christian is someone who says they are a Christian, regardless of their attitude towards anything or their actual behavior.

The place to research this would seem to be the Gospels, themselves. What did Christ have to say on the subject? That’s easy enough to look up. (I’m using the New King James Bible.)

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” — Matthew 7:21

That seems pretty clear: Just calling Jesus ’Lord’ isn’t a passcode to the Kingdom, acting on God’s will is. But this single verse is part of a larger context; Jesus goes on:

“Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: … But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand…” – Matthew 7:22-27

Here, Christ brings the answer to the question—What is a Christian?—down into the material world and gives us a benchmark for a believer’s behavior. This is one of several passages in which Christ links hearing His word with doing it. For example, John 14:23: “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” 

So, in Christ’s estimation, a Christian was someone who heard His words and acted on them. The question that follows logically from this is: What are the words Christ expects believers to put into action?  

One rational approach to determining which principles Christ thought most important is to look for emphasis in the form of express prioritization, repetition, or illustration. Meaning simply, did He clearly state its relative importance, repeat it several times in different ways, and/or emphasize it through detailed explanation or illustration?

Let’s look at prioritization and repetition.

“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”  

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”— Mark 12:28-30 

Matthew 22:40 adds: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” This is something Christ also states this way in another context: “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” — Matthew 7:12 

A Christian, then, is to possess certain qualities: he is to love his neighbor as he loves his own self and treat others as he would be treated. He does this first and foremost because this behavior is called for by commandments Christ, Himself, has emphasized above all others, by prioritizing and repeating them. 

Obviously, this raises yet another question: Who is my neighbor?

Christ covers this; the young lawyer who asked Him the original question about eternal life, next asked who his neighbor was. Christ’s response was to illustrate, using the famous Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Short form: A Jew, while traveling, was attacked by thieves and left for dead. A Jewish priest came along and passed by without helping, as did a Levite (also of a priest class). The poor man was finally helped by a Samaritan, who took him to an inn and tended to him, then paid the innkeeper to care for him until he was well.

Jesus asks the young seeker, “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”  The emphasis, here, is on behavior.

Why a Samaritan? This particular illustration has great significance because the Samaritans and Jews were not friendlies. While the Jews traced their spiritual lineage back to Jacob (Israel) through Moses, the Samaritans did so through the Prophet Joseph, Jacob’s son. To say they did not get along is to understate the case. This was a divide that went back centuries. Religious leaders of both groups insisted it was an offense to have contact with the other or cross into their territory. The Romans didn’t understand this ethnic nuance and crammed the two groups together with disastrous results. At the time of Christ, violence between Samaritans and Jews wasn’t uncommon.

So, this illustration—besides emphasizing a commandment already given priority directly and through repetition—makes points about racial and religious harmony AND the breaking down of manmade barriers in both a material and spiritual sense. Jesus chose the perfect example to illustrate His point, which is that our neighbor is not just the person who is like us or whom we like, our neighbor is also the person we loathe, even for long-standing reasons. It is the stranger, the foreigner.

Lest anyone construe from this parable that this is only true if that person is nice to us, Christ pushes the envelope further with these words:

“But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.—Luke 6: 27-35 

Jesus’ treatises often become lessons in logic. The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ is a superb example of this. In Matthew, Chapter 7, He patiently reveals the nature of God, teaches that because God is just and merciful, therefore so must we be, and admits that this is hard—a “strait gate” and a “narrow way” and that it’s easy to be distracted from it. Then, He moves on to how truth can be distinguished from error.

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” — Matthew 7:15-18 

“I am a rhinoceros!”

Christ did not choose metaphors carelessly. He used material world illustrations as an aid for understanding spiritual principles. A thistle (or artichoke, which is an edible thistle) may say, ”I am a fig.” But it does not have the qualities of a fig (softness, sweetness, etc), it cannot give itself those qualities by saying it is a fig. It can be a fig only if it possesses the qualities of a fig.

But Christ isn’t really discussing figs here, He’s talking about people.

If you were paying attention to the chapter and verse citations, you’ll realize that Christ’s exhortation to use reason to determine truth from error is a preface to the passage I quoted above in answer to the question: What is a Christian? It is in context with His treatise on behavior that Christ enters into this dissertation on distinguishing truth and error by their qualities.

And this leads us to the question Pope Francis was addressing: What should the behavior of a Christian look like in practice—according to Christ?

With that question and all of the above in mind, read the Pope’s words again:

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel.”

Everyone needs to do their own math on this one, but do it with a clear idea of what the Gospel Pope Francis cites actually says. Think of it as a reasoned exercise in independent investigation of truth, which is the essence of justice.

“O Son of Spirit! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.” — Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words

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Oddly there is a soundtrack for this one. The song is “Stones” from our new CD, I Remember the Rain—at Bandcamp.com