So, who's the infectious one?

By John Pearring

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091121.cfm
1 Timothy 1:15-17
Luke 6:43-49

The creeping pine beetle infestation in Colorado's forests looks a lot like the story of Paul's sinful years before his conversion. Vicious religious zealots (Paul as one of the pine beetles) kill off harmless Christians (beautiful pine trees). There is a mistaken identity in that comparison, however. 

First, we'll flesh out that analogy and compare the similarities of pine beetles and Paul's persecution of Christians to see how we compare to Paul. Warning: this analogy comes from a burdened Christian's narrow point of view. There's truth here, but a more important application of the analogy arises later.

Cooperation with evil's total destruction of forests by the pine beetle appears to rank right up there with the terrorist behavior of Paul. We can point to like-minded folks today, zealots intent on wiping out Christians and their faith. 

The seemingly evil pine beetle needs a host. Diseased trees play an awful role in breeding more pine beetles, who unabated kill off hapless forests. Healthy trees, though, also cooperate. They stand unaware of the oncoming ruin of every pine tree within several miles from one initial and successful infestation. Their rich sap and strong branches tempt hoards of beetles famished after sucking dry their latest host.

Brainwashed haters of Christianity similarly and blithely cooperate with the eradication of Christian principles and ethics. They don't agree, at first, with abortion, euthanasia, and bridled religious freedoms. Soon, though, their tolerance turns into the silencing of objecting Christians. Many Christians go along, because they want to stay hidden.

Next the haters convince Christians to accept redefining age-old terms, like marriage and love. Still, the haters of Christians aren't happy. The compliant Christians remain quiet and go along to get along. The haters take more territory, coercing cooperative Christians, once their own friends, to legalize blatant sin. Logic loses footing. Identity politics takes over, and turns free individuals into victimized or the victimizer. We're all catalogued willing or not by race, wealth, and religion. Some Christians begin to object, and gather strength. Abusive power is now the only solution to suspend persistent Christianity. To assuage the haters now in charge, loyalist Christians back off. They even promote and parrot a finely-tuned ideology, condemning anything that questions the authority that has infected them.

To continue our analogy, infected trees, riddled with pine beetles ravaging their once supine bark, extend havoc upon the rest of the trees surrounding them. Soon, the complicit faithful to the haters are also covered in voracious, tiny, hidden insects that eat away at their circulatory systems. All pine trees eventually are infected and idle. The trees have no defense.

A defense does exist, however. Other species of trees, speckled among the pine, are immune from the pine beetle. In addition, the oldest pine trees can fend off the vermin. They've built up resistance. Only the newer pine forests suffer unabated excesses of the pine beetle. 

Christians formed in sappy innocence, or rooted poorly in ancient and long-lasting faith traditions, are like pine trees, vulnerable to overwhelming attacks. The use of emotion-driven fervor from haters of Christianity, a warlike cry that sets aside both decorum and patience, injects doubt. Fragile belief systems can't cope because patient discussion, logical review, and balanced democratic adjustments to the rule of law are no longer available. 

All these similarities make an excellent analogy — until the truth comes out. The burden of Christianity is not one so much of persecution. When we are persecuted we are living our faith, not hiding. Christians are a burden upon the world. There are indeed innocent Christians who fall prey to infection. In total, though, we are Spirit infused with morals. We know the difference between right and wrong. Yet, we all live in a secular-centered population. Fully mature and Spirit-filled Christians become the invaders in such a world.

Paul recognized himself as a sinner, a defender of lies. "I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief," he wrote in 1 Timothy, 1:13. 

We might imagine him riddled with pine-beetle righteousness as he attacked innocent, loving Christian communities who freely lived among the Jews. Christians, though, were the real problem according to Paul's righteous army. They upset the longstanding foundation of the Jews. Jesus taught them to be counter cultural. The Christians, newly convicted in the Holy Spirit became fearless. They used the same temples as the Jews for their services. Paul led much of the successful effort to wedge Christians apart from the Jewish community. They must be stopped or they would infect everyone.

The pine beetles of Paul's time were the Christians, not the righteous. The Christians were scurrying bands of infectious rabble-rousers. Christians were intent on accomplishing their boring into Jewish traditions by repopulating and converting Jews in great numbers. They challenged age-old principles among the Jewish belief system. To Paul, Christians were the disease to eradicate. Christians doubled down. They began reaching out to gentiles of all sort — going into every nation, race, and religion with their dangerous message of hope and everlasting life.

Christians espoused a living God where his Spirit entered the body of believers. Christ-followers claimed God anointed them all as priests, prophets, and royalty in the sacraments. Their infection was God's love. Christians believed that God even became human, born as an incarnation of divinity in a resurrected body. Christians called God as one with three persons, integrally involved in all of life's arenas. Jesus was their king, and their kingdom was not of the world's making.

When Christians sinned they could repent and ask for forgiveness. When the secular citizen sinned they were punished and marked for life. The witness of Christianity, a better way, was infectious. 

Paul was a warrior for the Jewish establishment, driven to rid the Jews of the invading pine beetle Christians. Christianity rose up anti-Jew terrorists, he thought, a disease aimed against the religion he espoused. Then, in dramatic form, Paul was also infected by God's Spirit. When he too became a radical pine beetle of Christianity, the fear was complete. Jewish law, scriptures, land, traditions, and their very God were under attack. If Paul could be converted, so could anyone.

God hadn't changed. The Jews had hardened their faith against God. The infestation was successful, as penetrating as the pine bark beetle attack in Colorado. Eventually, Paul moved on to infect the population of Roman and Greek faiths, too.

"We know that the law is good, provided that one uses it as law with the understanding that law is meant not for a righteous person but for the lawless and unruly," Paul wrote in 1 Timothy. He went directly after the Jewish scriptures, quoting the prophets who predicted Jesus, the living God. Jesus revealed the purpose of the Word the Jews carried with them. He did the same with Roman law and Greek philosophy.

Here's where the beetle analogy changes. The pine beetle in this Christian story is not truly an invader, but a heroic martyr. We are the bearers of fuel that feeds trees with the knowledge of a loving God. We are poison to the world, but not the person — invaders as martyrs who instill hope and everlasting life. The Christian is the pine beetle going after the secular, limited-scope human community who does not know who they are. We eventually are publicly abused and cancelled, eradicated from secular celebrity and station, when we won't cooperate.

Paul considered himself among "the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane," until the indwelling of the Holy Spirit changed him.

"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life." (1 Timothy 1:15-16)

Like Paul, we must realize that the world sees us as infectious, destructive pine beetles. We're more dangerous than any other religion because we do not fear other gods. We are a small, effective disturbing agent. We are not afraid of death. Rather than causing death to our fellow humans, though, we bring life.

Our warrior attitude is to stand against "… the lawless and unruly, the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, the unchaste, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound teaching." (1 Timothy 1:9-10)

Our stand, though, is not a sword of violence but proclamation of Word and Spirit. We are servants, and more likely to be martyred as we take our stand. Like Paul, we see ourselves as members of the Christian communion. One day, if not now, we will be added to the Communion of Saints.

"I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me trustworthy in appointing me to the ministry," Paul proclaimed. (1 Timothy 1:12)