The Alelyon (one another) passages in the New Testament:

Don’t bite and devour each other, or else you will end up destroying each other (Gal. 5:15)

Most people find different eating habits either fascinating, distasteful, gross, or all three. For example, if you’ve ever watched an anaconda swallow an entire pig, you might be amazed and even somewhat admiring that the snake’s jaws and stomach accommodate something so much larger than would appear possible. (OK, I had an amazing video to upload, but decided to spare my more delicate readers). Maybe you would prefer different banqueting habits; perhaps the vulture or crow’s slow picking at a fine piece of road kill, the lion’s manly tearing at great slabs of flesh … sorry, getting carried away again.

However you slice it, the animal kingdom has its human parallels in the matter of ingesting nourishment. Some are pickers, some are swallowers, some take a progressive approach. In our verse from Galatians, Paul uses both actions to warn believers against an aggressive posture toward each other that leads to destruction among God’s people.

The first point that strikes me here is the tenor of the words that Paul uses. When we read through the Scriptures, there is one thing that stands out when such terms appear: Eating humans is the devil’s work. As C.S. Lewis points out in his Screwtape Letters, God desires that we be one with him, but leaves us with our identities and personalities intact. His aim is to make us LIKE him in character, reflections of him from the inside out. The goal of our enemy is entirely different; as Lewis puts it, the rule of hell is eat or be eaten. The devil wants to take all life into himself. He would swallow God whole if he could (of course, the one time he tried doing so, it didn’t end very well for him), but he will settle for us as a less satisfying meal.

So here we are in Galatians, Paul using the same concept and applying it to our behavior. Don’t bite and devour each other because in the end you will end up destroying each other. The word – analisko – comes from a root meaning to conquer. At its heart, it is a war word, an expression of animosity, of competition. Greek literature offers a variety of translations, including annihilating and consuming. Keep it up, Paul says, and there’s nothing left.

How in the world do we get to this fearsome conclusion? I think that Paul is presenting a kind of process that grows over time if we leave it unchecked. He starts with the birds of prey approach, where we take a bite here and a bite there. How much this is exemplary of Christians when we are tearing down rather than building up. We often don’t just outright gossip about someone else, but we are ready to share a “prayer request” about the poor Joneses, who are – well, you know they have had some difficulties from time to time. I don’t call you materialistic, but my that’s a pretty big house that you’ve bought, isn’t it? I don’t straight-out criticize your very dull sharing at church (although that’s what I believe it was), I just mention that you seemed a little tired this morning.

Likewise, we don’t (normally) get in each other’s faces, confront or yell or argue, post hurtful content on social media sites, engage in public ranting … In fact, we don’t always verbalize our judgments or vocalize our snark. Much Christian biting is in the mind, or we express it so subtly that no one can be sure that we took a mouthful of someone’s reputation, a morsel of their dignity, or a nibble from their sense of self or accomplishment. There is an exquisite hypocrisy to our way of exerting our sense of superiority, of our engaging in comparison, of our bringing down our neighbor just a peg or four. And, of course, like the vultures, we actively attract a flock of fellow nibblers to join in our little feast.

Biting, devouring, destruction. We generally build the devil’s work on small words, thoughts, actions, judgments that accrue over time. But none of this occurs in a vacuum. As the old saying goes, “bitten people bite people.” OK, that’s a new one, but you get the idea. Why do I need to bring you down? You and I both spoke at a retreat and your talk received all the mentions and the references and the praise. Someone important was with your “group” and everyone ignored you. We are slighted by a comment, embarrassed by a joke at our expense, passed over for a promotion, unfavorably compared to another brother or sister. These are often small and insignificant incidents, but they stick in the craw of our own high self-esteem. And on occasion the pain comes from more serious words or actions, from betrayals of trust, offenses to long-held loyalties, accusations or characterizations of us that strike at the foundation of our relationships, our security, our faith and hope.

The urge to bite back begins early on in life. I remember moving to a new neighborhood when I was about 5. As any young friendly extrovert would, I wandered down the street to make friends with the cluster of boys sitting on Guy Latessa’s porch. As I approached, the jeering began, led by the aforementioned Master Latessa, “Go home, get out of here, big ears …” I retreated to our garage and wept a small puddle of rage-filled tears. From that moment I plotted revenge, which I ultimately attained by inviting my abuser for a play date, feigning enjoyment in his company for an hour or so, and, when I deemed the moment propitious, mercilessly pounding on him until he fled, bawling like a wounded calf, back to the safety of his own garage. Where, I assume, he muttered imprecations and drew up various schemes by which he would pay back his adversary.

I can think of other times of mortification, whether as a child or as an adult, as an unbeliever and as a Christian. It always amazes me how many of them have found a permanent home in my memory and how I can retrieve them without the slightest effort. Of course they don’t carry the same sting as they did when they were freshly minted. Over time, Guy Latessa and I became reasonably good friends. I don’t knowingly harbor bitterness against the wielders of insensitive jokes, pointed disagreement, or offensive disregard for my importance, intended or otherwise. But is that actually a kind of fantasy thinking? Is it possible that, through a combination of pride, defensiveness, and simple carelessness or indifference, we build up an inventory of teeth marks on our soul and spirit – bite marks from the devil, from random strangers, from our parents and siblings, and in the house of our closest friends?

If we  think we are not subject to such things, then we have to ask a simple question: What are we trying to get out of gnawing or devouring those for whom Christ died? Why the biting? Why are we tearing down, and not building up, limiting our encouragement, expecting the worst rather than the best of others, dragging others into our mud – all in response to our suffering the daily and cumulative affronts that grace is supposed to heal?

After all, this is what the devouring and the destroying means: diminishing other disciples of Jesus (or anyone else, for that matter) by not seeing and acting toward them according to their stature and position in Christ; elevating ourselves over those who are equal heirs of God’s mercy; imposing our extremely limited perspective on people and events as if we have the whole or even the only story; weakening and sullying the testimony and witness that we are called to carry to the world. Keep it up, says the Apostle, and …

I’m sure God’s word has answers for us, and a remedy, which we will explore next week. For now, I’m left to think about how bad my own bad biting habits might be, and how many of my teeth marks my brothers and sisters would find if they looked a little closer.