Ain't it a Shame to Work on Sunday...

Walter Brueggemann is among the preeminent non-Jewish American scholars of the Hebrew Scriptures. For many years I regularly have referred to his work in exegeting the Scriptures for preaching and for leading Bible studies. Over the past several weeks I have read and re-read, pondered and meditated on the his more devotionally focused book, A Gospel of Hope. That book, which is a collection of snippets and vignettes from his other writings, led me to yet another of his writings, Sabbath as Resistance, which I have just begun.

In the first few pages—scarcely 100 words into the book—the concept of sabbath took on new meaning and intensity for me. Brueggemann had made numerous references to sabbath in A Gospel of Hope; comments in which sabbath took on, in my mind, a vaguely healing and restoring quality. I began to hold it in juxtaposition to the stress-filled, manic pace of the competitive scramble for … whatever it is that we’re scrambling for in life. That scramble is laden with road rage commutes, rigid ideological self-assertion, and an illusion of perfection.

And then comes sabbath.

In my earliest memories my dad was a tenant farmer with dreams of owning his own farm. He worked hard, long hours; but, come Sunday, there would be no work. I remember riding into town for church, and passing a farmer working in his field. My mom, without fail, would sing a little jingle, “Ain’t it a shame to work on Sunday, ain’t it a shame?”

Sunday in my early memories was, aside from going to church, a day filled with rules about what we couldn’t do: we couldn’t play cards or go to a picture show, and we couldn’t go to the store because all the stores were closed on Sunday.

A similar kind of restrictive observation of sabbath can be found in the Jewish commentaries. The third commandment in the Decalogue reads:

“Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. ⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ¹⁰But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. ¹¹For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:8-11 NRSV)

Of all those words, what grabbed the attention of the ancient scribes was, “work: don’t.” So, since it’s a commandment from God we’d better take it seriously. Don’t work. Avoid work. So, what is it we’re supposed to avoid? And thus began a process—a virtually unending process—of defining work. I don’t recall how many volumes of the Talmud were devoted to the definition of work.

I do recall one specific definition of work: carrying more than a cup of honey more than six steps. That was defined as work, and it was prohibited. So, the Jewish homemaker would make sure honey was within six steps of the table before Sabbath began.

I also recall reading about a man who was stoned to death for violating the Sabbath. His crime: dragging a chair across the dirt floor of his home. It was considered plowing.

Of course, the Sabbath had to be defined. At first it was from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday. When watches were invented, sabbath was defined as beginning at 6:00 PM on Friday and ending at 6:00 PM on Saturday.

I remember Sandy Koufax, ace pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 50s and 60s. He was Jewish, and one year refused to pitch the opening game of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, the Jewish New Year. Not exactly sabbath; but a similar application. Avoidance of work. Restriction.

And so the rigid observance of sabbath restriction passed from generation to generation: “Ain’t it a shame to work on Sunday, ain’t it a shame.” And in the process, the intention of sabbath has totally been missed. The word, sabbath, means to stop or to cease, and in the third commandment it is tied directly to rest.

Rest. A time for restoring energy and strength. A time for refreshing and healing and refocusing. A time for renewal of one’s whole being (soul): body, mind, relationships, and spirituality.

The rigid observance of a command, when observance means to avoid what is prohibited, becomes counterproductive and produces more stress, rather than healing.

Think of a small child resisting a nap or bedtime. The child doesn’t realize that rest is a human necessity—if not for herself, then for her exhausted parents. It’s not a luxury. It’s not an entitlement. It’s built into the human DNA, and to ignore it or deny it is to do harm to the very soul of humanity.

What if we took a break—declared a moratorium—from the whole legalistic, pharisaical rigidity that becomes common in so many faith expressions? What if we focused instead on the grace that undergirds the whole idea of sabbath?  

Rest. What if it’s not a prescription, but a description? What if it describes the will of God for God’s people: that they should have regular times of rest and restoration and refreshing? What if it’s more invitation than commandment? On that basis, might we give ourselves permission to take a regular sabbath?

And what if we took a sabbath from our petty social media pontifications and personal insults and intolerance? Just give it a rest.

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

Biology, Zoology, Christology

The word, Christology, is rather like biology, or zoology, or any other word with “logy” attached to the end. It is the study or knowledge of Christ. What is Christ? How is Jesus of Nazareth Christ? What does Christ mean to me/us? 

In seminary I had to submit periodic papers in which I described my own personal Christology. The formation of my Christology was, and continues to be, a process. I trust that process is growth toward the truth. The comments that follow represent my latest articulation of that process.

The question of Christ is an extension of the question of God. The identity and nature of God are at stake in the rabbinic debates which make up a literary form in much Hebrew Scripture. What is God like? It’s a primeval question; and the varied approaches in Hebrew Scripture may seem to reveal more contradiction than consensus.

One testimony, generally represented by more ancient wisdom and prophetic writings, describes God as adversarially jealous in regard to his (sic) people and his territory. This testimony portrays a brutal God: judging and punishing any who defy or ignore him. Not even Genocide bothers this God; indeed, he orders it.

Counter-testimony, represented primarily by later wisdom and prophetic writings, presents God as gracious, nurturing, and restoring. The role of judgment belongs to God’s antagonist, Satan, while God works to reconcile a Satan-duped humanity to himself (again, using the male pronoun only to be consistent with Scripture).

It was the latter representation of God that Jesus of Nazareth chose to manifest in his own life and ministry. The Gospel of John picks up on one Hebrew concept of God’s presence, viz., “Word of the Lord”, and identifies Word as a manifestation of the eternal, pre-existent quality or persona of  God: “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). In Jesus of Nazareth, that Word was lived out in human community—the “Word became flesh” (John 1:14). C. S. Lewis wrote, ““It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him.”[1]

Theologian, Walter Wink, begins the 9^th chapter of his book, The Powers that Be (Doubleday, 1998) with these words:

“American culture is presently in the first stages of a spiritual renaissance. To the degree that this renaissance is Christian at all, it will be the human figure of Jesus that galvanizes hearts to belief and action, and not the Christ of the creeds or the Pauline doctrine of justification by grace through faith. And in the teachings of Jesus, the sayings on nonviolence and love of enemies will hold a central place. Not because they are more true than any others, but because they are crucial in the struggle to overcome domination without creating new forms of domination.”

Recently on Facebook I posted a quote from a late colleague, teacher, and friend:

“If in reading the Bible you find justification for abusing, humiliating, disgracing, harming, or hurting, especially when it makes you feel better about yourself, you are absolutely wrong.” 

― Fred B. Craddock, The Collected Sermons of Fred B. Craddock

In response, a long-time friend (she used to baby-sit with our kids) posted: “If you're reading a Bible that justifies any of those things, you probably need to enroll in a remedial reading class AFTER you start wearing your new prescription lenses...”

That response is what stimulated this whole string of thought (for me, that’s not a difficult thing to accomplish!), and I responded:

“Actually, by being very, very selective in your reading of Scripture, it's possible to justify all of the above. The rabbinic method of testimony/counter-testimony debate runs throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and into the recorded teachings of Jesus. That method compared contradictory propositions and the subsequent debates among the rabbis were seen as ways of increasing the faith. There is a distinct and consistent trajectory throughout, and if we follow that trajectory we eventually find Jesus of Nazareth, who took sides in the debate, rejecting all the things named in the Craddock quote above. My choice is to affirm Jesus' position and try to live it. After more than 77 years, I feel as if I'm just beginning to comprehend what Jesus was all about.”

The thoughts kept coming. The following concluding comments are an expansion of a subsequent post in the Facebook conversation with my friend:

The idea of the biblical trajectory isn't my idea originally; I discovered it in the writings of a postmodern theologian named Derek Flood[2]. Moreover, the testimony/counter-testimony[3] tag is from Walter Brueggemann, a leading scholar of Hebrew Scripture. Perhaps a better way to apply Jesus' relationship to that trajectory is to say that it describes the human comprehension of the will of God, and Jesus CHOSE that trajectory (see the temptation narratives in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4) and lived it out as "the visible image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15). It is in his total obedience to that divine will that he fulfills the Hebrew anticipation of the servant of God. 

“Servant” is Isaiah’s characterization of the messianic anticipations of Israel. Isaiah described the “servant” in a series of Servant Songs: Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-7 and 52:13-53:12. Some scholars add Isaiah 61:1-3; although the word servant does not appear in the passage. I believe it was specifically through these passages that Jesus experienced and accepted his identity. It is through those servant songs that I find the clearest and most consistent understandings of Jesus as the anticipated Christ. To the degree that we live and manifest that same divine will we live "in Christ" (Romans 6:11, 23, et. al.)”

[Note: All footnotes were added during this present writing and did not appear in the initial Facebook posts.]

That’s how it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,
Jim

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[1] C. S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol III, edited by Walter Hooper (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco: @ 2007)—Spcifically, a letter written to a Ms. Johnson on November 8, 1952.

[2] Derek Flood, Disarming Scripture: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence-Loving Conservatives, and Why We All Need to Learn to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did. (San Francisco: Metanoia Books, 2014), 82, et. al.

[3] Walter Brueggemann. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 317-318.

A Gospel of Exclusion

“The simple claim of our faith is that Jesus of Nazareth destabilizes the human world, makes something new happen that is human, and requires us to get on with life in a new way. So the real issue is not, how do miracles happen? The real issue is, what shall we do with Jesus? Shall we trust him like the man and obey him like the sprit and be raised? Or shall we continue in our recalcitrant disbelief that leaves the world closed and close to death?”[1]

Heresy generally has been understood as a matter of incomplete or partial, rather than erroneous, articulation or living of faith. Another approach might say that heresies usually are formulated as either/or dichotomies, while the realities of life and faith normally confront us as both/and continuums.

As an example, some churches emphasize eternal salvation to the relative exclusion of temporal ministries of compassion, while other churches tend to reverse that focus. Either approach is incomplete.

Ironically, heresy frequently aligns with secular categories: conservative and liberal. Jim Wallis, founder and Editor of Sojourners magazine, says conservatives tend to emphasize personal accountability, while liberals are more likely to emphasize social accountability. His point is confirmed by those conservative Christians who demonize his call for a balance between personal and social responsibility.

The same Bible that has John 3:16 and Acts 2:21 also has Matthew 25 and Luke 4:16-30. Conservative Christians emphasize salvation and evangelism to the relative neglect of giving the cup of cold water and feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. Progressive Christians are more likely to neglect evangelism in favor of political influence to help the poor. Both approaches border on heresy, not from error, but from an incomplete proclamation of a divine Word.

My own denomination essentially abandoned evangelism in the mid-20^th century, and today numbers about 15% of its 1955 membership. The churches that maintained an evangelistic emphasis have become, by default, the “voice of the church.” As a result, two generations of “spiritual-but-not-religious” North Americans are conspicuous by their absence from organized communities of faith. They have perceived (rightly or wrongly) that “the church” has become self-absorbed, judgmental and uncaring.

Part of the problem is that the evangelistic message and strategy that worked in the first half of the 20^th  century became increasingly ineffective in the last half of that same century. The message was, and is, still valid; but confrontational strategies replaced the simple approach of “lifting up Christ” and drove people away, rather than attracting them. Spiritualized 19^th century jargon failed to connect with a public already turned off by incongruities between that language and the behavior of their perceived stereotype of “the church.”

But the final nail in the coffin was (1) the marriage of the entire church to the language and strategies of the marketplace, and (2) the marriage of the evangelistic[2] churches to, and their consequent total absorption into, the political right. Today the loudest voices from the evangelistic church, and thus the default stereotype of all churches, is virtually indistinguishable from the political alt-right. [NOTE: some will argue, with some merit, that the political alt-right is the offspring of the Christian right. Either way, the partial gospel proclaimed is relatively oblivious to “the least of these”—the most vulnerable of society.]

The result is a broken church represented by an ineffective testimony from the so-called Mainline churches and a counterproductive counter-testimony from the default typecast of the church of the 21^st century. Both messages are incomplete.

The 21^st century church wallows in relative heresy.

And the “spiritual-but-not-religious” millennial generations can see it; ergo, their absence. Isn’t it ironic that a relatively secular spirituality is calling the church’s bluff?

The political/ecclesiastical right calls for the elimination of governmental participation in the care of the poor. Many progressives, including me, also favor the smallest government possible for the effective application of Constitutional mandates.; however, the political right projects no compensating strategy for dealing with poverty. Churches, non-profits and philanthropic individuals and organizations already participate, although many do so selectively, and their combined resources are inadequate to meet the need.  

The political/ecclesiastical right focuses disproportionately on welfare fraud and voter fraud, both of which represent miniscule problems in the total scheme of things. Most progressives would gladly participate in a credible strategy to eliminate any kind of fraud; however, no compensating strategy is offered to deal with valid poverty or with legitimate accessibility to the polls for all legal voters.

The list goes on: the voices that form the public image of church meld with conservative political ideologies, and their consensus principles, by default, exclude full participation of many people in the life described in both the Christian Gospel and the American Constitution.

Exclusion. The intention behind any creed, including heretical creeds, is to identify and articulate authentic faith. Nothing wrong with that; however, in the process the emphasis virtually always becomes the elimination of error, rather than the advancement of truth. While the two purposes are not mutually exclusive, neither are they identical. Ultimately, the purpose of credal formulae historically has been to exclude any who are wrong (understood as “any who disagree with me/us”).

Well, to that extent, the church has been exceedingly successful in the last half-century.

But Brueggemann offers hope:

“The key religious question among us is whether there is ground for an alternative rooted not in self-preoccupation or in deadening stability, but rooted in a more awesome reality that lives underneath empires, that comes among us as odd as a poem, as inscrutable as power, as dangerous as new life, as fragile as waiting. The poet names the name and imagines new life, like eagles flyng, running, walking.” [3]

That’s the way it looks through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Walter Brueggemann, A Gospel of Hope (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018) Kindle edition Location 394

[2] I intentionally use “evangelistic” rather than “evangelical.” They are not the same thing.

[3] Brueggeman, op. cit. Kindle Location 384.

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[1] Walter Brueggemann, A Gospel of Hope (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018) Kindle edition Location 394

[2] I intentionally use “evangelistic” rather than “evangelical.” They are not the same thing.

[3] Brueggeman, op. cit. Kindle Location 384.

A More Excellent Way

With a lot of help from Derek Flood[1], Walter Wink[2], Walter Brueggemann[3] and others, I've been exploring how to read the Bible as Jesus did. Basically, Jesus applied the rabbinic hermeneutic[4] of faithful questioning, in contrast to the approach of the Pharisees of his day, who employed a hermeneutic of unquestioning obedience.

Ever since Christianity first began its shameless dance with political power, the Bible has been used primarily to maintain orthodoxy and define heresy. When Constantine marched his army into the ocean and pronounced them “baptized”, the church began a long history of enforcing orthodoxy with threats of death, torture, exclusion and hell fire. The record of atrocities is almost endless, from the crusades and the inquisition, to Puritan witch hunts to slavery to basically every human rights issue.

In every case, the practitioners of barbarism viewed their interpretation of the faith as the one and only “right” reading, and enforced their “right” way with violent use of power. This clearly represents the very worst of the way of unquestioning obedience and inevitably leads to violence committed in God’s name.[5] It is a total misreading of Scripture’s intent.

In striking contrast is rabbinic Judaism’s tradition of faithful questioning. Rabbi Anson Laytner makes the case that faithful questioning is typical, not only of the Hebrew Bible, but also of the Jewish faith itself.[6] (I have this delightful image of Tevye arguing with God in “Fiddler on the Roof.”)

Key examples of faithful questioning are found throughout the Jewish commentaries on the Scriptures. Instead of a single interpretation that establishes the orthodox, “right” way of reading Torah, the commentaries typically present dissenting views from various rabbinic sages, offered side by side like the transcript of a courtroom trial. It may help to recall that the word, “Israel” means “wrestles with God.”

From this line of thought we can see that reading Scripture by faithfully questioning violence and harm perpetrated in God’s name is not only characteristic of Jesus and Paul and the rest of the New Testament, it’s also a deeply Jewish way to read Scripture. Remember: Jesus also was a rabbi, steeped in that tradition.

Every culture and every religious faith is susceptible to error. The root of the matter is not necessarily within the particular culture or religion, but rather is the marriage of religion and political power. This always is a poisonous combination, and is the point at which the church diverges from the way of Jesus.

But there always are those anxious souls who want to nail everything down, who want guarantees and control over their destinies, both temporal and eternal. Their needs are such that they must live by sight, and not by faith.[7] The harm emerges when their insecurities lead to the use—or at least the threat—of violence to silence dissent. The greatest heresy is their belief that the use of force is a valid example of upholding the faith.

 The key difference between Jesus and the Pharisees, and between differing groups today is in which narrative we choose to embrace, and which we choose to avoid, discount or (as Jesus did) outright reject. The question is not whether we will choose some texts and ignore or reject others. Even the most fundamental literalist reads the Bible selectively, if only by emphasis and tone of voice. Rather, if we are to read the Bible as Jesus did, the question is which texts we choose and by what criteria!

The criterion both Jesus and Paul used is love. I will develop that theme more in the blogs that follow; but here is a teaser:

"While the Pharisees were focused on strict adherence to religious rules and regulations (the “right” or “correct” reading), the priority of Jesus was instead focused on loving and caring for people in need. Clearly, the way Jesus understood faithfulness to Scripture was that it should lead to love. ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself’ Jesus said, ‘All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments’ (Matthew 22:37049).”[8]

How then can we continue to claim that Scripture is inspired if it truly justifies hurt and damage to people? As Christians we affirm that the Scriptures are good, intended to lead us to love. However, as history reveals, it also can be read in an abusive way. My teacher, the late Fred B. Craddock once said, “There is nothing so holy that it does not have its pornographers.” Paul also wrote, “I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death” (Romans 7:10).

The common denominator is love.

That’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Derek Flood, Disarming Scripture: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence Loving Conservatives and Why We All Need to Learn How to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did (San Francisco: Metanoia Press, 2014).

[2] Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium (New York: Galilee Doubleday, 1999).

[3] Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005).

[4] Hermeneutic, derived from Hermes, the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology, is the process of transmitting the divine message into language and concepts that can be understood by humans. In recent generations it has become generalized to mean any process of interpretation.

[5] Flood, op. cit., Kindle Version, Location 1017.

[6] Anson Laytner, Arguing with God: A Jewish Tradition (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc. 1990).

[7] The direct opposite of the life of faith described in II Corinthians 5:7.

[8] Derek Flood, op. cit., Kindle version, Location 967.

Life as Consequence

[Note: these Lenten blogs may seem redundant to my readers (both of you). Remember that these blogs journal a personal spiritual journey. I revisit previous material, sometimes to refresh, sometimes to check out, “Did I really get that right?” etc. Each re-visitation takes me deeper into understanding. Hopefully, my reexaminations are not distracting for my readers.]

The Millennial Generations [Generations “X” (born 1965-1981) and “Y” (born 1982-2000)] are turned off religiously by rules, doctrine, institutional church polity and judgmentalism. Come to think of it, so am I.

Millennials want a simple, honest spirituality based upon following Jesus. They want a faith with integrity—one that is lived, more than preached. Come to think of it, so do I.

But for me the idea was still mostly cognitive (head stuff) until my nephew (a “Millennial”) began developing the idea of spending a year trying to experience what it means to follow Jesus—truly. Here’s a link to his "Jesus Project": My Jesus Project

I don’t believe in fate—that life is scripted and everything is planned and “meant to be.” I believe things happen because we make choices: some good; some bad. Life is the complex network of consequences resulting from human choices.

And I don’t believe in luck. I believe "Luck is where opportunity and preparedness meet.” (source unknown)

But I also believe that God is present in all of this, calling humanity to follow a particular “Way.” The clearest articulation of that divine invitation is Jesus of Nazareth.

God has a plan, and invites us to follow that plan. When we accept God’s invitation, life makes sense, at least more often than when we choose our own way (and each of us at some time thinks, “I have a better idea”). When we choose our own way a complex network of consequences confronts us with confusion, distrust, fear and occasional violence. Human culture is the mix of consequences of diverse human choices.

But, again, while I don’t believe in fate, sometimes life happens in unexplained ways: some good, some bad. Long ago I gave up the need to explain everything in life; and, “Why?” is a useless word in most cases of the unexplained.

So, recently my attention was tweaked while looking for a book to download. I’m following my nephew’s “Jesus Project”, and even outlining a series of sermons on following Jesus. So, my eye was drawn irresistibly to part of a book title that read, …And Why We All Need to Learn to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did. (my underlining)

It seemed like a “God Moment,” so I downloaded it, and within a few pages I was being “Led by the Spirit” into the wilderness of my Lenten journey.

Derek Flood, the author, takes on the Old Testament contradictions that have troubled people of faith for centuries. For most of my adult life I've understood them as the residue of a progressive human understanding of God, the earlier understandings reflecting a more violent, vengeful, warrior God and the later understandings moving toward Jesus’ articulation of God as merciful, redeeming Father.

Flood doesn't try to make the contradictions go away. Drawing from Walter Brueggemann, he submits that the contradictions are an intentional and essential part of Scripture.They represent an ongoing debate as people of faith try to comprehend the nature of God. One side of the debate reflects a territorial, vengeful warrior divinity who demands violence to the point of genocide.

The other side, quite possibly emerging from the faith of Melchizedek (Gen 14:17-18; Ps 110:4; Hebrews 5-7), posits a God who enters into covenant with humanity: relating and sustaining, holding humanity accountable to the covenant, but always offering grace and redemption when human faithfulness wavers.

The Scriptures offer these contradictory images, says Brueggemann, as testimony/counter-testimony, as in a courtroom debate. The dispute was ongoing in the adversarial relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees, and continues today in the polarization between conservatives and liberals of the faith.

The gospels seem unavoidably obvious as to which side of the debate Jesus took. And yet, the debate continues to divide the community of faith that gathers in his name. In most cases it’s a matter of emphasis: grace vs. law, faith vs. works. Virtually all Christians talk about “salvation by grace, through faith;” but, some say that repentance must precede grace, while others say that grace is the power that enables repentance. [You say tomato, I say to-mah-to… and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?]

The debate, itself, has become the contradiction and distraction at the heart of the sixty-year decline in the North American church. The “spiritually yearning, institutionally disillusioned public”[1] is growing, and its discontent is finding voice in those who cry, “The grace/law-faith/works debate has distracted the church long enough! Is your faith in Jesus or in the correctness of your doctrine?”

In many ways we've confused faith with the content of belief. But faith is a verb. Faith is the living out of belief. Belief, no matter how fervently held, puts one on the same level as the demons, who also believe (James 2:19). Belief is “talking the talk.” Faith is “walking the walk.” And a whole generation, joined by a few of us older types, is confronting a divided, bickering Christianity, saying, “Shut up and walk!”

Imagine the consequences if we really did that.

That’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Thomas G. Bandy, Christian Chaos (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999). This population is mentioned and described in this and several other of Bandy's books, including, Coaching Change, Kicking Habits: Welcome Relief for Addicted Churches, and others.

Summary of My Lenten Pilgrimage to Date

Lent. Wandering the wasteland of apparent contradictions in Hebrew and Christian Scripture. Giving up unproductive—even counterproductive—ways of reading Scripture. Taking up the challenge of reading Scripture as Jesus did.

The unproductive ways:[1]

1. Reading to defend Scripture (as if it needed my defense!); accepting every word at face value and reading from a prospect of unquestioning obedience, with relative disregard for the people and life situations to which the text was originally addressed and the life situations within which the current reading takes place. This has brought about the necessity of rationalizing (denying) any apparent contradiction in the name of defending the Bible. 
2. Again, accepting every word at face value, but rejecting the whole on the basis of the unresolved contradictions.
3. “Cherry-Picking.” Selecting the texts that support my presuppositions and avoiding the rest.

 Jesus’ way:

1.       Reading from the prospect of faithful questioning based upon an understanding of God’s nature as Love.

2.      “The Priority of Jesus was not on defending a text or a ritual, it was on defending people—in particular defending the victims of religious violence and abuse.”[3]

The Hebrew Scriptures make no apologies for their seeming contradictions. Indeed, the conflicts are a central feature—an organizing theme—of the collection of diverse writings that comprise what we call the Old Testament.

Walter Bruegemann compares it to a courtroom with disputing testimony and counter-testimony representing diametrically opposed understandings of God’s nature. Which is it: (1) Is God a warrior/despot, jealous of his conquests and harsh in judgment upon those who stray from his pronouncements and laws, or (2) is God a creator, redeemer and sustainer whose concern is the wellbeing of the people who choose to live in relationship with him?

The courtroom reverberates with the debate[4]. The book of Job is the perfect paradigm, with Job taking the second argument above, and his friends taking the first.

Many of the Psalms and later prophetic writings side with Job; in fact, if we are really alert to the content of the prophetic writings, we cannot avoid the realization that among the most frequently listed sins of Israel is the neglect of widows and of the poor.

These debates are based upon the ancient wisdom that the good are rewarded and the evil are punished. Job, the Psalms and the prophets don’t argue against this moral paradigm; indeed, they support it, even to the point of advocating violent retribution against evil. Their contribution is in their recognition of unjust enforcement of the paradigm; that is, sometimes evil people prosper and good people suffer. Still, these Scriptural voices become the earliest advocates for justice on behalf of victims. Previously, suffering was seen as evidence that the sufferer had sinned or committed evil and thus deserved to suffer (such assumptions persist even today within some circles, e.g., the poor are lazy and should get a job. The truth is that not everybody is able to work. Period.) It is these cries of the victim that Jesus takes up in his reading of Scripture.

Jesus entered fully into the debate, clearly and articulately choosing sides. In doing so, he set the standard for any who choose to follow him. If we are to read Scripture as Jesus did, we will begin with the understanding that God’s basic nature is Love, and that the Scriptures are a witness, leading us to accept that Love, both as a gift (grace) to be received and as a gift to be given and shared.

Jesus’ new twist that brought him into direct opposition and confrontation with the Pharisees, was his abandonment of the traditional wisdom that victims suffer because of some sin or evil in their lives, and thus deserve to suffer. Jesus acknowledges the reality of “innocent” victims, and challenges the injustice of their suffering.

Of course there are lazy “welfare bums” and “welfare queens.” Of course some people have learned to manipulate the system and leech off it! I have never heard anyone deny that. Given that starting place and the dialectic of Scripture, we have two choices, and if we are to follow Jesus we will take sides: (1) we can assure that absolutely no abuse of public assistance is tolerated, even if it means cutting off funds and thereby abandoning the many (demonstrably the overwhelming majority) who are simply unable to work or obtain resources on their own, or (2) we can respond to the cries of the victim and make sure that no innocent victim suffers unjustly, even if in the process some of the undeserving find ways of manipulating the system and unjustly benefiting.

I think I know which choice Jesus would make. I think you do, too.

I hadn't anticipated that this summation of my Lenten pilgrimage would lead where it led; nevertheless, that’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Derek Flood, Disarming Scripture: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence-Loving Conservatives and We All Need to Learn to Read Scripture as Jesus Did (San Francisco: Metanoia Books, 2014), Kindle edition, Location 227 ff.

[2] Ibid., Location 225.

[3] Ibid., Location 424.

[4] I would add the additional metaphor of a bitterly partisan legislature, with each side intent upon inflicting and enforcing its own values upon the whole. And at the infamous bottom line, each side believes sincerely that its own set of values is the best—indeed the only valid—model for life.

The Voice of the Victim

My intention during Lent is to wander in the wilderness of apparent biblical self-contradiction—a wasteland that acknowledges that in the biblical story of Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land God told Joshua to destroy the cities and to kill “everything that breathes” (Deut 20:16), to slaughter men, women, children and even flocks, herds and pets. And when a man attempted to keep some of the livestock for his own herd, God ordered him put to death.

In contrast, and in direct opposition, are texts such as the 6^th Commandment given to Moses: “You shall not kill” (Ex 20:13) and Jesus’ teaching, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matt 5:44).

Generally, I have avoided the issue when possible, and when avoidance was not possible I explained the contradiction as the product of a progressive understanding of God on the part of humanity (e.g., the command to “kill everything that breathes” can be seen against the backdrop of previous models of warfare in which the victors tortured, raped and enslaved their victims and reaped the material spoils of victory. In some instances, warfare was the way a tribe or kingdom supported itself financially. The newer command forbids any kind of profiteering from warfare, and thus, while still horrendous in its outcome, is a step toward a more humane way of doing what humanity seems hell-bent on doing, anyway.) My explanation got no support from my seminary professors, nor have I seen or heard anyone else offer it.

Walter Brueggemann submits that the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) are presented in a testimony/counter-testimony format, much like a courtroom scenario with multiple competing voices—each claiming to be the correct view, each claiming authority.

The testimony is the ancient wisdom that good people are rewarded and evil is punished. The application (best exemplified by Job’s friends) is used as explanation for bad things that happen to people: it’s because they’ve sinned. The victim is to blame.

The counter-testimony (represented by Job and by the Psalms and later prophets) advocates for the victim and argues that the traditional wisdom is unjust. In the present consideration the debate in Job hinges on God’s response to Job’s friends: “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). In such passages the voice of the victim is heard for the first time in a world context “in which it was exceptional for the voice of the victim to be heard at all. These were the ones who formerly were scapegoated, condemned and dehumanized, but who Jesus saw and loved. This is the cry of the least of these.”[1]

It is important to note that, even while they advance the cause of the victim, the Psalms and Job still do not question the ethos in which the just would prosper and the wicked would suffer. They do not question the justice of this ethic, but rather complain that it is not enforced. Neither the Psalmist nor Job sees himself as a sinner in need of forgiveness (as in Paul’s theology); instead, they see themselves as blameless and righteous.

So, while the Psalms and Job represent a significantly unique introduction into the world of religious faith and wisdom, the Scriptures do not at that point reflect an understanding of God’s image as merciful and forgiving.[2]

Thus, Israel fully assimilated the ongoing debate into its life, with the majority advancing a narrative of unquestioning obedience to laws and ritual, and continuing to blame the victims of misfortune and banishing widows, lepers, the poor and virtually all who suffered. According to the ancient wisdom of the majority, it was precisely their suffering that proved that they were evil and deserving of their suffering.

Meanwhile the protesting minority advocated faithful questioning.[3] Perhaps the latest, and therefore the clearest voice for this minority is found in the theme of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah. Here, as in Job, the servant is blameless; thus his suffering is a product of oppression and injustice:

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,
    so he opened not his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
    and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of my people?”   ~Isaiah 53:7-8 (NRSV)

It is this image of the Suffering Servant, and the role of faithful questioning that Jesus personifies in his understanding of his identity as God’s “chosen one.”

We can see in the Gospels that Jesus embraced some parts of Scripture as describing his messianic mission and reflecting God’s kingdom, while other parts he either ignores, reinterprets, or—as we have seen in his “but I say to you” statements—even directly contradicts. I’ll be moving into some specific examples next,

That’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

[Disclaimer: this Lenten series of blogs is a journal of personal pilgrimage which I’m sharing. It is offered in the form of a long—40 DAYS LONG—book report. But more than that, it is my way of assimilating what promises to be a life-changing new way of organizing what I believe about Jesus and how I live out those beliefs. I am grateful for the feedback I’ve been given. It helps me to sharpen my own understanding. I hope you will stay with me through the journey, and I welcome further feedback; but, to be honest, you’d probably be better advised to get the book and read it yourself.]

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[1] Derek Flood, Disarming Scriptures: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence-Loving Conservatives and Why We All Need to Learn to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did (San Francisco: Metanoia Books, Kindle edition), Location 592.

[2] Ibid., Location 601

[3]Ibid., Location 553.