The Word

Yesterday, I quoted Rachel Held Evans: "The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget-- that what makes the gospel offensive isn't who it keeps out but who it lets in."

Consider for a moment the story of Mary and Martha.  A few years ago, I wrote about this story.  

But that's not what it's about. Mary's decision was radical. Mary decides to not be who she was and to  be someone else -- to be a disciple, sitting at Jesus' feet and learning from him. Ortberg writes,  "Martha did what the culture valued in women: cleaned the house and cooked the food. Mary did  what the culture valued in men: became a disciple".

It's a life transforming decision. And Jesus approved.

Anytime we are struggling with biblical interpretation, we should place our thoughts and teachings against what we know of God and what we know of Jesus.  This is the Word.  This is Truth.

As I thought of this today, I reflected about the evangelical debate regarding complementarianism vs egalitarianism.  When we understand that patriarchy is a synonym of complementariansim, then we understand that the complementarian edict that man should be the head of the household, the head of the church, the head of the world is based SOLELY on the fact that he is a man.  They try to support this idea by saying it is a biblical mandate (my words).  

Compare that to how Jesus lived - the true Word.  Compare that to the idea that God created man and woman in God's image.  I think the patriarchal view espoused by complementarians is supported by our 1950s view of traditional family structure, not by Jesus.  Not even by the Bible, if one reads it deeply instead of proof-texting.  References to Biblical Manhood, Biblical Womanhood, and the Biblical definition of marriage as are used to try to support the edict, but they fail.  The 1950's image of Ozzie and Harriet is not scripture.  Jesus is Truth.  Jesus is the Word.  What does Jesus say?  

And what does the Bible really say?

Who it lets in

Reading this morning from Rachel Held Evans' book, Inspired.

Think about the trifecta of stories in the Gospel of Mark:

• In chapter 1, Jesus heals a leper by touching him.
• In chapter 5, a woman who is bleeding touches Jesus and is healed.
• The story in Chapter 5 is interwoven with the story about Jarius. Jesus goes to his home and brings his dead daughter back to life by touching her.

All three - the leper, the bleeding woman, and the dead little girl are untouchable.  And yet Jesus touches them.  He didn't have to.  Do you believe he could have healed them without touching them? I do. But the touch was part of the healing. The touch changes them from untouchable to part of the society again.

In speaking about these miracles in The Meaning in the Miracles, Jeffrey John says what is more relevant to us is that "...the miracles universal significance; the overturning of social and religious barriers; the abolition of taboos; and Jesus' declaration of God' love and compassion for everyone, expressed in the systemic inclusion of each class of previously excluded or marginalized.

Who in your neighborhood is marginalized? Who is untouchable? Who needs to be returned to the community, even though they are physically present? And what can you do about it as you act as the hands and feet of Christ?

Evans goes on to write, "The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget-- that what makes the gospel offensive isn't who it keeps out but who it lets in."

Do we remember that?

Walking on Today's Water

I'm reading Rachel Held Evans book, Inspired.  Chapter 6 includes a section called "The Sea;' it begins with a modern retelling of Peter and Jesus walking on water.  The story begins with a pastor on a boat during a tour that includes the Sea of Galilee during a storm.  As lightning strikes, they turn back to shore, and the man (Pete) sees Jesus walking towards the boat. On the water.

It was a little disconcerting to read the story.  Modern, but with Jesus walking on the water.  It made me wonder - where in our lives do we find Jesus walking on the water?

It would be an unexpected place during an unexpected time.  When in your life have you been down, even to the point of doubting the presence of God, and then found God walking on the water toward you?

When in your life have you needed to see Christ, walking toward you? And found him?

When in your life have you taken the risk, stepped out on the water, and been Christ for someone else who desperately needed him?

Can you watch for Christ? Can you take the risk to step out and be the hands of feet of Christ, present for someone else?

Do we believe the same things?

I'm reading Rachel Held Evans book, Inspired.  As I was thinking thoughts related to yesterday's post, I read this:

God is busy making all thins new, and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus has opened that work to everyone who wants in on it.  The church is not a group of people who believe all the same things; the church is a group of people caught up int he same story, with Jesus as the center.

While you and I are debating issues, God is going about God's work - changing lives, transforming the world.  Do we want in on it? 

I love and applaud the idea that the church is not a group of people who believe the same things.  Certainly, we have a shared system of beliefs that unite us, but beyond that, we do not  We do we continue to insist that we must? 

The church is a group of people caught up in the same story.  Are we? God is transforming the world all around us; are we caught up in that story? Or are we failing to be an obedient church?

Is Christ at the center of what we do?

Apocalyptic Comfort

In her book Inspired, Rachel Held Evans says:

"The point of apocalyptic texts is not to predict the future," explained biblical scholars Amy-Jill Levine in the meaning of the Bible; "it is to provide comfort in the present.  The Bible is not a book of teasers in which God has buried secrets only to be revealed three millennia later." Rather, she argued, apocalyptic texts "proclaim that a guiding hand controls history and assure that justice will be done."

If you consider that John wrote The Revelation to John to an audience of marginalized Christians in the Greco-Roman culture, then the book makes so much more sense.  At least, I think so.  To me, to consider that John was writing to encourage the Christians around him rather than provide a prediction of the end of the world that we are to read as if it were a puzzle is so much more believable.

The book of Daniel was probably written during the religious persecutions of the Green ruler of Palestine and Syria, Antiochus IV Epiphanes.  

I think we can see the general theme - justice will be done, even though it doesn't seem that it is possible right now. That's a message for the target audiences of the apocalyptic works, but also for us.

*Information about biblical texts from The New Interpreter's Study Bible.

Curses

Once, many years ago, a person in our church pointed out that the Bible contains imprecatory Psalms.  He was right, as far as it goes.  These are Psalms that are poems of curse or judgment of one's enemies.  

For example, I read these verses in Rachel Held Evans book Inspired this morning from 109:9-12:

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.
may a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.

The person who was pointing out the existence of these Psalms in the Bible, I think, was using their existence to defend his own cursing / judgment of others.  If they are in the Bible, then....

Three thoughts:

1. The Bible helps us to learn about God, but it also helps us to understand ourselves better.  The existence of this type of poem in Psalms helps us to understand the human condition.  We feel this type of anger, and so did the writer of the Psalm who may have been in exile in Babylonia.  Life in faith isn't always (maybe isn't ever) pain free.  There is anger and pain.
2. The existence of these Psalms in the Bible doesn't give us permission to curse others.  They aren't a justification of hate.  It's always important (in fact, absolutely necessary) to look at the Bible in the light of the revelation of God through Christ.  
3. That said, God provides us with the space to express the hurt and anger - a safe place in conversation with God.  It's a place that doesn't condone or encourage throwing venom towards other people, but it is a place of grace, that expects us to share our hurts and pain and then offers the grace of wholeness and healing. 

Looking into the Eyes of the Beast

Rather than me posting an image today, go look at this image search on google:

I was reading from Rachel Held Evans' Inspired this morning.  In the chapter entitled "Beasts," she begins by telling the story of Bree Newsome.  Do you remember the shooting in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC that killed nine people?  Ten days after that, Bree Newsome climbed the flagpole in front of the state capitol building and removed the Confederate flag in an act of protest.  Evans ends the story with this sentence, which inspires me today, "On a muggy June morning in South Carolina, a young black woman named Bree Newsome scaled the thirty-foot flagpole outside the state's capitol building, looked straight into the eyes of the Beast, and said, 'Not today.'"

As she was handcuffed, she said, "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?"  This is Psalm 27:1.

So I ask you today. How do you need to be Bree Newsome today? Against what Beast do you need to stand?  Where do you need God to be your light and salvation so that you will not fear, but will be courageous and take a stand?

Canonized Contradictions

I may have mentioned this before, but have you ever noticed in Proverbs the following two verses?

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.  Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:4-5)

I'm reading Inspired by Rachel Held Evans.  She quotes Timothy Beal as saying, "The Bible canonizes contradiction."  

We want answers.  We think we would like God to say, "Do this, not this.  Be this, not this. Here I am, and here are all the answers." God doesn't work that way, and the Bible certainly doesn't work that way.

She goes on to say:

"When God gave us the Bible, God did not give us an internally consistent book of answers.  God gave us an inspired library of diverse writings, rooted in a variety of contexts, that have stood the test of time, precisely because, together, they avoid simplistic solutions to complex problems."

I think we can rest assured that if we think the answer is clear cut or simple, we are wrong.

Changing the Story

I'm reading Inspired by Rachel Held Evans.  The chapter I am currently reading struggles with the violence and warfare of the Bible - and the portion I read this morning speaks about the responses of women in the Bible to violence.

Think of the friends of the daughter of Jephthah who instituted a four day annual remembrance ritual after her death.  "They refused to let the nation forget what it had done in God's name."  Or, says Evans, think of the response of a mother to the sacrifice of her two sons as depicted in 2 Samuel 21.  She goes on to write, "The point is, if you pay attention to the women, a more complex history of Israel's conquests emerges."  

How can we use this revelation to understand our current culture of violence against and objectification of women? I see people responding as if sexual assault doesn't matter or isn't believable.  How can we, as women, respond in a way that protests this conclusion? How can we, as women, stand for those among us (not only women) who have been hurt by those with power? Hurt by those more physically powerful or powerful in other ways? What can we do as women to change our history?