Don't be Foolish

Amy-Jill Levine, in her book Short Stories by Jesus, writes in reference to the understanding of parables:

As  much as we might respect the idea of divine freedom and mystery, we are ultimately more comfortable with answers rather than questions, with the tried and true rather than new thoughts.  Debate can be messy; it can lead to disagreement, or words.  Better than everyone remain on the same page.  (page 300)

I think this is true as we seek to interpret scripture (and don't give me that look - all reading of scripture requires interpretation).  But beyond that, do you think it is true in life in general?  Are we more comfortable with answers? So much so that we are willing to overlook lose threads, misrepresentations, and downright lies in order to have them?  Not only that, but are we so eager for confirmation of what we believe that we give no thought to accepting that which is so clearly wrong?

There is so much misinformation deployed in our society, and we seem eager to grasp onto it, and believe it without logical thought.  I can see it happening in the United Methodist Church, so much so that there is an effort to help people to intelligently review everything that is being thrown at them.  This series from the United Methodist Communicators is one such tool.

I also see this in the world at large.  Sometimes we are so eager for our "side" to be proven "right" that we don't apply any logic at all to the information we take in - we just believe it blindly. 

Please stop and think.  Approach what you read and hear - whether it is biblical interpretation or "news" stories - with the proverbial grain of salt.  Do you REALLY believe it? It is logical based on what you already know? Does it make sense at all?  It is all of our responsibility to examine "facts" before we share them.  In church, in faith, and in politics.  Don't be foolish.

 

Book Review: Short Stories about Jesus

 Information about the book
Amy-Jill Levine.  Short Stories about Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi.  Harper One. New York. 2014.  (Cokesbury / Amazon).  For those interested in using this book as curriculum, there is a Leaders Guide and video on Cokesbury.

Summary

From the Amazon description: Jesus was a skilled storyteller and perceptive teacher who used parables from everyday life to effectively convey his message and meaning. Life in first-century Palestine was very different from our world today, and many traditional interpretations of Jesus' stories ignore this disparity and have often allowed anti-Semitism and misogyny to color their perspectives.

In this wise, entertaining, and educational book, Amy-Jill Levine offers a fresh, timely reinterpretation of Jesus' narratives. In Short Stories by Jesus, she analyzes these "problems with parables", taking us back in time to understand how their original Jewish audience understood them. Levine reveals the parables' connections to first-century economic and agricultural life, social customs and morality, Jewish scriptures, and Roman culture. With this revitalized understanding, she interprets these moving stories for a contemporary listener, showing how the parables are not just about Jesus, but are also about us - and when understood rightly, still challenge and provoke us 2,000 years later.

Impressions

I found this book to be excellent!  It was so full of ah hah moments that I can't begin to list them.  Each chapter is a different parable.  Levine begins with some traditional interpretation work, and then looks at the scripture in sections, sharing information about the audience to which the parable was told and how they would have heard and reacted to it.  At the end of each chapter, she offers interpretations that often mesh better with the original purpose and intention of the parable. 

In the last "epilogue-like" chapter, she offers advice that if a parable is interpreted as allegory, platitudes, based on a negative stereotype of Judaism, or does not raise questions, then our interpretation needs a second look.  Her insights are fresh and authentic; she is a professor of New Testament at Vanderbilt, and she is a Jew.  The combination of those two characteristics provide an outlook that is baked in knowledge. 

I highly recommend this book.

Posts about book

Posts on my blog that reference this book will be tagged with Levine Short 

The Value of Context

Take a look at this passage.  It is Luke 16:20-21, listed in four different versions.  The last one is from Short Stories by Jesus (Amy-Jill Levine)

And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,  who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. (New Revised Standard Version)

“There once was a rich man, expensively dressed in the latest fashions, wasting his days in conspicuous consumption. A poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, had been dumped on his doorstep. All he lived for was to get a meal from scraps off the rich man’s table. His best friends were the dogs who came and licked his sores.  (The Message, 19-21)

At his gate lay a certain poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores.  Lazarus longed to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Instead, dogs would come and lick his sores. (Common English Bible)

And some poor person, named Lazarus, was lying by his gates, being (covered with) sores.  And he was wishing to be fed from the things falling from the table of the wealthy, but rather the dogs, coming, were licking his sores. (Amy-Jill Levine)

What is your first reaction when you read these passages?  Mine is "Yuk" - dogs licking his sores.  Poor man - he can't even get something to eat, and now he is subjected to dogs licking his sores.  Does it feel the same to you as one of those commercial fund-raisers for charities that feed people in famine-suffering countries, where the child is covered with flies, too weak from hunger and illness to even swat them away?

Levine paints a different picture, and I thought it was a good illustration of the necessity of understanding who Jesus was speaking to in order to truly "get" the scripture.  There is historical evidence that the people in antiquity saw that saliva had healing properties.  One might think that Lazarus is unclean (with Leprosy) because of the sores, but we don't have evidence to support that.  Also, there is some evidence that some Jews at the time kept dogs as pets - they were not considered unclean. 

Dogs are not sources of uncleanness- that is not the image Jesus's audience would take from the description of Lazarus.  Rather, they would realize that the dogs provided him with his only comfort.  The dogs realized what the rich man did not - that people in pain need help.   

We need to remember when we read scripture that it is not our reactions to what is written that is important in interpretation - we need to do some work to understand the reactions of the people who were listening at the time. This will tell us more about what was originally meant.

A Different Look at the Laborers in the Vineyard

 I'm reading the book Short Stories by Jesus, written by Amy-Jill Levine.  I just finished the chapter called Laborers in the Vineyard, based on Matthew 20:1-16.  To briefly summarize the parable, a householder hires workers beginning at dawn, for a reasonable wage, and then continually, every three hours, throughout the day, until the last group is hired and works for only an hour.  They are all paid the reasonable wage of one denarius.  Those who worked all day complain about the fairness of the pay - they worked longer; they should be paid more.

Levine make a (good) case for the parable not to be a statement of God rewarding everyone the same - those who have been believers for a long time (or those who were Jewish followers) and those who came to believe just lately.  Instead, she asks that we look at the parable differently.  What if the parable is really about how the rich - those who have the means - should treat those who have need.  The householder goes and looks for those who need to work, employees them, and pays them a reasonable wage.  Everyone has the funds to support themselves.  Those hired first receive what can be expected for their work - they complain because the householder is generous. 

What if this is what the kingdom is like?  What if the kingdom of God is a place where those who are able, who have the means, provide for those who don't have the means?  What if the work of some of us supports all of us?  Levine says, "[Jesus's] focus is often less directly on "good news to the poor' than on "responsibility of the rich."  Can the workers be content with what is right rather than what they perceive to be fair?

What if the message of this parable is for us to learn "what it  means to act as God acts, with generosity to all."?  What would that generosity look like?  It would be counter to our entire society.  The goal of the householder (or the business owner) would not be to keep as much as possible and pay as little as he can get away with.  The reaction of the workers would not be to analyze what would be fair and complain about the good fortune of others, but to join the householder in generosity, grateful that everyone has enough money to live.  

Who is Lost?

 Read this from Luke 15:25-32:

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

I'm reading Short Stories by Jesus written by Amy-Jill Levine.  The parables in Luke 15 -- The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal and his brother -- is Chapter 1.  I highly recommend this book.  I'm not going to write a post explaining the entire first chapter (I have written a post or two already about it); you should get the book and read it yourself.

Have you ever noticed that when the older son comes in from the field, the celebration of his younger son's return is already happening? Think for a minute.  Imagine that one of your family members returns home after being gone - thought to be gone forever.  It's time to celebrate! What do you do? Before you gather the ingredients for the meal or set the table? You tell the rest of the family so that they can share in the joy.

Why hadn't anyone gone to the fields to tell the older brother that the younger one had returned? To share the joy and bring him back for the celebration?

Could it be that the lost brother is the one in the field? Who among us is lost? Who, right in front of us, is excluded? And what will we do about it?

Context

As I've mentioned before, I am reading Short Stories by Jesus, written by Amy-Jill Levine.  I did read the entire Introduction, although I was impatientto get to the chapters.  I'm glad I did.  Here are three great quotes about context:

• "...a text without a context is just a pretext for making it say anything one wants."
• "In order better to hear the parables in their original contexts and so to determine what is normal and what is absurd, what is conventional and what is unexpected, we need to do the history."
• "If we get the context wrong, we'll get Jesus wrong as well.  The parables are open-ended in that interpretation will take pace in every act of reading, but they are also historicallly specific.  When the historical context goes missing or we get it wrong, the parables become open to problematic and sometimes abusive readings."

Reading scripture carries responsibility with it, especially if we are teaching or preaching.  We have to take that seriously and do our homework.

The Initially Oblivious Owner

I'm working my way through the book Short Stories by Jesus, written by Amy-Jill Levine. In it, she takes parables of Jesus, and looks at them in ways we might not have considered before. She reviews each parable as it would have been heard by 1st century Jews, and then in a more modern context. Amy-Jill Levine is a professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, and she is Jewish. I think her viewpoint is especially valuable. 

 Think about the parable of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15:4-7. "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?" Levine reminds us that for a person to have 100 sheep presupposes a person of some means. 100 is a lot of sheep. If you had 100 sheep, would you easily notice when one is missing? Levine says, "Perhaps it is those who have who are more likely to fail to notice what is missing." She goes on to say, "... he reminds listeners that perhaps they have lost something, or someone, as well, but have not noticed it. Before the search can begin, we need to notice what, or who, is not there." Levine proposes that perhaps, instead of calling the parable a story of a Lost Sheep, we should call it the parable of "The Initially Oblivious Owner." 

 To hear that, we have to let go of the idea that the one guarding the sheep is Jesus. We have to consider that we are the ones who are tasked with taking care of the sheep. And aren't we? Have we noticed who is missing? Are we willing to pay enough attention? And do we confess that the one who is missing is worth the time and effort to find? 

 To once again quote Levine, "When was the last time we took stock, or counted up who was present rather than simply counted on their presence? Will we take responsibility for the losing, and what effort will we make to find it - or him or her- again?"