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hopeful imagination

Andy has set up a Lenten Blog to which I am contributing during Lent. I decided to do Wednesdays, which means I do the first one – which happens also to be my birthday! So the giving up for Lent bit is going to be in some tension with celebrating my continuing existence!

So every Wednesday for the next 6 weeks I will be posting at "hopeful imagination" See here . Meanwhile, before Lent begins, some verses from that spiritually precise metaphysical poet, George Herbert

Welcome deare feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authoritie,
      But is compos’d of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church sayes, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
      To ev’ry Corporation.

True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
      When good is seasonable;
Unlesse Authoritie, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it lesse,
      And Power it self disable.

It ‘s true, we cannot reach Christ’s fortieth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
      Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior’s purity;
Yet are bid, Be holy ev’n as he.
      In both let ‘s do our best.

Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
      That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
      May strengthen my decays.

Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
      As may our faults control:
That ev’ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
      And among those his soul.

20 February 2007
Humankind cannot bear very much reality. (Eliot)

An English College is trying to attract adults back into education by offering a course on BB – yep, Big Brother. The cultural impact, the significance of celebrity, the nature of vicariously enjoying other people’s fear, aggression, verbal wrangling, psychological warfare, alliance making, mickey taking, the whole package of what is ironically called Reality TV. Put that term into a search engine and you will come up with scores of articles from Time, New Yorker, a whole cluster of respectable broadsheets, offering serious social and cultural comment on one of the most powerful media developments in years. And now you can do the course.

The attraction of Reality TV, Big Brother, Temptation, Pop Idol, I’m a Celebrity etc, is explained by cultural commentators in various ways. Fascination with the psychology of trust and betrayal, a voyeuristic interest in other people’s problems, desire for status and fame being nurtured by watching unknowns suddenly become famous, or infamous – depending on the article, and the vested interests of the writers, you takes your choice.

Made me wonder though, what does a church that believes in the reality of Jesus, have to say to a culture and its people, saturated in manufactured experience, fascinated by lives not their own, absorbed into the world of cctv video-gossip and relationships driven by the desire for audience approval? Would it be possible to win BB without being selfish? Could you survive if you acted in the best interests of others? Is truthfulness and sincerity an assett or a liability? How far does big brother dehumanise relationships by pushing contestants to forms of rivalry that require calculated alliances and personal betrayals? And what is taking place when BB creates a context of proximity to others and invasive spying from the outside – for one thing a worldview in which every ‘other’ is a rival for the prize.

Maybe the first thing the church is able to offer our culture is an unembarrassed sense of moral realism (NOT MORALISM) – all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Why be surprised by the relatively mild form of sinfulness that can be exposed by Reality TV? Maybe sin is one of the few truths that reality TV does accurately portray. Our original sin of putting self at the centre of the universe; the sin of Cain, jealous of his brother; the human capacity to dehumanise others who are a threat to our purposes and ambitions; our love of approval, even if it is bought by fundamental dishonesty……. and so on.

But a second offering from church to our culture is evidence of communities where we seriously resist all that makes Reality TV so precisely accurate in its portrayal of post-modern self absorption. Yes, I know, post-modernity is resistant to any concept of the self – but in reality, the less sure we are that we have a self, the more frantically we go searching for who then we really are.

Whatever else the cross of Jesus means to the Christian, it is the place where we truly discover who we are, who God is. And there we discover too, that the reality of God and the reality of our sin, are taken into the deep purposeful love of God and we are given back the self God made us ( and is making us) to be, in Christ.

For freedom Christ has set you free – stand fast therefore in the liberty of Christ! In that freedom, there is created space for love, capacity for compassion, energy for peaceable peacemaking conversation, commitment to forgiveness, joy in the other’s blessing, celebration of the other’s gifts, defence of the other’s worth – now that is reality. But whether it would make peak viewing……..?

20 February 2007
‘A wee cocksparra…….

Being situated in the middle of the University Campus, and sharing the accommodation with all kinds of other classes taking place (from food safety & health to drug dependency, to corporate marketing), we often get folk coming in asking for directions, drinks of water, the use of the phone to check on lecture times, and various other requests. Last week a lecturer from along the corridor asked us to phone estates and buildings to tell them a small bird was trapped in the room and would need to be released before the weekend. He was quite insistent about the University’s duty of care in this matter, and as a bird lover / watcher I was fully supportive of his concern for the wellbeing of said sparrow (Passer Domesticus). He waited till the incident was duly phoned in and an assurance given of imminent liberation.

The bible verses are self -choosing:

Are not five sparrows sold for a penny, yet not one of these falls to the ground but your Heavenly Father knows it

[In your house] even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest, where she rears her brood beside your altars. Psalm 84:3.

This particular sparrow later flitted off with a little encouragement from University security. Security – how apt is that, like?

19 February 2007
Women’s voices
- Below is a partial list of biblical commentary written by women. I’ll update this now and then, but I’ve found it an interesting wee diversion exploring how much (how little) women are used in the modern commentary industry. See post on Feb 8 & 14.
- Here are a few random observations:
- Intriguing, that commentary series increasingly ask women writers to comment on Ruth and Esther. Is this a recognition that the genre of these two books needs a different approach, perspective, experience? If so, why not extend it beyond the facile assumption that biblical books with women’s names, featuring women should be commented on by women – can’t women do Romans – or Matthew – or Isaiah?
- Anent the above complaint, a leisurely trawl through bibliographies and forthcoming schedules doesn’t show too many women being invited to tackle Psalms, Isaiah, Romans. Schussler-Fiorenza on Revelation in the Hermeneia could be a tour de force, though.
- Several of those noted below are in series that constrain the approach to a pre-set format – usually analytic, textually atomistic, or artificially compartmentalising information. Is that a kind of male approach or am I guilty of simplistic stereotyping of the most reprehensible sort?
- Often some of the best biblical commentary is not in series, or is in a series that allows individuality in approach within reasonable editorial control. So Gail O’Day in the New Interpreter’s Bible is a thoughtful and spiritually alert exposition of John’s gospel; Carol Meyers on Exodus avoids the hang-ups about historicism and conveys the excitement of the biblical text; Carol Newsom on Job, again in the New Interpreter’s Bible, is in my view a model of theological reflection, rooted in deep exegetical study, and some of the most penetrating pastoral comment that takes Job’s experience with human seriousness.
- Of those forthcoming I’m looking for Beverly Gaventa on Romans – she’s been doing a course on Paul and Karl Barth, shared with Princeton Barthian scholar Bruce McCormack; and Judith Gundry-Volf, scheduled to do I Corinthians in the Word series – due when I am old!
- Just issued, the commentary on 1 Timothy by Elsa Tamez (pictured below) is just as provocative as her earlier Scandalous Message of James. As a liberation theologian, she is interested in issues of power, poverty and the liberty of Christ – and she comes at the biblical text with the assumption that the liberating Christ is a primary and controlling hermeneutical principle.
- An earlier and later series of The Feminist Companion to the Bible covers now most of the biblical books. They are important contributions to biblical study in their own right, and are collections of essays written from a feminist perspective. I’ve found those I’ve used fresh, asking different questions, providing different answers to the same questions. My one hesitation is that I think there is a difference between a woman writing a commentary and a woman writing biblical study from a self consciously feminist or womanist position. Is that a fair point?
Anyway here’s the list so far

Biblical Commentary by Women

Genesis – Kathleen O’Connor, Smyth and Helwys (Forthcoming – no date)

Exodus – Carol Meyers, New Cambridge Bible Commentary

         -Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain (on the Ten Commandments

Numbers – Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, International Theological Commentary

Ruth, Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, Interpretation

Joan Chittister, The Story of Ruth. Twelve Moments in Every Woman’s Life

Samuel – Francesca Murphy, Brazos Theological Commentary (Forthcoming – date unknown)

Chronicles – Sara Japhet, Old Testament Library

Esther – Karen Jobes, NIV Application Commentary

      – Joyce Baldwin, Tyndale Old Testament Commentary

Job – Carol Newsom, New Interpreter’s Bible

Ecclesiastes – Joan Chittister, There is a Season

Song of Solomon – Renita Weems, New interpreter’s Bible

Psalms – Ellen Charry and Anne Astell, Brazos Theological Commentary

Lamentations – Kathleen O’Connor, Lamentations and the Tears of the World

Ezekiel – Margaret Odell, Smyth and Helwys

Jonah – Phyllis Trible, New Interpreters Bible

– Rosemary Nixon, Message of Jonah. Presence in the Storm.

Luke – Loveday Alexander, Black’s NT Commentary

John – Gail O’Day, New Interpreter’s Bible

   – Marianne Meye-Thompson, New Testament Library Commentary Series (forthcoming 2008?)

Acts – Beverly Gaventa, Abingdon NT Commentary

   – Loveday Alexander, Black’s NT Commentary (Forthcoming)

Romans – Beverley Gaventa, New Testament Library Commentary Series (Forthcoming)

– Marva Dawn, Truly the Community. Romans 12 and How to be the Church

1 Corinthians – Linda Belleville, Word Biblical Commentary (Forthcoming 2010)

2 Corinthians – Linda Belleville, IVP New Testament Commentary

Ephesians – Pheme Perkins, Abingdon NT Commentary

Philippians – Morna Hooker, Black’s New Testament Commentary

            – Carolyn Osiek, Abingdon NT Commentary

            – Bonnie Thurston, Sacra Pagina

1 Timothy – Elsa Tamez, Struggles for Power in Early Christianity

James – Elsa Tamez, The Scandalous Message of James.

1 Peter – Karen Jobes, Baker Exegetical Commentary

I John – Judith Lieu, New Testament Library Commentary series (Forthcoming)

Revelation, Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Hermeneia (Forthcoming – date unknown)

– Marva Dawn, Joy in our Weakness. The Gift of Hope from the Book of Revelation.
18 February 2007
Committed or Committeed?

For God so loved the world that he did not form a committee…..

It’s easy to have a pot at committees, and sure there’s a lot of time spent talking, consulting, reporting, recording, remitting. A large American church has a consultative committee of the sub group on church committees. I’ve just come through several days of being over committeed. Days of talking in small select groups, around pre-arranged agendas. In all the talk surrounding Christian leadership, vision-building and development, there are times when it seems the consensual, consultative confabbing that goes on in committees, seems to slow down rather than facilitate necessary change and innovative thinking.

But I wonder if what is criticised is committee at its worst. Sure, at worst committees can be bottlenecks where good ideas are put on indefinite hold till the original enthusiasm and energy dissipate. ‘A cul de sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled’. At worst a committee can be made up of people whose ability to veto, delay, frustrate and revise innovative, risk taking and original initiatives, gets in the way of ‘real leadership’. Fibber Magee speaks of committees as ‘a small group of the unqualified, appointed by the unthinking, to undertake the utterly unnecessary.’ So that’s committee at its worst.

At its best a committee can provide important space for creative thinking, trusting conversation, collaborative discussion, in which expertise and experience are freely tabled in the interests of making good decisions and forming strategic initiatives. The good committee can also act as a corrective, a friendly critic, a cautionary voice, while also being an enabling resource and a permissive supporter of adventurous thinking. I happen to believe in committee at its best; the ability of a diverse group to meet, listen and speak, to think clearly enough and to be confident enough in their own insights that they are prepared to change their minds in the light of others’ experience. Of course it requires self discipline, humility to listen, trustfulness to speak, confidence in the reality of the Holy Spirit’s influential presence, discernment to know when someone else is ‘at it!’, and through the whole process a commitment to the communal and relational foundations of Christian fellowship. ‘It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit’ is one of the most intriguing statements about church administration in the entire NT!

Two further thoughts – If it is true that the saving work of Jesus was purposed and determined in the eternal relations of the Triune God, should we be so sure that ‘God so loved the world that he did not form a committee……???’

Isn’t it true that the gathering of a congregation as the Body of Christ, meeting to discern the mind of Christ by listening to God, listening to each other, and listening to God through each other, is itself a reflection of the relational mutual exchange of love and trust that defines the love of the Triune God?

In our church life, when committees meet, they begin in prayer – so the real chairmanship is already determined by the promised presence of the risen Lord; the discussion quality controlled by the fruit of the Spirit who indwells our hearts and reminds us we all call "Abba, Father"; the agenda open to revision because the Kingdom of God is leaven, new wine, mustard seed and many another metaphor for the uncontrollable activity of God in our midst; the fundamental relations are that of family, brothers and sisters and children of the Father, from whom every family on earth is named.

If our committee meetings are boring, frustrating, sterile, a waste of time, talk-shops, perhaps that is because we dampen our capacity to be what Elton Trueblood, that forgotten philosopher saint of the Quaker tradition once described as, the incendiary fellowship.

17 February 2007
to buy or not…..? Hmmmmmm?

To Buy or not?

Well, Graeme Clark came into College waving this book around, enthusing about it. I scanned the chapters, browsed around the contents page and read the various commendations and publisher’s blurb – all of whom warn that my education would be sadly deficient, and my perspectives seriously skewed, and my ability to sound well informed in any half serious theological discussion significantrly diminished if I didn’t get this book. Such publisher’s blurb and pundit commendations are part of a marketing strategy to hook the gullible. Who said the word gullible isn’t in the dictionary? Course it is. I checked! Book ordered!

16 February 2007
jazz, tapestry and Moltmann

Years ago I stopped giving up things for Lent, and started taking up things for Lent. One year I asked a friend who is an expert on Jazz and the Bible to compile some music for me to listen to throughout Lent. I still struggle to ‘get’ jazz, but I do understand its passion, its rhythm’s, its re-construal of the world, the place of improvisation and collaboration and inspiration in music that celebrates human longing and creativity. The long track of Duke Ellington’s ‘David danced before the Lord’ I played endlessly in the car to my great blessing! I still think the drummer was a genius.

Another time I read through the poetry of Emily Dickinson and discovered a whole world of grace expressed in the oddity and precision of one who told the truth and told it slant. Another year I took up the telephone – as they say in cooking programmes – ‘you literally just’ take up the phone – every night of Lent I phoned someone for no other reason than to speak with them and wish them well in their lives. Since then I have seen the phone as a conduit of friendship, conversation, fun, comfort, and if occasionally an interruption, even these can be moments of grace.

After a long hiatus I have ‘taken up’ my tapestry frame, again. I am working on a new tapestry which will be my project through Lent, Easter and beyond. Working a tapestry is, amongst other things, a way of finding out how stressed you are! Doing it right and well, you mustn’t pull the thread too tight (so unclench the teeth and relax the shoulders); working on small guage canvas (26 to inch) you can’t work either mindlessly or rapidly (so rememebr, there is no deadline). Controlled gentleness and contentment with slowness gets it done……………………… eventually. I wish I could always believe and practice in my life, the observation of can’t remember who, ‘Snails do the will of God slowly!

I don’t do ‘kits’, I prefer to design my own tapestries, or work freehand from a picture. This one is a Celtic cross made up of five squares,(and made up out of my head!) with the interior of each showing intertwining celtic knots depicting the Trinity. It is being done in stranded cotton, the bright colours ranging through the rainbow, and the colours chosen randomly apart from the strong outlines of the Trinity symbols. (I’ll post a photo once it’s recognisably what I’ve described!!) Tapestry is the creation of a picture or image from thousands of intersecting stitches – no wonder it has been used as a metaphor of human life, its textures, colours, patterns, shapes and overall theme.

Not sure what it will look like but it is an attempt to show the relations between the suffering and crucified love of God in Christ, and the eternal loving relations of the Triune God. We had a class last year on ‘Rediscovering the Triune God’ basing much of our discussions around the theology of Jurgen Moltmann. His contribution to contemporary thought includes profound meditation on the crucified God, and the effect of the crucifixion on the eternal relations of Father Son and Spirit. As a Lenten theme it cries out for meditation and prayer.

16 February 2007
Worship is……?

Both for perplexity and for dulled conscience the remedy is the same, sincere and spiritual worship.

For worship is the submission of all our nature to God.

It is the quickening of the conscience by his holiness, the nourishment of mind with his truth, the purifying of imagination by his beauty, the opening of the heart to his love, the surrender of the will to his purpose; and all of this, gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable….

William Temple,

Archbishop of Canterbury, 1942-44.

Anyway I stopped going to churches

and got myself into a different kind of religion. That’s what being in a rock and roll band is, not pseudo religion either…

Music is worship.

Whether it’s worship of women or their designer, the world or its destroyer, whether it comes from that ancient place we call the soul or simply the spinal cortex, whether the prayers are on fire with a dumb rage or dove-like desire….the smoke goes upwards…to God, or something you replace God with…

usually yourself.

Bono (Paul Hewson), U2

15 February 2007
Missing voices
In a couple of days I will post a list of commentary writing by women. Remember I asked if anyone had any suggestions, favourites? Several replied – I’ll include your suggestions but as I rummaged around in my head I decided to make a fuller list. Further Suggestions can be posted in the comments and I’ll update it as and when. Why bother? Two reasons.
1. I think commentary writing needs to open up through, but beyond exegesis, as a genre of theological and spiritual reflection. The reason for the series of blogs on Hauerwas – apart from the man’s own appeal as a ‘burr under the saddle’ – is the freshness and challenge of writing that is in conversation with ancient text and contemporary church.
2. My own exposure to women’s writing on Scripture and theology has been far too limited – but that isn’t only my fault – the entire industry of biblical studies has been dominated by male authors. That is slowly changing, but scheduled lists of commentaries projected by publishers are not encouraging. Despite this, several commentaries by women have demonstrated for me the critical (in both senses of the word) importance of hearing women’s voices in conversation with the biblical text and the contemporary church.
More whimsically here are some commentaries that were never written, but which I wish had been –

The Cappadocian Mother, Macrina on Colossians and the Divine life in Christ

Julian of Norwich on the Passion Narratives as Revelations of Divine Love

Teresa of Avila on Hebrews and the Way of Perfection in Christ

George Eliot* on Ecclesiastes and the Eclipse of Faith

Emily Dickinson’s poetic take on the Creation stories of Genesis

Dorothy Day on the prophet Amos and social justice for the poor.

Annie Dillard on the Psalms of Lament and Praise

Anne Tyler on Ruth as a story of love, friendship and the happenstance of life and the providence of God

* Perhaps she could revert to her own name of Marian Evans, in the hope that she would now be taken seriously as a writer without a male nom-de plume!
14 February 2007
and a lover of souls….

I came across this description of teachers from one of my favourite browsing sources. It highlights a number of expectations which I think are valid, and not easy to fulfil. I’ve copied it twice, because the Desert Fathers also includes Desert Mothers!

A teacher ought to be a stranger to the desire for domination, vain-glory, and pride; one should not be able to fool him by flattery, nor blind him by gifts, nor conquer him by the stomach, nor dominate him by anger; but he should be patient, gentle, and humble as far as possible; he must be tested and without partisanship, full of concern, and a lover of souls.
—Benedicta Ward, Desert Christian

A teacher ought to be a stranger to the desire for domination, vain-glory, and pride; one should not be able to fool her by flattery, nor blind her by gifts, nor conquer her by the stomach, nor dominate her by anger; but she should be patient, gentle, and humble as far as possible; she must be tested and without partisanship, full of concern, and a lover of souls.
—Benedicta Ward, Desert Christian

13 February 2007