Class Notes, November 15

The marriage at Cana, in miniature

Heather gave the book Deer Huting with Jesus the hard sell — “Everyone in this church needs to read this book!” — and started the ball rolling by loaning her copy to another class member. [Note that the author, Joe Bageant, has a blog also titled Deer Hunting with Jesus, which features more info on the book, and more writing by Bageant.]

Linda led us through some interaction with ch. 3 of Writing in the Sand by Thomas Moore, which John had recommended a couple of weeks ago. It’s a meditation on John 2:1-11, the wedding at Cana, also known as the story of Jesus turning water to wine. After reading the passage, we contributed our familiar, “Sunday School lesson” impressions of the story, which included “Jesus says it’s OK to drink wine, at least sometimes!” “Even though Jesus wasn’t married, he blesses marriage,” “Jesus listened to his mother,” “the point of the story is that it’s supposed to be proof Jesus is divine, because he can do miracles.” Heather makes it for an allegory of the life of the church. Dave reminded us that Father Guido Sarducci (remember him?) said it was proof of why Jesus had to be a man (“because women can’t make good wine”). Gary said it was like Advent: “love, peace, joy, hope . . . all wrapped up in one miracle.”

We were pretty intrigued by the involvement of Mary, Jesus’ mother, in the story, which some of has forgotten, or never noticed. That part of the story also seems extremely human, believable and relatable.

Thomas Moore reads the story as having to do with pleasure. He puts Jesus in the context of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who thought the meaning of life lay in the enjoyment of life’s simple pleasures. He doesn’t just bless marriage, but blesses pleasure: men and women having a good time together, eating, drinking, dancing, celebrating, enjoying life. And it’s a story that makes Jesus parallel with the Greek god Dionysus, the “child god” who dies and comes back to life, whose followers encounter him in wine, who has something to do with the reconciliation of extreme opposites, like sensuality/spirituality, . . . [sorry, there were other examples, but I don't remember what they were!] So one of the important lessons of the story for Moore is that Jesus was not an uptight moralist, “inhibited, controlled, righteous, and fearful,” but gave the nod to earthy earthly pleasure. Jesus’ way is ecstatic, celebratory, and a way of joyful reconciliation as opposed to being torn apart by conflicts.

Whether we live and model this way of life . . . well, maybe we are getting better.

Whether or not we are, thinking about it led to some discussion of why people might go elsewhere, if we are so loose and laid back, especially if they are going through some kind of crisis or difficult time. Someone said they knew of someone who preferred to go to a larger, more anonymous church a couple of towns over under those circumstances. This led to some discussion of why . . . why might someone feel uncomfortable sharing with the church the tough times they’re going through, since theoretically that’s exactly when the church is supposed to be most helpful . . . “OK, I know people are going to be there, but I don’t want to be the person needing the help” is one possibility; “. . . and everyone else is doing OK and not having these problems” is another — i.e., I don’t want to be the only one, although “I think anyone here would think ‘this is a high-functioning person who’s going through a rough patch’ instead of some big judgment.” Then maybe “everyone needs a change sometimes” or “if you know everyone knows what’s going on, maybe you want to go somewhere where no one will talk about it, if you’re living this crisis Monday through Friday, on Sunday you want a break.”

Topics for Sunday?

Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kindgom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. Matthew 13.52

Please feel free to suggest topics or resources for our class on November 15 by attaching a comment to this post.

Class Notes, November 8

She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had and she was no better, but rather grew worse. Mark 5.26

We reviewed recent activities and positions taken with respect to developments around health care reform, and the connection of health care reform to matters of faith. We are a diverse group, with shared commitments to faithfulness, as we understand that.

Folks who have been reading E.P. Sanders’ Jesus and Judaism shared their impressions of the text. (“Dense” is one of the gentler descriptions.) This led to a discussion of how we approach the meaning of scripture, in particular accounts of Jesus’ actions and words, for us. Specifically, what are the lessons of the episode of Jesus in the temple (sometimes called “cleansing” the Temple, with its implicit assertion that the Temple was dirty), assuming we even know what that episode was. Specific lessons from our checkered pasts included: “Jesus got angry” — which means it’s OK for us to get angry; the church is not supposed to be mixed up with commerce; Jesus was against the sale of indulgences (learned as “a little Lutheran girl”). To what extent can we simply rely on “the tradition” to know the meaning of a particular episode in the story, to what extent do we need to critically assess that tradition, and how do we go about conducting such a critical assessment?

We began reflecting on the issues raised by the upcoming budget hearing and the financial options facing the congregation at this time.

Sunday’s Topics?

Taking notes

One of the possible uses for the class blog might be to generate topics for Sunday morning’s class a few days ahead of time. This would let us do some advance thinking about things, possibly even locate a relevant resource or two.

One easy way to make this happen would be for anyone with an idea for a topic for Sunday to leave a comment on this post.

Class Notes, November 1, 2009

For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away. . .

In general, this is a class where members bring into class what’s on their minds and hearts, what they’ve encountered during the past week, or what it seems we need to spend time talking about. Theoretically, the class provides its own curriculum.

Today, topics included:

praise for one member’s reacent reading [Writing in the Sand by Thomas Moore];

discussion about problems of accessibility that have arisen for two valued members of the congregation, and what we are doing to help resolve those;

a long discussion about evangelism — on our minds a lot these days, especially since the congregation will soon be focusing even more intensely on Unbinding the Gospel, an evangelism study series by Martha Grace Reese. We’ll be going through Unbinding Your Heart as a congregation in a couple of months. We recognize that as a congregation we have a distinctive identity, and that what people can find here is exactly what some people need, and probably not exactly what others need. Does that mean we need to change? Or does it mean we need to reach out more intentionally to the people we can minister to most effectively?

As far as evangelism goes, there is always a fine line to walk between talking so much about marketing that we lose sight of the purposes for which we are trying to do a better job of spreading the gospel and the news about where people can learn more about it, and talking so little about bending and reaching out to people with particular kinds of needs and traits that we don’t pay any attention to whether our witness or ministry is actually reaching anyone, or who it’s actually reaching. A lot of the issues that noticing that fine line raises came up in our talk today.

Tech Questions

Spreading technology

This past Sunday, we discussed a number of issues related to “technology,” more specifically related to things like blogging, Facebook, Internet communication, and the rise of electronically-mediated social networking.

What are the pros and cons of these phenomena — from a personal standpoint, and maybe from a theological standpoint? What kind of church do people have on the Internet? Is this cluster of technologies something Christians should embrace with enthusiasm, view with caution, resist as part of a commitment to alternative counter-cultural values, or what? [Of course, we have individual personal preferences as well. How do those personal preferences color our conclusions about what is theologically advisable?]

It might be worthwhile to consider a little more deeply how our theology is tied up in issues of technology, its use, its use in relation to the practice of faith (for instance, supporting a church web site or a class blog, encouraging the use of e-mail communications to church members, having a presence on Facebook, etc.).

For example:

• Which theological themes seem related to questions of technology? (E.g., incarnation; revelation and communication; evangelism;selflessness . . .)
• What if any guidance is to be found in the Bible? [not that the Bible deals directly with computer technology, but even the ancient Israelites had technology, and even back then it changed from time to time, aside from the question of whether the Bible says anything about what to become enthusiastic about and why . . .]
• If it’s a question of Christian ethical use of technology, what are the guidelines we ought to be thinking of? (E.g., “speaking the truth in love,” not being respecters of persons, thinking on whatsoever things are true, . . . )
• Where does justice come into issues of technology, its spread and its use? What would constitute just distribution? Just use? Are there threats to, or opportunities for, doing justice that are associated with Internet media & associated developments?

Resources for Ecclesiastes Study

Found this page from the iTanakh with many possibly interesting resources for the study of Ecclesiastes.

Some Notes on Ecclesiastes 7:28

Since we have been talking about talking about Ecclesiastes on Sunday, I have finally taken the plunge and uploaded some notes I made a couple of years ago, at the request of one of my professors (Johanna Bos at LPTS), on my reading of Ecclesiastes 7:28. Not trying to show off, just in case anyone is interested. (Although, if you do end up using them, like in a paper, I hope you will cite me.)

They are condensed, and take some looking up other passages in Proverbs, Job, and other parts of Ecclesiastes to follow all the way. They also refer to Ecclesiastes by its Hebrew title, Qohelet.

Folks at the Women’s Center at LPTS are fond of Qohelet, doubly so since we realized that “qohelet” is a feminine participle of the Hebrew verb qahal, “to assemble, to gather together”. We think this makes it an example of the way women of stature are sometimes hidden in plain sight in the Bible — since virtually all commentaries on this text either ignore the feminine gender of the book’s named author, or go to some almost hilarious lengths to explain it away.

When Johanna asked Wil Gafney what she thought about it, she said it might mean that the text of Qohelet was written by a “royal daughter”, which would also fit with the genre of wisdom literature, since that literature is often associated with court life in the ancient near east. [Wil Gafney, who is a Hebrew scholar at Lutheran Theological Seminary, is also a past Katie Geneva Cannon lecturer. Her lecture was on the guild of female scribes in the ancient near east, another example of women "hidden in plain sight." In Ezra 2:55, where "the descendents of Solomon's servants" are among those who return to the land, one of the servants is listed as "Hassophereth," which sounds like a name, and maybe it is, but it is also a word that means "the female scribe."]

Sharing Spiritual Journeys Online

At our meeting yesterday, a number of us expressed at least some enthusiasm for a companion blog for our class, “Sharing Spiritual Journeys.” Here is it, in a nascent state, ready for us to begin making it into what it will become.

Iron sharpens iron,
and one person sharpens the wits of another.”
Prov. 27:17