Reading the Maps (Mark 7:24-30)

            Each year I attended Sunday school, the curriculum changed to reflect the growth of reading skills for the young student, however, there were four consistent elements to my childhood Sunday school memories:

            Loving and dedicated women and men who took the task of teaching the faith seriously enough to speak of God’s love and grace, even when it took every bit of their own love and grace to keep track of the unruly kids in their care;

            Flannel-graph, the Youtube of pre-technological Sunday school;

            Kool-Aid (in small town Kansas churches, if you have a jug of Kool-Aid, you can teach Sunday school.  If you have a mini-van as well, you can lead the youth group.)

            Bible Maps.

            Maps of the ancient biblical world are found in fewer Sunday school classrooms, most of them treasured and torn from years of wear and tear. Today, one can go online and reproduce for free just about any Bible map you could want, or if you are really up on technology, even use BibleMap.org hyper linking the biblical text to the locations named in a passage.  You can even utilize GoogleEarth to show the modern day terrain.

            With all this knowledge, bible maps are just one tool for understanding the texts.  You can see Tyre is located on the coastline, far away from most of the other places frequented by Jesus and his disciples.  Mark’s gospel also tips the reader off that Jesus has traveled far from his usual circuit of local Galilean villages.  In Tyre, Jesus has traveled a distance so to have some rest and relaxation.  Tyre is a wealthy city, primarily occupied by Gentiles.  He likely stays with fellow Jews, but his time of R&R is cut short by the unexpected encounter with a Syrophoenician woman, desperate for his help in healing her demon-possessed child.

            This particular passage makes a modern-day reader wince.  The dialogue between Jesus and this woman is rather tense, and Jesus does not seem to square with the Jesus we tend to tell our children about.  Unless it involves chasing moneychangers out of the Temple, our stories of Christ do not revolve around the Lord being angry or being so brusque.  Jesus tends to be the benevolent figure of the Flannel-graph of years ago, and therefore, such passages of the Gospel remind us that the gospels are richly textured and complex.  To read the gospels, even Mark with its plain and straightforward style, you really need a good map to understand the type of spiritual terrain of Mark, or if you will, “the lay of the land” envisioned by Jesus’ ministry and proclamation of the Reign of God.

            In this text, we encounter the need for a few other maps.  Knowing where Tyre is located is helpful, however, we need to puzzle out the way through this text with other maps to guide us.  In this one text, we encounter mountains and valleys separating a Syrophoenician woman’s desperation from a fair hearing by this Jewish teacher and healer looking just for a breather.  To read this text, we need help seeing the terrain with different markers, charting our way through first century understandings of gender, religious worldviews, and even economics. 

            Modern readers struggle with this text, reading the text with eyes, ears, and hearts shaped, influenced, and perhaps wounded by the realities of living in a culture where women still struggle with invisibility in the public square, pay scale, career options, and even in the Church, lest we be remiss, the realities of even among Jesus’ followers, those who would support, overtly or covertly, the stained glass ceiling.  This text sounds too familiar: a request is rebuffed or minimized, left aside in the order of “what really matters”. 

            The “map” of gender helps us see the tenacity and determination of the Syrophoenician woman, resolute in her task of ensuring her child’s wellbeing.  She has heard of Jesus’ reputation as healer, indeed, his notoriety as one willing to go beyond the lines and barriers of his faith tradition’s majority teachings.  Mark 7 is a study in contrasts:  last week we heard of Jesus’ willingness to keep the faith in ways “off the map” kept by the Pharisees.  This week, we encounter a text where the same Jesus, bushed from the village circuit, leaving for a place where he could go unnoticed. 

            The argument between the Gentile woman and the Jewish rabbi is artful as well as tense.  In the first century, arguments carried especial importance, as one’s honor or shame in the eyes of others was determined by the skill of keeping ahead of your detractors in the battle of words.  Here, Jesus uses rebuffing words that lack grace, yet the woman picks up on his diminutive words and turns them around.  Here, in the midst of the gospels, with Jesus’ knack for besting Pharisees, Sadducees, and all the other hecklers in the crowd, Jesus concedes her point and heals the child from afar.  As it has been written in modern day scholarship, this occasion is the only time Jesus “loses” a fight, and he is bested by the most unlikely source:  a Gentile woman, who reminds him of his calling and the fullness of the Reign of God.

            The gender map illumines the first footpath through this story.  We turn now to the implications of a Gentile reminding Jesus of what he taught.  To look at this passage with a map rendered by first century Jewish thought, one wonders if Mark offers a small joke, emphasizing the woman’s identity as “a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin”.  The narrative cues up that Jesus is out of his home territories, however, going to Tyre and encountering this woman, Jesus is shown here as encountering someone from the wrong side of the tracks.  His “dog” comment resonates rudely to twenty-first century ears, and even in the first century, listeners would have heard this term as a put-down.  Dogs were considered among the most unclean of animals.  The argument Jesus uses keeps a sense of purity that seems a far cry from the Jesus among the Pharisees just a few verses ago.  If anything, Jesus seems a study in contradictions here in Mark, chapter seven. He allows his disciples to be more common and less ritualized.  Now he treats an outsider to Israel’s worldview with a rather insular “close the ranks and circle the wagons” attitude.

            For Mark’s gospel, the text highlights many characters, major and minor, which encounter Jesus, yet respond differently to his message.  Jesus struggles to have his message understood by the Temple elite, the Roman and Jerusalem authorities, the various religious groups, and even his own disciples.  Elizabeth Struthers Malbon demonstrates in her reading of Mark’s gospel the minor characters, the one-note, almost cameo appearance folks are the ones who recognize Jesus and his true identity, authority, and power.  Look at the healings, and it is the leper, the woman with hemorrhaging, the blind persons, and all the other who cross the stage of the gospel just in brief scenes, who are the ones with the lines that really tell the story being performed by Mark’s cast of characters.  Malbon observes, “The minor characters whom [Jesus] has healed exemplify faith in Jesus’ power and authority” (In the Company of Jesus, p. 199). Scholar Mitzi Minor likewise observes,

Where God’s realm spreads, there is a marvelous breakthrough in the struggle against oppressive restriction on human life.  Through the transforming even t of the miracle, people are freed from bondage and made whole.  (From The Spirituality of Mark, Westminster/John Knox, 1996, p. 51)

The Syrophoenician woman carries the distinction of being the only person in Mark’s entire gospel that calls Jesus “Lord”.  Our English translations tend to use the “Sir” form, but the Greek word (kyrios) is there in the ancient manuscripts, attesting to the seriousness of this woman’s belief.  She places herself in a posture of supplication, honoring Jesus’ authority and power.  She takes Jesus’ identity as “Lord” very seriously, even to the point of engaging in the verbal sparring unfolding here.  Women in the gospel of Mark may seem minor characters, yet again and again, they are strong advocates for Jesus’ vision of the Reign of God that “has come near” (Mark 1:15).  From the longer ending to Mark’s gospel, we also learn that it will be Mary Magdalene, another minor character, who proclaims the resurrection first, despite her news being dismissed by the inner circle of disciples.  I keep an icon of Mary Magdalene proclaiming the Easter good news in my office.  She tells the story with great confidence, and the men look rather disbelievingly at her. It is a good reminder of the great witness Baptists often have been party to silencing, all in the name of keeping the pulpit and the ministry restricted to whom they believe God has called rather than those who God has called.

One final map is less obvious, perhaps lost in the midst of the more evident needs this text presents regarding help navigating issues of gender and religion.  The final map is one of economics.  The German New Testament scholar Gerd Theissen notes Tyre was a well-populated and wealthy coastal city.  It was “upper Galilee” who supplied the demand of the coast cities.  “In periods of crisis or food shortage, the populace of the hinterlands may have resented producing goods for the wealthy cities” (Theissen’s argument is traced by Pheme Perkins, in “Mark”, New Interpeter’s Bible, Vol. IX, p. 610).  A Galilean would have carried a bit of a chip on the shoulder, dealing with a Gentile from a more privileged economic stance, a bit of underlying chronic irritation about the power dynamic and financial control being in the hands of outsiders. 

The preacher Jeremiah Wright (a controversial name from last year’s political battles) spoke at Riverside Church in 2006.  He told stories about his primarily African American congregation in Chicago dealing with a changing neighborhood, and despite a strong identification with issues of inclusion and racial justice, Wright found some of his congregants murmuring about the neighborhood’s demographics shifting with an influx of Asian American owned businesses.  Wright highlighted the difficulties of congregants struggling to see beyond their own biases, treating others in ways that they themselves would not want to be treated.

The economic map is a lesser trail to follow, however, one sees the multiple challenges the Syrophonecian woman undertook to cross the gulfs of invisibility, insularity, and ideology to show her faith in Jesus.  It is a complex story Mark gives us to ponder, and we learn yet again that the gospel is not easily tamed.  It takes maps to get us places, yet we cannot take any one map as the final authority on the terrain you encounter.

A few years back, rural Kansas had a bit of an identity crisis.  New regulations for emergency response systems required a standardization of road names.  My father sat on the board selecting new names for old dirt roads.  It was challenging, as the committee had to create names compliant with the new standards in mind as well as the painful experience of changing the names of roads sometimes long known by locals by names that passed down the generations. 

One reality of these renaming or remapping of the locality was to level the playing field for all persons.  If there was a new resident, how would they know the local names well enough to tell a EMT how to get to a house.   Directions dependent on “turn left at Belknap Corner and you’ll find the Hugenots living on the old Jacot homestead” required a great deal of insider knowledge.  New maps may not recall and recollect certain memories of the past or keep traditions, yet at the same time, it allows everyone to know where they are going. 

Christianity has a map that we all struggle to follow.  It’s called the gospel.

The Messy Kitchen (selections from Mark 7)

The Messy Kitchen   Mark 7

At the movies this weekend, people are flocking to see “Julie and Julia”, a film based on a book based on a blog.  While working in New York City, Julie Powell decided to try her hand at all of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Her experiences, good and bad, of cooking her way through Julia Child’s book resulted in an online diary (“blog”), which in turn became a book: Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, published in 2005.  The film’s popularity has created another remarkable twist to the story.  Despite being published forty-nine years ago, Mastering the Art of French Cooking is at the top of the best-seller list again.

Julia Child’s kitchen is now in the Smithsonian collection in Washington, DC.  You can walk into a special display at the Museum of American History, seeing everything exactly as Julia Child kept her kitchen before she donated all of it lock, stock, and “ladle” in 2001.  It is a well-designed space, a testament to Child’s practical sensibilities.  For example, her kitchen range, a six burner Garland commercial gas range was purchased in 1956, used, for $429.  Installed at the family home in 1961, she used it right up until her retirement in 2001.  (SOURCE: http://americanhistory.si.edu/juliachild/jck/html/textonly/ob4.asp)

Julia Child, played with eerie perfection by Meryl Streep in the film, valued cooking as an art that anyone could enjoy.  Julia also kept to a long-held cooking secret shared down the generations:  the five second rule.  In the midst of cooking with cameras rolling, she would drop things and pick them up, noting that it is okay to do so, “as you are alone and who is to know?”

For some people, Julia gave permission to learn how to cook and know it is okay to bend the occasional rule.  For others, Julia’s trial and error ways with food sometimes hitting the floor was a bit distasteful. Julia Child was a bane to the existence of uptight grandmothers with June Cleaver meets Martha Stewart sensibilities about kitchen hygiene.  Julia is probably still considered a menace to society according to food safety inspectors.  For some people, five seconds is okay.  To others, it is unfathomable! 

The story of Jesus engaging the Pharisees might come off as an exercise in pedantic sensibilities.  Does it matter if you use an ingredient fallen to the floor if picked up within the five second rule?  Does it matter to eat food without ritually washing one’s hands?  Why is this considered a conflict?

In the interpretation of the Gospels, Christians have tended to treat the Pharisees as a religious sect of Judaism gone too far.  The Pharisees valued a stringent religious life, however, we have to understand their views with due care, as we shall explore this morning.  Further, certain elements to the gospels make unfortunately blanket statements about Jewish practices that we do need to understand as overstatements.  For example, look at Mark’s narration here:  “The Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands….” Scholars versed in first century Judaism would dispute this sort of claim.  To say that all Jews keep this practice in the first century as resolutely or rigidly as Mark claims is similar to someone walking into this congregation and saying (with all presumption of authority): “All Baptists think alike.”

So why did the Pharisees become irked by Jesus’ followers eating with defiled hands?  The Pharisees emphasized an observance of Jewish law that placed high value on careful and detailed applications of the Law.  If there is to be purity, work tirelessly to ensure that you keep pure. Keep things purified, even down to one’s eating of the right foods with the appropriate rituals.  Pharisees desired to keep the Law by creating an ever-increasing number of rules to augment the Law. 

At this point, Christian interpreters err on casting Judaism in a negative light. American Baptist biblical scholar Bill Herzog claims this interpretation tends to place “Jesus’ conflicts with the Pharisees as a religious quarrel in which Jesus is replacing the Law (read Torah) with a Christian theology of grace and discipleship” (William R. Herzog, II, Prophet and Teacher, Westminster/John Knox, 2005, p. 79).  Over the centuries, “the Pharisees and all the Jews” have become lumped in as everything that Jesus was not, and to whom Jesus was fundamentally opposed. In recent years, Christian scholars have begun to atone for caricaturizing Judaism and working towards new readings of the texts.  In my seminary training, we talked at length about Jesus as a first century Jew who respected the Law yet engaged in questioning elements of how the Law was being interpreted by the Temple and certain religious movements. In plain terms, the New Testament ought to be read in a way that recognizes Jesus was grounded in Judaism, observant of its practices, yet he offered criticism and correctives meant to respect and keep the faith.  While he and the Pharisees clashed over issues, they actually stood on common ground:  what does it mean to be an observant Jew and keeper of the law?

The Pharisees had serious issues with Jesus’ followers moving among those who were deemed impure.  The Pharisees kept a rigorous set of rules around purity, as Jesus highlights in his response to the Pharisees.  As for Jesus himself, the Pharisees struggled to see Jesus as observant.  By this point in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has touched lepers, a woman long suffering from hemorrhages, and even a corpse (Jarius’ daughter, whom Jesus brought back from the dead). (Here, Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Fortress Press, 224, shows the score in Mark’s gospel by this point in the narrative.)  This in itself is repugnant behavior by Pharasaic standards.

Add to this Jesus’ comfort dining at table with people the Pharisees considered the dregs of society (tax collectors and other sinners), and it is no wonder that the Pharisees felt obliged to question Jesus and the disciples while eating.  They were impure many times over as they touched and encountered others, but the lack of any effort to purify their hands was deeply unsettling to the Pharisees.

Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for their obsession, not their respect for holiness and purity.  He warns them faith is not in one’s keeping of traditions and practices, which the Pharisees kept augmenting and ornamenting beyond the intent of the law.  Pharisees took the faith so seriously that the complexities of life began to become eclipsed.  Jesus reached out to the masses who were disenfranchised by the Temple, Jerusalem and Roman authorities, and even the “traditions of the elders” being held by the Pharisees to the point they could not see much beyond the narrow tightrope of piety.

Again, the cautionary word to Christian interpretation arises:  this impulse for exacting adherence is not unique.  For example, the Protestant Reformer John Calvin would have been horrified by some of his followers, as Calvinists have diverged off into forms of religious purity that would give the Pharisees a run for their money.  The writer Garrison Keillor gives a tongue in cheek reflection on what happens when Christianity gets afflicted.  In his 1985 novel Lake Wobegon Days, Keillor tells semi-autobiographical stories of growing up in a fundamentalist sect, the Sanctified Brethren.  This religious movement has a very strict religious worldview, which Keillor notes led the Sanctified Brethren to struggle with the concept of church unity.   Keillor writes,

Once having tasted the pleasure of being Correct and defending True Doctrine, they kept right on and broke up at every opportunity until, by the time I came along, there were dozens of tiny Brethren groups, none of which were speaking to any of the others.

Our Lake Wobegon bunch was part of a Sanctified Bretheren branch known as the Cox Brethren, which was one of a number of “exclusive” Bretheren branches—that is, to non-Coxians, we were known as “Cox Brethren”; to ourselves, we were simply The Brethren, the last remnant of the true Church.  Our name came from Brother Cox in South Dakota who was kicked out of the Johnson Brethren in 1932—for preaching the truth!  So naturally my Grandpa and most of our family went with Mr. Cox and formed the new fellowship. (Lake Wobegon Days, New York, NY: Viking, 1985, p. 105-6)

Intense scholarship was the heart of the problem.  We had no ordained clergy, believing in the priesthood of all believers, and all were exhorted to devote themselves to Bible study.  Some did, Brother Louie and Brother Mel in particular.  In Wednesday-night Bible reading, they carried the ball, and some nights you could see that the Coxes of Lake Wobegon might soon divide into the Louies and Mels.  (p. 107)

Patching up was not a Brethren talent.  As my Grandpa once said of the Johnson Brethren, “Anytime they want to come to us and admit their mistake, we’re perfectly happy to sit and listen to them and then come to a decision about them.” (footnote, 107)

The Cox Brethren of St. Cloud held to the same doctrines as we did but they were not so exclusive, more trusting of the world—for example, several families owned television sets.  They kept them in their living rooms, out in the open, and on Sunday, after meeting and before dinner, the dad might say, “Well, I wonder what’s on”, knowing perfectly well what was on, and turn it on—a Green Bay Packers game—and watch it.  On Sunday. (111).

           The scuffle here between Jesus and the Pharisees serves as a story needing careful interpretation as well as being a story we need to tell.  What does it mean to keep the faith?  How do we connect heart to head and hands?  Jesus speaks of a faith that keeps God at the forefront and the world not at pietistic arm’s length.  He moved in the midst of the world, across the boundaries (geographic, societal, economic, and religious alike).  Keeping the faith is not about a faith so perfectly kept that it has no wrinkles as well as no wear and tear from being out in the midst of the world.  People of faith, Christians, Jews, and any others, are called to be a people moved by conviction and compassion, deep faith as well as radical love, and ultimately, for the love of God, get their hands dirty, tending a broken world.

The Defense of Prayer (Ephesians 6:10-20)

The Defense of Prayer (Ephesians 6:10-20)

The story goes that Clarence Jordan, a mid-20^th century Baptist minister, Bible translator, and desegregationist, was given a tour of a church building just after a major building program had completed. One variant of this story claims the church could seat several hundred, just in the choir loft. Everything was made of the finest wood. The brass altar ware gleamed in the sun as light streamed into the sanctuary through stained glass windows. The building was honeycombed with classrooms, offices, and meeting parlors galore. At the end of the tour, while showing Jordan the fountains on the front law, with a grand wave up to the steeple, they pointed to the new gold cross high atop the building. “Dr. Jordan, that cross alone cost us $10,000.”

Jordan looked up at the cross, looked back at his hosts and said, “You know, there was a time when crosses were free”.

Go back to the New Testament era, and you will find Clarence Jordan was recalling a history of what happened to those early followers of Jesus. The early Church knew the cross less as a cherished symbol of faith and more a chilling sign of what Rome did to its detractors. The Palestine of the New Testament was under Roman occupation, and Rome kept its imperial might constantly on display. Until Constantine declared Christianity the empire’s religion in the fourth century (and that was not necessarily the best thing that happened to Christianity either), the early centuries of the church were times lived in fear of reprisal, persecution, or uneasy periods of toleration. Rome lived by the sword and made sure anyone who posed a threat was reminded that if you could not live by Rome’s sword, it was not going to be Rome who died by the sword.

So why does the Epistle to the Ephesians outfit words of encouragement to the faithful at Ephesus in Roman military terms and dress? The early verses (10-13) sound like a call to arms, Paul serving as a general, marshalling the troops. Then he describes the Christian as one dressed ready for combat in the unmistakable outfit of the Roman solider at the ready. Ephesians 6:10-20 sounds a bit less under the influence of Jesus and more echo of Roman propaganda. He claims the same mission objective as Rome: to proclaim a gospel of peace.

Now, wait a second, Rome had a “gospel of peace”? Rome had a prevailing self-image of its imperial might: Pax Romana (peace to all Romans). The empire declared peace to all, whether its peoples liked it or not. Underneath the politics, there was a theology at work. Rome set for doctrine: the gods favor Rome, and indeed, its ruler is of the gods himself. With its belief in Christ as the Son of the God, Christianity was at immediate odds with Rome. As John Dominic Cross and Jonathan Reed, two New Testament scholars, observe, “Caesar and Jesus were both destined for divine Sonship”. Rome and the Christians had two stories directly in conflict, and the question is posed: Which story will early Christians follow? Casear or Christ?

The key to Paul’s seemingly curious appropriation of Roman militaristic imagery is found in the person who writes the epistle. The voice of the general calling to arms, the one describing the attire of the mission at hand, is trapped in captivity, weighed down by manacles. Paul calls himself “an ambassador in chains”. What sort of fool thinks he can take on Rome, especially while under lock and key?

Back in my college days, I performed in a number of university theatre productions. I particularly liked the years when the director, the late great Larry Peters, may he rest in peace, would select a musical as part of the production season. I arrived back for my junior year to discover the season included “The Man from LaMancha”, a musical based on the story of Don Quixote. In fact, I got cast in a supporting role: Sancho, the sidekick, a comic relief type character in the play.

The story of Don Quixote revolves around an old man’s delusion that he is a great knight with a fine steed and a mission to chase giants, rescue maidens, and other generally chivalrous duties. In reality, he rides a tired old horse, and wears rusty armor. He tilts at windmills, thinking them giants, and most others think him mad.

The university theatre rehearsed the production on a very tight schedule. The duress of trying to learn lines, lyrics, and staging was quite high. Our sets were not finished until dress rehearsal. Our orchestra of volunteer musicians was not ready until the final week of rehearsals. It was a recipe for disaster, yet each night, as the company grew frantic with increasingly more last minute details, I found myself looking forward to each night’s rehearsal. Playing Sancho, I spent a lot of time on the stage at the side of Don Quixote. As the actor grew more into the part, I began to lose myself in the play, becoming the faithful sidekick to the hero and admiring the charisma of Don Quixote as he picked himself up again and again, disaster after disaster on his errant knight’s quest. Sancho could not help but love and admire the old man and followed him along the way. What seemed a disaster was a bold story of uncommon hope and courage.

So, what are we to make of Paul’s bold claims and the competing claims to divine Sonship between Caesar and Jesus. Crossan and Reed observe, “Although Caesar accepted [the claim of divine Sonship] as domination, Jesus accepted it as crucifixion” (Excavating Paul, 230).

In the midst of the New Testament, a clash of worlds and words is underway. Who is the divine power of the universe? (Rome or the God of Jesus?) Which gospel of peace do you take as “gospel”? To which kingdom do you claim your citizenship? First century questions of Christ and empire likewise challenge us today. Are you a citizen of this kingdom (whatever kingdom/nation-state you are located in or possess residential rights) or the kingdom the New Testament claims at hand and yet to come? If you find these questions difficult to answer, welcome to the task of reading the New Testament and living in the “here and now”. The gospels, epistles, and other New Testament writings will ask you questions of “empire” not easily answered.

I find Ephesians remarkable reading. Paul writes under house arrest, enjoying some privilege as a Roman citizen, but not much more than that. The chains on him are a constant reminder of the “powers that be” and their authority. Why is he so optimistic? Isn’t it time to break out the harmonica and sing the jailhouse blues?

Just as Jordan slyly tweaks churches with $10,000 crosses to show off, just as Don Quixote steels himself for noble duty in rusty armor, Paul calls the Christian to arms with a gospel rooted in peace. Paul evokes Rome’s might with the intent to undermine that sort of might. Ched Meyers, a New Testament scholar and activist, claims Ephesians is “the nonviolent call to arms” (Ambassadors of Reconciliation, Vol. I., Orbis, 2009). How can you wage anything close to a victorious battle when you are carrying just concepts? How effective is a person dressed in words going to be? Listen again: Paul says, dress with a belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, sandals able to carry the bearer far with the gospel of peace, a shield of faith, a helmet of salvation, and a sword that is “the Spirit, the word of God”? If you were a Roman guard serving as a censor to whatever letters went out of the prisoner’s house, you probably laughed yourself silly reading this. Quotations probably were read at the annual guards’ dinner as comic relief. Who does Paul think he is?

Paul believed that there were greater battles for the Christian to engage with powers greater than Rome. Ephesians speaks of Christians being called at the ready for battles with the evils within Creation itself. Life under Rome was just the surface of the problems at hand. Underneath the human realm lurked the forces of evil. Interpreters differ about how to explain such things, but good Christian theology is aware that the world is messed up, and humans (individuals and empire alike) only pull some of the strings. The “powers that be” take on many forms, yet the result is the same: they challenge God and God’s faithful and cause no end of misery and brokenness.

Richard B. Hays observes,
The weapons that are to be employed against these cosmic powers are not to be forged with steel by any human technology; instead, the war is to be fought with prayer (Ephesians 6:18) and with the renewed character of the holy community. (The Moral Vision of the New Testament, HarperSF, p. 65).

Paul calls the Ephesians to arms, though not ways dependent on violence to do their duty. To take your beliefs and the call to prayer sounds flimsy. How can you win with prayer? It sounds more like wishful thinking, yet recall the stories of the faithful, especially Christians who we call “saints”. Over the years, those who have kept the church’s witness alive through preaching, leading, and prophetic action, often at great personal challenge or at the cost of their very lives, would say down to a person that their work could not have happened without their strong belief in Christ and their ongoing practice of prayer. As Richard Hays observes, if the community of Jesus’ followers wishes to be ready, we will have to make ourselves ready. To persevere, you cannot go into the hurting world without your faith. Otherwise, you will not be able to stand ready.

Consider Clarence Jordan, who after he visited the church with the $10,000 cross got in his pickup and headed back home to Americus, Georgia where he lived with others on the Koinonia Farm. Life was difficult: the KKK arrived in the middle of the night to harass. Few local businesses wanted to risk being seen doing business with Jordan. Local authorities (civic and sadly church alike) said or did little overly supportive of Koinonia’s effort to live out racial reconciliation. How did they survive? It took that early morning prayer to face the rest of the day. It took that time in the discipline of Bible study. It took the prayers of supporters across the nation.

In a day where some folks built grand shrines to the $10,000 cross, Koinonia Farm was a “demonstration plot” where the gospel of peace could take root and grow. It might have looked like a ragged bunch of simple farmhouse buildings, owned by folks who felt constantly under the foot of oppression. Actually, it was boot camp for people to learn how to herald the Empire of the Divine Son and the gospel of peace. In such places, one learns how to believe in the One for whom domineering power is curiously unattractive, the One whose authority has been always declared by the most seemingly vulnerable, foolish, and ill suited of people. 

What Happened at #137 Bakkerstraat? (Bennington Banner column, 8/22/2009)

What Happened at #137 Bakkerstraat? 

By the Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot 

In late July 2009, Baptist leaders from around the world gathered in the Netherlands for the annual meeting of the Baptist World Alliance. The BWA serves as a global network of Baptist denominations, conventions, and organizations. It is a miracle that so many Baptists are represented in this international effort. If you have hung around Baptist congregations long enough, you will hear the old joke: “If there are three Baptists in a room, there are probably also four or five opinions as well.”  

Despite the contrary-minded nature of its adherents, the Baptist movement is filled with many wonderful people, who are convictionally and globally diverse. The face of the Baptist family is multi-hued and graced with a blessed variety. Baptists are known for their commitments to believer’s baptism, mission, humanitarian work, and the defense of religious freedom. In recent years, the BWA has created the platform for Baptists to respond to global issues such as human trafficking. The BWA serves as the “Baptist” voice in Christian/Muslim dialogue taking place in various parts of the world. In North America, American Baptist leaders have led the way creating Baptist/Muslim engagements. Together, we Baptists do more than we can apart or under our own auspices. We are different, yet through the BWA, we embrace the common belief in “one Lord, one faith, and one baptism”.

This year, the BWA assembled in the Netherlands to remember our roots. The Baptist movement started in Amsterdam, where in 1609, a pastor named John Smyth and his congregation began practicing baptism by immersion and articulating beliefs we now identify as the first “Baptist” congregation. Smyth’s congregation found safe haven in Amsterdam, which had become a place for religious toleration by the late 16^th century. The congregation would later immigrate back to England in 1612, under the leadership of Thomas Helwys, establishing a church in Spitalfields, an area then outside the city of London.

The BWA held a celebratory service on the Thursday portion of the official program. We worshiped at a Mennonite church in Amsterdam, among whom Smyth’s group found friendly and likeminded folk. Some Baptist historians claim Smyth’s group was influenced by the Mennonites, placing Baptists and Mennonites together in the Anabaptist family of Protestantism. Indeed, we felt quite welcome as delegates entered the front entrance where the church sign told passersby this place was a “doopsgezinde” church. This word was used to describe Mennonites as their movement began. The word means “baptism-minded”.

After the service, a walking tour of Amsterdam was offered, touring sites significant to early Baptists. At #137 Bakkerstraat, the BWA tour met two Dutch Baptists dressed in period clothing. The exact history of the early Baptists is a bit of a puzzle, however, from the best records, it is thought the early Baptists enjoyed the hospitality and friendship of the Mennonites, including permission to use space at a local bakery owned by a Mennonite. The re-enactors told of the Smyth congregation’s activities here, where the group is thought to have worshiped and perhaps had living quarters. In the modern day, the bakery is long gone, now a quiet residential side street.

Standing at #137 Bakkerstaat, I felt a kinship with the Catholic going to Rome and the Anglican pilgrim on the way to Canterbury. For my Baptist heart, the simple setting of #137 Bakkerstraat seems befitting for a place where my faith tradition began. Here at this place, the Baptists began as “church” (lowercase ‘c’). I was quite moved to stand at the place where the divergent, wide river of Baptist convictions and spirituality began its course.

I said a little prayer of thanksgiving there at #137 Bakerstraat. In 1609, a small group of English dissidents worried about what the future held, safe for now, but yearning to return home. Four hundred years later, Baptists are the largest Protestant movement. Standing at #137 Bakkerstraat on this side of history, I behold the Baptists of 2009 as the many gathered from around the world, saying together the Lord’s Prayer in dozens of languages, working together on common ground issues, and gathering for table fellowship. (We Baptists are “well rounded” from our meals together.) For that little congregation, lost in the midst of the anxiety of what the future held, they persevered. They believed in the Christ who supplied their needs and gave them spiritual strength. The many who gathered in 2009 serve as testimony to the witness and legacy of these early forbears. While estranged from comfort and societal acceptance, they labored not in vain. Indeed, Christ was with them all along the pilgrim way.

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot serves as coordinating minister of the First Baptist Church of Bennington, Vermont. Correspond: fbpastor@sover.net

The Fear and the Fool (Proverbs 9:1-6)

The Fear and The Fool

 When you walk into a large bookstore (Borders, Barnes and Noble), you will often find a “super sale” section of books. It is an odd collection of overstock books. For example, you will find hardback copies of former best sellers—usually the ones that you bought for top dollar when the book first released and now there you spot that great book, dozens of copies piled in a corner, all at rock bottom prices. You can find a number of “how to” books: cookbooks, “fix it yourself” house repair books, books on popular people, places, or historical events. Then, almost hidden, sandwiched between a book on plumbing and a book on Civil War nurses, you spy a small volume of “quotable quotes” of famous persons throughout the ages.

 These collections of quotations are fun reading for a rainy Saturday afternoon. An old quote by Shakespeare might be the first time you read the Bard since high school and entice you to read Hamlet again. Quotations from famous people in history can make you laugh a bit or give you something funny to say while having dinner with friends. Books like this might cost just a dollar or two on sale, but the treasures of thoughtful and wise sayings inside can be appreciated for years to come.

 In the Bible, we have a similar book of quotations. The book of Proverbs is a source of ancient wisdom, little sayings about human existence, observations about daily life as well as the big questions. Here, the reader encounters sayings delightful and astonishingly relevant as well as other proverbs a bit perplexing, a product of a bygone generation.

One of the recurring themes of the Wisdom writings is its affirmation that you have to be of certain maturity (age, life experience, and horse sense) to understand them. When I read and teach Proverbs and the other “Wisdom” writings found in the Bible (Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job), I note my youth. Thus, at this point, I am going to call in assistance. When I think of age, life experience, and horse sense, I invited Mary Harrington to help me with part of the sermon. Mary will read a few proverbs to help us experience the wide range of observations about life offered by the book of Proverbs:

First: A proverb about the stages of life (or why age matters):

The glory of youths is their strength, but the beauty of the aged is their gray hair.

Second: A proverb about the importance of laughter:

A cheerful heart is a good medicine,
but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.

The book of Proverbs speaks to what seems like modern day issues. Take for example this proverb that seems to speak about couch potatoes:

The lazy person buries a hand in the dish,
and will not even bring it back to the mouth.

Sometimes, the book of Proverbs shows the problem of quoting ancient scripture. Could you imagine this proverb for marriage counseling?

It is better to live in a corner of the housetop
than in a house shared with a contentious wife.

Proverbs takes a straightforward approach to the idea that humans can do foolish things:

The clever see danger and hide;
but the simple go on, and suffer for it.

In their strangeness, the proverbs challenge us to appreciate the beauty of words able to speak deeply to the foibles and glory of human existence and the life of faith. While some proverbs are inescapably bound to a past era and its culture, the little sayings witness to the pursuit of Wisdom. As we explore them, we find the pursuit of Wisdom and her ways is a worthy journey.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

The book of Proverbs offers a variety of wise sayings about human life. Some proverbs make you laugh. Some make you scratch your head, a bit befuddled. More than a few proverbs make you nod, hearing in ancient sage wisdom a word that speaks to you about the perplexities of your life. The question, however, is what separates this biblical book from other collections of wise sayings. Why would ancient Israel add this book to their sacred writings?

The Hebrew Scriptures were written as part of a culture deeply in love with and respectful of wisdom. In the ancient Near East cultures, wise persons were highly revered as “those who understood the basic order of the created world and lived in fidelity with it.” (The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, S-Z, p. 863). Proverbs are deceptive: a few words that hold deep wisdom, illumining truth, laden with truths pointing toward a better way through life.

In the book of Proverbs, there are many warnings against being foolish: seeking out ways to shortcut your way through life or acting brashly or without considered thought. The book of Proverbs “presents a traditional view of the path of wisdom, the path to a good life: live in harmony with others, obey the commandments of God, and be sensitive and caring for those less fortunate than yourself.” (Ibid., 865).

To describe Wisdom, the book of Proverbs claims the wise path goes clear back to the very creation of the world. The wisdom humanity seeks is rooted in the divine, as God is heralded as the source of all good and fruitful knowledge. Like other ANE cultures, Wisdom is personified, described as a woman who dances at the beginning of creation, and in whom God takes great delight.

The book of Proverbs depicts Lady Wisdom calling out to anyone and everyone, not merely in the temple or the royal courts, but out in the midst of the market and streets. Wisdom is not reserved for the powerful or the pious. Instead, the path of wisdom, the way toward a deeper and more meaningful life, is open to all persons.

Later tonight, the Emmy-winning Mad Men begins its third season on AMC. Set in the 1960s, Mad Men follows the stories of executives and their staff at the offices of the Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York City. The lead character is Don Draper, a rising star in advertising. He cuts a fine figure: a tall, handsome man with impeccable taste in suits. He is a “rain maker”, tasked with bringing in major business accounts. Draper is a talented “ad man”. He creates dynamic campaigns nearly effortlessly, leaving his colleagues awestruck or intensely jealous.

From all outside appearances, Don Draper is the epitome of the ideal man. He has the trappings of the 1960s upper middle class Euro-American ideal: a beautiful wife, two children, and a beautiful home to go along with his executive perks and privileges at work. He is successful, good looking, and seems to have it all under control. Draper, however, is a complicated man. He lies compulsively. He hides many secrets about his past. He habitually steps out on his wife and evidences a variety of other self-destructive habits.

The show keeps pressing questions of whether or not the culture that Don Draper moved within was really that great. Racial minority, female, and gay characters are shown bearing the brunt of Draper’s world of “white male privilege”. While Draper enjoys the high life, it comes at the expense of others.

I cite Don Draper as sermon material as the original audience for the book of Proverbs is thought to be the privileged young men of Israel. These proverbs serve as brief lessons for living your life without the foolishness and the vanities of success. Proverbs is the word to those whom need “age, life experience, and horse sense” so they do not become the fools of their day. Draper smokes and drinks his way through his upscale life, able to pull off remarkable feats with his business dealings. Last season ended with Draper returning home to find his wife and children had left. He sits there in the darkness, the reality of how he has lived his life sinking in.

To be a follower of Wisdom is to go back to the basics of very existence, seeking a simple path and refraining from the many temptations of gaining power, wealth, or success by quick fixes or scheming. (Note: If this is the case, a good old Bible study on biblical wisdom might do Wall Street and Washington, DC, a world of good.) It can be a word of grace to us that our lives are not meant to be struggling constantly after unattainable things. Indeed, we can live earnestly without pretense and be at peace with our humanity. We do not need to be anything but ourselves, God’s beloved children.

Wisdom builds a house where everyone is welcome. It is a place where a fine meal awaits, and we have on good authority Wisdom herself is a good dancer. What more could we want from our lives? To seek out wisdom is to move ourselves further away from the illusions we chase and closer to the fruitful and rewarding life for which we yearn.