The payoff for reading the Bible?

David Plotz opined this week on Slate that:

(Reading) the Bible has brought me no closer to God, if that means either believing in a deity acting in the world or experiencing the transcendent. But perhaps I'm closer to God in the sense that the Bible has put me on high alert. I came to the Bible hoping to be inspired and awed. I have been, sometimes. But mostly I've ended up in a yearlong argument with God. Why would He kill the innocent Egyptian children? And why would He delight in it? What wrong did we do Him that He should send the flood? Which of His Ten Commandments do we actually need? Yet the argument itself represents a kind of belief, because it commits me to engage with God.

That's exactly the point! Its not so much where you end up as your commitment to the reading, the thinking, the engaging, the arguing and the discernment. This is what its all about...

Ephesians 5:21-22--Women and Men

The ESV Online Study Bible is available in March 2009 without cost. Here's why I won't be recommending it.

Principles of Marriage	Scripture Reference
Marriage is part of the “mystery” of God's will	Eph. 1:9; 3:3; 5:32
Paul's instructions are directed to Spirit-filled believers	Eph. 5:18
Wives are called to submit, men are called to love	Eph. 5:21–33
Headship entails authority	Eph. 5:23–24 (cf. Eph. 1:22; 4:15)
Submission is still required of Christian wives	Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18 (cf. Gen. 2:18; 1 Cor. 11:3)
Marriage involves spiritual warfare, which requires husbands and wives to put on the full armor of God	Eph. 6:10–18

Ephesians 5:21 (KJV) actually speaks of mutual submission: "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." The section begins with a reference to fear of God and it ends in 5:33 with the verbal form of fear or respect. 5:22 should be rendered by an ellipsis: "Wives...to your own husbands as to the Lord" since the verb is absent from the Greek text.

Anyone who wants a broader discussion could look at Carolyn Osiek's A Woman's Place: house churches in Earliest Christianity (2005 Fortress), chapter 6, "Ephesians 5 and the Politics of Marriage" which sets this passage in the broader context of women's role in managing house churches and the entire letter to the Ephesians. Here's a review of the book from RBL.

Terry Gross interviews Bart Ehrman on the Gospels

Here's a link to an interview with Prof. Bart Ehrman (UNC Chapel Hill) on his new book published by HarperOne, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). A discussion ensues focusing (amongst other things) on Jesus' last words on the cross which in Mark are "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" and in Luke, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." To conflate these two accounts does justice to neither gospel since a different portrait of the dying Jesus exists in each gospel. In Luke, Jesus exercises self-control and addresses remarks to another person crucified next to him. In Mark, Jesus' anguish is palpable. In John's gospel, Jesus' death is his exaltation to God.

This is my favorite treasure in the British Museum: the Lewis Chesspeople. Perhaps made in Norway, about AD 1150-1200, and found on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, the chess pieces consist of elaborately worked walrus ivory and whales' teeth in the forms of seated kings and queens, mitred bishops, knights on their mounts, and standing warders and pawns. We know almost nothing about their discovery. Here's a queen.

Mary: Lauridsen's "O Magnum Mysterium"

The composer Morten Lauridsen explains the composition of his 1994 piece "O Magnum Mysterium" for the WSJ.

The Latin text for the Christmas Day matins responsory, "O Magnum Mysterium," also celebrates the Virgin Mary as well as God's grace to the meek:

O great mystery and wondrous sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord lying in their Manger!

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!

(O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. Alleluia!)

Zurbarán (1598-1664) is the painter of "Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose." The objects in this work are symbolic offerings to the Virgin Mary. Her love, purity and chastity are signified by the rose and the cup of water. The lemons are an Easter fruit that, along with the oranges with blossoms, indicate renewed life. The table is a symbolic altar. The objects on it are set off in sharp contrast to the dark, blurred backdrop and radiate with clarity and luminosity against the shadows.

In composing music to these inspirational words about Christ's birth and the veneration of the Virgin Mary, I sought to impart, as Zurbarán did before me, a transforming spiritual experience within what I call "a quiet song of profound inner joy." I wanted this piece to resonate immediately and deeply into the core of the listener, to illumine through sound.

The most challenging part of this piece for me was the second line of text having to do with the Virgin Mary. She above all was chosen to bear the Christ child and then she endured the horror and sorrow of his death on the cross. How can her significance and suffering be portrayed musically?

After exploring several paths, I decided to depict this by a single note. On the word "Virgo," the altos sing a dissonant appoggiatura G-sharp. It's the only tone in the entire work that is foreign to the main key of D. That note stands out against a consonant backdrop as if a sonic light has suddenly been focused upon it, edifying its meaning. It is the most important note in the piece.

"O Magnum Mysterium" had its 1994 premiere by the Los Angeles Master Chorale under the baton of Paul Salamunovich. Widely recorded with thousands of performances throughout the world since then, it owes much to its visual model, Zurbarán's magnificent "Still Life With Lemons, Oranges and a Rose."

Observance of Lent

The Archbishops of York and Canterbury encourage the observation of Lent by daily acts of generosity. Christian Aid encourages us to "count our blessings" by giving, acting and praying for change, and make daily donations to different aspects of their work. They are also encouraging a Journey to Jerusalem -- a virtual journey through the Holy Land with daily updates for us to think about, pray, reflect and take action.

Just as Jesus took 40 days to prepare for his ministry, we’ll be using this time to consider the practical challenges of faith in a world of poverty and violence.

Day 1 is the Mount of Temptation.
During Lent and during our journey we will face temptations.Most obviously, the temptation to make this pilgrimage about us and not the difference we can make in the world.

It will be tempting to spend our time looking at the churches that mark where Jesus was, and forget to meet with churches today, full as they are of local Christians. It will be tempting to think that the current situation is not our concern, or that there is nothing we can do about it. It will be tempting, most of all, to search for reasons to convince ourselves that the life and teaching of Jesus 2000 years ago has nothing to say to the situation today.

Delia Smith (A UK version of Julia Child) encourages CAFOD (Catholic Agency of Overseas Development) supporters to commit to 20 minutes of silence once a day during Lent.

Delia explains how she hopes the daily exercise will bring people “an increased trust and a knowledge that God does keep His promise: ‘come to me and I will give you rest’"

"It is His work not ours and if we trust in that, God can reach us even though we don’t know how.”

At a time of economic stress, the invitation to “let go a little, stand back and spend more time in the desert” is a welcome one. “Whatever dominates our lives, whatever worries we have, true peace can only come from God,” says Delia.

“The answer is so simple. Throughout the gospels Jesus spends time alone, away from the pressures of life to be ‘with’ his Father. How can any of his followers not understand their own need for this, faced with the challenges of life today?”

What about actions for peace? How about reflections and action on water justice, making "Seven weeks for water" part of Lenten reflections? Jane Stranz writes

Like the deer longing for pure running water in Psalm 42, there is deep longing in our world for things to be different, for clean water, for deeper relationship with God, for a more related and just way of living between people.

The water crisis and the lack of justice in access to water is part of the crisis facing the planet. “How, then, shall we live”? Seen this way Lent is more about taking time to ask questions, looking at God's beautiful creation, becoming aware of how the way each of us lives today is linked to whole of life on this precious and fragile planet, and asking ourselves what does it mean today to follow Jesus? It is about contemplating beautiful lakes, free running streams or simply a glass of clean drinking water and longing for justice. It’s also about committing to being part of the long term work for water justice across the planet.

As we walk humbly with God through Lent we are also looking forwards to the promise of the transformed world values offered by Christ's resurrection at Easter. That transformation has to begin with ourselves.

Achieving water justice for the more than one billion people on our planet who do not have access to clean drinking water will not come about over night. It will be a long process linking advocacy, campaigning and direct action. Sometimes it will seem as if we are having no impact. It demands not only our intellectual and political commitment, it also needs a spirituality of persistence which sustains us as we follow Jesus and try to be water wearing away at the mountains of injustice.

Here's a Spanish version, a French version and a German version.

God, our companion on the road, Enter with us the wilderness of our uncertainty, Be with us on this journey of discovery, And help us as we seek, however falteringly To follow in your footsteps. Amen

Bob Rackmales' opinion: "A Roosevelt Example to Avoid"

Bob Rackmales (a friend) has an opinion piece in Saturday's Bangor Daily News, "A Roosevelt Example to Avoid":

On April 2, the Group of 20, a multilateral economic forum whose members (including the “rising” economies of China, Brazil and India) account for 90 percent of global gross national product, will meet in London. The purpose of the meeting is to seek agreement on common measures to stabilize the global economy, to create a basis for a renewal of growth while taking the imperatives of climate change and poverty reduction into account, and to strengthen international institutions essential to building a more secure global economy. Some have described the objective as “Bretton Woods II” to replace the international financial order put in place at the end of World War II.

Both the meeting’s London venue and its context — a severe global downturn and loss of public confidence in governments’ ability to understand, let alone solve, the underlying disruptions that undermined prosperity — are strikingly reminiscent of the International Monetary and Economic Conference convened by the League of Nations in mid-June 1933. Moreover, like its 2009 counterpart, it came in the initial months of a new Democratic administration pledged both to take dramatic action to deal with the domestic crisis and to work cooperatively with other nations to mitigate the collapse’s worldwide effects.

We need to pray that the similarities between the two meetings, separated by three-quarters of a century, end there. The 1933 London Economic Conference (as it came to be called) ended in collapse and rancor. Its failure did not come about gradually due to negotiators being unable to bridge differences, but to the United States, that is, Franklin Roosevelt, abruptly deciding to end participation in the process.

In his account of the Roosevelt years, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy sums up the longer-term impact of the London fiasco as follows: “Roosevelt’s message not only destroyed the London conference. It also definitively killed any further prospect of international cooperation in the fight against global depression. Among those who drew the lesson that the United States intended to play no consequential international role was Adolph Hitler. Here, five years before the … infamous capitulation at Munich, the Western powers had shown that they had little stomach for concerted action in the face of danger.”

The link between the Great Depression and the rise of violence and instability leading to World War II has been drawn by many historians. Any doubt that we are facing a similarly complex and dangerous challenge today should have been erased by the recent testimony of Dennis C. Blair, President Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The nation’s senior intelligence official warned that “instability in countries around the world caused by the current global economic crisis, rather than terrorism, is the primary near term security threat to the United States.”

This is clearly not a threat the U.S. can deal with solely through actions to improve the domestic economy, important as these are. Let us hope that the Obama team learns from his illustrious predecessor’s mistakes, as well as his successes. Making this year’s London economic conference a success needs to be at the top of the President Obama’s agenda.

Bob Rackmales is a member of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and a board and faculty member of Belfast Senior College. During his 32-year career in the foreign service he served in embassies in Belgrade, Rome, Lagos and Mogadishu and in senior positions in the State Department.

New York Sounds

Yes, it is true that New York City generates plenty of noise. It is especially evident to visitors or those who have just moved to the city. A senior colleague commented that when he first moved to a room in the seminary on 10th Avenue as a student, he simply couldn't sleep for the sounds that went on all night--the railway yards, the loading of freight, the rumble of subway trams from the 9th Avenue El, the docks on the river, and the traffic. The first four of course have long since disappeared. Other sounds have taken their place: overhead planes, even more traffic and street noise. And localized drilling projects. Yet as I sit here at my desk this morning, this is what I hear:

• sparrows and starlings in the bush outside my window
• music from the radio in the living room
  
• an occasional car
• people talking on the street
• a police siren in the distance
  

Its not that I live in a secluded haven. True, Chelsea is quiet on Saturday mornings. Sundays are even quieter (once people in the clubs leave in the early hours). When you live in New York City, your brain filters out a good deal of noise so that after a while, you simply don't hear it. This allows you to maintain regular patterns of sleeping and waking. Of the five sounds I listed above, I didn't register the last three until I put my mind to it. There are other sounds which float about in my semi-conscious awareness: movements of other household members (particularly the cats and our dog) which allow me to register almost unconsciously where they are; and the clock chimes.

We recently bought a set of noise-canceling headphones. I used them on a plane trip recently and they work effectively by creating a cocoon of sound. There's something magical about being enveloped by music that you love. But I haven't worn them when out walking because I want to stay in touch with my dog and what goes on around me. I want to be part of the throbbing energy of the city. Otherwise, why live here?

Archbishop Tutu suggests (in a BBC interview) that an apology to Iraq especially from President Obama would be a gesture to consolidate the outpouring of goodwill generated by his election.

It would be wonderful if, on behalf of the nation, Obama apologises to the world, and especially the Iraqis, for an invasion that I believe has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

A first step...

Reading the Bible in Community

The Washington Post has a piece in the On Faith section, "Reading the Bible in Humility and Community" by Robert M. Norris. It made me think of collective rather than individual interpretations of the text shedding lights on difficult passages.

Some time ago, in a discussion of the parable of the king who gave a marriage feast in Matthew 22:1-14, I learned from a young South African Bishop that the silence of the guest who had no wedding garment upon being interrogated by the king, "Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?" was taken to mean that one cannot be silent. The context for the problem of silence (as a justification for binding such a guest hand an foot and being cast into outer darkness) for the Bishop was the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In such a context silence cannot further the work of truth and reconciliation. I think of that reading often and I thank the Bishop for sharing it with the rest of us that day.

Reparations

My piece on reparations on Episcopal Cafe today and tomorrow highlights Marco Williams' film "Banished."

The Feminist Sexual Ethics Project at Brandeis has some useful material "Sexual Assault and Exploitation under U.S. Slavery and Jim Crow" including an essay by Adrienne Davis, "Reparations for Slavery":

African Americas have tried to obtain reparations for slavery since the nineteenth century. Many leaders supported them throughout the twentieth century, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Queen Mother Audrey Moore. Taken together, the systematic political repression, economic discrimination, racial abuses of the criminal system (including blacks as both victims and defendants), brutal rending of black families, forced health experiments while denying basic healthcare, repression of literacy, and access to education warrant recognition and monetary reparation. Paying reparations would make us partners with others worldwide who condemn slavery and be a step toward making blacks real citizens in America. However, even with all of the recent writing on reparations, we still have not really grappled with the question of sexual reparations. Religious communities are particularly well poised to exercise leadership on this question. Religious leaders and institutions are especially powerful over matters regarding women, families, and sexuality. Yet, historically, mainstream religion, with few exceptions, refused to condemn, or even address or recognize, sexual abuses under slavery. Even in the face of public pro-slavery defenses of slavery, religious leaders remained largely silent, supporting slavery and its sexual injustices. The contemporary reparations debate offers religious institutions a second chance. They can exercise leadership in bringing reparations to public attention and also draw on their moral influence in the area of sexuality to insist especially that slavery's sexual injustices receive equal attention.

Walter Olsen, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of several books including "The Rule of Lawyers" wrote "Reparations, R.I. P." last Autumn in City Journal. This was the fuller version of a newspaper piece published in the LA Times. He blogs at "Overlawyered" where there were lively comments on his piece.