(Interested in joining us? Link to our Visitor's Center.)
Susan led worship, tonight including special references to Julian of Norwich. She didn't have a gathering question because she had been a grading zombie all week. So we ran with that: in the past week, what other monsters had we been, or been subjected to? Scott confessed that he'd felt like a ghost during a week when he silently observed someone else doing the job he was about to take on. Others jumped on the walking dead bandwagon for various reasons.
Living Faithfully in a Multicultural World, Unit 5, Vocation:
1st yr: Jessica; 2nd yr: Susan; 3rd yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn, Kathy ; 4th yr, Scott. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Kathy and Marilyn.
Scott started the discussion with a passage from the book that he read alongside Our Neighbor's Faith, Barbara Brown Taylor's Holy Envy. She wishes Christians would stop probing each other's beliefs (e.g., do you believe in the virgin birth?) and try instead questions centered on practice, such as, How does your faith make a difference? What is your favorite way to pray? What is the hardest thing about loving your neighbor as yourself? She learned this approach to faith from a Jewish student.
Our discussion took off in two directions. Pete was disappointed to learn the extent to which missionaries emphasized the belief-centered message and crushed local practices. From Taylor, Scott brought in Gandhi's advice that Christian missionaries try "the evangelism of the rose" that lives among people and draws them to their fragrance. Taylor would observe that the appeal works both ways -- not a bad thing. Pete's observation that missionaries did better when they formed personal relationships with a people's leaders. These last two observations comprised a major theme of the evening.
The other direction began with Jessica's observation that our Jewish cousins do not see Daniel as a prophet. They read Daniel as a book about maintaining faith under Babylonian rule -- a parallel to the time in which it was written under Rome's domination 500 years later. Susan noted from her reading about Revelation that the apocalyptic genre was common in that day – the final chapters of Daniel included. Year 3 read about Joseph Smith and William Miller, 19th century men who founded the Mormon and 7th Day Adventist churches, respectively. MacCulloch sees parallels between the Book of Mormon and the Lord of the Rings in their elaborate histories for different races. Nuno shared personal experiences from childhood in Texas at the time of the federal attack on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. People around Nuno were very positive about the self-proclaimed prophet David Koresh, who derived his name from king Cyrus and whose teachings branched off from the 7th Day Adventists.
Jessica found the secret square and won a box of "royally delicious" Coronation Flakes. That excited more conversation, as Nuno reported from MacCulloch that Mr. Kellogg was a 7th Day Adventist who promoted Corn Flakes as part of a healthy lifestyle that centered on regularity of the bowels and sexual abstinence.
Scott started in the Tradition source with a passage from Acts 8.26-40. Discussion warmed up when we focused on our sympathies with the Eunuch, when he asks, "How can I understand unless someone guides me? " His choice to study Isaiah was a challenge to begin with… trying to understand the Jews… he understands being subjected to authority like the servant that Isaiah describes. Even possessing all the trappings of wealth and power, the eunuch knows authority comes from the queen above him. While he commands servants to guide his chariot, we sensed humility, presumably from the shame of his condition.
We found a familiar theological arc to his story. There's brokenness in his impotence, lack of power, and an Ah-HA moment of judgment when the Eunuch cries, “Look here’s water!” There's healing in the water together with Philip. We observed that even Philip's sitting in the chariot beside him -- when contact with Eunuchs was taboo -- was already the beginning of a healing, and the water sealed it. Then he’s rejoicing.
We started a dialogue between this passage and other sources.
- Action: Can you think of a similar time in your life? Times you cry out in need and prayer and you get what you need (but you can’t always get what you want)… "Signing up for Efm, I was looking for further direction and education on what I’d been taught…" ...joy of learning from a sympathetic music instructor…
- Culture: Prince Harry… film with Mrs. Brown in the title with Judi Dench as Queen Victoria in disguise, learning humility ... Huck Finn – the character of Jem – parallel of a humble, powerless black man reaching power and wisdom… River as baptism… they needed each other…
That last remark started a list of insights: Maybe Philip and the Eunuch need each other, too --! As the prayer of St. Francis says, It’s in giving that we receive, and Philip's ministry literally takes off from here. Fellowship is strong in this passage, and it goes well with our theme for this final unit, Vocation in a Multicultural World, as Philip finds fellowship with someone so different from him in race, class, religion, nationality, culture, and sexuality. We also looked at the story as a model for a good teacher-student relationship: They spend time with each other. Philip starts with the passage that already interests the Eunuch.
[Note from Scott: I took the image of Philip and the Eunuch from a sermon at BigRedDoor.org. After the writer lists all the things that would have repelled Philip, whom he calls "a poor Jew's poor Jew" (having been one of John's disciples), he writes,
When Philip evangelizes, when Philip witnesses, when Philip talks to the Ethiopian as a person, he doesn't convert an Ethiopian. He converts a brother. In fact, I think the point of the story here isn't the conversion of the Ethiopian at all. It's all about the conversion of Philip.
I'm intrigued by Big Red Door, website for a collective of Episcopal churches in New York State.]
At 9PM, we highlighted passages that stood out in the notes from our discussion in order to draft a collect. We left it for Scott to polish the draft later. Here it is:
Collect for Mission in a Multicultural World God of all people, you sent Philip to teach the Ethiopian eunuch, his opposite in every way, yet eager to learn: When we, on our journeys, cry out in need and prayer, send us travellers to guide us as you would have us go; and when you'd have us be a guide for others, may we, like Philip, be open to what we may learn from them. We pray in the name of your son, through the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Marilyn, we volunteered you to do the worship; Kathy, likewise, we're hoping you'll bring us something you saw, experienced, or heard that really inspired or riled you up in your travels that can be a starting point for a theological reflection.
No comments:
Post a Comment