Yr. B, Wk.13: Warriors and Women

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Tom, Gene.

This was a brown bag week.  Susan chose worship for Early Evening and End of the Day.

Mariel kicked off a round - table discussion (as we all sat at one table tonight) with a series of "bunny trails" that led her from Acts and Powell's commentary into research online.  A reference to the "captain of the guard" in the Temple took her to an article about the Jerusalem Temple's full - fledged police force. Another bunny trail:  The Romans taxed Jews to pay for the cost of the Jewish revolt -- until they had trouble distinguishing between Jews and Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.


Erica and Christine, in years 3 and 1, both dealt with long "dark ages" when medieval lords or ancient "judges" fought myriad small - scale wars for territory.  Monasteries were financed by those knights in armor to have the monks pray for their souls -- knights being too busy with war to pray for themselves.   Joshua and Judges present war as an act of sacrificial worship, the utter destruction of a town being a holy act.  Erica observed that, while the peoples were supposedly utterly destroyed in one chapter, they seem to come back in later chapters!  Erica saw Gregory the Great as a light in a dark time, as he perceived his role to prepare the world for the imminent return of the Lord.

Scott said that monasteries, following Gregory's lead, kept life focused on prayer and sustaining life until the Lord's return, any day now.  The experience of prayer implies the Trinity, according to the 4th year reading. The author traces writings about prayer from Scripture forward to show how the writers feel the spirit moving them to pray through Christ the intercessor inside them, praying to the Father -- including the ancient dialogue that precedes a celebrant offering the eucharist, "[May] The Lord be with you... and with thy spirit."  So it is never the celebrant's action, but the spirit in the celebrant.  The final section of the reading relates to the evening's discussion, and to last week's reading regarding a feminist lens on scripture:

It has again and again been the insight of those given to prayer that description of the triune God... must somehow encompass, as a matter of balance, what we are conditioned to call feminine characteristics -- patience, compassion, endurance, forgiveness, warmth, sustenance and so on -- no less than the strength, power, activity, initiative, wrath and suchlike that our society has tended to regard as peculiarly masculine.  (Coakley, in the RRG p. 251).

Mariel observed the remarkable prominence of women in Luke and Acts, where an anecdote about a woman balances every one about a man; and where women are presented as leaders and heads of households.

TR
Erica's story about a medical emergency brought us to a metaphor of asking for help in land where you don't speak the language, and  no one speaks yours. Our collect was influenced by Erica's memory of something that Scharme told us last year, when she had a respite in her cancer treatments, that she had become aware how allowing others to help her was a blessing to them.

Collect for Lost Travellers
Lord God, as the prodigal son came to himself only when humbled in a foreign land, bring us to ask humbly for direction when we are lost, knowing that, by accepting the blessing of others' help,  we also bless our helpers. Amen.
Next week:  Christine brings food; Gene leads worship; Tom will initiate the TR.

Yr. B, Wk. 12: Scripture Through Different Cultural Lenses

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Tom.

Gene brought chili. Christine brought prayers and readings for worship on pages bordered with gold - and - silver designs. Her question concerned any way that God had spoken to us through someone of a different culture or background? As it turned out, this was the theme of the entire evening.

Christine opened discussion by commenting on how much the feminist critics of the Old Testament have brought out of a text we've taken so much for granted, as we've looked through the lenses of dominant males.  Erica connected that to Augustine, whose ideas about sexuality, original sin, and predestination persist.

Another strand of the discussion took off from the idea of "love," used in John as an action, not a feeling, and used to describe relations among Christians only. But elsewhere, John says God loved the whole world. There's a tension. The opening of John's Gospel implies a pre-existence for Jesus; Year 4's reading, all about how we know what we "know" about God, emphasizes that God knows us before we know Him.

TR
After a break, we considered a one - page ad for a group that helps young women of other cultures.  After commenting on what was interesting or disturbing in the image, we started our TR from the issue presented to us by the image, the costs and benefits of progress.

No collect was necessary; Christine's closing prayer did the job:

Thanksgiving for the Diversity of Races and Cultures
O God, You created all peoples in Your image.  We thank you for the wonderful diversity of races and cultures in this world.  Enrich our lives by ever - widening circles of fellowship, and show us Your presence in those who differ most from us, until our knowledge of Your love is made perfect in our love for all you children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Next meeting will be November 27, after Thanksgiving. We will do the readings for Week 13. It's a brown bag night; Gene leads worship; Erica brings a source for the TR.

Yr. B, Wk. 11: John, Miss Lillian, and Armor

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: none.

We were surprised to find a new door code!  Dinner was brown bag tonight, with services for evening and compline as bookends for our time together.  Christine asked what has put our hearts at peace in the past week.  Answers involved showering, an hour at Waffle House, morning prayer at St. James, sharing with a friend, EfM itself, and some homely activities: chopping vegetables, ironing tea towels, cleaning house.  Scott was reminded of Ecclesiasticus, mentioned in Forward Day by Day this past week, about handiwork being a form of prayer.

Mariel opened our discussion of the readings with Jesus' complaint in the Gospel of John, that people need outward signs for everything.  "Signs" brought us to Ford's explanation of how theologians must consider words of scripture with "the company they keep" at every unit of knowledge:  sentence, paragraph, book, canon, past influences, cultural - historical context, and all the generations of interpretation and commentary accrued since the writing of a text.  Deuteronomy is a case in point, an ancient text that was itself a reinterpretation of a more ancient text.  This tied in with the history of Islam, and its holy book, product of a single author's hand.

In another round of discussion, we added things that Amazed, Bothered, Confused, or Delighted us.  We spent a lot of time with two stories from John.  We discussed the lame man at the pool who, asked if he wants to be healed, offers an excuse instead of a simple "yes." In the story of the blind man whose story takes up two pages, we saw the pressure that authorities exerted on the followers of Jesus.  Mariel opined that John is like a play; Scott, backed up by Susan, saw it as similar in its strategy to the Dialogues of Plato -- each one a philosophical discourse with the backdrop of ordinary activity.

TR
For a TR, Gene brought us a poem that Jimmy Carter made from his mother's letter home from her stint with the Peace Corps in India: "Miss Lillian Sees Leprosy for the First Time."  We focused on one line, "I faced her treatment every week with dread / and loathing -- for the chore, not the child."

Discussing times in our lives when we "steeled" ourselves to do a loathsome duty, we settled easily on the metaphor of putting on armor.  We considered dual traditional texts for that: Paul's putting on the armor of faith, but also David's refusing the armor that Saul gave him for battle with Goliath.


Collect for Facing a Difficult Duty
Almighty Father, Lord of Hosts: as you inspired David to cast aside Saul's heavy armor to face Goliath, inspire us with courage to discard the self-protection of disengagement and apathy, and to put on the armor of faith, that we may accomplish Thy will.  Amen.

Next Week
We read week 12's assignment.  Gene will bring dinner; Christine will lead worship, and Mariel will inspire our TR.  Note:  We will not meet during the week of Thanksgiving.

Yr. B, Wk. 10: Books Can Be Windows

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Christine, Gene.

Mariel led worship from texts recited at St. James' 12:30 service, focused on Mary, so prominent in this week's readings in Luke.   Her question, "When have you seen the face of Christ or heard His voice in the past week?" elicited answers from us, while we enjoyed salad, skewered chicken and sides from Zoe's Greek Tavern, brought by Tom.

Our discussion of the readings sprouted in a word web from Erica's amazement at learning how the church developed in Syria and Ethiopia.  Our sense of Christian history has been dominated by Roman Catholic history and the Easter orthodox churches; here was a different kind of "orthodox."

Branching off from "amazement," Mariel remarked on how much art, music, even recent popular song, derives from imagery in Luke.  Susan related imagery for how Christ's crucifixion effects salvation.  On behalf of Christine, we discussed how Exodus is another image for salvation as a journey through wilderness, time, and learning.
Scott related "salvation" to its root meaning 'health," and told how Ford connected it to that word "orthodoxy" in a new way.  While we immediately think of salvation in terms of angels plucking us from the fires of hell, that's only one image from Scripture; union with Christ, as in marriage, is another.  The calendar of liturgical texts and actions provides an ongoing participatory image for life in Christ.  See Scott's blogpost about the chapter.  

TR 
Erica brought a remarkable old book.  The energy in the room bubbled up as we all took turns exploring its look, texture, and text.  Published in 1872 by William Harding, purveyor of Bibles, the book purported to be a comprehensive survey of all world religions.  The introduction states flatly that there is only one true religion, Christianity, so these others don't really qualify.  A chapter on Mormonism sent us to our phones to confirm our sense that Joseph Smith had started that faith only fifty years earlier.  The book as an object had its own history.  We found in it a 1909 "Bible card" (similar to collectible baseball cards). We intuited that it was purchased for display more than for study; that it had long been a white elephant in one family, re-gifted in the 1950s to a clergyman's family, and now scrapped on a jumble table in a church basement where Erica picked it up.

We explored "the world of" the book, quickly understanding that it was a kind of "window" into the mindset of an earlier time.  Published with pride, even arrogance, meant to be an impressive display of culture and wealth, it has now been devalued, ridiculed, displaced. But this very night, having been recovered by Erica, it has brought energy to us.  From our tradition, we were reminded of Josiah's rediscovery of scripture, and of scripture itself: text that is both a window into a distant past, and a reflection of our present day.  Images in our culture include the Velveteen Rabbit that becomes real only when loved..  We had insights: As we look back on our own lives, we can treasure what has been, even as we go forward;  when we choose to look on earlier generations "with kindness," we benefit; we see the book as a testament to the human need to codify things.

Collect for Readers
Eternal Father, Living Word:  You inspired Luke; his gospel has inspired generations :  Save us from arrogant pride in the achievements of our age, that we may look with humility and kindness upon the expressions of our forebears as windows to their lives and aspirations, reflecting on our own time by the light of theirs.  Amen.

Next week:  We read week 11. Brown bag dinner. Christine leads worship. Gene will initiate the TR.

Yr. B, Wk. 8-9: Luke! The Musical, and Pharaoh's Daughter

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Christine, Tom.

Erica opened with her personally printed Compline worship service.  While we ate our brown bag dinners, we considered Erica's question, "What in the past week brought peace to you?"  We had positive answers.

Our discussion of the readings grew from Mariel's observation that the gospel of Luke is "like a musical," replete with humanity, movement, and actual song.  The musical "sound" of the language in Luke connected to the 4th year reading in Ford, who lays out in his survey of theologians' views of Jesus, some ways that translations of the gospels all add new layers of imagery and meaning to it.

Mariel also compared Luke to an "historical novel," opening up another avenue for other years to offer connections. From 4th year, Susan reviewed what we know of Jesus between gospels and other historical records.  Erica told how councils struggled to define how human and how divine Jesus  was -- and is. Scott was struck by Ford's exploration of the question, "How can a particular 1st century Jewish male speak to, be relevant to, relate to, the rest of the world today?"

Looking back over the whole conversation, we remarked on how much room there is for speculation in the materials that we've inherited.  Mariel observed that we want to "freeze the image" we have of Jesus.

TR.  Susan had us read several translations of Exodus 2.1-10, about a conspiracy of women to keep alive the baby who will become Moses, whose name means "drawn from," as in, "drawn from the river."  Our exploration of the scripture focused on Pharaoh's daughter, how she subverts her father's arbitrary law.  We saw that she herself is regulated.  We saw pity.  We saw a "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" cooperation of the Princess, who ends up paying the nurse to care for the nurse's own son.  In Scripture, we saw how Jesus often bumped up against the literal enforcement of laws when he looked at the intention behind the laws.

Collect for Judges
Heavenly Father, you moved Pharaoh's daughter to defy her father's decree and draw baby Moses from the river:  help us to discern the law you've written on our hearts and give us courage to follow that law regardless of personal risk.  Amen.

Next week: Readings are for week 10.  We won't have Christine.  Tom brings food; Mariel leads worship; Erica will bring an object for a TR.

Yr. B, Wk. 7: Exodus, Mark, Manicheans, and a Marriage Proposal Gone Wrong

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent:  Mariel has been away for three weeks, but has shared her reading responses through email.

Erica provided us two kinds of yummy soup from Panera, salad, and bread.  Gene led worship.  We caught each other up on our respective weeks.

Mariel's email about the readings for year 2 started our discussion  She calls Mark a "gospel for middle schoolers" focused on mysterious and supernatural events a la Harry Potter, told in the "historical present tense."  The original ending "they were afraid" seems right to her, but has long disturbed Gene.   Tom and Gene responded to Mark and Powell's text, commenting on the disjointedness of the narrative, and the "story sandwich" that Mark often presents.

Christine segued from Tom's observation that the apostles repeat the same mistakes to the Hebrews' repeating the same errors so much. In her reading of Exodus and Collins, she was struck by the words translated from Hebrew that she has always seen differently.  We discussed the importance of "God's name."  Scott made a comment about how our American history has already been oversimplified or even fictionalized.  Gene gave the example of Washington and the cherry tree, a fable made up by a clergyman named Parson Weems to teach children about Washington's integrity. Scott gave the example of a WABE host who made a generalization of the 60s -- "It wasn't true -- I was there," said Scott.

Erica connected the discussion of Exodus to her own experience teaching little children who were disturbed by the violence of plagues in the Exodus. In her reading, she was struck by the origin of the word "pagani" meaning "non - combatant," practically "draft dodger," a term of scorn to Christians who take seriously the metaphor that believers should be "soldiers" for Christ.  Erica does not buy in to that metaphor, volunteering that she despises Sir Arthur Sullivan's hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers," .

We were all interested when Erica spoke of Zoroastrianism, and the heretical Manichean idea that Good and Evil battle each other as equals.   Scott and Susan, speaking of Ford's chapter on "Evil," said that one traditional Christian view is that evil is the absence of good, a rejection of God.


TR  Scott shared an experience concerning a musical theatre piece that he spent years composing; he called off the production to save a friendship.  As we got into the story, we came up with a more universal version of it, the marriage proposal at a baseball game - rejected on nation wide TV.  Our exploration of the metaphor brought out several Scriptural and Cultural analogs.  We collected our thoughts and feelings in this prayer:

Collect for Strained Relationships
Lord Jesus, bridegroom of the Church: as the wife of Hosea rejected his offers of love and forgiveness, we have so often rejected You. Open our eyes to see You in others, that we may nurture loving relationships with all our fellow creatures.

Next week:  We skim the reading for Wk. 8 and move on to the readings for Wk. 9.  Brown bag dinner; Erica leads worship; Susan will bring a TR.

Yr. B, Wk. 6: Wading through Turbulent Waters

Class: Christine, Yr. 1; Tom, Gene, Mariel, Yr. 2; Erica, Yr. 3; Susan and Scott, mentors. Absent: Mariel.

Susan started us with worship from the daily devotions for early evening in the Book of Common Prayer.  While we ate our brown bag dinners, Susan's question, "How was the last week?" evoked responses that struck Gene as unusually similar.  The theological reflection (TR) would derive from this observation!

Christine found comfort in Powell's delineation of legends etymological and ethnological. The categories helped her to read the different stories of patriarchs in Genesis.  Tom remembered how he was struck by the alien morality of those early tales; Erica is comforted by the way God works through flawed people in those ancient stories.

Gene loved Powell's exposition of Matthew, and he recommended the website and its videos.  Reading the Gospel in one sitting was a great experience.  He was struck by the structure of five sermons and by the theme of "binding and loosening."  Mariel checked in by email, calling Matthew "A Converted Rabbi's Gospel" with its theme the Hebrew scripture, "the stone which the builders rejected...."    Using the ABCD method, she was amazed at the tight structural cohesion of the gospel, bothered by Matthew's use of scripture out of context; confused by the vagueness of Powell's 7th theme; and delighted at all the phrases common in our culture that come from Matthew.

Tom admitted being intimidated by the command to "be perfect" as God is perfect.  We discussed how "perfect" means "thoroughly made" or "solid" or "complete" or "integrated" or "whole" -- not free of errors and mistakes.  Gene related this to the idea that, once Jesus ascended to heaven, the institutional church was left behind to be His eyes, hands, and feet.: we are Jesus.

Erica covered 50 - 300 A.D. from the chapter "Boundaries Defined."  She noted how women clearly had leadership positions in the church until, realizing that Jesus might not be coming so soon as expected, the Church chose not to disrupt the common social structure.  She quickly surveyed the ancient heresies that echo through controversies in today's church.

Erica noted the complexity of gender issues in the church then and now, noting on a personal level the importance to her of her children having their father.

TR. Scott invited members of the group to tell what struck them in others' stories of the past week that we shared during the meal.  From all the answers, we derived an image of someone wading into flood waters so far, the waters so much deeper than expected, that the wader isn't sure to reach the other side, nor sure that going back is an option.  Our culture tells us often to fight through to the other side; Scripture sometimes tells us to accept the situation, to "let go and let God."  We wrapped up the discussion with this collect:

Collect for Crossing a Flooded Stream
O God, Who separated the waters of chaos from dry land: when the Hebrews were hopeless, You parted the Red Sea; when disciples expected to rule in a kingdom, You took them overseas to serve and die: When our own path seems to lead us into turbulent waters, remind us that we need not fear.  Whether we fight the waters, or surrender to the current to be washed downstream to take up a different path, we are in Your sight and care. We may trust in your goodness. Amen.

Next week: Erica brings dinner; Gene leads worship; Scott brings a personal story for the TR.