Secular Approaches to Christian Origins
April DeConick, Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University, has joined the blogging world this past week with her Forbidden Gospels Blog. I’ve noticed because she’s been welcomed by bloggers at PaleoJudaica, The Busybody, Earliest Christian History, Hypotyposeis, Deinde (with a brief welcome and a longer critique of her post), and NT Gateway. Not that I’m worthy of being called a “host” of any kind in biblioblogging, but I would like to welcome her as well. I’d also like to take a few moments to reflect on her approach to Christian origins. In her first post, “Beyond the New Testament Canon,” She writes about herself:
As a scholar of religious history, I do not have to justify my conclusions to believers nor do I judge the texts I study in terms of our modern perspectives of “orthodoxy” or “heresy.” My rules of engagement are simply those of the modern intellectual community in search of knowledge. I consider myself a “humanist,” relying on ways of knowing developed since the Enlightenment in the discipline of the humanities and liberal arts. Given these premises, I take very seriously the study of a variety of early Christian documents, and do not operate within the boundaries of the New Testament canon.
Now, as a confessional Christian who is interested in serving God through an academic vocation in biblical studies, I probably should feel threatened or offended by scholars like DeConick. Instead, I actually feel excited and genuinely interested. Lately, I’ve been really getting into discussions about “orthodoxy” and “heresy” in the early church, particularly from “secular” perspectives and especially in Bart Ehrman‘s writings. As far as I can tell from my introspective reflection on the matter, I can see two reasons for my interest:
(1) I have a varied religious past myself. I was born into a Catholic family that was losing (or had already lost) interest in the Roman Catholic Church by the time I was born. My father has a Masters of Religious Education and was working in the church, but soon gave it up to go for a MBA and a career in business. I was baptized as an infant, but never really taken to Mass during my childhood. Then, as a freshman in high school, my father started taking me to a Unitarian Universalist church. I was enjoying that experience, while at the same time going to a youth group at my friend’s fundamentalist church. I lacked the awareness that this would be considered religiously odd. Later, I converted to Christianity and attended the fundamentalist church for two years. I was gung ho and tried to convert my whole high school, which did not make me popular. Then I went to Messiah College, hoping to deepen my knowledge about the Bible as a Bible major. Instead, my inerrantist reading of Scripture was given the ol’ drop kick out the window in my first class in biblical studies. After intellectually and spiritually wandering around different manifestations of Christianity in college, I was most drawn to Messiah’s founding Brethren in Christ denomination, and particularly its Anabaptist tradition, mixed with spiritually revivalistic elements. And that brings me to my second reason for interest in these secular approaches advocating noncanonical works:
(2) I am an Anabaptist, a tradition which itself was considered heresy (and still is by many) and whose participants even died for such accusations. Being a part of a tradition that followed its biblical and spiritual convictions, even in the midst of such dire circumstances, heightens my interest in the debates about “orthodoxy” and “heresy” in the early church.
I see pros and cons in most of the various movements within Christian origins. I understand that the stakes were high in the early church. I generally agree with what the established “catholic” church found to be “false doctrine.” But I can also understand the motivations of those who were called “heretics.” I can see why Marcion would feel conflicted about what seemed like a violent God in the Old Testament and draw upon the concept of the Demiurge to explain away such violence from his faith. I don’t agree with him, but if I understand the situation correctly, I can see where he’s coming from there. I particularly resonate with Montanism’s challenge to the established church and its claim to an authoritative, apostolic succession of bishops. I can also appreciate Montanism’s desire to keep the gifts of the Holy Spirit alive in a profound way, alongside a strong lived out morality. I feel uncomfortable with some of the things that they prophesied, but I can understand the instinct. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing the good in Gnosticism, which seems to me to be exclusivist in its complicated mysteriousness and irresponsible in its denial of the goodness of creation. But I can understand getting caught up in the philosophies of the day and combining together elements of different viewpoints to make sense of spiritual experience or philosophical reflection.
I do, of course, have troubles accepting everything that the established “orthodox” or “catholic” church did at the time as well. For me, the movement to hierarchy and the separation between the laity and clergy is problematic. I also have a hard time with the strong sacramental theology that emerged, particularly with the eucharist. It doesn’t make any sense to me that the “elements” would actually become the real blood and body of Jesus, aside from being kind of gross (one can understand Roman confusion and disgust with the practice). Nevertheless, I do see that this was a profound affirmation of Christ’s true humanity and indeed even the goodness of matter itself in response to Gnostic and Docetic views. It does seem to me that the “rule of faith” that can be seen in various forms in Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hypolytus, etc. is a necessary attempt to keep in line with the teachings of Jesus and the early apostles’ understanding of Jesus. I do agree that Gnosticism departed from those teachings significantly, even while it mixed some of it in. I understand that the early church felt the need to protect the boundaries of early understandings of Christ through early creedal formulations and a need for ordination, even if I feel uncomfortable with many of the things said by the authors of the time period and the legacy of their decisions.
All of this is to say that I am excited by more “secular” (though I won’t say “unbiased”) attempts to wrestle with the orthodox vs. heresy issue from a fresh perspective. So I thought that Danny’s critique of April DeConick’s first post was helpful, and I don’t necessarily agree with DeConick, but I greatly appreciate hearing things from another perspective. I have enjoyed every post
she’s put up so far. I would also like to point to James Tabor‘s Jesus Dynasty Blog and James Crossley‘s Earliest Christian History in the same vein, both of which I also greatly enjoy reading. Now we just have to get Ehrman into the blogging world!
Additional Note: I just realized that I am not aware of any other women in the world of academic blogs on biblical studies and Christian origins. In addition to her perspective as a “secular” scholar of early Christianity, I say hurrah for a woman’s voice in the discussion!!
Tests Schmests, Exams Ecschmams
Let me just say that I dislike, nay, despise tests. That’s not good for someone in academia, I suppose. I don’t look forward to taking my comprehensive examinations once I’m in a doctoral program, but worse than that, I don’t even like the fact that I have to take a midterm exam in my early church history course tomorrow. Even when I ace tests I feel queasy about them. It’s like this test, this document probing my brain for answers, is also prodding me with a stress-charged taser gun.
I like to talk about the material. I like to write about the material. But I don’t like to be forced into this awful, heart-pounding sweatfest demanding my memory recall, while at the same time blocking my memory and causing feelings of great inadequacy. I like to learn. I like to read. But I don’t like spending hours upon hours poring over pages of notes, both in paper and on the computer. I don’t like trying to come up with a “study guide” when there is none provided and it becomes so long and cumbersome that it just intimidates me with the amount of information that I feel I have to memorize.
Okay, what I’m describing is not the scenario of every test I take, nor do I even have that many tests. But still, they irk me. If I ever make it to the other side of graduate studies, I don’t think I’ll give tests or exams to my students. Quizzes, maybe. Papers, short and long. Perhaps even blogging, which is becoming an assignment trend now. But no tests.
Well, it’s back to the study guide for me! 
N.B. I should add that the reason that I am so stressed out about tests is because it only allows you two hours or less to condense tons of material, whereas a paper gives you weeks of preparation time to craft your words. I worry because I care about the grade. I only care about the grade because I want to get into a good doctoral program. I want to get into a good doctoral program so that I will be well-trained to serve my future students as a teacher and, I hope, a mentor as well as to engage in scholarship in general. I would rather our whole system dropped grades, if that were possible, because it causes me to focus on meeting the requirements rather than learning the material. But there’d be no easy way for the big schools to weed out the masses of applicants.
Google reader and blogging the Didache
So I have just switched from bloglines to Google reader for reading various blogs and I appreciate Google’s format a lot more. You can even read posts I felt worthy of sharing here; mostly they’re interesting biblical studies discussions and resources, generally related to Christianity and culture, or just funny.
Anyway, through catching up on my biblioblog reading, I discovered that ricoblog is doing an interesting blogging series on the Didache. He is translating, doing a phrasing breakdown, and even leaving a little commentary on each chapter. I have developed a distinct interest in the Didache of late and I’m happy to see so much time and effort spent on it in the blogging world.
The Klouda controversy
Here’s a story on gender discrimination that was brought to my attention on Jim West’s blog. It is one of those situations that I am both in disbelief and yet unsurprised.
FORT WORTH, Texas – A theology professor at a prominent Southern Baptist seminary said officials told her to leave because women are biblically forbidden from teaching men. (Read more here . . . )
Update (1/28/07): You can find another reflection on this on the Women in Ministry blog. Through Cheryl Schatz’s blog there, I found a link to a detailed blogging about the controversy by Wade Burlson, a Southern Baptist pastor in Enid, Oklahoma. At the moment there are 352 comments in response to his blog post. He’s hit a nerve! As a matter of fact he has several posts dedicated to this controversy and the issue of women in ministry on his blog.
Does the New Perspective on Paul call Judaism racist?
There is a criticism of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) that has come up in our Paul and the Law class several times (first initiated by Dr. Hagner himself) which I find both troublesome and intriguing. It goes like this: in its attempts to absolve 1st century Judaism of a legalistic image, the NPP has instead accused Paul’s Jewish opponents of being racist.
Where does this come from? You see, the NPP understands Judaism in terms of “covenantal nomism” instead of legalism, that is, the Jews had a devotion to the law as part of their covenant with YHWH but they did not believe one must obey it to perfection in order to be “saved.” So what was Paul talking about in the “negative texts” about the law in Galatians and Romans? According to the NPP, Paul is vehemently opposed to certain “works of the law” (like circumcision) which function as “boundary markers” to the Jewish “in-crowd,” so to speak. In other words, the form of Judaism that Paul opposes is one that is exclusively “nationalistic,” in which one must perform these works to be initiated into this “nation.” Thus, the Jews of Paul’s time were not legalistic, but close-minded and nationalistic. In our class, Hagner used the word “racist” as a pedagogical tool to make it “easier to understand.”
What it does, I think, is make the antagonistic bias against the NPP “easier to understand,” not the NPP itself. There are a number of questions that make this “racism” language problematic. First, it obviously has a loaded, negative connotation in the context of US social and political history. What we think of first is the enslavement and oppression of Africans and their decedents. We think of the struggle for civil rights. We think of all our “melting pot” conflicts between Caucasian, Black/African-American, Latino/a, Asian, etc. persons (such as gang violence between Black gangs and Latino gangs). The term feels violent and bordering on vulgar. When Hagner characterizes the NPP view of Paul as calling Judaism “racist,” he is putting a very negative slant on the NPP view.
Secondly, even if we try to be objective about the term “racism,” extracting its historical baggage, does it even work descriptively? I’m no sociologist, but I’m not sure we can say that we’re talking about a hatred or antagonism against other “races.” To get some help here with definitions, I looked to some basic references. The Encyclopedia Britannica Online suggests that to use the term may even be anachronistic, Race is:
the idea that the human species is divided into distinct groups on the basis of inherited physical and behavioral differences. Genetic studies in the late 20th century denied the existence of biogenetically distinct races, and scholars now argue that “races” are cultural interventions reflecting specific attitudes and beliefs that were imposed on different populations in the wake of western European conquests beginning in the 15th century.
Furthermore, it may be defined generally more by physical characteristics:
In the United States, for example, the term race generally refers to a group of people who have in common some visible physical traits, such as skin colour, hair texture, facial features, and eye formation. Such distinctive features are associated with large, geographically separated populations, and these continental aggregates are also designated as races, as the “African race,” the “European race,” and the “Asian race.”
The Britannica article on race does go on to say that there are some secondary uses of the term, but most scholarship of the term has focused on uses regarding “biophysical characteristics.” Britannica’s entry for “racism” builds on this understanding of “race”:
any action, practice, or belief that reflects the racial worldview—the ideology that humans are divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races,” that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural behavioral features, and that some races are innately superior to others.
Perhaps one could make a case for racism existing in early Judaism, though I imagine that similar ideologies of superiority would be found in almost any group of the time period that we know of. But the question is whether this is what the NPP is arguing that Paul was saying about his opponents. I think not. It seems that they are saying that Paul is reacting against a type of Judaism which is extremely dedicated to a particular understanding of their covenant with YHWH. In this understanding, performing these “boundary marker” works of the law were necessary for inclusion in their dedicated and covenantal group. Paul says that those “boundary marker” works are not necessary for inclusion, only faith in Christ. It may be exclusivism, but it’s not racism.
I have two final comments. First, I do want to acknowledge that it is worth questioning how much ground is gained in Jewish-Christian relations if we stop accusing Judaism of one fault, but assign it another. Even if we don’t call that fault the harsh “racism” term, it’s still not very friendly. Along with that, implied in this critique is a good question: should Jewish-Christian relations even be a determining factor in our exegesis? Secondly, however, the use of this comment in our class is just one part of an overall antagonistic atmosphere opposed to the NPP. Snide and snarky jabs are made at the NPP authors every week from all over the classroom. Perhaps it is all in good fun, but the negativity grates on my conscience. I feel we should approach these issues with more openness and humility. I don’t care if the scholars we’re reading don’t seem humble in their writings; I don’t think we should stoop to polemical and pejorative language. It may be fun, but it doesn’t seem right.
Thanks for reading through my venting!
What do Anabaptists say about justification by faith?
In response to my last post, my friend Matt raised good questions about Anabaptists and their understanding of justification by faith. I started to copy down some quotes and felt like it was just too much material (and the material was just too good) for a comment, so I’m making a new post out of it. Here’s Matt’s comment:
Pat, would you mind clarifying some issues for me. Anabaptists believe in “believer’s baptism” but how is this belief expressed? In other words, how does one become a believer? Or, to put it a third way, does justification by faith play a decisive role in Anabaptist traditions?Also, does the (seemingly) anti-Luther leaning of many Anabaptists alter or skew the way that Pauline texts are read. If the basic logic of the text sounds Lutheran is it to be thrown out automatically?
First, I’d like to say that much of early (and even contemporary) Anabaptism is characterized in its opposition to Luther, so I don’t think we need to be hesitant about identifying an “anti-Luther leaning” of Anabaptists. I’m not so keen on the fellow myself, he said some horrifically awful things (aside from his views on justification). Also, Anabaptists (especially 16th century ones) have a very high view of Scripture; there will be no throwing out of Scripture. From the Anabaptist perspective, they are being more faithful to the Word than “the scribes,” which include Luther. As a matter of fact, the early Anabaptist laity was so biblically literate that their opponents accused them of being demon-possessed: how else could they know Scripture so well? In response to Matt’s comment, I did leave the initial comment:
My gut reaction is that it is that Anabaptists do not believe that you “earn” your salvation through works, but that “works” or “deeds” are a requisite part of the faith in Christ which leads to salvation/justification. In that way, it doesn’t completely disagree with justification by faith, but it argues for a more holistic understanding of faith.
But I would like to explore some Anabaptist sources here. These are all from the classic resource Anabaptism in Outline edited by William Klaassen (1981). The first quote is from Klaassen himself and the others are from 16th century authors, for which I’ve given both page numbers and years.
Anabaptists were one and all agreed that the process of salvation begins with God’s gracious act in Jesus Christ. There can no longer be any question about this. Once Luther’s formulation on faith and works is seen as one way of several to set out the problem, our minds can be more open to consider the Anabaptist view. Anabaptists, too, believed that man [sic] is saved by grace and not through any merits of his own.
But they were equally certain that man was not saved in spite of himself. God has graciously provided a way of salvation, but in order to benefit from it man must freely choose it for himself. This implied that man could choose, and it was a rejection of the Protestant doctrine of the bondage of the will. The will was set free by God’s grace and then man could choose to do the good that God desires for man.
~William Klaassen (in his introduction to the chapter on “The Work of God in Man” in Anabaptism in Outline, 1981, p. 41)
Faith alone and by itself is not sufficient for salvation. . . . With the heart man believes to righteousness and with the mouth confession is made to salvation (Rom 10). Now we do not wish to be mouth Christians only . . . Rather, faith must express itself also in love to God and the neighbor. . . . O, we wish to be good evangelical Christians; we boast about our great faith, but have never touched the works of the gospel and faith with the smallest finger. Therefore we are, as stated above, nothing but mouth Christians, ear Christians, and paper Christians, but not action Christians.
~Balthasar Hubmaier (Anabaptism in Outline, p. 43, from 1526)
Faith is the obedience to God and the confidence in his promise through Jesus Christ. Where this obedience is absent there all confidence is false and a deception. This obedience must be genuine, that is that heart, mouth and deed coincide together. For there can be no true heart where neither mouth nor deed is visible. And where the heart is not honest all words and works are nothing but deception. An evil heart betrays itself with pride and impatience. A good heart proves itself with humility and patience.
~Hans Denck (Anabaptism in Outline, p. 46, from 1527)
Therefore, when one speaks of justification through Christ, one must also speak of that faith, which cannot be without works of repentance, yea, not without love, which is an anointing. . . . Again when one speaks of works, one must preach not, after the manner of the work-righteous, the works of law but the works of faith; that is a turning away from works, creatures, and your own self, through faith in Christ the crucified one, not as what man can do from himself, but what he really can do in the power of faith; which thereby are not man’s works but God’s, since the willing and the ability to turn to God are not man but the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
~Michael Sattler (?) (Anabaptism in Outline, pp. 56-7, from 1530); he goes on to say “blessed be he who remains on the middle path” between “work-righteous” on the one hand and “the side side of the scribes” (i. e., Luther and friends) who teach “faith without works” on the other. Though this may not be a fair assessment of Luther, I think the “middle path” greatly interests me in this NPP research.
Faith is not the empty illusion that those men think who only bear it about with them in their mouths, and know no more about it; who think that Christianity is in words only, and therefore hold and regard each and all as Christians, no matter how they live, if they but confess Christ with the mouth
True and well-founded faith, however, is not of men but a gift of God, and is given only to those who fear God. . . .
~Peter Riederman (Anabaptism in Outline, p. 63, from 1542)
Those who accept this announced Christ by a true faith which according to the doctrine of Paul, was given us of the Father unto wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and deliverance, are in a state of grace for Christ’s sake and have God as their Father; for by faith they are born of him. . . . And this we say, not by our own merits and works, but by grace through Christ Jesus. . . . [T]herefore it is that they sincerely fear the Lord, and by that fear die unto their flesh, crucify their lusts and desires, and shun and abhor the unclean, ungodly works which are contrary to the Word of the Lord. . . .
They show indeed that they believe, that they are born of God and are spiritually minded; that they lead a pious, unblamable life before all men. . . . They walk in all love and mercy and serve their neighbors. In short, they regulate themselves in their weakness to all words, commandments, ordinances, Spirit, rule, example, and measure of Christ; and therefore they live no longer in the old life of sin after the earthly Adam (weakness excepted), but in the new life of righteousness which comes by faith, after the second and heavenly Adam, Christ. . . .
~Menno Simons (Anabaptism in Outline, p. 69-70, from 1552)
It's not our issue: Anabaptists and the New Perspective on Paul
I would like to share some wisdom that was emailed to me about why Anabaptists might not be all gung ho about the New Perspective on Paul. I alluded to something similar in a previous post, but I think this puts it better. The email was from Dale Fredrickson, who is a NT PhD student at Claremont and has (in the meantime) planted a house church based on John Howard Yoder’s Body Politics. He suggested that the reason not many Anabaptists are “in on this discussion” is because “the discussion is not important to them. What I mean is that Justification by faith has never been our issue. Justification by faith arises out of the Lutheran main line and evangelical manifestations.” That is the vibe that I get as well, but I think that Anabaptists have an opportunity here to speak from the authority of their historical tradition and make a significant contribution to the debate.
Dale also recommended picking one passage and doing a historical-critical study, also looking into what Anabaptist interpreters have said about it. That may be a good way to narrow the focus of my term paper for Paul and the Law. I am also doing a shorter exegetical paper for the course, but that doesn’t leave much room for exploring the Anabaptist perspective… it would simply be an Anabaptist exegesis, since I’m doing it! Another approach to the term paper would be to list out some of the main points of the NPP and explore them one at a time from an Anabaptist perspective. That may be too much for a 10-15 page paper, though. Well, whatever I do, I’ve gotten geared up to go on the topic, borrowing books from a couple libraries and even one friendly fellow church member. I’ve borrowed Toews’ Romans, Yoder’s Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited, Elias’ Remember the Future, and (even though it’s not Anabaptist) Harink’s Paul among the Postliberals. It would be great if the Believers Church Bible Commentary series had a commentary on Galatians. It is much needed and I wonder if they’ve assigned anyone to the task yet.
Well, you can expect more thoughts on the NPP later! Adios for now.
An Anabaptist, Judaizing Paul?
I mentioned my search for sources where Anabaptists can be found wrestling with the New Perspective on Paul (NPP). After much searching through books and journals, it does appear that Anabaptist interaction with the NPP is scant. The primary resource, it seems, is Toews’ commentary on Romans. I have found, however, a short chapter in John Howard Yoder’s posthumously published The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited (which is searchable on Amazon) on “Paul the Judaizer” in which Yoder mentions Krister Stendahl’s landmark essay, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” (Harvard Theological Review, 1963). Many reference Stendahl’s article as the beginning of the NPP, though the term was not coined until later. Yoder’s chapter was originally a lecture at Bethel College (KS) in 1982 [update 1/21/07: hear audio files of the lectures here] and it argues that Paul was a Judaizer of Hellenistic cultures, rather than a Hellenizer of Jewish culture (in the words of Peter Ochs’ commentary at the end of the chapter).
I hope to do my term paper for Hagner’s “Paul and the Law” course on an Anabaptist assessment of the NPP. Frankly, I’m surprised at the paucity of available sources on this. It seems like a topic that would be of interest to a great many Anabaptists. Perhaps all the Anabaptists are just saying, “Well, yeah, of course… you think this is ‘new’? What’s the big deal? Where were you when we were challenging Luther himself rather than his memory? You may get bad reviews, but we got burned at the stake!” It appears that most of the small references I’ve found assume that the NPP is a good thing without critically reflecting on the matter. I guess I’ll just have to take it on by myself for now . . . unless any of my friendly readers would like to offer some reflections!
Sermon Conversation 2: How'd I do?
[Continued from the previous post . . . ]
The best feedback, though, came from our sermon conversation the other night. Here are some sermon excerpts and what was said about them:
Yet when we compare the story to other imaginative tales of Jesus the boy, Luke’s account seems tame. In the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas, written much later, we find stories of Jesus as a boy getting angry at another boy and causing him to “wither away” and killing another boy for bumping into him. On a more positive note, he raises a child from the dead after falling from a roof, but only after he’s accused of pushing him off the roof. Jesus raises the boy from the dead and the boy defends him. Jesus is this amazing, unpredictable child miracle worker, apparently unable to contain his power. Much different from Luke.
The pastoral staff said that it was good to drop some info about the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, but that it would have been good to qualify it a little better. I did use the word “apocryphal” and said it was “written much later,” but that could easily get missed. They suggested a “one-liner” that was something like, “While this type of document was left out of the canon of our Christian Bible (for good reason), it provides a window into the imagination of one part of the early church.” They weren’t too worried about it because my tone was clearly dismissive and humorous. But Jennifer said that “one-liners” are incredibly important for preaching. It is our way of distilling all the scholarly information that we have learned and making it understandable to the community of believers. It may compromise the complexity of the issues, but how much complexity should you put in a sermon?
And so my problem with these “did Jesus really say that?” passages is that I’m asking the wrong kind of question. But perhaps I’m not alone. The evangelical subculture and secular society alike seem to be obsessed with a Jesus who is your pal; Christ, your buddy. . . . The movie Dogma satirizes the idea of a Jesus as our buddy. In the movie, Cardinal Glick (played by George Carlin) heads up a campaign to make Jesus and the Catholic church a little more fun and friendly. The campaign slogan is “Catholicism – WOW!” and a “Buddy Christ” statue is its spokesman. The statue features Jesus with the traditional robes, long hair and beard, but adds a thumbs up with his left hand, points with his right hand as if to say “You the man!” and gives a wink. If you want, you can even purchase “buddy Christ” dashboard statues and bobbleheads.
For this one, I depicted the “buddy Christ” image by mimicking the stance. Pastor Jennifer said that it was a great image and surely stuck with people afterwards, but suggested that they were being left with the wrong image. It is an image of what I’m saying is bad and I didn’t have another image to replace it, so they will remember the “buddy Christ” but maybe not my point. If we’re leaving a strong image with the congregation, we should make sure it is an image that reinforces our point in a positive way. (Notice that I did borrow part of description of “buddy Christ” as set in Dogma)
We are reminded of the tale of Jesus, 20 years or so older, speaking to a crowd and seemingly blowing off his family once more: The crowd tells him that his mother, brothers and sisters are looking for him. But instead of running over to his “earthly” family, he asks the crowd, “Who are my mother and brothers and sisters anyway?” And answering his own question, he says that they are right here: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Or in Luke’s version, Jesus’ family is made up of those “who hear the word of God and do it.” Elsewhere in the Luke, Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” In order to be Jesus’ disciple, we must hate our families. Maybe some of us would have an easier time than others “hating” our families . . . . Be that as it may! It is not really talking about a feeling of hatred; like the word “love” in the Bible, “hate” is an action word. Instead, Jesus demands from us the will to sacrifice our families and our very lives if we claim to be his disciples.
The team told me that my joke about “hating our families” was well-placed. The holidays can be stressful for many who have a hard time with their families and it was a way to name that stress, make it a common point that we acknowledge, and laugh about it. Incidentally, I did get specific feedback on that joke from someone in the congregation who appreciated it as well.
There were other comments. I mentioned Love Actually as an entertaining movie that has some good themes, but misses the point of Christmas. I didn’t mention, however, the nudity that might be disturbing to some. I think that’s okay for PMC, but in another context it might be something to point out. Also, I talked with Katherine about how much should we reveal about our own stories in sermons, since I used myself and my life experience as an example a few times. She didn’t think that I did anything inappropriately, but it’s something to watch out for. Overall, it was a good experience and I learned quite a bit in the process. I have one more sermon and that’s coming up in a few months. We’ll see how it goes.
Sermon Conversation 1: My message
One of the most important aspects of my education, in my estimation, is learning how to communicate complicated bible-speak to “real people” in an accessible way. That is why I eventually want to be a teacher and a mentor for college students. That’s what I’m trying to do with this blog to some extent. Delivering the occasional sermon, I imagine, will be part of my communicative journey as well. I haven’t delivered many sermons in my time. I did a few sermons and sermon-like moments as the Junior Class chaplain in college and in my pastoral internship at the Grantham Church. My first “real sermon” in a church setting came on this past December 31st at Pasadena Mennonite Church (PMC). The other night, the pastoral team and two interns (including myself) talked about the intern sermons over soup and bread. It was a helpful sermon conversation and I thought it might be appropriate to share some of the lessons learned along with excerpts of the sermon.
First, I should tell you what the sermon was about. For Advent, PMC was using the lectionary and I was preaching on the story of boy Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:41-52). It’s a hard story to preach on. When I read the text for myself, I usually feel like Jesus is kind of like a spoiled brat. Here are his parents looking all over the place for him and when they find him, all angst filled, Jesus seemingly blows them off: “Why were you worried? You should have known where I’d be.” So this passage, for me, has been included in those passages that I label: “Did Jesus really say that?”
It’s not a historical Jesus thing, it’s a “what would it be like to be around Jesus?” thing. I used to joke with my college roommates about how frustrating it would be to be one of Jesus’ disciples. Ask him if he wants to grab some lunch, he spouts off something about being the bread of life. But the problem here is in our cultural desire to imagine Jesus as our buddy. In my sermon, I suggested that trying to think of Jesus as our pal misses the point. The Jesus of the Gospels is challenging us as we read the text. The boy Jesus may seem like a spoiled brat (even though he doesn’t seem all that bad when compared to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas or, for that matter, my own childhood), but it is not about that. Jesus is showing that being in his “Father’s house” is the most important priority. Obedience to the divine Parent demands our first loyalty, above family. The passage is also part of a kind of genre of what I called “growing up in God” stories. And I offered that this text is about how we are all growing up in God, trying to figure out how to be dedicated and obedient to God in our own personal situations and cultural contexts.
Now for the feedback. I did get many of the generic “nice sermon” comments, which for my first time preaching in a church setting helps me realize that I didn’t just totally botch things up. But they don’t really make me feel good about the sermon; I’d like to know how the message was received. To that effect, I did hear from a few people that many families visiting the church were personally affected. Since my sermon was about our loyalty to God being more important than loyalty to our families, some parents appreciated the message, while it made some other parents squirm in their pew. I think a successful sermon makes people squirm uncomfortably . . . well, because they’re challenged personally, not because the sermon is really awful.
[ . . . continued in following post]
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- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
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