A Psalm of the Hungry Single Mother in a U.S. City
A couple weeks ago, Prof. Goldingay gave our class an assignment to write a lament psalm following the general patterns of biblical laments, especially in the Psalter. There was a fair amount of freedom to the assignment and I chose to write a lament as another person, which is a significant theme in biblical laments. It was partially inspired by stories I hear from my wife, who is a public health dietitian. So, this is the resulting psalm:
A Psalm of the Hungry Single Mother in a U.S. City.
Great God, you are the sustainer of the earth,
You have provided the earth with resources to survive.
Living bread, you are the reason I am still breathing,
I don’t go a day without acknowledging the life that flows through my veins.
Yet, my awareness of life is fed by the threat it faces.
The earth is plentiful, but my house is empty.
Because of the geography of my birth, I do not have access to your bounty,
Due to the color of my skin, I have been imprisoned, hidden from salvation.
You apparently are blind to my world,
Unable to see my indestructible obstacles.
My enemies are those who fatten themselves while my children hunger,
They have raped your creation of its goods for their own enjoyment.
They look at me and I am sin, responsible for my own demise,
But their fathers delivered me into this place of darkness.
When their government hands me a few dollars, they give me barely a hope,
When I cash their checks at my grocer, I am spat upon as a parasite.
They have trapped me in their “cycle of poverty,” giving and taking from me as they please,
I am without a hope, dying and passing on death to my children.
Don’t you see what has been done to your provision?
Can’t you understand that they have stolen my food and drink?
When will you be my savior in life?
Did you end your rescuing in Egypt?
The laughter of my children is the source of my tears,
For they will soon see this world without joy.
They will be slaves to the powerful,
Endlessly working to no profit.
If you do not act now, have you given up?
If you do not act now, I can no longer trust.
Elitism and Listening to a Sermon
I recently heard a sermon that I thought had an amazing social-justice-oriented message, but I got caught up in what I thought was the preacher’s poor exegetical method. It made me remember when I was in college and went to concerts with my music major friends. I would experience what I believed to be beautiful music, but they would assess and analyze the method and skill of delivery. They would notice the slightly off notes and the occasional out of sync rhythm, while I would simply be inspired and moved.
The preacher that I heard delivered a powerful and accessible message about our responsibility to development work with the world’s poor and hungry people. I have this feeling that I was the only person in the room thinking about how he inappropriately allegorized details from one of Jesus’ miracles, referred to Luke’s account of the story as including “medical” details, and generally imposed his understanding of present day development work to the biblical text.
I feel so conflicted here. This preacher was inspiring. But here I am picking apart his exegesis! I don’t want to be some academic elitist who views the biblical texts as untouchable and incomprehensible to those who have not studied them in depth. Going beyond just the preacher’s message, I don’t want to be an intimidating presence for the people around me who have not studied the Bible. I don’t want people to be afraid of talking to me about their thoughts, for fear that I will tear it to shreds. Indeed, I want to be an accessible teacher of how one should approach the biblical text.
One time, I tried to be in a men’s quartet where I was clearly the least musically-trained person. I felt so intimidated and inadequate that I just gave up the group. I didn’t think I belonged there. I don’t want to be that guy that makes people feel that way about the Bible.
At the same time, I guess I pay attention to methodological details because if you don’t use proper exegesis and you are trying to find meaning in the biblical text (or any text), you can make it say whatever you’d like. It just so happened that I agreed with the preacher’s message, but someone could have used the same technique and made the text be about something that I would find abhorrent. I suppose I feel I have to be fair. If I’m going to tear apart a fundamentalist preacher’s argument, I ought to be prepared to tear apart an Anabaptist preacher’s argument.
So, if you are an academic in biblical studies, how do you reconcile your “elite” knowledge with a desire not to be “elitist”?
New Bread internship blog
I have started up a new blog to explore my experience as a Bread for the World intern this Summer. It’s entitled: “Hungry for What, Now?” The question relates to my own search for meaning in vocation, particularly as it relates to poor, hungry people in the world. It also could serve as a challenge to so many people, groups, and powers. What are you hungry for?
Anyway, I will be working on outreach to congregations and getting them connected to Bread, as well as developing and partially implementing some Christian education (i.e., Bible studies) on hunger for a more “Evangelical” audience, rather than just the “mainline” stuff, which they pretty much got covered. Hunger is an equal opportunity problem, mainline or evangelical, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, whatever or whatever. So, you can expect to find my thoughts on there about hunger issue advocacy, how policy making works, creating Christian education materials on hunger, Bread events, news stories, and perhaps even a few silly things as well.
If you’re one of my readers (or even if you’re not!) and you’re interested in hunger issues and justice, I would love to have your input as I wrestle through these topics this Summer. Thanks!
[I will still be posting on here, but as I mentioned on my previous post, it is taking a little breather while I'm in my two week intensive.]
Summer internship fighting hunger
It’s official. I’ve received approval from Fuller Seminary’s Field Education Office, and have registered for, a full-time ten-week internship (FE502) with Bread for the World. This fulfills the second internship requirement for my Master of Divinity. I am finishing up the first one (a part-time, three-quarter, church-based internship at Pasadena Mennonite Church) right now. The internship will run from June 18th to August 24th.
I will unfortunately not be able to make it to their national gathering in Washington, D.C., coming up in a couple weeks (too much money!), but I will be diving in head first via Bread’s Pasadena office, run by my friends David Gist (Regional Organizer – California) and Holly Hight (Outreach Organizer – Western Region and California). I will be doing a lot of theological education regarding hunger issues (including preaching as well as developing, testing, and partially implementing hunger-related Bible studies) and outreach regarding Bread’s advocacy work. For those unfamiliar with Bread for the World, you should check them out (and you can see their blog too). They are a uniquely cool organization, which works with churches and Christian leaders around the country to lobby the United States government to concentrate their efforts on specific hunger issues domestically and globally.
But, Pat, how does this relate with your vocational goals, you ask? First of all, I want to be connected with justice issues no matter where I end up. I never want to get lost in any career, forgetting the immense responsibility that I have as a disciple of Jesus and, frankly, as a “middle class” American. “Middle class” is in quotes because there is nothing “middle” about it in global perspective–no matter how poor I feel as a grad student, I am a rich Christian in an age of hunger. Secondly, this will help me develop my skills as an educator in developing lessons based upon my target audience, communicate to them in ways with which they can connect on a particular issue (hunger issues as related to the Bible and theology). Also, I hope to one day be a professor of undergraduate students, I imagine they’d be Christians studying the Bible, and I want to mentor these students and connect them to Bread and organizations like it, helping them integrate justice issues into their academic vocations.
I am sure the ten weeks will fly by and I don’t have any grand visions of single-handedly ending global hunger in that time period, but I’m sure I will learn quite a bit. Many thanks to David and Holly for taking me on, and to Pastor Katherine at Pasadena Mennonite who will continue theologically reflecting with me as I transition from one internship to the next.
Reading justice into the Bible?
[This is an email that I sent to a friend this past week during a discussion about our congregation, Pasadena Mennonite Church. I had raised concerns about a possible overemphasis in social justice issues in the Bible reading of our church's membership. My friend (correctly) challenged me on generalizing about the congregation being too justice-oriented, suggesting that it is a good counter to all the congregations that ignore (or are antagonistic to) those issues. My response turned out to be, I think, a good articulation of many things I've been thinking in the past few years regarding Bible reading and relates to the title of this blog (what it means to live "according to the book"). I've taken all identifiers out of the text, so as not to incriminate my friend!]
Dear Friend,
Thanks so much for your comments. I can resonate with so much of what you say. I think you are right to point to my overstatement of the situation. I’m sorry if I’ve mentioned my concerns several times, I didn’t realize I was as outspoken about it as you say. But I don’t doubt it’s true. You’re also right that I am oversaturated with social justice issues. It has a lot to do with my own journey. I tend to get uncomfortable with things when one aspect of faith is emphasized over another, be it spirituality or social justice/peace concerns. Towards the end of college I started to get really into social justice concerns. And I went gung ho down that road to the detriment of other aspects of my faith.
I have to tell you a story that I think of all the time when it comes to this topic. During one of our Bible studies in our small group from PA several years ago, I got into a heated debate with my friend Chris. We got to talking about what was the most important part of serving a person in need, giving bread to the hungry, for example. Chris made a comment that what matters most is not the act of service itself, but your willingness to follow God in discipleship. I argued that God ultimately wants the hungry person to be fed and that the most important part of the action was that the hungry person no longer be hungry (we grossly oversimplified the problem of world hunger for the sake of the argument).
Although neither of us were saying the other part was unimportant, Chris thought that I was calling him selfish and I felt he thought I wasn’t being spiritual enough about it. We went back and forth in a very tense-filled room until one of our friends made the astute observation that Chris is in a place of spiritual revival right now and I am trying more and more to discover what it means to be a Christian with social justice concerns. You two are just emphasizing what is important to you in your journey right now, our friend observed. Chris and I prayed for one another and hugged afterwards, but I always remember that debate. Nowadays I go back and forth on it within myself. I tend to think that both are equally important, but the question makes me feel very uncomfortable (in a good way).
So I will certainly admit that my frustration comes more from my own walk than from the true makeup of PMC. I know that there are wonderful people who love the Bible and have very deep spiritual lives, which shows in the way they attend to others around them. I find great comfort from these people (because I’m not one of them! My spiritual life could use much more depth).
I do understand your concern to be a loud voice for social issues in order to swing the pendulum of the larger church more towards peace and justice. I think I agree with the idea. What concerns me is the way we (or any Christian) approach(es) the Bible. When I read the Bible, am I looking for something in particular? Be it justice or peace or Spirit-baptism or predestination or health-and-wealth-gospel, I think it is wrong for me to only read the Bible looking for the things that will comfort me in my view of faith and the world. I don’t want the Bible to be used like the U.S. Constitution for Democrats and Republicans, picking out the parts they like (their proof texts) and throwing them at the other side. I’m not saying that people at PMC do this, but I think the danger is there for all Christians and I think we should be aware of it. Our church is a solid peace and justice church, we will more likely look for peace and justice when we read the Bible. It’s natural.
But I think that we should allow everything to be challenged when we read the Bible (and when we pray, for that matter). One of the verses that really challenges me on this is Hebrews 4:12: “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” I knew a lot of fellow Evangelical youths when I was in high school who called the Bible their “sword” as if it were a weapon against the big ol’ nasty world, when really that sword is pointed at us…. me. One of my profs claims that no Christians actually change their minds by reading the Bible, they just reinforce what they already believe and explain away things that they don’t like. I’d like to prove her wrong.
I am completely on your side when it comes to trying to get more people motivated towards action. I am disturbed that we do not put our money where our mouths are (at least not all of us). One of the reasons that I think it could be more talk than action is because our faith is not holistic enough. In our ethics class, Erin emphasized the importance of “character ethics,” which basically refers to the idea that what we do stems from our character. If we are spiritually-shaped disciples of Jesus, we will be prepared to do things that seem impractical by worldly standards, but serve God’s concerns in the world. It gets back to that whole debate I had with Chris. We need to be disciples, both inwardly and outwardly. If we are nourished by Scripture and the movements of the Holy Spirit, I believe we will be spurred towards action and not just words. This is a challenge to myself more than anybody else.
So I’m saying that I agree with you about our emphasis as a congregation, but I think we need to be careful we don’t bring our emphasis into our reading of Scripture and our prayer lest we miss God’s attempt to mold us from the inside out.
I really should be packing instead of writing this, but I am enjoying this discussion with you. It’s helping me to articulate myself more carefully. I hope that I won’t be as careless with generalizations in the future.
Peace,
Pat
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Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
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