We at EDN are in a period of reflection and contemplation for the important season of Christmas. Our attention will be on raising certain questions that we invite you to comment on. We will return to our series probing controversial issues on January 4th.
TODAY’S QUESTION: Which story surrounding the birth of Jesus in the Gospels most informs the meaning of Christmas for you?
We at EDN are in a period of reflection and contemplation for the important season of Christmas. Our attention will be on raising certain questions that we invite you to comment on. We will return to our series probing controversial issues on January 4th.
TODAY’S QUESTION: Do you celebrate the “Twelve days of Christmas”, or is Christmas over for you shortly after December 25th?
We at EDN are in a period of reflection and contemplation for these important seasons of Advent and Christmas. Over the next few weeks, our attention will be on raising certain questions that we invite you to comment on. We will return to our series probing controversial questions on January 4th.
As we get closer to Christmas day, people talk about “getting the Christmas Spirit.”
TODAY’S QUESTION: What is the Christmas Spirit and how does it manifest itself in your life?
We at EDN are in a period of reflection and contemplation for these important seasons of Advent and Christmas. Over the next few weeks, our attention will be on raising certain questions that we invite you to comment on. We will return to our series probing controversial questions on January 4th.
TODAY’S QUESTION: What can we do to in Advent to make Christmas less commercial and more spiritual?
by Henry Neufeld, Publisher
A serious problem in dealing with stereotypes is that there are almost always examples of individual who truly fit the stereotype. When a bigot sees such an example, he or she points at that person and says, “See! They really are like that!” Of course, the problem with the stereotype is that so many otherwise similar people do not fit it. But the bigot feels justified by the affirming example.
Very often the stereotype describes behavior that is actually reprehensible in those individuals that practice it. The problem is to discuss improper behavior without stereotyping certain groups of people. I recently wrote a post in which I said that there is no crime so heinous that we should punish someone who didn’t commit it. Stereotypes generally punish, or at least place at a disadvantage, people who are innocent.
In Bible study we find similar stereotypes. There are the biblical literalists, who always take everything literally, no matter how difficult it is to do so. They produce ludicrous results by their attempts to take everything literally. Liberals and progressives wonder why these people go to the Bible in the first place if they’re going to ignore culture, history, obvious differences, and clear indications of figurative material.
On the other hand, we have the liberals or progressives. They don’t take things so literally. In fact, the stereotype is that they are people who simply ignore whatever portion of the Bible that they want to, and don’t actually care what the Bible says at all. Literalists wonder why these people even bother to read the Bible at all, because they obviously just ignore everything it says.
The two groups have a hard time understanding one another and discussing with one another. Why? Because in too many cases they don’t look carefully at their own approach to the Bible so that they can see their own biases in action, and at the same time they don’t understand the approach that their opponents are taking. Is it any wonder that the arguments get very heated? There is no argument so heated as one in which the participants are not even addressing one another’s position.
Despite the danger of stereotyping, we have to use labels. That’s the problem with communication. We have to make judgments and group people and things in order to talk about them. We use the word “house,” but divide it into mobile homes, pre-fab houses, and regularly constructed houses. In our perceptions, do we group pre-fab houses closer to mobile homes or to regularly constructed houses? Do we consider mobile homes to be “houses” at all? If you pay close attention to this sort of vocabulary you can learn significant things about the way someone views the world.
So we’re still going to use “biblical literalist” and “progressive” as labels for the way certain groups interpret the Bible. Just remember that these two labels describe groups of people who do not all follow the same pattern. While there are literalists who do crazy things to maintain their literalism, there are also literalists who take quite a different approach. In fact, not everyone who claims to take the Bible literally takes the Bible literally. It depends on how you define “literally.”
There are progressives who simply dismiss certain scriptures. I encounter this sort of person in the hallways of United Methodist churches. When they say, “I don’t take that literally,” they are using “literal” in the sense of “real” or “important.” “I don’t take that literally” might mean “I don’t think that applies to me now,” or “I don’t think that’s an important point.” They do not mean “I take that figuratively rather than literally.” Often they are no more capable of telling me why they don’t take it literally than the literalists I meet are capable of explaining why certain things that look very figurative should be taken literally instead.
Those are very “up front” and perhaps even thoughtless ways of applying the respective approaches. If you go behind the scenes, you’ll frequently find that the text in question is one that the casual literalist believes contains a critical teaching, to be defended at all costs no matter what, while the casual progressive does not want the text to apply. Neither is willing to give serious consideration to how and why it applies.
I like to illustrate this by asking people to read Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 19:33-34. I occasionally run into people who want one to apply and not the other, some who would like both to apply and some neither. So sit back and ask yourself why you would like to treat each text as you do. Once you have thought out a way of applying (or not) the texts as you prefer take that same set of principles and apply them elsewhere in scripture. Does this work with Leviticus 11? Does it work with the command of Jesus to love your enemies?
The question I have for you is whether you can be consistent with whatever approach you take throughout scripture. How often as you read do you require an ad hoc explanation?
Very few, if any of us, read and apply scripture without the use of ad hoc explanations. There’s a good and a bad reason for this. (Well, probably more than one of each, but I need to keep this discussion within limits!)
The good reason is that scripture is addressed to a variety of times and situations by a variety of people, each of whom heard God not just as God is, but as they were. Thus we need to hear the whole story, and see not just the words on the page, but also the narrator, the recorder, and the transmitter of those thoughts as we strive to hear God’s voice coming through it all.
Any simple approach to scripture will run into serious speed bumps as we find scriptures that simply don’t simply fit the pattern we expect. When we come to those speed bumps, we all, whether literalist or progressive, find a way to get around what the Bible seems to clearly teach in that case. Our methods differ, but the result is the same; we remain as we are. We refuse to behold so we are not changed (2 Corinthians 3:18).
And then there’s that sneaky little word “seems.” Because we need to each find a way that lets us look honestly at a passage, an experience, or a story, and then apply whatever does apply to our own lives. I’m not trying in this short space to tell you precisely how this is to be done, and I want to be clear that I believe there are things that don’t apply to you. There are, in fact, scriptures that we seriously need to question. Anyone who claims to “do everything the Bible teaches” likely hasn’t really looked at everything the Bible teaches.
The idea here is to find a method that makes you be honest with the text. If you’re saying this does not apply, make sure it is not because you just don’t feel like applying it.
The bad reason is that you require ad hoc explanations in order to avoid things that you just don’t want to do. Not that you think would be wrong. Not ancient ideas that you think would result in immoral action if applied in the present. Just things that you don’t like.
The goal is self-honesty first. When and how you apply or do not apply scripture should be on a principled basis. If it is, you will likely grow spiritually as you study, irrespective of where you started. And in this case, the journey is more important than the destination.
As a final note, I do have a filter I apply to scripture, one I think is itself quite scriptural. I describe it in Hanging Biblical Interpretation. But what filter did I apply in order to discover this filter?
by Kent Ira Groff
Liminality is a zone of ambivalence, ambiguity, even disorientation, as anthropologist Victor Turner’s pioneer research shows. But it’s simultaneously a “realm of pure possibility where novel configurations of ideas and relations may arise,” says Turner (The Forest of Symbols). That’s one value for practicing centering prayer, where you have no agenda except to empty the mind of thoughts, to cultivate liminal space that leaves you prepared for surprise.
“Love the questions… live the questions,” says the poet Rilke. How can we cultivate the value of questioning? By honest praying as in the Psalms: first, to develop genuine awareness of self, others and God; second, to claim vocational empowerment—to seek an invitation in the stress; and third, to practice compassion for self and others. In Kitchen Table Wisdom, Rachel Naomi Remen writes, “An unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road.”
Among all four Gospels, Jesus is asked 183 questions, directly or indirectly. How many does he answer directly? Three! And Jesus asks 307 questions—often in response to another’s question: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus asks, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” (see Luke 10:25-37). By giving questions back to people, by getting them buzzing with his own questions and Zen-like parables, Jesus creates liminal spaces for churning, ruminating, incubating.
Irritation to Invitation
I feel the barbs of this little irritation,
cycling round, coursing in my veins.
Ah, is there within the irritation
some invitation I might waste
if I suppress it—or in haste express it
raw? Or let it gnaw at my heart?
If I do nothing, it will do something
I do not intend. How can I take
this attitude of annoyance and let it
turn to gratitude and grace? I pray
for a middle way. Yet well I know that
I will come upon this neutral zone
in a dark wood of waiting….
There the way is incubating….
I’m advocating the use of questions for yourself as well as for others, and not only as a method of creativity, but as a prayer practice to keep your own heart open.
Most of you reading this spend time with friends and colleagues who turn to you for wisdom in work, in families, in board meetings, in one-to-one and community settings. By learning to convert an insight into a thoughtful question, you may offer everyone several priceless gifts.
You slow down the rapid pace of conversation. While you’re converting your insight into a question, you have to pause—a creative, prayerful space. When you give back another question to whomever you’re with, it creates a second pause within that person. You’ve practiced kenosis—empty space—not just for your own soul but also for the other’s soul. You’ve given the gift of liminal spaces.
Playing around with moment-by-moment emptiness can free my ego from the need to act smart. Alan Alda of TV’s M*A*S*H fame went on to host the PBS “Scientific American Frontiers” for over ten years, interviewing renowned scientists. Speaking at Chautauqua Institution, New York, Alda told how when he tried to act smart by asking brilliant questions, it didn’t work. The scientist would answer back with technical information, losing both the audience and Alda. He learned to ask dumb questions, in short, to practice “negative capability.” Experimenting with a “dumb question” frees me from needing to be the answer person by acting intelligent or by fixing my neighbor’s problems.
by Kent Ira Groff
A woman on silent retreat was praying when she and I heard a construction worker say, “Holy shit!” Later she and I queried: Can this pop phrase mask our human yearning for life’s “waste” to morph into wholeness—even holiness?
Maybe some folks are “praying” without knowing it—that life’s lowest places might be consecrated: “Holy humus!” Why not use that in our liturgies? The expression can mean more than venting your spleen. We can pray to see traces of grace in the grit of our own or others’ defeats and discouragements.
Grit Seasoning
While I do this grit
work, season
the irksome pieces
with enough
Ahas! to remind me
of the reason.
The “reason” is your life mission—your “why to live,” your purpose for being on this earth, your passion (Resource Three in Clergy Table Talk). Such Ahas! come unbidden, by surprise—often right when we feel our own brokenness, even shame and unworthiness.
In a hospital Clinical Pastoral Education training program, a new student chaplain was assigned to visit Marie Smith, a patient with terminal cancer; she had called to request a visit. It was this seminarian’s first real encounter with death. As he made his way down the hallway in the oncology unit, he was overwhelmed with the stench of necrotic flesh. Upon knocking and then entering the room, he felt overwhelmed by her ashen color. He thought he would throw up. But from somewhere in the back brain, he remembered that it can help at such times to sit down and put your head in your hands. So he sat that way for four or five minutes, and the sickness did lessen.
But when he looked at the woman, he felt so embarrassed by what had happened that he got up and left. Feeling he had failed, he went to the meditation room to sort things out. He decided he would tell his supervisor the next day that he was resigning from the program, and maybe even quitting seminary. Perhaps this ministry thing was not for him.
But the next morning, before he could find the supervisor, she found him. Marie had just called again: Was he the chaplain who visited her? He thought, Oh no.
“Well, this time she just wanted to say thanks. After she called yesterday, she wished she hadn’t; she was so sick she didn’t feel like talking, and surely didn’t want any minister preaching to her.” “But somehow,” the patient said, “the chaplain who came must have sensed that. Because he just came in, sat down, bowed his head and prayed for me for maybe five minutes. And then he gave me the most loving glance, and then left. Of all my times at this hospital, this is the most meaningful visit I ever received.”
Once when I told this story, someone asked, “But the chaplain wasn’t really praying, was he?” Another said, “Oh yes! He was praying with his gut.” His intense identity with the patient’s pain was his visceral praying, his yearning for her with “bowels and mercies” (splagchna in Greek; see Philippians 2:1, KJV).
Buddhist and Christian metaphors convey the same reality: that beauty rises out of the garbage, that even wasted experiences can morph into new life. A Buddhist scripture says, “A sweet-smelling, lovely lotus may grow upon a heap of rubbish thrown by the highway” (Dhammapada 58-59). And where is Jesus crucified, but on a tree at “Golgotha,” the town garbage heap?
by Chris Freet
Is hospitality something that has, in a sense, been co-opted in the West? Perhaps a quick Google search could shed some light on this for us. The result of this search brings up websites pertaining to restaurant and hotel management topics and issues. It would indeed seem that hospitality in the West has become an industry focused upon making a profit. When compared with the teachings of Christian scripture it would seem that there is a divide between biblical hospitality and what is passed off as hospitality within our Western culture today.
Defining Hospitality
A simple definition of hospitality is “welcoming the stranger/other.” Our cultural understanding of hospitality seems to thrive on welcoming the stranger, but for a small (or not so small) fee. The Western business model of hospitality appears to view the stranger/other as a commodity or a “consumer” rather than a blessing or an opportunity to build bridges with someone who may be different in some way. I understand that our culture is not equated with the Church, so I want to be careful not to equate the two. However, has the Church in the West been effected by this business approach to hospitality? I think if we take an honest look at ourselves we could say “yes, we have.”
God as Host
I think (and I argue in my book) that hospitality is rooted in the very nature of God himself. Within the creation account according to Genesis chapters 1 and 2, we witness what I call God’s “great invitation” to humanity. The Garden belongs to God; it is his “home” into which he invites humanity. In this great invitation, humanity finds identity, purpose and life. These elements reside at the core of the practice of hospitality. Whenever a stranger is welcomed in, a space is created in which these elements begin to work, thus changing both guest and host in profound ways. In light of this, the fall of humanity recorded in Genesis 3 can be viewed as humanity rebelling against God’s hospitality. The result of this is a closed door, a significant picture within the realm of hospitality.
Hospitality and the Church
In the pages of the New Testament we see that hospitality is mentioned numerous times (cf. Acts 28:7; Romans 12:13; 1 Timothy 3:2; 5:10; Titus 1:8; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9; 3 John 8). Within each context the focus is on the practice of hospitality within the life of the Church. Hospitality is to be a hallmark of the Christian faith. In part, it is tied to the reality and it is a reminder that we, too, are strangers in this place so the church needs to welcome the stranger/other. The church is to show hospitality to (1) other believers and (2) those outside the Church. As followers of the God who has shown hospitality to us, especially in Jesus Christ, we are to be a people that imitate God by showing hospitality to those around us.
In what ways have you, your family, or your Church family experienced or practiced hospitality?