The Simple, the Foolish and the Wicked

Reading scripture & praying have long formed the center of my daily spiritual discipline. Psalms and Proverbs form “corner pillars” for me, and I’ve read parts of these books almost daily for decades. Psalms are the liturgical songs & prayers of the Old Testament, and Proverbs is one book of Biblical “wisdom” literature. The psalmists taught me how to pray honestly – worshiping God alone, while facing the reality, head-on, of who I am and in what circumstances I find myself. The psalmists appeal to God to reveal his justice in the world, and to guide us in his ways. Proverbs have the purpose of raising up “wise” children to become wise men and women. The “wise” in Scripture are not those who are well-educated, well-traveled, able to reason or argue facilely, well-read, privileged, rich, or well-placed. As a matter of fact, those characteristics are more often markers associated with the unwise, the foolish and the wicked! Rather, as biblically-defined, “wise” people are those who follow God’s paths, commandments and ways in the world, act with truth and integrity, exhibit righteousness in the marketplaces and practice relational righteousness and compassion (toward the weak, the poor, the powerless, the widow, the orphan, the alien).

Years of prayerful, regular reading in Psalms and Proverbs have attuned me to patterns that occur in the overall content and flow in each book. The late Dr. Gerald Wilson, with whom I studied Psalms at Fuller Theological Seminary, specialized in “the shape of the Psalter”, and his teaching helped clarify themes in the Psalms and, indirectly, in Proverbs. Perhaps I could have reached my understandings earlier had I spent more time in rabbinic literature and OT commentaries. :-)  Nevertheless, it became clear that both books help the people of God to be shaped by God in order to embody wisdom, godly life and worship. In the early chapters in Proverbs, both parents (cooperating with God and his “master worker”, the feminine-voiced Wisdom) commend, admonish and describe the godly ways to raise children, the need for wise instruction and just discipline of children & youth, the avoidance of sinful companions, sexual immorality, drunkenness, and foolish behavior. A child is born “simple” and will act foolishly, at times. Without godly correction and discipline, our simpleness and foolishness will allow the influence of the wicked to increase over us. Wickedness is the end of those who repeatedly refuse to consider the outcome of their own foolish ways, and who ignore and deny what others’ actions and words reveal about their hearts. As the paths of the wicked & the wise interweave throughout the book of Proverbs, the wicked who won’t acknowledge either their own sin or others' godliness. The wicked seek to deceive others, cover up their own actions, and misuse their humanity and positions to harm others.  When acting unwisely and unlovingly in concert with those like them, the "fools" escalate to become “the wicked” who actively seek to lead others down their paths. In the "name of" a self-justifying end, pleasure, wealth, lust, or a misleading "good", the wicked draw in the simple and the fools.

One chapter that describes “the wisdom of the world” as foolishness in God’s sight is Proverbs 26. In the New Testament, Paul clearly drew on his knowledge of Psalms and Proverbs in his writing. For example, 1 Cor. 1:10-2:16 sets God’s wisdom and the worldly wisdom as antithetical and antipathetic to one another. The latter is evidenced by divisiveness & lording it over others, and the former by unifying love, justice and service of God and neighbor, in Christ.

Here are the first 8 verses of Proverbs 26, as an example of the distinction between the wise and the foolish:

Proverbs 26
¹ Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.
² Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, an undeserved curse goes nowhere.
³ A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools.
⁴ Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself.
⁵ Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.
⁶ It is like cutting off one’s foot and drinking down violence, to send a message by a fool.
⁷ The legs of a disabled person hang limp; so does a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
⁸ It is like binding a stone in a sling to give honor to a fool.

 

There’s a Hebrew poetic device in the antithetical parallel in verses 4-5. On the one hand, v. 4 advises that to answer a fool according to their folly makes us a fool, too. However, in the very next verse, we’re advised to answer a fool according to their folly, so they won’t be wise in their own eyes. If we didn’t understand the context of Proverbs, we could throw up our hands in exasperation here, when using our own natural understanding and education-based reading. However, when one understands how folly should be responded to according to Proverbs, this changes the whole picture.

People of high educational achievement, according to the current academy, will inevitably misinterpret scripture at some/many/all points, if that education and credentialing is not founded upon godly wisdom. Our teachers, professors & colleagues teach us that rhetorical argument and logical presentations are keys to academic success & “victory”. Every academic degree or professional credential is celebrated as certifying this person as more qualified to lead, or teach, or advise than another “lesser” degreed or credentialed person. This is a hierarchically-based and often a crony-supporting system, although people of integrity are found within poor systems.

Wisdom, as described in OT and NT, counters that worldly victory and names it insufficient, at best, and false, at worst. 

If an immoral, dishonest, unethical, bullying, manipulative or domineering person proclaims his/her superiority over another (according to academic, credentialed, economic/financial, class, gendered, ethnic, or racial standards, etc.) in order to dictate another's behavior, Proverbs and the canon of Scripture name him/her as fools according to their unrighteous, unloving and unwise actions. Prov. 26:1 and 26:8 state clearly that honor is not fitting to a fool, and is, in fact, harmful; yet worldly businesses, society, media, organizations and the academy honor & acclaim fools all the time! In Scripture, fools are identified as fools by their choices and behavior, irrespective of their academic or economic prowess, position, status or credentials. 

Paul made this exact same point to the Corinthians. The key verses following his forthright, sarcastic description of the way the Corinthians were behaving (1 Cor. 4:6-13) are 4:17-21. Paul sent Timothy to Corinth to remind them of his “ways in Christ Jesus”, and not of Paul’s “plausible words of wisdom” (2:4-5). He told the Corinthians that he wasn’t interested in “the talk of these arrogant people”, at all, but in their power (what their deeds and actions reveal). (4:19) “For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power.” (4:20) The power of God is found in the cross of Christ, which is foolishness and a stumbling block to those who don’t seek God’s life and love in their hearts, in service of God & neighbor, to the spiritual transformation of their lives.

The fools as described in Proverbs, though, have not quite attained to full-blown wickedness. To return to that poetic antithetic parallel in vv. 4-5, what might the writer mean by stating we shouldn’t answer a fool according to his folly in the v. 4? Given the story of wisdom and foolishness in Scripture, it would seem that Paul gave the best response. We don’t answer fools by trying to reason them out of their positions. We don’t try to gain victory over them using the same worldly methods of rhetoric, education, position, human power, manipulation, deception, argumentation, etc. Although education, information and knowledge are useful to a servant who uses them in service of God and neighbors, in themselves, they cannot transform a fool. At times, we may not answer at all, in love and care for them. Proverbs 14:3 claims, “The talk of fools is a rod for their backs, but the lips of the wise preserve them.” As Paul asked in 1 Corinthians 4:21, “What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?” In other words, “will you Corinthians continue to be fools needing correction, or will you turn toward the demonstrated wisdom and power of God in Jesus Christ, and him crucified?” 

Yet, v. 5 indicates that fools might become aware of their foolishness and turned toward wisdom, somehow. But, how? We find out by looking at the context of that verse in the chapter, and the context of folly, fools and foolish behavior in Proverbs, overall. As harsh as it seems to our contemporary “sensibilities”, verse 3 commends physical discipline to drive out folly. The Proverbial “rod of discipline” used wisely must not be “a rod of anger”, or a rod that sows injustice (Prov. 22:8). It isn’t a rod of vengeance, or of oppression (Isa. 9:4), or an assertion of human power over another. It isn’t the rod of master over slave, superior over inferior, abuser over victims. The rod of loving discipline is used to alter the paths of the youthful and immature fools, to bring them back to wiser ways, choices and behaviors.  Consider the context of the rod in a psalm which is beloved by many to whom I’ve ministered – whether current or former church members – Psalm 23. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me.” (23:4) We can and should cherish the awareness that the chastising of the Lord is for our good (Heb. 12:5-13), to give us appropriate laws which are fulfilled in love of God, self & neighbor, to encourage wisdom and increase strength, to benefit ourselves and our families, and to assure our hope & future (Prov. 23:12-19, 24:13-14). (cf., also, Proverbs 10:13, 13:24, 22:8 & 15, and 29:15)

Jesus' words give the context of love to every law and consequence: "But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your father is merciful." (Luke 6:35-36) Only in the power of the Holy Spirit, which operates through love & self-giving service, do we have a prayer for fulfill his call to us.

A provocative solution to the current prison overcrowding in the US was offered by a professor of criminal justice, Peter Moskos. Salon interviewed him, here. Moskos’ book, In Defense of Flogging, offers the “outrageous idea” of returning the option (by giving the convicted person the freedom to choose) of flogging to the sentencing roster. The interviewer expressed rightful concern that flogging harkens back to days of slavery and other oppressive & abusive relationships. Moskos made the points that prison is a worse punishment and actually may be more detrimental to most prisoners & their families than flogging. A friend who works among the urban poor in a violent neighborhood considered this proposal a possible alternative to passive-aggressive incarceration and ostracism from society that most people commend, today. The fact is that most people in power who make the sentencing decisions really don’t care sufficiently for the people to want to rehabilitate them, so whatever “rod” of punishment is meted out – whether imprisonment, abandonment, social isolation, or flogging – it will more likely perpetuate current patterns of alienation, economic, social & racial injustice, in isolation from healthy contexts. Should we ask, however, if a foolish criminal has or would welcome relationships with wise individuals and a community who can mentor and guide him/her into better paths, might a flogging soon over be a better option than years isolated and tortured with other criminals in a destructive environment? Are we, the church, not called to be such a community offering redemption & hope to one another? (Matthew 25:31-46)

Welcome, Love and Change

Rev. Dale Kuehne's words
about welcome, as the Rule of St. Benedictine describes it, sharpened what the Holy Spirit has been testifying to our hearts, right now. As Dale wrote, the Rule states, "Every visitor must be received as Christ himself." We're mourning the unexpected loss of our Rhodesian Ridgeback, Lanzo. He was nearly 11 years old. What has struck us - as we mourn - is how keenly we miss his ongoing presence, his affectionate welcome, his smile at being with us in simple tasks and walks, his exuberant joy at our homecomings, and his appreciation for all that we gave him. We've experienced a stark contrast of the intensity in our mourning of our dog (God's good creature!) and our mourning of humans we've known who have tried to use people to serve themselves and their dogmatic agendas. Many humans fail to love, be trustworthy, be steadfast in patience and kindness, or extend welcome. As do many of us, we've known people who've returned hospitality with calumny and insults, who've returned love with human judgment, who've sought evil rather than good. (cf. Prov. 11:27) The hurts I've listened to in pastoral care and hospice rooms testify to the commonality of personal experiences of human betrayal, lies, deception and harm – within families, among friends and colleagues, or within our faith communities. In our humanity, we mourn less the loss of people who've deceived or tried to harm us than we do people or pets who have remained with us, unselfishly faithful and loving, building up and encouraging us through life's journeys.

Jesus' words challenge us past our human capacity. "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven..." (Matt. 5:4-5)

The church of God is called to live out our love & welcome as do the Benedictines with whom Dr. Kuehne prayed, sang and was nurtured in Christ. Too often, we fail to be as Christ to fellow humans made in the image of God. We won't love them as God loves us - with patience, kindness, charity, truthfulness, gentleness, hopefulness, endurance & self-giving service – with love that is undeserved and unmerited.

Fr. Peter from St. Anselm College also expressed to Dale the necessary wisdom within Christ-like hospitality. While we welcome every visitor as we do Christ, we need to have confidence from faith that he or she is the one called to change, to be transformed by God's incarnate Word, just as we are.
There will be visitors who seek their own purposes among us. They use others, pursue their own interests and not those of our churches or families. One example I heard was of a journalist who sought out persons within an inner-city mission whose words could be twisted to confirm the sensational story she wanted to tell, seemingly to further her career, fuel her biases and those of readers. The reality of people loved and served, who learned to grow, live and make healthy choices is inconvenient and thus, ignored. We may not know such visitors' motives when we welcome them, nor should we try (cf. 1 Cor. 4:5). When we're young, we may be too trusting and naïve to expect such treatment, but wisdom is frequently acquired through painful trials. Sooner or later, these visitors' subsequent actions reveal what/who they serve.

Utter humility is required in order for us to change to conform to Christ's Body. As Dale describes his experience with the Benedictine love for visitors: I did not deserve what I received. I did not feel worthy to be treated as Christ. But that is the miracle and trial of grace. You deny it, reject it, or find enough humility to begin to receive it.

When we come into the presence of Christ and come into the presence of those whose lives are filled with the Spirit of Christ, too often, we naturally refuse to humble ourselves to see or join Jesus at work in the jars of clay whom the Potter is molding and shaping, with persistent patience and kindness. When we come into the presence of any person, each one created in God's image, we naturally cannot love or hear them truly because we've categorized them and prejudged them according to some subjective human standard, a disembodied education or "knowledge" (e.g., Gnosticism), or any other distinction unfounded on God's love and justice for all. We hyper-focus on where others don't meet our expectations, and won't read the full context of the human story grounded in God's ongoing creation, love, mercy, grace and justice.

Left to our natural inclinations, out of our arrogance and pride, we wield our self-will and refuse to receive what is being freely offered. We would sooner become "judges with evil thoughts". (James 2:4) In making distinctions and rationalizations, we falsely and unwisely judge one another by causing divisions, joining factions, gossiping, divorcing, slandering, alienating, rejecting, lying, pretending to know hearts/motives, deceiving, or maligning. The Apostle Paul's "vice lists" are cheat sheets for human judgments upon other humans and upon Godself. "Sin" in Scripture is our belligerent and rebellious refusal to humble ourselves, to cease our self-justifying destructive behavior, in order to worship God and love others as our Creator loves us. As self-elected &/or human-acclaimed "gods", we arrogantly demand others to obey us "or else". We will not humbly join Jesus in loving and obeying God the Father by loving, serving and honoring his ongoing presence and work among fellow humans, however broken and flawed. Some of us may even dare to misrepresent "God", mouthing "god" while acting selfishly to impose our wills, lording it over others.

For those who, by grace and the Holy Spirit, choose to die to those ways to follow Christ, our defense is to stand "in Christ", to take refuge in God. "Every visitor must be received as Christ himself." We don't attack with the weapons which our natural inclinations would wield. Instead, we speak truthfully, and discern wisely; we love them according to Jesus' love for us. We don't approve sinful behavior, attitudes or choices perpetuating human injustice and estrangement; rather, we must love others because God enables us to love them. In so denying our human selves, by grace given and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we continue drawing closer to God. He is our refuge & our Creator who knows us better than we know ourselves (& better than any human!). God's Son reveals our God-given image, and by receiving Jesus and entrusting ourselves to live and be led by God's power revealed in Christ, we are adopted children of the Father. God's sent Spirit offers the very strength we need to live humbly, peacefully and righteously in our community. We are empowered to do justly, love mercy, and walk in true life. We choose to believe what God tells us about ourselves, in the Word and by the Holy Spirit. We wisely differentiate between God's truth and human lies. We are assured that although God's truth may hurt, we will be changed in ways that glorify God and make us truly human, "good" via death and resurrection into new creation. We confess and renounce open and hidden sins, and turn our lives toward God's paths. As Dale put it, God's work is always the "Change that believes in me". As we draw closer to God, the One who always steadfastly loves us, we also draw closer to others who join us in seeking to truly image Christ – the community where God reigns.

Thank you, Father, for your gift of loving and justice-doing friends and family-in-Christ. Thank you, too, for your gift of our dog, Lanzo, who always welcomed us joyfully and better than most of us dare to welcome one another.

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

To take a tangent that I hope will bring lightness to your heart:

I hope you enjoy listening to this YouTube version of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, by J. S. Bach. Bach's tempos are wonderful for projects such as this.

Wikipedia gives a translation of the German choral accompaniment to the music.

Well for me that I have Jesus,
O how strong I hold to him
that he might refresh my heart,
when sick and sad am I.
Jesus have I, who loves me
and gives me as his own,
ah, therefore I do not leave Jesus,
lest I should break my heart.

—from BWV 147, Chorale movement no 6

Jesus remains my joy,
my heart's comfort and essence,
Jesus resists all suffering,
He is my life's strength,
my eye's desire and sun,
my soul's love and joy;
so will I not leave Jesus
out of heart and face.

—from BWV 147, Chorale movement no. 10

Miroslav Volf on Allah: A Christian Response

I had an unexpected opportunity to hear Miroslav Volf, Prof. of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School, speak about his new book, Allah: A Christian Response. This wonderful surprise was made possible by the fact that I'd traveled to Pennsylvania to fellowship with colleagues in ministry, and one of them mentioned that Volf was speaking only 5 minutes away. (Thank you, Matt!) I had two reasons to delay my trip home: one was the strong commendation from Fuller Prof. Charles Scalise of Volf's work on reconciliation, and the second was my long-standing commitment to the message of reconciliation through Christ and our call to be his "ambassadors." (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:16-ff.) I'll do my best to summarize Volf's remarks. Any mistakes in conveying his thoughts, the history behind his work, or in the spelling of unfamiliar names are due to my own scribbling & mental processes!

The central question we face, today, according to Volf, is "how can we combine religious exclusivism with social-political pluralism?" There are two major realities that we must contend with:

1. Globalization – we are not simply interconnected people, any longer, but we are increasingly interdependent. We can no longer expect that actions we take in an isolated part of the world do not have repercussions or reverberations elsewhere.
   
   1. We live in social places which are increasingly pluralistic.
      
2. It is not evident that religious adherence is decreasing, numerically; in fact, it is clear that religions are drawing more adherents.
   
   1. Religions are more socially assertive, too, and individuals engage with others along religious lines and outside of their own religious faiths. "Faiths cannot be sequestered, anymore."
      

The Common Word Initiative began in Jordan. At the behest of Prince Ghazi of Jordan, 38 Muslim scholars wrote a response to Pope Benedict XVI, after the Pope's address in Regensburg, in September, 2006. The questions they considered were, "do we espouse 'exclusive faiths'?" and "how may we treat equally those with whom God is displeased as we treat those with whom God is pleased?"

The Pope had opened his lecture by quoting a medieval discussion in which the Christian questioned the supposedly violent character of the Muslim God. The medieval claim was that the Christian God was rational and reasonable, beginning with the Word of God; this reasonableness helps to found democracy. On the other hand, the medieval dialogue contended, Allah was a God of arbitrary will and thus underwrites totalitarian forms of governance. Because some furor erupted over the Pope's use of this medieval discussion, even though the rest of the Papal speech mitigated or nuanced many of its assertions, Muslim scholars felt the need to respond openly. Their open letter to the Pope helped found some positive work in open dialogue and promotion of reconciliation between Muslims & Christians on the ground of faith we share. A Common Word Between Us & You was the result of the expanded work and collaboration of Muslim authorities and scholars from major streams of thought within Islam. Prof. Volf has participated in resulting discussions with Islamic scholars, as have other Christians committed to loving God and neighbor. The "traditional and mainstream Islamic position" of respecting Christian Scripture is reaffirmed in the work of A Common Word, and their site states, "Indeed, the most fundamental common ground between Islam and Christianity, and the best basis for future dialogue and understanding, is the love of God and the love of the neighbor."

Volf stated that the main argument in his book is that we do, Christians and Muslims, believe in the same God, but "in a qualified way." He agrees that what binds our 2 faiths together are the conjoined commands to love God and to love neighbor. From the standpoint of human societies and communities, he considers that we need to have religious reasons to live in peace, because if humans fail to act corporately, the "privatization" that resulted from the Enlightenment is insufficient to sustain a broad peace. [From my interpretation of his argument, Volf sees religious enterprises as those bonding enterprises which promote our common humanity, truth and communities within this world.] "The more religious we are, the more at peace we will be with our neighbors." (Volf) If it is true that what binds us together is love of God, and love of neighbor, then we need to consider if we share common definitions of the terms: love, neighbor, God. Volf sees religion to take "us out of our own private ways of perceiving reality."

Volf paraphrased a Sufi scholar [I believe the scholar's name is Habib Ali], who perceives and teaches that God is loving and God is justice. Per Volf, Ali has stated that all God's actions [in the world] are regulated by mercy and justice. God, as depicted in the Old Testament, is an obstacle to Muslims because God seems unjust, in many stories. [Many Christians have the same misgivings!] However, regarding the question of the Trinity, which seems to be Tritheism to many orthodox Muslims, Volf pointed out that many of the stated objections by Muslims to the Trinity would be agreed upon by orthodox Christians. In other words, orthodox Christian belief is not Tritheism and the latter is considered a heresy. Thus, Muslims could understand the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams' statement that the Trinity describes the "numerical identity of indivisible divine substance."

According to Volf, no peace in this world can be achieved at the sacrifice of people's integrity and their religious integrity. I understood him as underlining the commitment to human freedom in religious affiliation and belief. Obviously, the extent of freedom is too frequently compromised for particular persons according to particular rationales. Regarding a statement Volf made that women's bodies are "the most contested space of religious discussion", I'll soon write another blog in the series, Misogyny in Secular & Religious Traditions.

However, once that freedom is acknowledged, religious adherents can agree that worship has both "vertical and horizontal modes". The horizontal mode is how we live in this world, and takes seriously "that our lives reveal who we worship." "That from which you draw your ultimate security is your god." It is possible for Muslims to claim that they worship the same God, and for Christians to claim that they worship the same God, but "our deeds reveal otherwise!" I completely resonated with Volf's statement that "our deeds are a more significant indicator of who we worship than our words are." [From my work in reconciliation, I'd concur with Volf and then, I'd add a supplement. Words themselves are a form of deeds, scripturally, and we need to be mindful of James' & Proverbs' injunctions vs. the unruly and unloving tongue (or pen, or writing), and Paul's admonition to speak "only what is useful for building up" one another. I'd venture a guess that Volf would agree, because we're all very aware of how words are used to provoke, demean, antagonize and incite others, today.]

To illustrate Volf's contention (with which I heartily agree!) that "our deeds are a more significant indicator of who we worship than our words are", he said that it seems clear that the Crusaders who, "in the name of" Christ, slaughtered Muslims taking refuge in the Temple (until the blood was "ankle-deep" in some reports) worship the same bloodthirsty god as do the suicide bombers of today who slaughter innocents while shouting "Allahu Akbar". He also used the example of the Muslim leader, Saladin, who became a figure exemplifying principled chivalry to Muslims and Christians.

We need to look at the deeds for their testimony to whom we/others worship. While acknowledging that we who are committed to love God and love neighbor in words and deeds are worshiping the same God, yet we can accept that there are significant and important tensions in understanding the nature of the true God. Questions of salvation and of Godself can only be safely
answered when integrity and freedom of persons is honored as we love our neighbors. In order to further dialogue and promote peace, Volf distinguishes that we need not contend over differences in the ways of salvation in Islam and Christianity, when we can promote the values and common word we share of loving God and neighbor.

Volf added and refined his remarks further in a question and answer session, but I'll save those for a follow-up post.

Misogyny in Secular & Religious Traditions (pt 2)

The discussion could transfer from here to whether religions, in general, are the cause of women being disrespected and abused. Women may be poorly treated by Christian men, by Muslim men, by Buddhist men, by Hindi men, by men in any cultural setting or religion…and by men, without regard to any religious reasoning, whatsoever. Genuine religious endeavors result from human efforts to reflect a truthful ordering (if there is one…) within a cosmic reality that predates us and human historic & contemporary relationships. False religious endeavors result from human efforts to maintain a status quo or counter-create a false ordering by unjust and inequitable means, and all religious endeavors succeed or fail according to the integrity or its lack in the humans who propagate them. If indeed there is a truthful ordering, one which justly perpetuates life, healthy communities and relationships, religions may be in accord or discord with that deeper reality. (An atheist in this framework would not be one who intellectually doubts the existence of a Deity or deities, but one who actively works against or lives in ways that counter life, community, relational reconciliation and justice.) Legal systems are derivative of religious understandings of appropriate and just ordering.

Chicken or egg? What came first, the religion-based ill-treatment of women, or men's ill-treatment of women which they seek to justify according to some religion, or according to purported intellectual, physical, emotional strengths in men or weaknesses in women? (I'd heard it said that women were incapable of handling finances, when I began working in financial markets & economics 30+ years ago. There have been endless debates over purportedly innate feminine weaknesses, throughout our lifetimes.) Insofar as humans anthropomorphically project their flawed understandings onto religious and legal systems, justice and truth are not served.

Yet, that question of where alienation began might seem irrelevant to the situation in which we find ourselves, now – the endless loop of relentless justification of alienation, devaluation and polarization between genders and belief systems.

The crux of the problem doesn't lie in our gendered differences, but in our non-gendered human abuses of power. Historically, men have held more power and women were among the permanently disenfranchised underclasses of sub-humans (still are, in many regions, and to many men). One obvious form of power can be physical strength and size. But, women aren't the only members of the underclasses. Power-abusers may abuse other families, classes, races, ethnicities, cultures, the physically different, the diversely gifted, as well as the other gender; they may abuse and bully any person with whom they don't identify. Most certainly, a power-abuser will abuse and seek to destroy any person or group who threatens their power base. Consider all the contemporary historical situations within our lifespans where those who have previously been oppressed have turned into power-abusers and money-hoarders, themselves. Proverbs 29:13-14 reads, "The poor and the oppressor have this in common: the LORD gives light to the eyes of both. If a king judges the poor with equity, his throne will be established forever."

Returning to the gospel of John, consider the literary situation of the Samaritan woman's story within the text. Chapter 3 presents the story of Nicodemus, "a leader of the Jews" who came to Jesus "by night." Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, and chided him for his lack of understanding when Nicodemus expressed his puzzlement at Jesus' words. The dark night is surely linked to the darkness in Nicodemus' ability to comprehend and his unwillingness to be seen by fellow Jews with him (cf. Jesus' words in 3:19-21). The scene shifts to John, the Baptist, whose disciples are in discussion with another "Jew" about ritual purification. Who is clean? Who is not clean? Who is "allowed in"? Who is excluded? [The gospel writer uses "Jew" or "Jews" and the place, "Judea" to depict those who are in power, in positions of worldly authority, and which authority is too frequently not congruent with the authority by which God moves.]

The response of John, the Baptist, to his disciples' concern that people were leaving him to follow Jesus offers us a key to Nicodemus' darkness, and the light in the responses of John, the Samaritan woman, and the royal official to Jesus. John responded with the humility. First, he recognized that the real authority he possessed was given by God, in the first place. Second, John knew the Source of all true authority, and he knew himself in God's light: "You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, 'I am not the Messiah,
but I have been sent ahead of him.'" (3:28) Finally, that was enough, and John rejoiced in that awareness. John didn't seek to grasp more than God had given to him. (cf. Phil. 2:6) "He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease." (3:29-30)

So, let's revisit the story of the Samaritan woman in the light ("It was about noon." 4:6) of John's responses to Jesus, and its literary situation in the text. As a woman, a Samaritan, and one who – for reasons completely irrelevant to the purpose & message of the story the gospel writer was telling – had been married to 5 men, she came to draw water, joyfully received Jesus' prophetic words and mission, and went immediately to tell her village about him. Just as John's disciples first believed Jesus because of John's words, so the villagers first believed Jesus because of her words (4:39-40). Then, they believed Jesus because of his own words, and just as John decreased, so did the Samaritan woman (4:41-42). We sense the joy among the villagers to know Jesus, as "the Savior of the world." (The subtext is that Jesus is not chosen to be the Savior of the worldly, powerful insiders.)

Too often we wrongly believe that reconciliation comes at the cost of our selves. Perhaps we may recall the childishness of our youth when we rarely commended other children, for fear that commending them diminished us. Actually, reconciliation will come at the cost of our false selves, the selves that are perpetuated by lies and abuse of whatever power we possess or seek to exert over others. That power misleads and blinds us to Godself and to God's signs in and mission to the world, when that power is based in our flesh – whether gender, ethnicity, race, economic, political, educational, or religious situation, to name some examples. In order to know Jesus, who Jesus is and to accept God from whom Jesus comes,

• we recognize the gifts we possess are not from/in/of ourselves,
  
• we know ourselves and know how to discern wisdom in humans around us (Aside: there's hope here for Nicodemus! Cf. 3:2),
  
• and finally, we joyfully allow ourselves to decrease and be replaced by God and God's Son in others' sight.
  

Other posts in this series: Part 1

Misogyny in Secular & Religious Traditions (pt 1)

David Lose, the Director for Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary, points out what seemingly should have been obvious for the past 2 millennia of Christianity in a column at The Huffington Post: the woman at the well is never described in John 4 as a prostitute, or as a promiscuous woman. Jesus doesn't even mention sin in his conversation with her. [Predominantly male] commentators, theologians and church pastors have consistently described her in terms that purport her to be sexually loose, adulterous, and/or promiscuous, and perceive Jesus' words to her as calling her out of her sin.

Johannine scholar, Prof. Marianne Meye Thompson of Fuller Theological Seminary encouraged her students to look at John with fresh eyes. Although we used Raymond Brown's hefty 2-volume commentary on John, Dr. Meye Thompson did not wed us to his interpretation. Brown's view of the woman at the well, "immoral" was his term, was not matched in the words of John and was not clearly supportable in the sociological and cultural ANE context. When we got to this passage, which I had just worked through for another seminary class, we challenged Brown's interpretation.

It is not at all unlikely that a woman of good reputation might be married a number of times. Men could easily divorce women, but women had little right, if any, to divorce men. If a beautiful woman was barren, for instance, she might be divorced for lack of children, lack of sons, or sadly, for "any reason" a man might give.

There was no "labor market" for women, then. They could be gainfully "employed" as daughter, wife and widow. Few women had sufficient property to exist without the support of men. If a woman wasn't gainfully employed in family endeavors, if she had not the means to survive on her own, and if she was not marriageable, she could depend on the generosity of extended family and neighbors (Ruth, & perhaps, Mary – the mother of Jesus), or become "self-employed" – as a prostitute.

In Robert Kysar's book, John: The Maverick Gospel (Revised Edition), one appendix was entitled, "The Women and the Gospel of John." (I hope he's incorporated this into his 3^rd Edition, rather than left it as an after-thought!) Kysar pointed out how remarkable John's presentation of women's faithfulness in the gospel was, for that historical period. The Samaritan woman is discussed in contrast to the disbelieving Nicodemus in ch. 3, as the 2nd evangelist* in the gospel (the 1^st was John the Baptist) – an outsider, Samaritan, woman, rejected (the 5 marriages). The text does not support casting her as an immoral person, and in fact, her discussion with Jesus is very perceptive and he treats her with dignity. She not only believes (where Nicodemus couldn't/didn't), but then she goes and tells her town and THEY believe her. (This could count as another strike against assumptions that John depicted her as immoral -- the testimony of women was irrelevant & the testimony of the immoral people was suspect.) Kysar considers the Samaritan woman as the female counterpart to John the Baptist.

Significant women are consistently portrayed as believers in the gospel: Jesus' mother (ch. 2), Samaritan woman (ch. 4), Martha (ch. 11), Mary (ch. 12), women at the foot of the cross (ch. 19), and Mary Magdalene (ch. 20 - 1st witness/evangelist to the resurrection).

The fact that the woman was married multiple times indicates that she was probably not considered a "fallen woman" in her community. (She would have been stoned to death for adultery, for instance – cf. John 8) It seems far more likely that she was barren, or had been married to older men, or had husbands die, or all of the above. That she was living with a man could be that she was living with a relative of her own, or with a relative of a husband, or as a dependent on others (which might explain why she's carting water, but then again, women to this day have the job of carting water in Africa!).

This post continues: Part 2

a dearth of ongoing righteousness & justice

<sup>The historical setting for Ezekiel's word of the LORD is the unwillingness of the people of God, the family of Israel, to be righteous in their ways, to love one another & their neighbors in their actions, every day. Israel has been invaded by Babylon.

30</sup>“As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes forth from the LORD.’
³¹And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with their lips they show much love, but their heart is set on their gain.
³²And lo, you are to them like one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it.
³³When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”
(Ezekiel 33)