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The Labor of Love: Please pray with me: May the words we share and the thoughts that formed them be acceptable to you, our source of all being. Help us to be fed in our interpreting this morning with bread of understanding that informs our actions and reflections going forward. Amen. Our wisdom text from Sirach was included in our worship to prevent us from playing a game a friend of mine calls biblical gymnastics. The church, even the lectionary, tends to jump over scripture that it doesn't want to deal with rather than wrestle with it to gain new insight. Surely, however, we don't need more images of such a seemingly violent and insensitive God as Ben Sira describes. I agree that we do not. But if we borrow from our Hebrews text the idea that we ought to remember our leaders, to consider the outcome of their life - which I grant was not always desirable - we glean something extremely valuable: the use of assertions in order to gain new insight. If the world as Ben Sira knew it, including the Jewish community that meant so much to him, was finding more and more relevance in a Greek way of life, worshipping the nation-state and its leaders over and above the Jewish God, he was obligated, in a prophetic role, to give an explanation of his faith, to correct the misperception that was taking hold even among his community, to tell a story by opening a dialogue. Greek influence in this scenario is conventional wisdom and the assertions made by Ben Sira and the rationale he provided were what Victor Robinson calls "contrawisdom" - wise in its own right based on Jewish tradition and history, but counter to the prevailing conventional wisdom of the second century before the common era. The community could identify itself in the message as the lowly and the humble and they were motivated to affirm this identity so as not to endure the punishment of those whose pride symbolises self-sufficiency where God is not necessary. The implication of our text from Sirach seems to be quite clear. Those who see in their nation - or themselves - something to be worshipped will be plucked up, will be laid to waste, will be destroyed and erased. The writer is representing a community whose stated purpose has been stifled, people who are being gradually persuaded to join a hegemonic or dominant ideology that separates the community from God-resulting in what Ben Sira refers to as sin. How real the fear of destruction was for people is difficult to say. But in a sense it doesn't matter. Vernon Robinson, a professor of theology at Emory, says statements such as these are not deductive; rather, they are abductive. The main difference here is probability. Deductive arguments state that in all cases if the premises are true, the conclusion will also be true. On the other hand, abductive assertions involve a shared contextuality - in this case, the collective condition of the community - and it "involves 'thinking', 'reasoning', 'pondering', 'imagining', or perhaps 'holding conviction'."1 The importance, then, is not necessarily how likely certain behaviour will lead to certain punishment; the value of abductive assertion is in its ability to bring together a group of people to consider their tradition in relation to "social, cultural, ideological, eschatological, Christological, and theological values."2 In the end, abductive assertions inform our transcendent understanding of God.3 It would be difficult not to see similarities between this late 2nd century BCE Jewish community and more contemporary oppressed groups who have initiated the dialogue with a reluctant, dominant ideology. In the mid-20th century, liberation theologies began to add their voices to religious conversation. This is not to say they hadn't tried before but black, feminist, womanist, mujerista, queer, and theologians from third world countries broke through patriarchal grips of theology. It wasn't easy, however, because whatever strong mapmakers could have guided them in their journey had been mostly faded in a hegemonic telling of history. Alice Walker compared her lack of models to that of Van Gogh, who once wrote in a letter, "Society makes our existence wretchedly difficult at times, hence our impotence and the imperfection of our work. I myself am suffering from an absolute lack of models."4 Alice Walker unearthed the mapmakers she needed in her book, In Search of our Mothers' Gardens. Walker found, among others, Zora Neale Hurston, graduate of Barnard College, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God; a woman who lived her life celebrating the completeness of black women. When Walker first searched for her writings, they were out of print. Hurston's writing is considered classic, yet she died in poverty without a marker on her grave. Van Gogh sold one painting in his lifetime before he committed suicide - interestingly only six months after writing the letter cited above. In the struggle for equality, we benefit not only from models who have added their voices, but we also have mapmakers who have shown us there's not only one way to tell our stories. Mary Daly and Audre Lorde weren't happy to tell stories in such a way that they had to be validated by those they struggled against for freedom. The normative methods inherently took away from their writing and, gratefully, they constructed their own maps and methods. Models may be most needed, at this time, for those whom liberation theologians want to dialogue with: the people who have the privilege of choosing not to be a part of the dialogue. In her essay, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack", Peggy McIntosh describes "white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious." She explains that she was taught to see racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, and that she was never taught about how it put her at an advantage. Like men, white women were unaware of their oppression of black women. We are conditioned to see ourselves as individuals whose moral state depends on our moral will. As we heard so powerfully last week from Ed Powers, we are the stories we tell. We are also the stories we listen to. The hope is that, in both cases, everyone has access to everyone's story. How else can we expect the mutual love that our ancient testimony calls for? For mutual love, we need mutuality - the ability to, as womanist Katie G. Canon says, be different but not alienated.5 Her exchange of letters with Carter Heyward is the best model I have seen for mutuality. Cannon informs Heyward that for this exchange to take place, she "will flow, not censor or edit, but let the innermost part of [her] speak."6 For Cannon, what differentiates mutuality from other correspondence is the dialogical nature as opposed to the bilateral conversation. In true dialogue, one respects what is 'sound' in each other and a keen sense of openness allows for growth and transformation made possible by God's moving spirit.7 Consider Cannon's definition of liberation ethics:
It is the debunking, umasking, and disentangling the ideologies, theologies, and systems of value operative in a particular society. Martin Marty wrote an essay entitled, "Ethnicity is the skeleton of American religion." In true Marty fashion, his work included multiple streams of how this is true. All cases begged the question of particularity as it relates to universality. And Kwame Anthony Appiah, in his book Cosmopolitanism, offers us an alternative: to see our selves as citizens of the universe. If we bring the Sirach text to contemporary Christianity, however, we realise we are uncomfortably close to, if not the expression of, the hegemonic view that so many 'others' feel is controlling them. What are we doing as Christians to show that our theology is not nation-centric? And when we apply the Hebrews text, we can ask ourselves how willing are we to sacrifice our privilege and comfort to remember those who are homeless as if we are homeless; to remember those dying of senseless acts of violent wars as if it is us who are being indiscriminately victimised; to feel the pain of those who are tortured as if we were being tortured. The subversion of democracy cannot be underestimated. To many of us, in the absence of oppression similar to that of Ben Sira's Jewish community, the sense of urgency in bringing about change for those who are being victimised is diminished. In essence, is mutal love or mutuality even possible? As a second year seminary student, I still get to answer this question with, "It depends who you ask." Reinhold Niebuhr would say it is not possible for humans to understand the needs of others as they understand their own. We are limited this way. But even he in all his realism held out hope for unconditional love, what he referred to as "agape." Even if we think it is impossible to do something to the degree we seek, what should prevent us from achieving something? It becomes more important what happens in our trying than reaching an end. Competing theologies and the doctrines that support them reveal a constricting and inevitable characteristic; they all are bound to history. Roger Haight, a Jesuit priest and part-time professor at Union Theological seminary defines historicity as the reliance of all human ideas and values on the particular time and culture out of which they arise.8 This partially explains the inherent plurality in religious beliefs over time. However, it also points to the inevitability of reinterpretation. Quoting Haight: "Here we see that fundamentalism, which refuses to reinterpret the symbols and doctrines of tradition, is really reinterpreting them by repeating them, although it may not be aware of it."9 Being aware of context in light of reinterpretation, however, allows revelation to continually bring more meaning to Christianity. Our Hebrews ancient testimony is, in this way, a reinterpretation. The letter in its entirety compares the old and new covenants; it pleads for evaluations of leaders such as Moses, Abraham, and other prophets of the past. Though the text lifts them up as models, it is only in terms of how they lived, not necessarily what they said. More often than not, prophecy both gives warning about a current situation and provides a correction to earlier prophecy. When we think of Labor Day, as a holiday, we are once again able to look back in order to move forward. We overcome the tendency of holidays to stagnate our energies by memorializing them. We can experience being at table - or agape - with those killed at Haymarket the same way we can share that in this room together. In reading womanist theology, I was challenged to understand the concept of the dancing mind. It became very evident, however, once I had all of these thoughts swirling around in my head, that the dance has been going on inside me for as long as I can remember. I just didn't have the language to name it. I am grateful to womanist theologians for their telling phrase. In my sharing words today, you have joined the dance as well. Now, I know you can dance, but have you done any modeling lately? · Ancient Testimony: Sirach 10:12-18; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
1 Vernon Robinson (http://www.religion.emory.edu/faculty/robbins/enthymeme/enthymeme345.html) |