Paragraphs from SSCSJ

This Sunday many Christians will observe either Christ the King Sunday or Thanksgiving Sunday as we have in the lectionary an actual Sunday between Thanksgiving and the beginning of Advent on Dec 2.  Here are some paragraphs from SSCSJ for this Sunday, Nov 25.

Psalm 132:1-12 (13-18)

Undergirding the memories of Ps 132 is a plea from the one praying that God remember the Davidic covenant and bless the ruler.  Implicit in this request seems to be a sense that those who dwell in Zion are fearful about the future.  Perhaps they are facing an outside threat, and they are calling God to keep covenant and act on their behalf.  The psalm is a reminder that what happens to a ruler also happens to the people under her/his authority.  Praying for the well-being of their monarch is also a prayer for the people’s safety.  Could it be that this psalm comes from the days before the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple?  In the face of such imminent doom, all the people know to do is pray.  While we do not know what happened after the words of Ps 132 were prayed, we can read the psalm as a reminder that prayer is an appropriate response in all situations, and that God is always present with us, especially when we feel most alone.

2 Samuel 23:1-7

The story of David and the legend of his “greatness” is not based on either his ethical or political leadership.  Rather, for the later Jewish community (in Exile and after the return from Babylon), the reign of David was a way of referring to an idealized “golden age” of Israel’s history.  It was a time when Israel was self-governed, and God smiled upon the city of Jerusalem.  In order to firm-up this “memory”, the compilers of the Deuteronomistic History (who represented a “southern” perspective) used the idea of the Davidic Covenant to support their view of who should be in leadership, both political and religious (those who can trace their story back to David).  Living under the oppressive government of the Greeks, an idea was born among some in the Jewish community that one day God would send “God’s servant” (from the lineage of David), who would take back control of Jerusalem from the occupying forces and reestablish the Davidic reign and an independent Jewish state.

Inherent in all of creation, and especially within humans (the only part of creation to be made in God’s image), is a Divine promise to be with us in good and bad times, when we are faithful and when we are not, even until the last breath we take and beyond.  God keeps covenants, and that is one of the core themes of the 1st Testament (and of the whole canon).

Revelation 1:4b-8

To see the “reign of God” as an impressionist’s depiction of the arc of justice, and thus locate oneself, or one’s community, along its continuum, is as faithful and healthy a way to approach Revelation as anything Christian tradition has blessed.  Then, one can consider if the arc of the moral universe is controlled/ maintained for the good of all creation, or altered by miracles for some but not others, or ignored by the Almighty.  Within the entire biblical witness are texts that proclaim each of these perspectives.  So, the best place to wrestle with this text, on the eve of Advent, no matter what you believe or don’t believe about Jesus of Nazareth or the Christ of faith, is offered in these words, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (v 8).

John 18:33-37

The Lectionary year ends with a good question to carry into Advent, “What is truth?”  In choosing this text from John, the Lectionary committee does what many Christians do; it ties the birth of Jesus to the crucifixion of Jesus, as if his birth and his life are not important, if Pilate does not condemn Jesus to death.  In the process, we miss the significance of Jesus’ words that lead to Pilate’s question.  “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (v 37).  What is the “truth” about the way of Jesus?  What is the truth about God that Jesus proclaims?  What is the truth about life, about living, that Jesus portrays?

So, on the edge of a time of waiting and anticipation that is adorned with the words: hope, peace, joy, and love, what “truth” are you seeking in your journey to Bethlehem this year?  Asked another way, “What kind of Messiah do you need birthed this year?” Are you willing to allow yourself to consider that question?  History is full of “truths” vying for attention and loyalty.  To which are you loyal?  Which are you seeking?  Too few among those who claim Christian faith can find “truth” in the First Testament without reading Jesus into its texts, and that is a great scandal because it limits God to a “propositional” or “prophetic” truth that has to have a dead and risen savior. Otherwise, prophetic and propositional truth is false.  But Jesus pointed to God and not himself; he found “good news” in the Torah, Prophets, and Writings.  Is the good news of God that Jesus proclaimed “truth” enough for you?

, 11/19/2012. Category: SSCSJ.

the latest Sightings

AAR SBL
— Martin E. Marty | November 19, 2012

Tomorrow is the end of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in Chicago. The Program Book for the gatherings is 496 pages long. You read that right. When I mention that “a number of thousand scholars of religion” are meeting, my friends of secular ethos orientation gasp: they can picture restaurateurs, gun-sellers, and auto-dealers convening in such numbers. But “religion” scholars in abundance? Can this be true?

It is. It takes the cavernous, soul-less halls of McCormick Place and eighteen hotels to accommodate these North American religionists, while graduate students, “old friends,” and others bunk with acquaintances around the city. What these do tends to be invisible to off-campus populations and much is even ignorable on the campuses in which they thrive. The word is out that religious practice is declining in North America, that attendance at and support for religious ventures has been having harder times. But you wouldn’t know that from observing the conventioneers or opening the Program Book. They do not draw notice as do medics in the American Medical Association, and their religion and sacred rites are not experienced as intense as are those of the acolytes of the American Rifle Association or the National Football League, but there they are.

One sights astonishing variety here. The SBL “Sections” include “Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation,” “Disputed Paulines,” “Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics,” etc. and the AAR fosters groups on “Animals and Religion,” “Evangelical Studies,” “Queer Studies in Religion,” “Quran,” and scores upon scores more. Related Scholarly Organizations cluster alongside AAR and SBL, among them “Colloquium on Violence and Religion,” “International Bonhoeffer Society,” “Karl Barth” and “Reinhold Niebuhr” societies alongside “La Communidad of Hispanic Scholars,” and, again, many, many more. There are stars and shapers as well as promising graduate students and tenure-track newcomers to the fields.

No, don’t try to keep up. Not many “Confucian” or “Archaeology” scholars can or would try to have all the Western theological and sectarian options in mind. But more and more are making efforts to bridge the scholarly and the “public religion” worlds. Special interest: the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago, which sponsors this e-letter and exacts each Monday version of it from me, was founded almost fifteen years ago by academicians who join colleagues elsewhere as bridge-builders.

I stroll down the street to the meetings to gawk and greet and browse and eat, sometimes overwhelmed by the multitudinousness of it all but, as always, I’m inspired. I’ve not attended the gatherings since 1997, but with one here in Chicago I am on three or four panels. One is relevant to today’s topic: “A Conversation around Themes from No Longer Invisible: Religion in University Education,” an Oxford book by Douglas and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen. They make their case, as does the mere existence of the profession and this convention.

Next week we’ll stop tooting horns for our own profession, open the doors to where the practice and not merely the study of, religion prospers or declines or surprises. We are not likely to run out of “visible” expressions of faith, alongside the “no longer invisible” presence of religious studies here and there and, one gets the impression here this week, everywhere on campus.

 

Martin E. Marty’s biography, publications, and contact information can be found at www.memarty.com.

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This month’s Religion & Culture Web Forum is entitled “Pussy Riot, the Media and Church-State Relations in Russia Today” by Katja Richters (University of Erfurt). What role was played by the Russian Orthodox Church in the arrest and sentencing of the band Pussy Riot earlier this year? And what are the implications of this case for church-state relations in Russia today? In this month’s web forum, Katja Richters argues that the “reluctance on behalf of the Moscow Patriarchate to become more actively involved in the [Pussy Riot] lawsuit combined with the disunity its leadership displayed in its approach to the punk prayer gave rise to a vacuum that could be filled in many possible ways by both the media and the state. The latter took advantage of this situation by presenting the [Church] as a victim which it needed to protect.” At the same time, Richters stresses, “the relationship between the [Church] and the Kremlin is much more complex than the recent developments would suggest.” Read Pussy Riot, the Media and Church-State Relations in Russia Today

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
, 11/19/2012. Category: Culture, Guest Column.
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