Sunday, May 13, 2012

The Role of Mothers

Departing John momentarily, I am given rise to thinking about the role of Mothers.  When the New Testament is considered, one only hears about  a single mother, Mary, while various passages from the Old Testament are hand selected for messages about Mothers.  I think, however, that one short passage from the New Testament could be critical for understanding the valuable role of mothers and mothering.

The passage concerns Paul's mother.  Wait, you haven't heard of this (feigned look of shock on my face)??? It is right in the text of the Bible, "Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine." (Rom 16:13, KJV)  Literally, the passage reads from the Greek, "You all Greet/welcome Rufus (he is chosen in the Lord) and the mother of him and of me." Why haven't there been any sermons on Paul's mother?  The text is very clear, is it not.  Paul has a brother named Rufus who is living in Rome with their mother.

If you are scratching the top of your head right now you have permission to stop.  The previous paragraph is intended to illustrate two points.  First is the irrationality of taking everything literally without concern for the original meaning. The second is to emphasize that translations vary.  The NAS95 follows the KJV, but the NIV, ESV,  and NRSV differ.  They add language (without providing any indication to the reader that the words are added to communicate the original meaning) of "who has been a mother to me as well" (ESV) or "who has been like a mother to me" (NRSV) or "who has been a mother to me, too" (NIV11).

Now back to the role of mothers.  This passage is indicative of many factors in play today.  The role of a mother in a child's life is rarely fully and completely clarified. While there are good mothers and some who are not so good this focus is on those who live in obscurity for the main part.  Mothers do not need to be saints, that rare, elevated person whom we put forth as the model to explain how we can't be like them.

Mothers simply need to be, well, mothers.  Mothers who are like this unnamed, but not unforgotten woman living in Rome in the late 50's of the first century, simply take those whom the Lord provides and do what they are to do: feed, nurture, raise.  But it is the raising part that seems to be difficult.  Raising includes teaching. Paul reminds Timothy in 2 Tim 1:5 of the "sincere faith" (NAS95) that was in his grandmother and mother, Lois and Eunice.

The most critical role of mothers is to be that first demonstration of God's embracing love, a love that doesn't require behavior or appropriate gifts to be given.  A love that proceeds forth simply because another has breath (and yes occasionally when one doesn't but that is another lesson). So to all those mothers who continue to demonstrate to their children, natural or merely embraced as, your non recognized activity and commitment does not go unnoticed by others.


Thursday, May 10, 2012

A question for the blogfollowers

Yesterday I was engaged in an "assessment" exercise with colleagues Jim Smith and Tony Clark.  The project was to locate on a grid all the courses in the Religion and Philosophy major at Friends.  The grid was set up by an assessment expert and had three rows, introduce, reinforce, and mastery.  We were to stick small cards with the class name in the various rows and under certain columns.  When we were done with our initial attempt, it was obvious that we did not place any courses in the Mastery row under the demonstrate responsible insights from Scripture column. That failure raises the initial question:

What does it mean for a student to develop "mastery" over "responsible insights"?

The followup question is:

Did you consider that you had developed "mastery" over "responsible insights" when you graduated?

Thanks for the responses.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Separating Fact from Fiction (or bad breaks in the text)

After a student of the Bible has spent enough time studying or reading the larger story, or strays from whichever translation acts as his/her Textus Receptus, they uncover the reality that there are some really bad breaks in the Bible.  This phrase does not refer to individuals who had something bad happen to them, like Adonijah (I deserve to be king because of my name) who chose Joab over Benaiah as his sergeant-at-arms or even Shimei who lost his life because of two servants.

The phrase refers to places where we stop reading one section of the text because someone has decided to place a break in the text, perhaps even inserting a title or description of what is to follow.  This happens in Romans 8 that is an explanation of Paul's Thanks statement at the end of 7 or in Romans 7.1 that is a continuation of Paul's second point in 6.

The bad break in John under discussion today comes in 20.29/30.  Most of the time John 20:30-31 are separated as a "conclusion" to the book.  However, what if these verses are a conclusion to Jesus' words in 20:29? In that case Jesus' beatitude "Blessed are the ones believing but not seeing!" is an invitation to the gospel's audience who have heard, but not seen the signs, "These signs have been written so that" in my words, "you might be one of those believing but not seeing." In a more anecdotal phrase, All this stuff you've just heard about has been told for one reason and one reason only, so that you can believe.

The question becomes how does John 21 fit?  One way it fits is the use of "after these things Jesus" as it appeared in 3.22, 5.14, 6.1, and 7.1.  The phrase "after these things" also links directly back to the discussion in 13.7 with Peter over the washing of his feet.

So, how should 20:30-31 be read?  Should it be read as a first conclusion to an earlier edition of the Gospel with no reference to the rest of John 20? Or is it possible to actually read it without any break between 29 and 30?

The real question is how many other passages in the Bible are crippled because of a bad break?

Monday, May 7, 2012

Reflecting on John's Gospel

One more semester done working through the Gospel of John with a class of bright undergraduates.  What did I learn as the teacher?  That is probably as important as what they learned as students. One key element is that if you want them to improve their writing skills it does take considerable work.  First, as the grader I must spend considerable time on each paper identifying basic errors that are correctable.  My favorite this year is the verbal noun substitution.  What do I mean by that?  A few examples will illuminate. The use of the phrase "the concern of" instead of "concerning", "the indication of" instead of "indicating", etc.  Isn't it interesting that one who uses spoken English is characterized as "verbal"? The problem is that one who writes English is said to be "literate". Just putting "verbal" expressions on paper does not one literate make (intentional Yodaism).

On the other hand, whether students improve their writing skills does not lie/lay/lying/lieing/laid in my domain. To improve writing skills students must write a draft, revise their draft, edit their revision, and revise their "editation" (Yes, new words is a fun part of the process as well.  My text editor just highlighted "Yodaism", "lieing" and "editation").  It also helps to have the spell check feature of a modern word processor turned on when one is word processing! (But at the same time, isn't word processing the same as 'hearing' and/or 'reading'?) A typist is someone who types on a typewriter.  That makes sense to me.  Is a keyboardist one who keyboards on a keyboard?  Is that related to a snowboard or a surfboard?  Is a surfer one who surfs using a surfboard?  Then a snower is one who snows on a snowboard?  Maybe this paragraph makes no sense except to illustrate the obnoxious manner by which the verbal lack of imagination to name new items leads to a confusion in the language.

So too, one of the more interesting rabbits I chased (also known as a bunny trail?) was when I discussed with them how long it would take to "learn" John.  The students were not impressed when I told them that to learn John's Gospel they would need to read it once, read it again and revise their first revision, edit their second reading using new information from other sources, then revise their edit through a third reading, edit the Nth reading using new information from other sources, then reveise their edit through an N+1 reading.  In other words, the only way to learn is to continue the process until infinity or death, whichever might come first.  The problem is that as N increases the perceived learning actually decreases thus creating the perception that learning is actually inversely proportionate to N.  This perception causes one to summarize that the most learning takes place on the first effort so why continue to attempt to learn more?

I suppose real progress arrives on the Nth effort when one pauses and decides that the entire writing/learning effort makes zero sense in the current configuration and instead of editing to the Nth degree one chooses to scrap all previous understandings and efforts that are genetically flawed and simply start over with a new set of preknowledge to create something similar but Brand New.  That is what the New Testament might call 'repentance'. (the previous sentence is also flawed, it should read "The New Testament might call that 'repentance.' Introducing the 'That is what' introduces a relative clause with a relative pronoun rather than speaking in a direct sentence.)  The Fourth Gospel represents a message that requires the same result.  All previous understanding about God must be scrapped because it does not make any sense in the new paradigm of God Incarnate.  Jesus can not simply be added to my world view and over time edit my world view to remove the genetic flaws.  At some point I must willingly scrap my "sin infested attempts" at understanding God and start brand new.  When that happens and my preknowledge starts with God Incarnate, then real transformative progress can begin.  (James Bryan Smith refers to this as changing your narratives).

Hope you followed that.