Random Thoughts from Both the Old Testament And my Head
My final assignment for the class with Prof. Brueggemann:
1. The Old Testament presents us with several dichotomies. Judgment and mercy are held in tension. Claus Westermann has described two theologies, one of deliverance and one of blessing. Yet, the Old Testament refuses to synthesize or homogenize opposing views, and insists only that they be held together in tension. A theology of the Old Testament must therefore a theology of “both/and”. Both/and theology is found in the struggle to hold the opposing truths of God without compromising either. Favoring one extreme to the neglect of the other is not “both/and”, that is the usual either/or language. Either/or language leads to reductionism, fundamentalism, and schism in the Church. Both/and theology is not concerned with final decisions, but is concerned with hearing voices and finding a path through the confusion. It is a process more than a decision, and hopefully, a process that leads to humility, cooperation and greater imagination.
2. Both/and theology leads us to the interconnectedness of life in Israel. The Old Testament is surely about Israel’s witness to the actions and presence of YHWH in their midst. It is also about Israel itself. The intertwining of themes, stories and theologies- and the refusal of the redactors and the faith community to homogenize them, teach us that nothing stands outside of relationship. The “P” source and “D” source, and their conflicting emphases on cultic order and socio-economic justice, are woven throughout the Old Testament. This intertwining of P & D source indicate the inseparability of socio-political from religion in Israel. The Old Testament tells of YHWY working through an individual, but the community is also brought into the action. The promise of YHWH to Abraham is a blessing to the community. Revelation to Moses at the burning bush is on behalf of Israel, and started through the crying out of the community. The intertwining of individual and community both within and among narratives indicate the inseparability of the individual from the community. The intertwining of various themes and opposing theology reminds us that God is present in more than one way, and more than one opinion. These tensions and debates are left unresolved, and we are simply left to find YHWH in all of the testimony.
3. The unfinished, unresolved tensions and debates of the Old Testament bind us, as inheritors of the tradition, to continue imagining new ways and means to speak of the elusive God. Israel uses endless imagination in its God-talk, but its God-talk is continually grounded in experience of YHWH and in daily life. The tensions and debates between theologies and viewpoints are still alive, but our imaginations in our language for God are not as thriving. I believe that the debates, while not being resolved, will be more at ease in the tension when we recover this ability.
4. The central binding activity of Israel is hope, in the sense that hope allows for imagination of new possibility rather than hope for redemption of the way things are. Our ability to imagine and our ability to hope are absolutely connected. The hope that relies on imagination, the hope held by ancient Israel, is not optimism. This kind of hope changes not just what we do, but who we are. As politican Barack Obama said in his speech to the Democratic National Convention this week, it is the “audacity of hope”, “the belief that there are better days ahead”. This kind of hope can persist in faith when the lived experience gives no reason to do so. This kind of hope sustains people in living faithful lives even when doubts seem to be attacking them from all sides. For Israel, it is the kind of hope that will tell the story of the Exodus in the midst of the Exile. For modern day American, we might take some of Barack Obama’s examples: “It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores.” Hope keeps imagination alive, and imagination keeps hope alive. They are the fuel and the vehicle that maintain the faith of Israel.
5. Hope is the binding verb for Israel, and that hope is grounded in YHWH’s abiding presence and continued action. Therefore, the primary verb for YHWH in relation to Israel is found in Exodus 3:14: “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.” The God of Israel is difficult to describe. YHWH is both bound to Israel in covenant, yet fiercely independent and free. As we have noted, this creates a problem in that YHWH is not always reliable in the ways Israel might expect. However, YHWH is always YHWH, and that is the most encompassing thing that can be said.
6. If hope and imagination are the fuel and the vehicle, “covenant” is the journey. Covenant theology is a process as well. Covenant is made, but it is also being constantly broken and renegotiated. God holds Israel accountable to covenant through prophets, and Israel holds God accountable through complaint psalms and the telling of stories. This continual challenge keeps the relationship between Israel and YHWH active and engaged. YHWH’s graciousness in extending the covenant, even when broken again and again, opens the path of reconciliation and repentance.
7. As clergy doing theology we must be concerned with the ethics of Old Testament faith. The ethics of the Old Testament are available to us not just in what Israel says, but how Israel chooses to present their witness. The interweaving of competing perspectives is not just a theological statement, although it does say much about the nature of YHWH. The resistance to a homogenized testimony is also an ethical statement. For the confessional reader who grants authority to these texts, the presence of counter-testimony in the Old Testimony should awaken us to the presence of counter-testimony in our own communities. Israel refuses to silence those voices that might contradict its central claims. Israel’s ethics, as seen in the canonization process, involve keeping opposing views in conversation with one another. I believe the canon teaches us to value different voices, and to resist settling on easy compromises or solutions.
8. Israel does not talk only talk about God in direct speech, but uses narrative and story to describe God-in-relation and God-in-action. With narrative as a category of God-talk, we are able to see God at work in the miracle stories of Elijah. We are able to receive ethical directive from the story of Joseph and revelation in the story of Ruth and Naomi. Stanley Hauerwas, and others after him, have argued that narrative should be the basis of Christian ethics. Our narratives teach us about what kind of people we are, and all ethical decisions stem from how we are shaped by our narrative. In the telling and re-telling of narrative, Israel is shaping their own identity and coming to understand the identity of YHWH.
9. Because Israel believes in YHWH as the God-in-relation, it is nearly as important for an Old Testament theology to pay attention to Israel’s speech about itself as to its testimony about God. We might assume that Israel’s self-description will be biased, and most certainly that is true. However, their bias is not to paint themselves as perfect. Israel includes testimony from the prophets against themselves. The canon portrays Israel as wandering sheep and as an unfaithful wife. Yet, Israel claims their heritage as one specifically blessed by God, and claim themselves as “righteous” and “lovers of the law” in the Psalms. When speaking about themselves, as when speaking about God, Israel insists upon speaking to lived experience, even if it means saying what may be difficult.
10. In the process of adjudication everything depends on the lips of the witness, the credibility of the witness, and that the witness is given often enough to be heard! The word witness has been relegated to evangelical circles in Christianity today. We need to recover the idea of witness as central to Biblical faith in the mainstream. In the Old Testament, liturgy is a central place for the giving and hearing of witness. Stylized accounts of YHWH’s deeds and promises were repeated and passed on to new generation. Worship should continue to be the location of testimony and counter-testimony for the Christian community, but often is not. One way both testimony and counter-testimony are present in our worship life are the corpus of African-American spirituals and songs. The images of these songs includes God’s mighty deeds (Go Down, Moses) yet face the reality of despair in the world (Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen). There is call for God’s presence (Kum Ba Ya) and hope of a better future (Soon and Very Soon). This kind of liturgical renewal in the practice of testimony and counter-testimony strengthens our ability to share our witness both inside and outside the faith community.
11. The ability to witness depends on one’s ability to speak, to give voice to what one knows to be true about God, life and the world. Women have, for centuries, been given no space for traditional voice. This continues today, as research continues to demonstrate that our elementary-aged girls “losing their voices” around grade 4. Women theologians must bring this knowledge to the Bible, and be willing to search a little harder for the witness of women, even when more conventional “God-talk” is apparently absent. The book of Esther is a prime example of this work. Esther notoriously does not mention YHWH, and it appears simply to be a narrative about humanity. Yet- Israel had a reason to include the story of Esther in the canon of the Old Testament. Clearly, something is being said about God, even if we are not able to hear it in our rationalistic, western-male-dominated world of interpretation. Esther, Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth all have things to say about God, and it is the task of feminist theologians to discover their wisdom and bring it to the conversation. I say it is the task of feminist theologians for two reasons. First, the history of male-dominated scholarship has not paid enough attention to how the stories of these women may be considered as God-talk. It is inhibited by the centuries of patriarchy in the Church and the academy, despite the efforts of both men and women to shed light on the issue. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, discovering women’s voices is, in the end, not the work of male theologians. As women, we must discover, train, and share our own voices. Men cannot give us our voice, or it will not really be our own voice. Feminist theologians should continue the task of casting light on the history of patriarchy in interpretation and doctrine, but our primary task should be articulating the truths we know of God, life and the world in our own ways and our own voices.
12. The task of confessional interpretation is to allow for community interpretation without imposing dogmatic doctrine on the text. This is, of course, speaking out of my tradition and its emphasis on liturgy. The community at worship is not only important for seeking God, it is the most appropriate place. I think that this is also congruent with the Old Testament text itself. But there is more to the task of confessional interpretation than the valuing of community. Confessional interpretation seeks to fight the individualism of the Enlightenment project, but also resisting the flattening-tendencies of authoritarian interpretation. Community interpretation upholds many voices, because communities are made of many voices. Community interpretation is willing to make decisions, but is also willing for those decisions to be a long time coming. The canonizing of the text of Scripture took several hundred years. We should not be in a rush to understand it any more quickly.
1. The Old Testament presents us with several dichotomies. Judgment and mercy are held in tension. Claus Westermann has described two theologies, one of deliverance and one of blessing. Yet, the Old Testament refuses to synthesize or homogenize opposing views, and insists only that they be held together in tension. A theology of the Old Testament must therefore a theology of “both/and”. Both/and theology is found in the struggle to hold the opposing truths of God without compromising either. Favoring one extreme to the neglect of the other is not “both/and”, that is the usual either/or language. Either/or language leads to reductionism, fundamentalism, and schism in the Church. Both/and theology is not concerned with final decisions, but is concerned with hearing voices and finding a path through the confusion. It is a process more than a decision, and hopefully, a process that leads to humility, cooperation and greater imagination.
2. Both/and theology leads us to the interconnectedness of life in Israel. The Old Testament is surely about Israel’s witness to the actions and presence of YHWH in their midst. It is also about Israel itself. The intertwining of themes, stories and theologies- and the refusal of the redactors and the faith community to homogenize them, teach us that nothing stands outside of relationship. The “P” source and “D” source, and their conflicting emphases on cultic order and socio-economic justice, are woven throughout the Old Testament. This intertwining of P & D source indicate the inseparability of socio-political from religion in Israel. The Old Testament tells of YHWY working through an individual, but the community is also brought into the action. The promise of YHWH to Abraham is a blessing to the community. Revelation to Moses at the burning bush is on behalf of Israel, and started through the crying out of the community. The intertwining of individual and community both within and among narratives indicate the inseparability of the individual from the community. The intertwining of various themes and opposing theology reminds us that God is present in more than one way, and more than one opinion. These tensions and debates are left unresolved, and we are simply left to find YHWH in all of the testimony.
3. The unfinished, unresolved tensions and debates of the Old Testament bind us, as inheritors of the tradition, to continue imagining new ways and means to speak of the elusive God. Israel uses endless imagination in its God-talk, but its God-talk is continually grounded in experience of YHWH and in daily life. The tensions and debates between theologies and viewpoints are still alive, but our imaginations in our language for God are not as thriving. I believe that the debates, while not being resolved, will be more at ease in the tension when we recover this ability.
4. The central binding activity of Israel is hope, in the sense that hope allows for imagination of new possibility rather than hope for redemption of the way things are. Our ability to imagine and our ability to hope are absolutely connected. The hope that relies on imagination, the hope held by ancient Israel, is not optimism. This kind of hope changes not just what we do, but who we are. As politican Barack Obama said in his speech to the Democratic National Convention this week, it is the “audacity of hope”, “the belief that there are better days ahead”. This kind of hope can persist in faith when the lived experience gives no reason to do so. This kind of hope sustains people in living faithful lives even when doubts seem to be attacking them from all sides. For Israel, it is the kind of hope that will tell the story of the Exodus in the midst of the Exile. For modern day American, we might take some of Barack Obama’s examples: “It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores.” Hope keeps imagination alive, and imagination keeps hope alive. They are the fuel and the vehicle that maintain the faith of Israel.
5. Hope is the binding verb for Israel, and that hope is grounded in YHWH’s abiding presence and continued action. Therefore, the primary verb for YHWH in relation to Israel is found in Exodus 3:14: “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.” The God of Israel is difficult to describe. YHWH is both bound to Israel in covenant, yet fiercely independent and free. As we have noted, this creates a problem in that YHWH is not always reliable in the ways Israel might expect. However, YHWH is always YHWH, and that is the most encompassing thing that can be said.
6. If hope and imagination are the fuel and the vehicle, “covenant” is the journey. Covenant theology is a process as well. Covenant is made, but it is also being constantly broken and renegotiated. God holds Israel accountable to covenant through prophets, and Israel holds God accountable through complaint psalms and the telling of stories. This continual challenge keeps the relationship between Israel and YHWH active and engaged. YHWH’s graciousness in extending the covenant, even when broken again and again, opens the path of reconciliation and repentance.
7. As clergy doing theology we must be concerned with the ethics of Old Testament faith. The ethics of the Old Testament are available to us not just in what Israel says, but how Israel chooses to present their witness. The interweaving of competing perspectives is not just a theological statement, although it does say much about the nature of YHWH. The resistance to a homogenized testimony is also an ethical statement. For the confessional reader who grants authority to these texts, the presence of counter-testimony in the Old Testimony should awaken us to the presence of counter-testimony in our own communities. Israel refuses to silence those voices that might contradict its central claims. Israel’s ethics, as seen in the canonization process, involve keeping opposing views in conversation with one another. I believe the canon teaches us to value different voices, and to resist settling on easy compromises or solutions.
8. Israel does not talk only talk about God in direct speech, but uses narrative and story to describe God-in-relation and God-in-action. With narrative as a category of God-talk, we are able to see God at work in the miracle stories of Elijah. We are able to receive ethical directive from the story of Joseph and revelation in the story of Ruth and Naomi. Stanley Hauerwas, and others after him, have argued that narrative should be the basis of Christian ethics. Our narratives teach us about what kind of people we are, and all ethical decisions stem from how we are shaped by our narrative. In the telling and re-telling of narrative, Israel is shaping their own identity and coming to understand the identity of YHWH.
9. Because Israel believes in YHWH as the God-in-relation, it is nearly as important for an Old Testament theology to pay attention to Israel’s speech about itself as to its testimony about God. We might assume that Israel’s self-description will be biased, and most certainly that is true. However, their bias is not to paint themselves as perfect. Israel includes testimony from the prophets against themselves. The canon portrays Israel as wandering sheep and as an unfaithful wife. Yet, Israel claims their heritage as one specifically blessed by God, and claim themselves as “righteous” and “lovers of the law” in the Psalms. When speaking about themselves, as when speaking about God, Israel insists upon speaking to lived experience, even if it means saying what may be difficult.
10. In the process of adjudication everything depends on the lips of the witness, the credibility of the witness, and that the witness is given often enough to be heard! The word witness has been relegated to evangelical circles in Christianity today. We need to recover the idea of witness as central to Biblical faith in the mainstream. In the Old Testament, liturgy is a central place for the giving and hearing of witness. Stylized accounts of YHWH’s deeds and promises were repeated and passed on to new generation. Worship should continue to be the location of testimony and counter-testimony for the Christian community, but often is not. One way both testimony and counter-testimony are present in our worship life are the corpus of African-American spirituals and songs. The images of these songs includes God’s mighty deeds (Go Down, Moses) yet face the reality of despair in the world (Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen). There is call for God’s presence (Kum Ba Ya) and hope of a better future (Soon and Very Soon). This kind of liturgical renewal in the practice of testimony and counter-testimony strengthens our ability to share our witness both inside and outside the faith community.
11. The ability to witness depends on one’s ability to speak, to give voice to what one knows to be true about God, life and the world. Women have, for centuries, been given no space for traditional voice. This continues today, as research continues to demonstrate that our elementary-aged girls “losing their voices” around grade 4. Women theologians must bring this knowledge to the Bible, and be willing to search a little harder for the witness of women, even when more conventional “God-talk” is apparently absent. The book of Esther is a prime example of this work. Esther notoriously does not mention YHWH, and it appears simply to be a narrative about humanity. Yet- Israel had a reason to include the story of Esther in the canon of the Old Testament. Clearly, something is being said about God, even if we are not able to hear it in our rationalistic, western-male-dominated world of interpretation. Esther, Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth all have things to say about God, and it is the task of feminist theologians to discover their wisdom and bring it to the conversation. I say it is the task of feminist theologians for two reasons. First, the history of male-dominated scholarship has not paid enough attention to how the stories of these women may be considered as God-talk. It is inhibited by the centuries of patriarchy in the Church and the academy, despite the efforts of both men and women to shed light on the issue. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, discovering women’s voices is, in the end, not the work of male theologians. As women, we must discover, train, and share our own voices. Men cannot give us our voice, or it will not really be our own voice. Feminist theologians should continue the task of casting light on the history of patriarchy in interpretation and doctrine, but our primary task should be articulating the truths we know of God, life and the world in our own ways and our own voices.
12. The task of confessional interpretation is to allow for community interpretation without imposing dogmatic doctrine on the text. This is, of course, speaking out of my tradition and its emphasis on liturgy. The community at worship is not only important for seeking God, it is the most appropriate place. I think that this is also congruent with the Old Testament text itself. But there is more to the task of confessional interpretation than the valuing of community. Confessional interpretation seeks to fight the individualism of the Enlightenment project, but also resisting the flattening-tendencies of authoritarian interpretation. Community interpretation upholds many voices, because communities are made of many voices. Community interpretation is willing to make decisions, but is also willing for those decisions to be a long time coming. The canonizing of the text of Scripture took several hundred years. We should not be in a rush to understand it any more quickly.