Let me make a confession to begin with. I don't particularly like the Bible. I find many of its stories difficult to understand and then hard to accept when I do understand them. Take the story cited in this weeks lesson; Abraham's almost-sacrifice of Isaac. The thought that God would command child-sacrifice troubles me beyond measure!
Now, let me make another confession. I can't get away from the Bible no matter how much I would like to completely reject it. For some reason I am compelled to struggle with it despite all my critical objections to its content. I'm like Jacob wrestling with the angel and refusing to let go "unless you bless me." And yet I find that like the angel the biblical text often leaves me limping and yet blessed. Or should I say the God of the text leaves me limping and blessed!
So let me limp along here with a few observations on the story of Abraham's almost-sacrifice of his son Isaac that I hope might be a blessing. First, I would love to be able to view this as just a big mistake on the part of Abraham. Maybe he misunderstood what God was calling him to do. I mean, to think that God would command child-sacrifice is quite terrifying. And the reality is that Abraham came out of a religious culture that is known to have practiced human ritual sacrifice on behalf of its blood-thirsty gods.
Although I'm not really sure what this story truly teaches us about God it does contain profound truth. The one thing I do grasp about this story is that Abraham clearly experienced God as an adversary. As Abraham saw it God was threatening to take away the very thing (the son of the promise) that gave meaning to his entire existence. The birth of Isaac was after all the culmination of Abraham's faith journey.
The truly amazing thing about this story is that Abraham continued to trust God. Somehow in spite of what he experienced as the dead-end of his God-sponsored hopes at the hands of God Abraham believed. This strikes me as comparable to Job's stunning affirmation that "though he slay me yet will I trust in him." And Habakkuk's ridiculous assertion, "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord." These outrageous expressions of faith fly in the face of all you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours theology (as does the whole book of Hosea). Such audacious faith makes the calculating logic of the young Jacob look paltry, "If God will be with me and will watch over me . . . then the Lord will be my God."
Honestly, it is rather easy to trust in the God that blesses and gives and empowers and encriches. The much more difficult, all-but-impossible, thing is to trust in the God that we experience as our adversary. If we let them, I think that Abraham and Job can move us by faith beyond the God-that-takes-and-crushes toward the God-that-gives-blesses-and-provides!
If You're Not Living on the Edge You're Taking Up Too Much Space
10.30.2007
10.23.2007
The Power of Our Pain
The idea that God needs our pain to make us pure is more than a bit sadistic. Christianity is here dangerously close to the bloodthirsty god Huitzilopochtli that demanded human sacrifices in exchange for victory and prosperity for the Aztec people.
A bloodthirsty god-image stands behind all "this is for your own good" theology (the writings of Alice Miller and Eugen Drewermann have opened my eyes to this twisted theology). Such theology is similar to a kind of thinking that is actually characteristic of abused children.
Abused children tend to internalize their abuse by blaming themselves and excusing the abuser. Sadly, a lot of theology has this same effect in a spiritual sense by teaching that pain is the punishment for our sins and the means by which God purifies us from evil. Such an idea is really no better than the twisted logic of the abused child that says, "Daddy beats me because I am bad."
Although I am more than a bit suspicious of the idea that suffering makes us pure I also see some therapeutic value in it. In a positive sense suffering actually motivates the quest to understand life. If I can make some sense out of what I am going through then the pain becomes more bearable.
Maybe the belief that suffering can purify us is a way that we attempt to regain power in a situation that terrifies us because it reveals our powerlessness. If I can't control the situation then at least I can maintain my psychological mastery by figuring out what is happening and possibly even why it is happening.
On a theological level I see an even deeper link between pain and purity in the Exodus story of the liberation of Israel from imperial oppression in Egypt. Exodus 2.23-25 says that "The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them."
In this text we see the power of voiced pain to get God's attention. It is not the shout of the victor but the cry of the victim that elicits a response from Yahweh. Scripture gives a loud voice to human misery because our pain attracts God's presence to our lives. I don't think that God needs suffering to make us pure but our pain is like a magnet to the divine power. Ironically, that which most exposes our weakness is the very thing that attracts God to us!
A bloodthirsty god-image stands behind all "this is for your own good" theology (the writings of Alice Miller and Eugen Drewermann have opened my eyes to this twisted theology). Such theology is similar to a kind of thinking that is actually characteristic of abused children.
Abused children tend to internalize their abuse by blaming themselves and excusing the abuser. Sadly, a lot of theology has this same effect in a spiritual sense by teaching that pain is the punishment for our sins and the means by which God purifies us from evil. Such an idea is really no better than the twisted logic of the abused child that says, "Daddy beats me because I am bad."
Although I am more than a bit suspicious of the idea that suffering makes us pure I also see some therapeutic value in it. In a positive sense suffering actually motivates the quest to understand life. If I can make some sense out of what I am going through then the pain becomes more bearable.
Maybe the belief that suffering can purify us is a way that we attempt to regain power in a situation that terrifies us because it reveals our powerlessness. If I can't control the situation then at least I can maintain my psychological mastery by figuring out what is happening and possibly even why it is happening.
On a theological level I see an even deeper link between pain and purity in the Exodus story of the liberation of Israel from imperial oppression in Egypt. Exodus 2.23-25 says that "The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them."
In this text we see the power of voiced pain to get God's attention. It is not the shout of the victor but the cry of the victim that elicits a response from Yahweh. Scripture gives a loud voice to human misery because our pain attracts God's presence to our lives. I don't think that God needs suffering to make us pure but our pain is like a magnet to the divine power. Ironically, that which most exposes our weakness is the very thing that attracts God to us!
10.03.2007
Psalm 23 as Subversive Theology
As I see it Psalm 23 is one of those Bible texts that suffers from overexposure! It has been quoted so frequently and memorized so routinely that it is difficult to even hear what it has to say because we are overly familiar with it. The old saying might apply here that “familiarity breeds contempt.” But let me take a stab at it from what I hope might be a fresh point of view.
The fact that Yahweh is referred to as a “shepherd” is very interesting. I see this as a counter-cultural statement of Israel’s faith. In the surrounding cultures deities were often depicted as kings and warriors (an example of the inferior status of shepherds in imperialistic cultures like Egypt can be found in Exodus 46.34). And even in the Hebrew Scripture we find the same imperial images applied to God.
To call the God of Israel a shepherd was a profound and subversive act of the religious imagination. It represented a new way of conceiving of Israel’s relationship to God. I think it would be similar to the effect on our spiritual lives of beginning to refer to God as “our mother in heaven.” It would create an entirely different sense of our relationship to God and would alter the way that we experienced God in our lives.
In a modern context the image of shepherd is probably not so helpful for us because we have no real living connection with shepherds. But I think it is an example of how the Scripture communicates to people within the context of their own culture. Israel was after all, in its origins, simply a humble nomadic people. Maybe in our context we might say that the Lord is our “Dog Whisperer” (for those that don’t watch as much TV as I do that is a reference to a popular dog trainer show).
I also find the progression within the text quite fascinating. We move from “green pastures” and “quiet waters” (vs. 2) to the “valley of the shadow of death” (vs. 3) to a “table” in the presence of enemies” (vs. 5) to the “house of the Lord” (vs. 6). The dark part of life is sandwiched between two highly desirable locations. This reminds me of the words of Jesus in Revelation 1.18, “I am the living one; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!” Death is surrounded by affirmations of life with the emphasis on unending life. Often in the crucible of life’s miseries it is only memory and hope that can sustain our spirits!
Psalm 23 ultimately leads us from a comfortable place through pain and fear to the presence of God. Honestly, I wish it could be different and that the text would lead directly from the “green valleys” and “quiet waters” to the “house of the Lord.” But as Freud taught wishing does not make it so.
Let me encourage you to share your “valley” experiences with each other. I know it can be difficult to be vulnerable and real with each other but it is well worth it.
The fact that Yahweh is referred to as a “shepherd” is very interesting. I see this as a counter-cultural statement of Israel’s faith. In the surrounding cultures deities were often depicted as kings and warriors (an example of the inferior status of shepherds in imperialistic cultures like Egypt can be found in Exodus 46.34). And even in the Hebrew Scripture we find the same imperial images applied to God.
To call the God of Israel a shepherd was a profound and subversive act of the religious imagination. It represented a new way of conceiving of Israel’s relationship to God. I think it would be similar to the effect on our spiritual lives of beginning to refer to God as “our mother in heaven.” It would create an entirely different sense of our relationship to God and would alter the way that we experienced God in our lives.
In a modern context the image of shepherd is probably not so helpful for us because we have no real living connection with shepherds. But I think it is an example of how the Scripture communicates to people within the context of their own culture. Israel was after all, in its origins, simply a humble nomadic people. Maybe in our context we might say that the Lord is our “Dog Whisperer” (for those that don’t watch as much TV as I do that is a reference to a popular dog trainer show).
I also find the progression within the text quite fascinating. We move from “green pastures” and “quiet waters” (vs. 2) to the “valley of the shadow of death” (vs. 3) to a “table” in the presence of enemies” (vs. 5) to the “house of the Lord” (vs. 6). The dark part of life is sandwiched between two highly desirable locations. This reminds me of the words of Jesus in Revelation 1.18, “I am the living one; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!” Death is surrounded by affirmations of life with the emphasis on unending life. Often in the crucible of life’s miseries it is only memory and hope that can sustain our spirits!
Psalm 23 ultimately leads us from a comfortable place through pain and fear to the presence of God. Honestly, I wish it could be different and that the text would lead directly from the “green valleys” and “quiet waters” to the “house of the Lord.” But as Freud taught wishing does not make it so.
Let me encourage you to share your “valley” experiences with each other. I know it can be difficult to be vulnerable and real with each other but it is well worth it.
8.03.2007
Obsessing on Ecclesiastes and Wondering Why
I have an enduring fascination with the book of Ecclesiastes. Truth be told, my study of the book has become something of an obsession of late. The text itself would seem to discourage this kind of intensity because it strikingly states that “All is futile” (1.2)[1] and further notes that “much study” is a tiresome business (12.12). However, my drive to understand is as ceaseless as the natural cycles that go on and on and on and on (1.4-8), like a wheel that turns but never reaches its destination! So I offer my reflections, not as settled convictions, but as insights that have surfaced in my obsessive quest to probe the depths of one of the most enigmatic books of Scripture.
Let me offer the following thoughts about authorship before I delve into the message of the text itself. Tradition has it that Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon. The author is identified as “son of David” and “king in Jerusalem” in 1.1. And in 1.12-2.26 he describes himself as the wealthiest and wisest of all Israel’s kings (this seems somewhat pretentious given that only two kings had reigned in Israel prior to him!). One Rabbi went so far as to suggest that not only was Ecclesiastes written by Solomon, but that it was written by Solomon in his old age when he had become senile! Regardless of where you stand on the senility argument the tradition of Solomonic’ authorship presents difficulties for the interpreter. The text itself does not explicitly name Solomon as the author but instead claims to be written by an individual by the name of “Qohelet.” Qohelet is a feminine noun that means “gatherer” or assembler.” This has led some commentators to think that Qohelet might be the female personification of wisdom itself, like her counterpart in the book of Proverbs that assembles her children for edifying instruction (1.20-33). If Qohelet were really a king it is hard to understand why he is explicitly identified as a “sage” in 12.9. And apart from the “royal testimony” in 1.12-2.26 the author more often writes from the perspective of a royal subject rather than as a powerful monarch (see 4.1-2; 5.7-8). The evidence on authorship leads me to be skeptical of the traditional claim that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes. I favor the view that Qoheleth was a male sage that used the literary device known as “royal fiction” to emphasize his point about the brevity and futility of existence. However, the text loses none of its canonical authority in taking this position. Nor does it lose any of its mysterious power to baffle the interpreter!
The message of Ecclesiastes is no less difficult to resolve than the issue of authorship. Its content is problematic regardless of who wrote it. Robert Crenshaw has called it the “Bible’s strangest book” given its “oppressive message” of the total futility of life.[2] What do we make of a Scripture that begins with the assertion “Utter futility! Utter futility! All is futile!” (1.2)? The word translated as futility (hebel) has both a temporal and an existential meaning. It means either brief or futile or both depending on the context. I think that a good starting point is to take these “words of Qohelet” (1.1) as seriously as we take the prophetic “words of Jeremiah” (Jer. 1.1) or the “words of Amos” (Amos 1.1). The words of Qohelet may be dark and perplexing but they are nevertheless “truthful” words (12.10) that command our attention if not our immediate respect.
I would suggest that the word of the Lord came to Qohelet just as certainly as it came to Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel but the manner in which it came was different. Throughout the book we find phrases like “I set my mind to study” (1.12), “I said to myself” (1.16), “I realized” (3.14), “I mused” (3.17), “I observed” (4.1), “I tested with wisdom” (7.23), and “I have seen” (10.5) repeated over and over again. The focus is explicitly on the thinker and the disciplined mental processes involved in the quest to understand all that goes on under the sun. The heavy use of such “I” language gives one the distinct impression that Qohelet is something of an egotist and rather self-absorbed. No doubt a brilliant egotist as the existence of twenty-six words or combinations of words that appear nowhere else in the Hebrew Scripture testify to a uniquely creative individuality. The writing style is also highly personal and extremely candid. Maybe it is precisely the egotism and self-absorption that can give us a key into the profound experience that is voiced in this troubled and troubling text. The philosopher William Barret has said, “there is no human temperament that does not potentially reveal some truth” and that even “morbidity has it own unique and revelatory power.”[3] It strikes me that Qohelet’s obsessive fascination with the dark side of life and ultimately with death itself is something of an epiphany, an illusion-shattering epiphany. I think it is as true of Qohelet what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said of himself, “I am no man. I am dynamite.”[4] The wisdom of the sad sage of Ecclesiastes explodes the illusions by which most people order their lives; the illusions of prosperity, grandiosity and immortality that feed the lust for life and fuel the insatiable desire to acquire and achieve. In contrast to these illusions it reveals that all life and that every life exists in the shadow of death, that all questions do not have tidy theological answers, that hard reality does not conform to our hopeful expectations, and that all human existence participates in the frustration of a universe that is constantly in motion on a funeral dirge march toward oblivion (12.3-8). Death casts its long and nihilistic shadow over the entire lifespan, from cradle to coffin. It places a huge question mark over all of our achievements and it frustrates every attempt to penetrate this deepest and darkest of all mysteries. In the game of life there are no get out of jail free cards. And even faith in God does not liberate one from the second law of thermodynamics or obliterate the cold, hard, dark, inevitable facts of human experience.
The wisdom of Ecclesiastes is wisdom from below, arising from experience in contrast to the sometime prophetic claim of direct divine revelation from above. It expresses the truth of the human situation from the ground up. Such wisdom is born in the crucible of deep reflection and careful observation of the world as it is, not the world as we wish it would be or hope it will be. It is a hard wisdom arising out of this world with all of its misery, oppression, and frustration that inevitably ends in death.
Like Job before him, the author of Ecclesiastes doubts that history rewards virtue and punishes vice in the way that the earlier wisdom teachers had so dogmatically insisted that it did. Qohelet observed that “sometimes a good man perishes in spite of his goodness, and sometimes a wicked one endures in spite of his wickedness” (7:15). Unlike Job’s friends, Qohelet refused to accept the traditional maxim that a man’s external circumstances were an accurate reflection of his internal condition. No doubt he would have made a much better companion than those three “miserable comforters.” Because he knew that reality was far more complex than the simple logic of “obey and prosper, disobey and suffer” could calculate. He knew that death was the inevitable “fate” of all and that no amount of virtue could alter that reality in the least.
For Qoheleth the best that can be attained in our brief and futile lives is an enjoyment of life’s simple pleasures; eating and drinking, friendship and loving companionship (4.9-12; 5.17; 9.9). This makes me think of the philosophy of one of the ant characters (voiced by Woody Allen) in the movie Antz when he says, “Its my lot in life. It’s not a lot, but it’s my life!” It may not be a lot, but a small island of simple comfort in an ocean of endless misery, is probably the difference between total despair and tolerable melancholy, between ending-it-all and toughing-it-out. Beyond this such simple pleasures also serve as a contact point with God because they come as gifts of God and not as rewards for our works (2.24). Since life is a brief book between the bookends of non-existence then surely the simple God-given joys of our physical existence are to be fully embraced.
Ultimately, for the quixotic sage Qohelet, God as well as life, is a great mystery. In what is perhaps the most ironic and certainly one of the most courageous confession’s in Scripture the humbled intellectual states, “All this I tested with wisdom. I thought I could fathom it, but it eludes me” (7.23). Unfortunately, there is no simple mathematical formula by which life and the mysterious workings of God can be calculated. The logic of human existence and divine sovereignty, if there is any, is deep and elusive. The shadow of death extends even into the fair country of biblical wisdom itself. The proud claim to know-it-all, to have found the final truth, to have arrived at the end of the equation is perhaps the greatest illusion of all. It is this illusion that, above all, is the primary obstacle to true knowledge because it attempts to fit the infinite mystery of life and God into a puzzle that can be pieced together by the finite human mind. In contrast to this the surly sage insists that life can be enjoyed as a gift but it cannot be solved as a riddle.
It is rather curious that a book like Ecclesiastes could become part of the canon of Scripture. It not only disclosed new meaning but it also exploded some of the most cherished traditions of Israel. But on reflection its conclusion in the canon of Scripture seems quite appropriate. Theological claims to finality and completeness have been the one constant in the everchanging landscape of biblical interpretation. Qohelet is a dissonant voice in that choir of absolute certainty. He raises his voice, in part, to remind us that all our thinking, even our best theological thinking, is always on the way and never at the end. For as Walter Brueggemann says of the task of biblical interpretation.
The only way to turn the book into a fixed idol is to imagine that the final interpretation has been given, an act of imagination that is a deep act of disobedience to the lively God who indwells the text.[5]
If I were to add my own editorial comment to the text of Ecclesiastes, like we find in the scribal addition in 12.9-14, it would go something like this. “There is a time for everything, even the melancholy reflections that inevitably arise out of the futility and frustration of human existence. Such are not the only words or the last words, and maybe not even the best words, but they are nevertheless utterly true and significant words. These searchingly honest and painful words are an invaluable aid in the agonizing quest to understand the meaning of our (hebel) all-too-brief lives!”
[1] All translations are taken from the Tanakh, Jewish Publication Society, 1985.
[2] Robert Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes (Westminster: Philadelphia, 1987); 23.
[3] William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (New York: Doubleday, 1958); 10.
[4] Walter Kaufmann, Basic Writings of Nietzsche (New York: Random House, 1995); 782.
[5] Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster, 2003): 13.
Let me offer the following thoughts about authorship before I delve into the message of the text itself. Tradition has it that Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon. The author is identified as “son of David” and “king in Jerusalem” in 1.1. And in 1.12-2.26 he describes himself as the wealthiest and wisest of all Israel’s kings (this seems somewhat pretentious given that only two kings had reigned in Israel prior to him!). One Rabbi went so far as to suggest that not only was Ecclesiastes written by Solomon, but that it was written by Solomon in his old age when he had become senile! Regardless of where you stand on the senility argument the tradition of Solomonic’ authorship presents difficulties for the interpreter. The text itself does not explicitly name Solomon as the author but instead claims to be written by an individual by the name of “Qohelet.” Qohelet is a feminine noun that means “gatherer” or assembler.” This has led some commentators to think that Qohelet might be the female personification of wisdom itself, like her counterpart in the book of Proverbs that assembles her children for edifying instruction (1.20-33). If Qohelet were really a king it is hard to understand why he is explicitly identified as a “sage” in 12.9. And apart from the “royal testimony” in 1.12-2.26 the author more often writes from the perspective of a royal subject rather than as a powerful monarch (see 4.1-2; 5.7-8). The evidence on authorship leads me to be skeptical of the traditional claim that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes. I favor the view that Qoheleth was a male sage that used the literary device known as “royal fiction” to emphasize his point about the brevity and futility of existence. However, the text loses none of its canonical authority in taking this position. Nor does it lose any of its mysterious power to baffle the interpreter!
The message of Ecclesiastes is no less difficult to resolve than the issue of authorship. Its content is problematic regardless of who wrote it. Robert Crenshaw has called it the “Bible’s strangest book” given its “oppressive message” of the total futility of life.[2] What do we make of a Scripture that begins with the assertion “Utter futility! Utter futility! All is futile!” (1.2)? The word translated as futility (hebel) has both a temporal and an existential meaning. It means either brief or futile or both depending on the context. I think that a good starting point is to take these “words of Qohelet” (1.1) as seriously as we take the prophetic “words of Jeremiah” (Jer. 1.1) or the “words of Amos” (Amos 1.1). The words of Qohelet may be dark and perplexing but they are nevertheless “truthful” words (12.10) that command our attention if not our immediate respect.
I would suggest that the word of the Lord came to Qohelet just as certainly as it came to Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel but the manner in which it came was different. Throughout the book we find phrases like “I set my mind to study” (1.12), “I said to myself” (1.16), “I realized” (3.14), “I mused” (3.17), “I observed” (4.1), “I tested with wisdom” (7.23), and “I have seen” (10.5) repeated over and over again. The focus is explicitly on the thinker and the disciplined mental processes involved in the quest to understand all that goes on under the sun. The heavy use of such “I” language gives one the distinct impression that Qohelet is something of an egotist and rather self-absorbed. No doubt a brilliant egotist as the existence of twenty-six words or combinations of words that appear nowhere else in the Hebrew Scripture testify to a uniquely creative individuality. The writing style is also highly personal and extremely candid. Maybe it is precisely the egotism and self-absorption that can give us a key into the profound experience that is voiced in this troubled and troubling text. The philosopher William Barret has said, “there is no human temperament that does not potentially reveal some truth” and that even “morbidity has it own unique and revelatory power.”[3] It strikes me that Qohelet’s obsessive fascination with the dark side of life and ultimately with death itself is something of an epiphany, an illusion-shattering epiphany. I think it is as true of Qohelet what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said of himself, “I am no man. I am dynamite.”[4] The wisdom of the sad sage of Ecclesiastes explodes the illusions by which most people order their lives; the illusions of prosperity, grandiosity and immortality that feed the lust for life and fuel the insatiable desire to acquire and achieve. In contrast to these illusions it reveals that all life and that every life exists in the shadow of death, that all questions do not have tidy theological answers, that hard reality does not conform to our hopeful expectations, and that all human existence participates in the frustration of a universe that is constantly in motion on a funeral dirge march toward oblivion (12.3-8). Death casts its long and nihilistic shadow over the entire lifespan, from cradle to coffin. It places a huge question mark over all of our achievements and it frustrates every attempt to penetrate this deepest and darkest of all mysteries. In the game of life there are no get out of jail free cards. And even faith in God does not liberate one from the second law of thermodynamics or obliterate the cold, hard, dark, inevitable facts of human experience.
The wisdom of Ecclesiastes is wisdom from below, arising from experience in contrast to the sometime prophetic claim of direct divine revelation from above. It expresses the truth of the human situation from the ground up. Such wisdom is born in the crucible of deep reflection and careful observation of the world as it is, not the world as we wish it would be or hope it will be. It is a hard wisdom arising out of this world with all of its misery, oppression, and frustration that inevitably ends in death.
Like Job before him, the author of Ecclesiastes doubts that history rewards virtue and punishes vice in the way that the earlier wisdom teachers had so dogmatically insisted that it did. Qohelet observed that “sometimes a good man perishes in spite of his goodness, and sometimes a wicked one endures in spite of his wickedness” (7:15). Unlike Job’s friends, Qohelet refused to accept the traditional maxim that a man’s external circumstances were an accurate reflection of his internal condition. No doubt he would have made a much better companion than those three “miserable comforters.” Because he knew that reality was far more complex than the simple logic of “obey and prosper, disobey and suffer” could calculate. He knew that death was the inevitable “fate” of all and that no amount of virtue could alter that reality in the least.
For Qoheleth the best that can be attained in our brief and futile lives is an enjoyment of life’s simple pleasures; eating and drinking, friendship and loving companionship (4.9-12; 5.17; 9.9). This makes me think of the philosophy of one of the ant characters (voiced by Woody Allen) in the movie Antz when he says, “Its my lot in life. It’s not a lot, but it’s my life!” It may not be a lot, but a small island of simple comfort in an ocean of endless misery, is probably the difference between total despair and tolerable melancholy, between ending-it-all and toughing-it-out. Beyond this such simple pleasures also serve as a contact point with God because they come as gifts of God and not as rewards for our works (2.24). Since life is a brief book between the bookends of non-existence then surely the simple God-given joys of our physical existence are to be fully embraced.
Ultimately, for the quixotic sage Qohelet, God as well as life, is a great mystery. In what is perhaps the most ironic and certainly one of the most courageous confession’s in Scripture the humbled intellectual states, “All this I tested with wisdom. I thought I could fathom it, but it eludes me” (7.23). Unfortunately, there is no simple mathematical formula by which life and the mysterious workings of God can be calculated. The logic of human existence and divine sovereignty, if there is any, is deep and elusive. The shadow of death extends even into the fair country of biblical wisdom itself. The proud claim to know-it-all, to have found the final truth, to have arrived at the end of the equation is perhaps the greatest illusion of all. It is this illusion that, above all, is the primary obstacle to true knowledge because it attempts to fit the infinite mystery of life and God into a puzzle that can be pieced together by the finite human mind. In contrast to this the surly sage insists that life can be enjoyed as a gift but it cannot be solved as a riddle.
It is rather curious that a book like Ecclesiastes could become part of the canon of Scripture. It not only disclosed new meaning but it also exploded some of the most cherished traditions of Israel. But on reflection its conclusion in the canon of Scripture seems quite appropriate. Theological claims to finality and completeness have been the one constant in the everchanging landscape of biblical interpretation. Qohelet is a dissonant voice in that choir of absolute certainty. He raises his voice, in part, to remind us that all our thinking, even our best theological thinking, is always on the way and never at the end. For as Walter Brueggemann says of the task of biblical interpretation.
The only way to turn the book into a fixed idol is to imagine that the final interpretation has been given, an act of imagination that is a deep act of disobedience to the lively God who indwells the text.[5]
If I were to add my own editorial comment to the text of Ecclesiastes, like we find in the scribal addition in 12.9-14, it would go something like this. “There is a time for everything, even the melancholy reflections that inevitably arise out of the futility and frustration of human existence. Such are not the only words or the last words, and maybe not even the best words, but they are nevertheless utterly true and significant words. These searchingly honest and painful words are an invaluable aid in the agonizing quest to understand the meaning of our (hebel) all-too-brief lives!”
[1] All translations are taken from the Tanakh, Jewish Publication Society, 1985.
[2] Robert Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes (Westminster: Philadelphia, 1987); 23.
[3] William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (New York: Doubleday, 1958); 10.
[4] Walter Kaufmann, Basic Writings of Nietzsche (New York: Random House, 1995); 782.
[5] Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster, 2003): 13.
5.03.2006
Transformational Bible Study
The author of Hebrews makes a profound spiritual point in saying that, "the word of God is living and active." (4.12) The Bible has both the power to educate and to transform the soul. It not only says something to us but, if we listen in the right way, it does something in us. This requires the willingness on our part to listen carefully to the voices that speak to us out of its pages. We may not always initially understand or even agree with what we hear but in the process we will be effected in the very depths of our being.
The purpose of Scripture is not primarly to tell us what to think but to empower us to think for ourselves. It has the potential to liberate us from the tyranny of dead tradition to the experience of a living connection with the divine source of life. The ultimate goal of the word of God is stated in Hebrews 8.11, "No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." The individual can have direct contact with God. Unfortunately the Church and its teachings, and even the Bible itself, often come between the individual and God. We are often content to accept what others tell us about God rather than involving ourselves in the difficult yet rewarding task of engaging God directly. The knowledge of God is not something that can be given to us by someone else. It cannot be sculpted in stone, fixed into a formula or contained in a unchanging creed. The Word of God is both "living and active" which ultimately makes it elusive. It is not like a mathematical equation in which the answer is always the same. It is more like a personal relationship that grows and deepens over time.
The purpose of Scripture is not primarly to tell us what to think but to empower us to think for ourselves. It has the potential to liberate us from the tyranny of dead tradition to the experience of a living connection with the divine source of life. The ultimate goal of the word of God is stated in Hebrews 8.11, "No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." The individual can have direct contact with God. Unfortunately the Church and its teachings, and even the Bible itself, often come between the individual and God. We are often content to accept what others tell us about God rather than involving ourselves in the difficult yet rewarding task of engaging God directly. The knowledge of God is not something that can be given to us by someone else. It cannot be sculpted in stone, fixed into a formula or contained in a unchanging creed. The Word of God is both "living and active" which ultimately makes it elusive. It is not like a mathematical equation in which the answer is always the same. It is more like a personal relationship that grows and deepens over time.
4.07.2005
Real Threat to Marriages
In President Bush's re-election to a second term in office, it seems that a large part of his victory was credited to the perception of voters that he is strong on "moral issues." I would assume that a large part of this morality would be his support of an amendment to ban gay marriage, and in the logic of the conservative position, to thus strengthen the nuclear (or nukular!) family. Here is my suggestion. If conservatives are truly concerned about the family they will open their eyes to the real threat to families in our country. Single people are far more of a threat to the family than gays. For one thing the reality is that there are a lot more singles than gays, thus making a single person more statistically likely to wreck a happy marriage than a gay person. And it is clear that single people actually choose to be single (whereas many homosexual persons say that they have no choice in their homosexuality), and thus blatantly flaunt the institution of marriage! And on top of this outrage singles largely reject the truly legitimate function of human sexuality as a means to procreation and the blessedness of having children. This brazen attack on the foundation of marriage just makes one's blood boil! For those that may be questioning the validity of this "moral issue" I would simply refer them to some of the first words in the Bible where God says, "It is not good for the man (and by extension I would assume woman also) to be alone."
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