I have really enjoyed reading about the Psalter and the various purposes for which the psalms were written. The lament psalm speaks into a very important tradition of the people of faith - the tradition of truly engaging in relationship with God. This engagement involves, at times, holding God responsible for the pain and suffering that we encounter in this world, which is God's creation. Dr. Lester writes that, "given God's history with God's people, the psalmist is comfortable charging God with 'dereliction of duty' and unabashedly urges a favorable response." Who among us has not had a relationship with a friend or family member that hasn't at one point or another culminated in a "come to Jesus" moment - where we have to call out the other for some slight or wrongdoing. So it is, I believe, with God. But what's so refreshing about this type of public complaint is that it's done as an act of worship. Barry Bandstra explains that this type of psalm always moves from "personal complaint to anticipation of salvation" (Bandstra, p.384). In so doing, the psalmist grounds her frustration/lament/complaint/disagreement in faith that God is still powerful, God is still loving, and God is still God.
Hear our voice, Authority;
let our shouts and chants pierce your ears.
Come out from behind your walls,
from behind your lecterns and daises
meet our angry stares.
Remember your City;
the electors who voted
for you to be strong,
strongly do we cry,
wishing only for our votes to matter.
Authority! Who has taken
authority?
When our water is shut off,
can they hear our parched cry?
From our chapped lips,
our coughs rise up asking for a drink.
The Powers and Principalities turn off our taps,
letting our arrears fill their own cups.
Their cups runneth over,
they are sated by our debts.
Yet, Authority! There is Power in our Voices.
Our voices reflect your Authority.
Your power is magnified by the very drumbeat
that remembers
and calls forth
the promise of your promise,
to serve us, your people.
Authority! Give us water!
Quench our thirst, heed our dry coughs.
Don't let the sick go without healing;
wholeness you offer to the broken through your living water.
Turn on our taps and let us drink.
Let us gather in our kitchens,
around the well and the fountain let our community be as One.
Let not this authority circumscribe your Authority.
Let your Authority drown out the authorities,
as the parted waters drowned out those authorities,
so long ago.
In my work in public health in the city of Detroit, I have encountered a lot of resentment and frustration among community groups who acutely experience the lack of public health infrastructure available for people in need. So it is to give voice to this shared complaint that I offer this communal lament, which I hope, speaks as much to the situation of water shut offs in Detroit as it can to any number of social injustices enacted upon people by the Powers and Principalities of this world. While I pray this lament to God for God's justice, I also pray it to the City Authorities who have, in many cases, acquiesced to Emergency Management and state takeover. May we have rivers of justice flow forth once more! For more information on the water shut offs in Detroit, check out: http://detroitwaterbrigade.org
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Sunday, February 7, 2016
Declare: Intro to Tanak
Between the readings & this week's YouTube lectures, what most caught my interest was a quote Dr Lester gave of one of his former students summarizing the importance of historical contextual analysis of the Tanak/Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament. A rough paraphrasing of her quote was that, back when the early Christian church was first making sense of Jesus' life and ministry vis-a-vis the Tanak, folks didn't read Tanak Christologically - instead, they read Jesus scripturally. I believe Dr Lester words were "they looked at the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus through the lens of the Hebrew Bible." They did not go back to the Tanak (their source material) and try to read it anew with Jesus' Christ-ness as their lens for (re)interpretation.
The implications of this on me (and us, as students of this intro level OT/Tanak course) are several. For one, we have to possess a keen sense of reflexivity in order to, in Dr Lester's words, "bracket our Jesus lens while looking through fresh eyes." This requires we know who we are, why we are pursuing historical study of this text, and what it means for ourselves as both students of academic thought and students of practical ministry application. These questions (and probably many more) are what I mean by a sense of reflexivity.
On another level, though, it seems like we have to also be willing to dislocate ourselves from our religious identities in order to be open to tracks of thought like biblical and form criticisms that might challenge our deeply held Christological beliefs. To this end, I found the opening chapters of Christopher Stanley's text The Hebrew Bible: A Comparative Approach helpful at providing some perspective to guide the rigorous undertaking of scholarly inquiry on these traditional texts. Dr Stanley suggest to 1) question the text when it's hard to understand or difficult to apply, instead of blindly trusting; to 2) adopt a spirit of independence from the conformity of belief many of our faith traditions adhere to, in order to "gain a better understanding of the biblical text, not to reinforce or undermine [those] teachings;" to 3) embrace the Tanak as a diverse, non-uniform set of writings that came from humans whose views and approaches influenced what they composed and are reflected therein; and finally to 4) approach the text not primarily with an eye toward application of our lessons to our own moral lives, but to a deep desire for understanding the text on its own basis and own merits as an entity unto itself.
I'm excited to begin this process with all of you, and to see how together we are challenged to reflect and grow intellectually as a result.
Peace!
The implications of this on me (and us, as students of this intro level OT/Tanak course) are several. For one, we have to possess a keen sense of reflexivity in order to, in Dr Lester's words, "bracket our Jesus lens while looking through fresh eyes." This requires we know who we are, why we are pursuing historical study of this text, and what it means for ourselves as both students of academic thought and students of practical ministry application. These questions (and probably many more) are what I mean by a sense of reflexivity.
On another level, though, it seems like we have to also be willing to dislocate ourselves from our religious identities in order to be open to tracks of thought like biblical and form criticisms that might challenge our deeply held Christological beliefs. To this end, I found the opening chapters of Christopher Stanley's text The Hebrew Bible: A Comparative Approach helpful at providing some perspective to guide the rigorous undertaking of scholarly inquiry on these traditional texts. Dr Stanley suggest to 1) question the text when it's hard to understand or difficult to apply, instead of blindly trusting; to 2) adopt a spirit of independence from the conformity of belief many of our faith traditions adhere to, in order to "gain a better understanding of the biblical text, not to reinforce or undermine [those] teachings;" to 3) embrace the Tanak as a diverse, non-uniform set of writings that came from humans whose views and approaches influenced what they composed and are reflected therein; and finally to 4) approach the text not primarily with an eye toward application of our lessons to our own moral lives, but to a deep desire for understanding the text on its own basis and own merits as an entity unto itself.
I'm excited to begin this process with all of you, and to see how together we are challenged to reflect and grow intellectually as a result.
Peace!
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Intro to the OOTLE16 Community
Hey Team OOTLE16,
My name's Alex Plum, and I'm in my first year at GETS, completing Basic Graduate Theological Studies on route to credentialing as a Deacon in the United Methodist Church. I completed a Master of Public Health last spring at Emory University, and I currently work for a major health system in Detroit, where I develop and coordinate global health programs and research.
I look forward to e-meeting everyone and collaborating over the semester.
Onward!
Alex
My name's Alex Plum, and I'm in my first year at GETS, completing Basic Graduate Theological Studies on route to credentialing as a Deacon in the United Methodist Church. I completed a Master of Public Health last spring at Emory University, and I currently work for a major health system in Detroit, where I develop and coordinate global health programs and research.
I look forward to e-meeting everyone and collaborating over the semester.
Onward!
Alex
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