Lamentations and Tisha B'Av

The book of Lamentations is the song and response of the Hebrew people to the fall of Jerusalem. Not surprisingly, this book has continued as part of the liturgical tradition of the Jewish people, as they grieve the losses of many generations. It is traditional for the Jewish people to read the book of Lamentations on both the evening and the morning of Tisha B'Av, the 9th of Av, an annual day of mourning to commemorate the many tragedies the Jews have endured. Several painful events are said to have happened on this day:

• The spies returned from the land of Canaan, and only Joshua and Caleb had faith that God could bring the people into the land. God, therefore, declared that the Israelites would continue to wander in the desert until the older generation died, and this generation would not see the promised land. 
• The destruction of the first temple. (586 BC)
• The destruction of the second temple. (70 AD)
• A massacre of the Jewish people at the battle of Betar. (133 AD)
• The temple mount was ploughed under. (134 AD)
• The Jews were forced out of England.  (1290 AD)
• The Jews were forced out of Spain. (1492 AD) 
• Germany declared war on Russia, setting the first World War into motion, then the second, and eventually the Holocaust. (1914 AD) 

(Dates and info from: What Happened on the Ninth of Av?) 

The Jewish people observe a 3 week period of mourning leading up to Tisha B'Av and an intense period of mourning for the 9 days prior, beginning with the 1st of Av, which is traditionally held to be the day that Aaron, the priest and brother of Moses, died. Tisha B'Av then marks the beginning of a time of reflection on the previous year as the people prepare for the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah (New Year), Yom Kippur, and Sukkot.

The Christian people have embraced this tradition of reading portions of Lamentations during set periods of grief and mourning, namely Lent. Liturgical Christian churches commonly read from Lamentations on the Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week and on Good Friday, prior to Easter.

In the midst of Lamentations, we find this poignant and piercing gem of hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.” (from ch3)

John Parsons, at Hebrew For Christians, describes the book of Lamentations as God's cry for the people, the tears of Jeremiah as symbolic of "God's compassionate love" for the people. God is not absent from the book, despite the depth of the suffering. The covenant endures. (The Fast of Tammuz and the Three Weeks o Sorrow)

Who is Linda M. Day?

Linda M. Day is the guest speaker for Episode 20 of the Covenant Bible Study on Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel. Here are some quick facts about her:

1. She received a BA in English Literature from Harvard University, an MA in Religious Studies from Palmer Theological Seminary, a PhD in Biblical Studies from Princeton Theological Seminary, and an EdD in Higher Education Management from the University of Pennsylvania.
2. She has been a professor at Anderson University, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and Hiram College.
3. She was the General Editor for the Catholic Biblical Quarterly for 8 years. 
4. She has written a commentary on the book of Esther (2005)
5. She was one of the editors for the book: Engaging the Bible in a Gendered World: An Introduction to Feminist Biblical Interpretation. (2006)

Perspectives on the story of Job

I am not inclined to offer commentary on the following articles, but I do want to offer some perspectives from familiar voices (Rachel Held-Evans, Greg Boyd, Nadia Bolz-Weber) on the story of Job and the problem of pain/evil. If you have some time this week, these articles may inform your thoughts on this week's study.

Rachel Held-Evans wrote a blog post in 2013 called "The abusive theology of deserved tragedy..." In this post she tackles the particular evangelical response to suffering that declares, "Bad things happen because God is angry. This is God’ judgment on undeserving, sinful people. Repent. We brought this on ourselves." In her words,

This theology is, in a word, abusive, for it blames the victim for whatever calamity, abuse, or tragedy she suffers and says it is deserved.

And:

...the story of Job stands as an ancient indictment on those who would respond to tragedy by blaming the victim. That’s exactly what Job’s friends did, and the text is not kind to them for it, because Job is described as "blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

Greg Boyd gets into the particulars of the story of Job in his article The Point of the Book of Job. (It's a detailed article and worthy of a careful reading!) Boyd expresses a similar sentiment to Rachel Held-Evans here:

Sounding remarkably like many Christians today when they confront people in pain, and illustrating perfectly the complaint that satan originally raised against God, his friends insist that since God is perfectly just, Job must deserve what God is dishing out to him.

But also...

This is not to say that everything Job's friends say about God is incorrect. This book is far too subtle to paint everything in either-or terms. It artfully paints a thoroughly ambiguous picture of the cosmos...

In another article, Boyd responds to The 35W Bridge Collapse and the Book of Job. Here he draws our attention to how closely related the problem of evil/pain is to the question of free will/predestination:

If God was controlling everything, then there obviously would be no point for God to bring up the unfathomable complexity of creation or his warfare against powers of chaos. If God is controlling everything, such matters are utterly irrelevant.

Instead,

God’s appeal to the complexity and war-torn nature of the cosmos is significant precisely because it shows that God is not an omni-controlling deity, and that because we humans have next to no understanding of this complexity or the spiritual battles that engulf it, we should not be quick to attribute catastrophes to God.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, perhaps not surprisingly, suggests that perhaps we're not asking the right questions at all in response to the story of Job (from an interview with Religion and Politics).

This is what we see at the end of Job. Throughout Job there’s basically what we call theodicy: If God’s all good, why are we suffering? And Job’s friends end up going, “Well, either you did something wrong, you know, you’re bad and God’s good, and that’s why you’re being punished, or you’re good and God’s bad, and that’s why.” You know, there are just really simple categories. It’s either black, or it’s white...

We like black and white, dualistic categories, and we love nothing more than to project those onto God...

We’ve been struggling with this sort of dualistic thinking since the very beginning. You know what’s really weird? To be human and God. It kind of has to be either-or, right? No, it’s queer. It’s like being sinner and saint. Like Martin Luther said, imul justus et peccator. We’re 100 percent of both all the time.

And here's where I'll insert just a few of my own thoughts. One of the things that has guided me in my studies of theology, especially when it comes to questions of evil and suffering in the world, is the idea that if I find myself faced with an idea about God that is just too horrific to believe, it's actually ok to not believe it. Instead, I believe that there's something that I'm not understanding. There's a truth or a mystery that is beyond my grasp. But it simply does not make sense to believe evil of God. Rachel Held-Evan says it this way (in her article The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart):

It’s not enough for me to maintain my intellectual integrity as a Christian; I also want to maintain my emotional integrity as a Christian. And I don’t need answers to all of my questions to do that. I need only the courage to be honest about my questions and doubts, and the patience to keep exploring and trusting in spite of them.

*****************
For more of Greg Boyd's thoughts on Job, listen to his sermon here: Twisted Scripture: The Book of Job.

Sounding remarkably like many Christians today when they confront people in pain, and illustrating perfectly the complaint the satan originally raised against God, his friends insist that since God is perfectly just, Job must deserve what God is dishing out to him. - See more at: http://reknew.org/2008/01/the-point-of-the-book-of-job/#sthash.7eVHmz2Q.dpu

Sounding remarkably like many Christians today when they confront people in pain, and illustrating perfectly the complaint the satan originally raised against God, his friends insist that since God is perfectly just, Job must deserve what God is dishing out to him. - See more at: http://reknew.org/2008/01/the-point-of-the-book-of-job/#sthash.7eVHmz2Q.dpuf

Amy Erickson on Psalm 1

The speaker for this week's Covenant Study episode on Job, Amy Erickson, has also done a little writing about the Psalms! In light of our discussion last week about the passages in Psalms about enemies and how the Psalms might move us toward action in the world, her article from the Huffington Post, Psalm 1: Putting Evil in Its Place, seems particularly apropos. Her discussion of Psalm 1 centers around its relevance to the students of New York Theological Seminary (NYTS) at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Yes, you read that right!

Since 1982 New York Theological Seminary has been one of the most unusual programs in theological education in the nation.  Each year up to fifteen students who are currently incarcerated in New York State enroll in the Seminary’s accredited Master of Professional Studies (MPS) degree offered inside the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York.

Amy Erickson makes clear that, although Psalm 1 is a prayer and a song to God, it is also a word of direction and encouragement for the faith community:

Armed with something that looks a lot like a Psalm 1 worldview, the graduates of Sing Sing seminary go out into the world committed to serve their communities, bringing a message of hope and responsibility back to the place where they once walked on the path that sinners tread and followed the advice of the wicked. There on the streets of New York, sustained by streams of unseen waters, most of these seminary graduates “yield their fruit” and “their leaves do not wither” (v. 3).

The Psalms turn our attention to God, to the covenant, to the laws of God. And, in that way, they proclaim the way to live and work in our lives and in the world.

Who is Amy Erickson?

 Amy Erickson is the guest speaker for Episode 19 of the Covenant Bible Study on the book of Job. Here are some quick facts about her:

1. She is associate professor of Hebrew Bible and the director of the Masters of Theological Studies program at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. The courses that she teaches include: The Body and Sexuality in the Hebrew Bible, (Re-)Constructing Identity in the Persian Period, and The Afterlives of Jonah.
2. She received her BA from Bates College, her MDiv from Columbia Theological Seminary, and her PhD in Old Testament from Princeton Theological Seminary.
3. She has written articles on Jonah, Job, the Psalms, Zechariah, and Amos. She is a regular contributor to The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, workingpreacher.org and the Huffington Post ON Scripture.
4. She is an active member of the Society of Biblical Literature and co-chairs the section Megilloth (“Scrolls,” which includes the book of Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther). 
5. She is said to be currently writing a commentary on the book of Jonah and a book on the metaphor of God as enemy in Job's speeches.

Bonhoeffer on Psalms

This week's readings for the Covenant Study (episode 18) are from the Book of Psalms, and I am enjoying re-reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible. For a synopsis of Bonhoeffer's book check out this article by Carson Reed: Bonhoeffer and the Psalms.

In the article Carson notes that Bonhoeffer's book is an "attempt to place this rich prayer resource on the table of the twentieth century church."  Bonhoeffer writes that the book of Psalms is a "school of prayer," which teaches us what prayer means, what we should pray, and how we should pray together in community.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there are a number of resources on how to use the Psalms as part of the daily practice of prayer. I am particularly interested in how these ancient words provide a history and a continuity of prayer all the way from early Israel to the current times. Looking forward to a great discussion with all of you on the power and richness of this book!

Who is William P. Brown?

William P. Brown is the guest speaker for Episode 18 of the Covenant Bible Study on the Psalms. Here are some quick facts about him:

1. He is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia.
2. Dr. Brown earned a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Whitman College in Washington, a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and Doctor of Philosophy in Old Testament Studies from Emory University. 
3. He studied as a Princeton University exchange fellow in Germany from 1985-1987.
4. He is the author of several books, including Wisdom's Wonder: Character, Creation, and Crisis in the Bible's Wisdom Literature (2014), The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (2010), Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (1996), and many others. 
5.  He was a founding member of Earth Covenant Ministry, which later became part of Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, whose mission is to engage "communities of faith in stewardship of Creation as a direct expression of our faithfulness and as a religious response to global climate change, resource depletion, environmental injustice, pollution, and other disruptions in Creation." (GIPL: Connecting Faith, Community and Planet)

Who is Jaime Clark-Soles?

Jaime Clark-Soles is the guest speaker for Episode 17 of the Covenant Bible Study on the Gospel of John and 1st, 2nd, & 3rd John. Here are some quick facts about her:

1. She is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University and is an ordained American Baptist minister.
2. She received her B.A. from Stetson University where she studied Philosophy and Russian Studies.  She earned her M.Div. from Yale Divinity School and her Ph.D. in New Testament from Yale University. 
3. She is the author of Reading John for Dear Life: A Spiritual Walk with the Fourth Gospel (2016), Engaging the Word: The New Testament and the Christian Believer  (2010), Death and Afterlife in the New Testament (2006), and Scripture Cannot Be Broken (2003). And
   she is currently working on a book entitled Women in the Bible for the Interpretation commentary series.
4.  She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Religion, Disability & Health, and her essay covering Disability in the Johannine Literature will appear soon in a new commentary entitled Disability and the Bible: A Commentary.
5. She is married to Thad Clark-Soles, and they have 2 children: Chloe and Caleb.

You can check out Jaime Clark-Soles website here: http://www.jaimeclarksoles.com/. And listen to her TEDx Talk entitled, "Dying to Live" here: https://youtu.be/gcHNqv0mR44.