"Absurdity, Absrudity, Everything is Absurdity!" (Short Thoughts on Ecclesiastes)

Last night, I was delighted to participate in our bi-weekly Old Testament Seminar here at Durham University's Department of Religion and Theology. The presenter was Dr Stuart Weeks, who is working on a book on Ecclesiastes (or Qoheleth, as it is known in the Hebrew, which means something like "Preacher").

Qoheleth (pronounced, ko-HELL-ett; which is my preferred name for this book since "Ecclesiastes" tells us almost nothing about its content or origin) is a peculiar book that has puzzled biblical scholars for a long time. Many of the pronouncements in the book seem counter to the rest of the ethical standing of the Old Testament. When, Qoheleth declares in 7.16 'Be not overly righteous,' one wonders if he is part of the same "Be holy even as I am holy" camp as the rest of the Old Testament writers.

If one were able to be light about it, one could just ask, "What's with this guy?" and move on. But since the book is in the canon of authoritative Scripture, many are forced to ask along with one of the guys in the seminar last night, "I just keep wondering what the compilers of the Old Testament canon saw in this book!" The answer to that question is more complicated than I can offer now, but we can at least share in the sentiment in this way: What are we to do with Qoheleth as authoritative Scripture?

One tried and true method -- one I have employed liberally in my own teaching -- is to call upon the unusual epilogue of 12.9-14. These three paragraphs are definitely intended to set Qoheleth in its/his place. Typically, we call upon this to say something like, "Ecclesiastes is full of human advice which is not well-considered in light of scripture. The epilogue tells us to not worry about what has said and to focus on fearing God instead."

This interpretive move actually ends up being difficult to make when you really look at the actual words of the epilogue. Actually, even identifying the epilogue, says Weeks, is tricky.

So, what are we to do with Qoheleth?

I'm not in a position to give a full "take" on the book, but here are some interesting things I can share that I am mulling on:

• Qoheleth is a character.
• He's a peculiar character. He has unique Hebrew accent and vocabulary. Weeks suggests that perhaps he is of a kind of lower-class and is folksy in his iterations.
• He's materialistic. He is probably a business man whose drive has been for personal gain, which is realizing is a futile goal.
• He makes a keen insight: Nothing I have is mine, it will all pass from me when I pass. But nothing really is anyone's. Everything will pass. Only God's works remain.
• This book was probably very popular among its original Hebrew audience. It may have been intended to be performed.
• The Hebrew word which translators often offer as "vanity" really has a meaning closer to "vapor" or "exhaling," and thus, here, for Qoheleth, "absurdity" (suggests Weeks). Personally, I like "puff!" (Seriously.)
  
• It's possible that, according to 12.10, that the words of Qoheleth are meant to be "pleasant" and amusing. "Is he a kind of stand-up comic?" we wondered last night.
• If so, he's a dark comic, one who, yes, is comedic in his foolish wisdom (to the point of begrudging his children their inheritance from his labors), but he is also in touch with pain. It is striking to me how often Ecclesiastes is quoted (and sung) in times of pain. It's a free voice in Scripture, an authorized lament. A way to say you are MAD at the absurdity of a life lived this side of heaven where often the rules God says will work don't seem to work, and yet, because you can quote it from Ecclesiastes/Qoheleth, you can't be slandered as "non-Christian." You're maybe "just venting."

It's this idea of freedom to speak about the absurdity of life and the way pain makes us see how the good don't always get good rewards and vice versa about the wicked that really sticks with me. It's just so true. And even though, there is a way (a very strong way!) in which the promises of God are fulfilled to those who "obey his commandments." There is INDEED another way in which pain still makes its ugly call on the doorstep of the righteous and ... it sucks. It's absurd. To use the terminology of Mary Douglas, it's anomalous. It doesn't make sense. And God made us to want to understand, to see sense and good order in the world. And the world just ain't there yet.

And SO Qoheleth, I think, is a Preacher of the Gospel. For only with Absurdity as its stage, can God's redemptive play, make its power real. In Advent, only the absurdity of a virgin pregnancy end up calling the angels and nations as eternal witnesses of the miraculous. Mary must have thought God was crazy. That her pregnancy with Jesus was a cruel "puff" of insanity.

But, only on the pavement of the pain of the Cross, can the empty grave of of our Lord do its dance.

Absurdity is the staging ground for Joy.

That is what I know about Qoheleth today.

Did God Ordain Rituals?

I have just finished doing a long report on the first two chapters of Mary Douglas's, Purity and Danger (1966). Douglas (who passed away in 2007) was a premier anthropologist who worked a lot with Leviticus and its meaning for Israel.

As a fundamental viewpoint, Douglas rejected the idea that rituals were merely 'magical' parts of an older, more fearful day gone by. She felt that rituals and, specifically, 'rules for uncleanness' were part of how a society determined its own identity and confirmed its own cosmological worldview. She thought this was true for both Israel and for other religious communities as well, including our own. Far from being a thing of the past, Douglas suggested that rituals and rules for uncleanness exist today as much as they did back in Leviticus.

The fact that Douglas makes this argument means that there has been (and still is?) a counter-one out there. Her opponents advocated for a view of ritual that presumed a kind of evolution in culture, i.e. there once was a day when people used to perform rituals to keep themselves from being hurt or injured or to give themselves a sense of order, but now, we realize that was just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo (literally) and we know that true religion is internal and spiritual.

There is truth in both sides. The Bible has within its own pages both affirmations of ritual (e.g. Leviticus) and condemnations of its effectiveness (e.g. Amos 5.21 and Matt. 12.7, quoting Hos. 6.6). Even in our own churches we have some which are 'high church' (believing that rituals can be used by God or even ordained by him to teach us and to guide us into worship of him) and some which are 'low church' (believing all rituals lead to legalistic dependence on them).

I am, of course, more of the high church mode now. But I grew up in the low church, and I am deeply committed to its concerns.

The question I have today is more about what God is doing with ritual in the Old Testament.

• Was He merely communicating to the people of that day in idioms that they could understand? (i.e. sacrifice was just something people did back then, so that's why he told them to do it.)
• Or did he make humans for ritual and, even through history, he guided the context of Israel so that it would learn ways of worship (cf. Moses' education in Egypt, Acts 7.22) but with it properly redeemed and re-formulated by God Himself?

I could get into more specifics about the implications of these positions, but perhaps this gets the ball rolling enough for now.

I close with this thought: What tips me toward the latter of the two is the Incarnation and Cricifixion of our Lord.

In the life of our Lord, God did not simply come with a whole new plan downloaded into Jesus brain for him then to explain to others in a spiritual way. Instead, he actually orchestrated the ways and moves of history so that other people (not Jesus) did things in just the right way that his birth might be in Bethlehem and his death on a tree, both to the fulfilling of Scripture and to the glory of God.

Might not God have done something similar in guiding us in how to worship him?

What do you think?

The Gift of the Scribes

What do I learn from translating Hebrew all day long?

This is a question I have been asking myself today. My whole morning (and part of the afternoon) has been spent transcribing and translating the first 8 lines of column 2 of the 11QMelchizedek scroll of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Sounds exciting, I know. ;-)

The discipline of transcription and translation is hard and mindless at the same time.

The mindless part is the transcription. For me, this happens on a computer, using Microsoft word and unicode font (thanks to my Tavultesoft program which I was turned on to by my Greek prof at Trinity, Rod Whitacre). I type the unpointed Hebrew into my computer, line by line, my left hand pointing to my place on the page and my right hand typing in the letters. It has become very important for me make sure I type in this unpointed shin/sin (pronounced 'sheen'/'seen') consanant. Typing in a pointed shin, when an unpointed version is the one in the text, is usually right about 90% of the time, but it can really throw me when the word ends up using the sin instead. It's mindless, but if I do it wrong, I can waste a lot of time later.

One thing I learn from this is the simple re-enactment of the life of a scribe. With my wollen beanie cap on my bald head to keep in the heat and sitting some 100 yards are so from the tower of the cathedral (I have a desk within the cathedral grounds - with almost this exact view), I am reminded of the many, many scribes who have come before me to whom I am endebted. The ones who sat with their quills and parchment in the hot deserts of Judea or in the cold halls of monasteries and mindlessly but nevertheless vitally the words of Scripture (not that 11QMelch counts as Scripture, but you get the point).

During this week of Advent, we recall the witness of the Patriarchs. Whose lives of faith (and of blunder upheld by grace) are the longest testimony we have (with their candle burning the lowest by the time of Christmas Day) to our God and King. But in between them and us are the scribes. Who sat. Who wrote. Mindlessly. Faithfully. Carefully. And so, do I. Thankful for them. Disciplining my heart to meditate on the language of his word.

Having said so much about the mindless bit, I'll leave the hard part to just a comment: Words take time. They probably don't take near the time I have to take with them when you are a native speaker (of Hebrew, in this case). But for the translator, words take time. They take time to consider:

• the nuance, i.e. Can 'azav' mean 'to free from' in addition to just 'to leave'?


• the likely usage, i.e. Is this 'Melchi-Zedek' the guy, the figurative persona, or just 'my king of righteousness' (which is the meaning for the name)? Should I trust the other translators who have taken this word as a name or if I think of it according to its meaning will I pick up something new they have missed? Or, more common in my work today (all these examples are from my work today), should I trust this previous scribe's reconstruction of a text which literally has holes in it, where worms and decomposition have eaten through the scroll?

When I work on all this, I think about how much there is to know in theology and biblical studies. I hear the guy behind me tapping away on his Patristics (study of the early church fathers) work, and I am well aware of just how MUCH he is reading on the volumes upon volumes of early and important interpretation of Scripture and theology. I am just as aware of how much I am working on Hebrew word after Hebrew word. Mostly, I am aware of how much we need each other. Scholars need each other. We cannot make it alone. (Over 1600 years ago, in De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Teaching), Augustine said the same thing about Jerome and other scholars of his time.)

Mindless and Hard.

Scribes upon scribes. I am thankful to be in their midst. Doing my part; however less adequately than they.

I'm thankful for God's hand of grace over us all.

Advent Blogging

So, I hope to start blogging once a day for the whole season of Advent.

I have no particular plan or agenda in mind. I know I often fail at these things, but I feel a growing urgency for an outlet of writing about the things that I am learning and thinking. Perhaps advent is a good season for (no more than 20 minutes a day of) writing.

For my first post, I just want to pass on this little reflection on the meaning of Christmas. Still perhaps the best one I know of:

Charlie Brown's Christmas

I remember this with fondness from my childhood. I saw the TV show very rarely, but I had an audio tape of this little monologue, and it still makes me tear up. (I 'm such a softy.)

An Email Response to a Question about Liturgy and Worship

One of my friends recently wrote me this question, and I wrote a response back. I thought I would post it here to share. -- jdp

Hi,

I hope you are enjoying your studies and settling into the new pace of life
well. I have a question about your take on liturgy as a teaching tool. Do you
have any thoughts on this or resources about this? I am thinking of the
traditional liturgy. Do you personally believe that something is lacking in the
more "contemporary" non denominational liturgy format (like we used at [Church
X])? Just wondering what you think.

[Your Friend]

Hi [Friend]. You always ask such good questions! Liturgy as a teaching tool, eh? Hmmm... I think this could mean a couple of different things, so I'll take a stab at answering you, but you may need to ask me more depending on what your really going for. So, here goes:

Liturgy, as you probably know, literally "the work of the people." Liturgy always exists because people are ritualistic by nature (a la Thoreau's pathway through the woods). As the old joke goes about baptists, "We're not liturgical," they say, "...we just do the same thing every week." So, there is always liturgy because it is the form in which people together approach God.

Liturgies also change over time. This is both good and bad. There is a certain amount revival that needs to take place in any ritual, but the changes can also lead to throwing away activities of worship which were installed for good reason and which one might only be missed once their removed (i.e. the saying of the Creed). The classic place where liturgy needs to be renewed is when it is subject to "piling on." This is when actions are initially done in worship for very practical reasons but which later are then ritualized and the reason for their existence becomes lost, changed, and/or redfining worship in a way that is not helpful anymore. (We have lots of stories about this in the Anglican chuch, like the use of a pall over the priest's host in communion, it was initially put there to keep bird poop from falling on the table and now there are all sorts of people who can't have communion without one because it has come to represent the grave-clothes of Jesus or something like that. People are funny.)

Anyway, that's all to say that liturgies are always teaching us things. We learn most by what we enact (or don't). These liturgical actions (again, I am definitely including [Church X] and other non-denom churches in this broad defintion of liturgy) always teach us things about ourselves and about how we worship God (and who he is). When I don't bow in service and I call shouts out to "Jesus," it teaches me that Jesus is my "friend." Which is biblical and not necessarily bad. Just as when I do bow and always use "thee" in my written prayers to "Our Father," I learn that God is to be reverenced and treated with respect. Again, biblical and not all bad. For years, liturgies have by the sheer fact of their set structure taught people that the Holy Spirit cannot/does not move spontaneously among his people in worship services. The charismatic/pentacostal movement shifted us strongly away from that lesson. I think 1 Corinthians encourages both structure and leaving room for the Holy Spirit. The trick is how to lead worship in such a way that allows for this (along with a careful reading of Scripture about how worship is supposed to happen in the church today, i.e. in what way do the specific formularies of worship laid out in the Old Testament and then passed on to the synagogue and then the church impact our worship today).

So, I think we always have to be conscious in our worship as to what we are unintentionally (as well as intentionally) teaching. This can be somewhat ponderous, so I am advocating it in small doses and with lots of prayer and dependence upon the Holy Spirit for guidance.

You may have been asking more about performing a "teaching liturgy" where we actually pause the service and explain to the congregation (reminding them and ourselves) why we do what we do when we do it. One of our priests did this early in our time at Christ Church Plano, and I remember it had a big impact on Amelia as a new Anglican. It helped her a lot to know the whys, to worship God in sync with the flow of the service, but mostly it made her appreciate the richness of the Gospel as always and constantly portrayed in our weekly worship. I think ALL churches would benefit from doing this from time to time, no matter how "high church" or "low church" they are.

I guess this is where I, as you probably suspected, have distanced myself from the liturgies I grew up with. I think that, in the end, the lessons they taught me about God and humanity and the Gospel were not usually wrong (or no more wrong than any church can find itself in any worship service--there is no "pure" worship), but they feel *inadequate* to me now. There's just not enough thoughtfulness and carefulness about what is and is not being communicated in that lower church/non-denominational atmosphere. Maybe a better way of saying it, is that what I really *appreciate* about the liturgy in the Anglican church is how pretty much every piece of the worship is there for a reason and for the uplifting and benefit of the church in its worship of God. That's more in my heart. I feel a great love for liturgy now more than a dislike for what I used to have.

All that being said, I still have concerns about the liturgies I participate in now. I am concerned especially about things like spontanteity and freedom of the Spirit and worship being overly formal rather than descriptors I'd rather have like "familial," "awe-filled," "loving," "Spiritually powerful [note the capital 'S']," and "gracious." I intend to seek God's will in this for the rest of my life.

I'll just close out this first foray to you with this one thought that has kept coming back to me time and again. Last year (I think it was), I took a church history class at seminary where we talked about the nature of the earliest Christian churches, especially in their "house church" format. What has really stuck with me about that class was the picture of the church as a "house." A house where the extended family of God gathered and, to some extent, lived. I could say reams about this, but I just want to say two right now: 1) I was amazed at how consistent the picture of the worship place of God as a "house" is *throughout* the Scriptures. (Just do a search on house in the OT and see how many times it comes up in this worship context.) It's a picture, I think, God *wants* us to have about our place of worship. 2) I often find myself now evaluating the worship services (and spaces) I am in based on whether I feel like I am in a "house" with my family. Now obviously this is VERY culturally-laden and what *I* would think of as "home" from my Canadian-American upbringing and what my good friends who are Chinese, Korean, Latino, or indeed, British(!) might think of might be very different. But I think this is a good frame of reference for me anyway. In the home, there is trust, respect, dialogue, joy, laughter, feedom, learning, constraint, and love all wrapped up together. It's not just going through the motions whatever "liturgy" might be at play.

Some thoughts.

Thanks for your provocative question. It was fun to think about. Please feel free to come back at me with more!

Grace and Peace,

Jon

Providentially (with a capital "P") (or A first stab at a report from England via a long reflection on our move)

First things first... I'm so sorry I have not written sooner. A life of "settling in" being what it is has required a lot of attention, and the few moments I have had of trying to update you along the way have gone squandered from trying to say too much and running out of time in that session to say anything at all. By the time I get back to it, the moments to recount have piled up even more. So, this will need to be brief in order to actually get it out!

Travel and Arrival
To get your bearings, earlier this summer we moved from Ambridge, Pennsylvania to Dallas, TX for the summer. From there, we have moved here, to Durham, England. It's a small city of about 50,000 people and the home of both Durham Cathedral and Durham University, the latter of which is my chosen place for further study in Old Testament.

Thanks to everyone out there who prayed for our big move. The trip over here was very successful. The flight went about as smoothly as one could expect. The kids were very excited to be on such a big plane (with little TV screens in front of each seat complete with kids movies and video games; well, and let's not forget the flight attendants delievering snacks to your seat!). And although they didn't sleep very much (Ewan, 6, slept literally one hour), they did very well with their attitudes (i.e. only a couple of meltdowns). We flew straight from DFW to London (Heathrow) and on to Newcastle(-upon-Tyne) which is the biggest city near to Durham (about 25 minutes north of here).

All our security checkpoints went well. The X-ray machine operators we encountered in DFW and London were both women, and I think they looked at us with more sympathy than male operators might have. We had to get shoes off of three little guys, take out my laptop, our Wii console, and our 20-inch iMac from their bags and send them through separately to be scanned (along with our other carry on bags filled with books, toys, and important documents).

We were very nervous the night before our flight because we realized that our iMac (in its original box) was too large to carry on according to airline regulations. After a mad scramble to try and find an authentic "iMac carrying-case" (which, yes, they do make), we found a super large canvas bag from LL Bean that we already had and put the computer in that. We hoped it would work, and it did.

REFLECTION:

This kind of last-minute scramble of problems was a constant feature in our overall move.

Situation 1: Early in the summer, when I applied for my UK student visa, the next day, Amelia and I found out that our fourth child in her womb was deceased. The next three days were full of sadness and the Friday of that week I had an already-scheduled appointment to drive to downtown Pittsburgh to get my fingerprints and photo taken at a specially-required government site. But, of course, that morning, the baby passed from Amelia's womb, and we were torn up with grief and concerned about Amelia's blood-loss. In a moment of sheer Providence (with a capital "P"), simultaneously, we were (a) able to have our boys go over and play with our next door neighbors, (b) receive a phone call from our rector's wife back home in Texas, who immediately and compassionately prayed powerfully before the throne of grace on our behalf, and (c) Amelia's best friend in Pittsburgh was already on her way over to stay by Amelia's side and (as it turns out) pack most of our dining room. With all those events in place, I prayed, talked to Amelia, took a deep breath and got in the car and drove to keep my visa process in progressing order.

Situation 2: A week later, as a part of my continuing visa application, I was required to send evidence of funds in our bank accounts (or from loans) that proved that I could afford to study in the UK. I had 14 days to submit the proper documentation. It sounded fairly straight-forward. We had the money. We just had to print out papers saying so. The regulations from the UK Border Agency however give very strict guidelines about what kinds of papers would be accepted as proof of funds. No problem, I sent away to our bank for the right evidence. A week passed and right on time, the bank letter came showing the necessary proof, except our biggest savings account (which we had been paying into for about 10 years in preparation for graduate studies)! I called the bank. There was nothing they could do. I had something like 24 hours to figure out what to do and send all the documents to Los Angeles. Fortunately, the UK Border Agency offers a telephone number where you can call to get information about your visa application. They explicitly tell you that they have no information that is different from the website, but if you want to talk to someone, instead of find the info for yourself on the web than you can spend $12 to talk to someone. My back was against the wall and time was ticking. I called. I begged for more information about how much time I had. "You have 14 days," came the reply. "Is there an extension I can get?" "No." "Will it cost me more money if I don't complete this application and have to reapply?" "Yes, $212.00." Flabbergasted, I just kept talking, trying to get my full $12's worth. "So, I applied on such-and-such a date and today is such-and-such so I have to have these documents in Los Angeles by tomorrow, which is such-and-such or I can't get my visa, is that right?" "Well," the reply came, "the 14 days are business days." "Business days??" (I have never been so happy in my life to hear the words, "Business days!") "You mean I have until such-and-such, another 4 calendar days to send the materials?" "Correct, sir." Hallelujah!!! I was SO happy I spent $12 dollars to have someone read website material to me. They said the same thing it said on the web, but on another level, they said something completely different! I then managed to get the papers together and send them on to LA.

Situation 3: The day we packed the truck, we had another "close call." Amelia had actually never stopped bleeding from the miscarriage.
{BTW, why do we say "she miscarried" or "her miscarriage"? On one level, it is, it's true, happening to the mother's body in a unique and devastating way, but, on another level, to me, it sounds like it's her body that is at fault for the miscarriage. Putting the emphasis on the subject rather than the verb makes it sound like a woman is to blame for the miscarriage or it was her body's "fault" somehow. Maybe I'm crazy on this one, but I just wonder. Mom's feel enough guilt and pain in miscarriage. Isn't there another way we can talk about it?}
On the day we packed the truck for the move to Texas, I was out getting the truck and when I came home, she wasn't there. She had had a MAJOR increase in her bleeding. Providentially (again with a capital "P"), my parents were with us, so my mom was home with the boys while our neighbor, Sandy (who had just finished packing up her own moving truck for their move to British Columbia, Canada; crazy, I know, you can't make this stuff up!), who has 5 kids (and just has a wonderful sense of mom-and-birth stuff), came over and drove Amelia to the ER. So, I prayed, talked to Amelia on the phone, and took a deep breath and started packing. What else could I do? Wow. Thinking back on that, I just want to cry. The weight. The pain. The transition. Ugh. She was home by dinner having passed the baby's placenta and physically feeling much better. The next day, she flew out to Dallas ahead of us. No wait, cancel that. She TRIED to fly out but in a huge thunderstorm her plane was grounded and rescheduled for departure the next morning (the day of driving) at 4 AM. I circled back. Picked up her and Graham and went home to deliver our van to our friends who (again, providentially) bought it from us.

Situation 4: Months later, in early August, Amelia and I were talking about what kind of work she might be able to do in England while I am here studying. We began to look on the website for some indication of regulations. We looked. And looked. And looked. We soon realized that we didn't understand what her status in the UK would actually be! We assumed "spouse of someone with a UK student visa," but that status didn't exist exactly. Anyway, long story short....after 1.5 hours of looking on the website we found that she (AND THE KIDS) needed her/their OWN visas. (BTW, this page, with the information about how your dependents can make their own application DID NOT EXIST less than 2 months ago. I promise. Maybe because I complained so badly about it!) Complete with her own documents and bank statements, etc. O man! They said they could process applications in 20 days (business days!). If they did, it would get to us exactly the day of our already-scheduled flight (or maybe the Saturday before, depending on whether the British Embassy works on Labor Day or not!). We freaked out. Then, we prayed, we talked, and took a deep breath and trusted the Lord. Providentially (with a capital "P"), the UK Border Agency processed our application in half the time they normally do. 10 days. Which apparently, we've learned over here (from others horror stories) is AMAZINGLY REMARKABLE. I think by this time, having gone through all we'd gone through, we were able to trust the Lord on this last one with a little more faith than the first three! Faith in God grows in our hearts, the hard way.

All of this to say: By the time the iMac situation came up. We were nervous, but we were also able to trust the Lord more than before.

What a move.

Well, I'll write more later. Apparently, "brief" is not an ability I have!

Out of the Mouths of Babes: Words before sleeping -- About Evangelism

Last night, I was laying down next to my middle son after I sang his lullabies to him. Then, without warning, he turned to me, looked me in the eye and sadly said, "Dad, you know people who don't believe in Jesus are going to Hell."

"It's true," I replied equally sadly, "What do you think we should do about that?"

"We should tell them to believe in Jesus," he replied calmly and frankly. (I wish I could show you a videotape of his serene, concerned little face.)

"Some people believe in other gods," he continued, "But God's ten special rules say, 'Don't worship any other gods except God.'"

"It's true," I affirmed--my mind spinning simultaneously with his great use of the Ten Commandments with the imperative for evangelism and with all the different 'gods' people worship who would never consider bowing down to a real idol (but who are just as enslaved).

"Well," I said, "You tell me who you think we should tell about Jesus, and we'll tell them together, ok?"

"I just don't know anyone like that," he replied sweetly, a bit baffled.

"Maybe in our new home, we'll have neighbors like that," I suggested, "Let's pray for them."

"Yah, ok," came the final words before his eyes closed for the night.

May my last thought before sleeping and my first thoughts upon waking be about my Father and his great love for his lost creation.

Amen.