In Good Company

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This and That...

It has been a busy time. Too busy to do much blogging.

We had a nice gathering at the Presbyterian Campus House listening to coming out stories. This followed the vigil at ETSU on Tuesday. You can read about it in the East Tennessean.

Every Oct. 11, LGBT people and straight allies worldwide gather to celebrate openness and promote acceptance. And as of Oct. 4, ETSU joined the list of organizations to formally recognize this day.

"It helps people all around the globe know that they're not alone," said Keith Frederick, president of Johnson City's Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) group. "A lot of times when you're gay, lesbian or transgender, you can be so isolated and feel that you're the only one. So an event like today really helps people feel connected."

To mark the day, the LGBTies and ETSU's Office of Multicultural Awareness co-sponsored a candlelight vigil outside the Culp Center Tuesday night. Unfriendly weather failed to discourage about 50 participants, who shielded their candles from the wind and the rain as they listened to poetry, personal testimonies and messages of encouragement.

"We gather because we have hope," said Dalton Collins, president of the Student Government Association (SGA). "Hateful words and actions can cut to the heart of our existence. I believe every person deserves to be safe in their environment. Whatever way you choose to express yourself, know that that's OK. You deserve to be happy."

The event was also sponsored in part by the Presbyterian Campus Ministry. The Rev. John Shuck, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethton, Tenn., expressed his church's acceptance as well as his own personal support for the LGBT community.

"It's part of our theology to welcome all people and to seek equality and to seek understanding," Shuck said. "One of my roles is to help the church stop hurting people. We think that Jesus would have welcomed everybody."

According to the Study of Attitudes about Sexual Orientation, which is currently in progress in the Department of Psychology, about 18 percent of participating ETSU students identify as a sexual minority.

These students are represented on campus by the LGBTies and in the broader Tri-Cities area by PFLAG, Northeast Tennessee Pride and the Tennessee Equality Project.

Even so, gay people still have many obstacles to face. LGBT students are at a much higher risk for verbal and physical harassment as well as self-harm and suicide. Add to this the fear of rejection by family members or loss of employment due to sexual orientation, and it's not hard to understand why coming out is such a big decision.

"I walked outside to my car one morning to find the words "faggot" and "c***sucker" spray-painted on my car," said Tyler Slater, an openly gay student. "It was also saying that I deserve to die of AIDS and burn in hell."

Slater was harassed to the point that he had to move out of the ETSU dormitories permanently to escape the torment. Other students have experienced a similar climate of fear.

"I've had the occasional yell-out just because I walk with a friend of mine — not even a gay friend," said Austin Keenan, another student who identifies as gay. "I know someone that was on this campus that got fired from his job because his manager found out. It's in rare amounts, but that doesn't stop it from existing."

Even so, things are getting better all the time. National Coming Out Day is now recognized by the SGA. While things may never be perfect for LGBT students at ETSU, at least now they can gather outside the Culp Center every Oct. 11 to light one another's candles and remember that they are not alone.

Tomorrow is a big day around our mountain.

There is the conference, Seeking the Mother: The Mystic Female Divine in the Spiritual Traditions at Carnegie Library on the VA campus in Johnson City. My predecessor, Rev. John Martin will speak as well as Rebecca Nunley, who among many other wonderful things is clerk of session for our congregation.

I'll be there in the morning.

But that means I am going to miss the start of Occupy Johnson City. Check the news (and get a load of the crazy comments about it) in the Johnson City Press plus the watch the newscast on Tricities.com.

It starts at ten a.m.

Check out this opinion piece by Paul Krugman. The plutocrats are foaming at the mouth.

I'll have to stop by after the conference. But I can't stay long as I have a holy union service to conduct in the afternoon.

My day is planned. How is yours?


Oh, and we are just a week away from our Jesus Seminar on the Road. Do check it out. If you are full-time student with ID, you get in free. Just let us know by e-mail or by calling 423-543-7737.


It is important to know that the Jesus Seminar is not just for religious people. This is about scholarly research into the historical Jesus to discover who he was before superstition got a hold on him. Secular people will be interested in this figure as well.

What does the rediscovery of the historical Jesus mean for the heirs of the Christian tradition? Does this Jesus have any relevance for contemporary culture and for people who claim no allegiance to Christianity? The presenters offer their insights and engage participants in a discussion about the relation of the historical Jesus to these questions.

Register on-line or call 877-523-3545 or just pay at the door.

Coming Out Day at ETSU!

Tuesday, October 11th is Coming Out Day and there will be a vigil at ETSU at 7 p.m. at the Amphitheatre. Following the vigil, interested people are invited to the Presbyterian Campus House (1412 College Heights Road) to share coming out stories. Refreshments will be served.

Here is an article in the East Tennessean.

Every year, closeted LGBT individuals all across the country face a dilemma. Do I come out and risk losing my friends, my job, even my family? Or do I stay in and continue to live in a way that I do not want to live?

On Tuesday, Oct. 11, ETSU will host its first official celebration of National Coming Out Day to show solidarity and raise awareness for people who struggle to share their sexuality.

On Oct. 4, the SGA voted on emergency legislation to formally recognize the day as a university event. National Coming Out Day is being sponsored by the LGBTies and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

"The purpose of National Coming Out Day is to help LGBT people who haven't come out realize that things can get better, and that there is someone who knows what they are going through and how they feel," said Kayla Peterson, a co-president of LGBTies.

A candlelight vigil will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Amphitheatre. Speakers, music, and poetry will also be featured at the ceremony. Following the vigil, students are encouraged to go to the Presbyterian House on campus to relax and talk about their experiences.

On Monday, Oct. 10, LGBTies will sponsor a meeting in Rogers-Stout 325, where students will have the opportunity to discuss the issues openly and share their coming out stories.

"All most LGBT people want to hear is: it's okay, I still love you and accept you for who you are," Peterson said. "Don't judge. Support your LGBT friends and promote acceptance."

Here is the Facebook invite.

It is nice that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has come out and ordained the first openly gay man to the ministry since changing its constitution this summer. The national news has picked up the story over the last couple of days.

• Re-ordination caps long journey
• US Presbyterian church ordains first gay minister
• Presbyterians ordain first gay minister
• First openly gay pastor ordained in the PCUSA speaks
  

Yes, it is a good day to come out.

Noah's Legacy--A Sermon

Noah’s Legacy
John Shuck

(Part of the Fall Sermon Series on the Myths of Genesis)

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

October 9, 2011

Genesis 9:18-29

The sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was peopled.

Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said,

‘Cursed be Canaan;
lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.’
He also said,
‘Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem;
and let Canaan be his slave.
May God make space for Japheth,
and let him live in the tents of Shem;
and let Canaan be his slave.’

After the flood Noah lived for three hundred and fifty years. All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.

And thus ends a nice story to tell the children at bedtime.

“It is with justice, we believe, that the condition of slavery is the result of sin. And this is why we do not find the word ‘slave’ in any part of Scripture until righteous Noah branded the sin of his son with this name. It is a name, therefore, introduced by sin and not by nature.” [Jack Rogers, Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality, p. 19]

That was Augustine in his book The City of God.

Robert Lewis Dabney, a Presbyterian minister from 1865 to 1892 wrote:

“In Genesis ix. 25-27, Ham the son of Noah, is guilty of an unfilial crime. His posterity are condemned with him and share the penalty to this day.” [Rogers, 24]

Dabney believed that people of African descent were a degraded race and should not be intermingled with the pure white race. He believed that Ham’s “sin” was somehow sexual in nature, “the indecent and unnatural sin of Ham” was the reason for the enslavement of his offspring.

Up through the 19th century (and in many circles still today) folks read the history of the Bible as the history of the world. As the descendants of the three sons of Noah populated the earth, the descendants of Ham were believed to be the dark-skinned people.

The Bible mixed with pseudo-science allowed Dabney to write:

“But while we believe that ‘God made of one blood all nations of men to dwell under the whole heavens.’ We know that the African has become, according to a well-known law of natural history, by the manifold influences of the ages, a different, fixed species of the race, separated from the white man by traits, bodily , mental and moral almost as rigid and permanent as those of genus.” [Rogers, 22-23]

Lest we think these are the rantings of a marginalized fool, know that Dabney was a Presbyterian clergyman and professor at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. He was one of the most educated and respected men of his time.

I remember when in seminary, I decided to write a paper on this passage about Noah’s curse. I found in the basement of the library at Princeton, book after book of sermons before the Civil War and shortly after in which Noah’s curse was used to defend slavery and later to deny ordination to the ministry of African Americans.

Abolitionists had an uphill battle. The Bible was against them. James Henley Thornwell, a theologian at Columbia Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian seminary near Atlanta, argued that the Scriptures clearly did not condemn slavery. He wrote:

“Slavery is no new thing….It has not only existed for ages in the world, but it has existed, under every dispensation of the covenant of grace, in the Church of God.” [Rogers, 21]

I use this example when I get invited to speak to classes at ETSU. I get invited because I am a minister and I am on the board of PFLAG. I speak to classes in the social work department or human services and where ever I am invited. The Bible is usually mentioned. I get asked something along these lines:

“Doesn’t the Bible clearly condemn homosexuality?”

I say that the Bible says a lot of things about many different topics and often many different things about the same topic. I tell the class about Noah’s curse and how this text was used to support slavery and after the War Between the States to deny rights and equality to African Americans and to justify racial superiority and segregation.

I say that no one today argues that we need to bring back slavery. Yet it was so clear that that was what the Bible said just a few generations ago. The texts of the Bible haven’t changed, but how we read them has changed. From the time of Augustine through the 19th century, slavery was seen as a part of God’s plan. Slavery was the result of sin, to be sure, but sin on the part of the ancestors of the enslaved not the sin of the slave masters.

While those who want to use the Bible to fortify their own prejudices and deny equality to LGBT people may have a loud and popular voice, it is a voice that is becoming increasingly shrill and hysterical. We are learning to read old texts with new eyes.

Just because someone quotes the Bible, it doesn’t mean they own it. It certainly doesn’t mean they know the “clear meaning” of the text. I suggest that the Bible does not belong to religious people or to believers or to the church. The Bible is a product of Western Culture and secular people have as much right to it as anyone.

I advocate taking the Bible off of its holy pedestal. Call it no longer “Word of God”. Remove it from its shrine on the coffee table or the brass stand. Then do something radical. Read it. Read it with understanding. Read it critically. Read it aware of the influence it has had over our culture over the centuries, indeed, the world. Read it with rage at the injustices done in its name. Read it with admiration at the genius, compassion and courage it has inspired. It is a mixed legacy.

Biblical scholar and peace activist, Walter Wink, made the best quote I have read yet about the Bible. He understands the reality that the Bible is a mixed bag. He wrote:

"I listen intently to the Book. But I do not acquiesce in it. I rail at it. I make accusations. I censure it for endorsing patriarchalism, violence, anti-Judaism, homophobia, and slavery. It rails back at me, accusing me of greed, presumption, narcissism, and cowardice. We wrestle. We roll on the ground, neither of us capitulating, until it wounds my thigh with “new-ancient” words. And the Holy Spirit is right there the whole time, strengthening us both."

The Bible is the centerpiece of Western Culture. What you don’t know can and will be used against you. The Bible has been and continues to be a powerful tool, even a weapon. It is a good idea to know how to defend against those who do use it against you. It is also good to know it for what it says about those of us (and if you speak English that is all of us) who are products of its stories.

We have been shaped by the Bible just by living. When we become conscious of the impact these myths and stories have on us, we can make choices about whether or not we want to continue living them. We can make choices about how we want to interpret them rather than hand their interpretation over to the Pat Robertsons and the Creationists and the homophobians and the Tea Partiers. The Book is too powerful and too important simply to give it away.

I am going to say a little about Noah and his myth, but I want to say a couple of things about the Bible first. Last week I said that we can think of God in three ways,

• First, as a symbol for our personal sacred experience, the God to whom we may pray, for instance.
  
• Second, as theory or theology. This is the God we try to explain.
• Third, as a character in a sacred text. This is the God we find in the Bible or the Qur'an.
  

This may sound radical, but it isn’t. This third God is created. As Shakespeare created Hamlet, as the author of Epic of Gilgamesh created Ishtar and Anu, so the biblical authors created Elohim and Adonai. This is the interesting question, I think.

What kind of people create Elohim and Adonai?

The Bible is a human book. What else could it be? So is the Qur’an. So is the Book of Mormon. So is the Bhagavad Gita and the Dhammapada and any other book you can name. None of them, probably, are of supernatural origin.

That view, I think, values humanity highly. We often hear or have said ourselves, “Well, I am only human” or we repeat the famous phrase, “To err is human, to forgive, divine” or “little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is strong.” Or we notice something in ourselves or others and say, “That is so good, wonderful, amazing, that it couldn’t be human; it has to be God.” I say wait a second. Human beings created all of these stories, including the stories of the gods and of God.

19th century philosopher, Ludwig Feurbach, knew this. He said we project all of our virtues onto a supernatural being. Goodness, mercy, compassion, justice—we give it away. We project these virtues onto a big screen. OK. But don’t leave them there. Take them back, Feurbach said. They are yours. You are compassionate, just, and good.

Jesus tried to give it back. He said to those who had ears to listen,

“You are the light of the world….You are the salt of the earth.”

What did we do? We couldn’t handle the responsibility and we made a god out of him. We said in effect,

“We would rather call you good and worship you than take the responsibility to be good ourselves.”

We create God in our image then we forgot we did so, and imagined that God created us in his image.

It is also true that we project qualities that might not be so virtuous onto God. I am getting closer to the Noah story. Elohim and Adonai are both revealed in that story. That is because in the Noah story, the two names for God, Elohim and Adonai, come from two traditions that are blended. Blended is not quite the right world. Spliced is better. An editor took two or perhaps even more traditions and spliced them together.

We can see the seams when we read the Noah story. For example how many animals did Noah take aboard? Two of each kind, right? Well, that is according to one tradition. Another tradition has him take seven pairs of the “clean” animals and seven pairs of the birds.

The Noah story lives in our imagination. In this imagination is a rainbow and a dove with an olive branch, and gentle old Noah and his floating zoo. There is a children’s song about Noah putting the animals twosy twosy in the arky arky.

But underneath is a terrifying story. I was aware of this even as a child. It is a story of destruction and of death. It is a story of judgment and rage.

“I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” [Genesis 6:7]

This is the raging father, knocking dishes off the table, throwing things around the house. This is the dictator who wants a pure race and the religious zealot who wishes to destroy the infidels or create a pure church and clean out its leaven.

Human beings created this violent Adonai and Elohim—this creator who is also destroyer. He is the product of the apocalyptic imagination. He is the wrath within projected out. We may be familiar with this wrath. We may know that feeling when things don’t go our way that those evil others are the fault. Destroy them. Get rid of them and it will be better. We are going to defeat terrorism and destroy evil.

If you destroy everything you don’t have a story, so Noah is selected to carry on.

This story, of course, is older than the Bible. The oldest written story is the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is a great story. I recommend the translation by Stephen Mitchell. It is filled with sex and violence and fun.

Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, in, yes Iraq, searches for immortality. At the end of the story he finally runs into Utnapishtim who is the only mortal to achieve immortality. The god Ea grants it to Utnapishtim, because he outsmarts the gods and saves creation. When the great gods want to destroy humanity with a flood, Utnapishtim gets wind of the plan by another god, Ea.

Ea tells Utnapishtim to build a boat. He does and he gathers his family and the animals and he survives. It rains and floods. Finally, after the rain stops, he sends out a raven and a dove to find signs of dry land. When he lands he burns a sacrifice and the gods smell the odor of it.

Gilgamesh never does achieve immortality. At one point, Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that there is a plant under water that will be the source of eternal youth. Gilgamesh fetches it, but on his return home he leaves it on the shore when he swims in the lake and a snake eats it and it sheds its skin. Thus the snake stole immortality from Gilgamesh.

Many of the images and accounts in Gilgamesh were borrowed by the storytellers who created the myths of Genesis. One of the best cures for biblical literalism is to read Gilgamesh and see that the stories in the Bible are not original, but borrowed from earlier traditions and then shaped over time.

Unlike his counterpart Utnapishtim, Noah does not gain immortality. Noah makes a sacrifice and Adonai enjoys the pleasing odor. Adonai says,

“I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.” [Genesis 8:21]

The he puts the rainbow in the sky to remind himself not to wipe out humanity.

So, why did God do it in the first place? What did it solve? The people are evil before and evil after. God in this story reflects our own reality. We go to war to destroy evil and find out that all we ended up doing was destroying.

After that, Noah needs a drink. He learns the art of cultivating vineyards and he makes wine. Now we know the rest of the story. It is possible that this story, especially the cursing of Canaan, was a justification for the forced labor of the indigenous people, the Canaanites, who Solomon conscripted. The story may have been edited to for that purpose.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, this story was used to justify slavery of African Americans in this country. It has had a gruesome legacy. There is hardly anything redeemable in it.

Noah curses his son (or his grandson) because he felt his honor was tarnished. This is kind of like certain interpretations of the Christian god whose honor is tarnished by human sin and so needs to kill everyone. Instead he curses and kills his son, Jesus, as a scapegoat. That is the legacy of patriarchy. At all costs, preserve the honor of the father. In the words of George Bush, Jr., “Saddam tried to kill my dad.” We are still there.

Way back in seminary when I worked on this story of Noah, I heard of another interpretation. It was from a woman who had an alcoholic father who would go into rages. She found in Ham and in Canaan, her own story. Everyone in the family had a role in dealing with the father’s alcoholism.

In the biblical story, Shem and Japheth covered their father. This was a symbol for covering over the problem, keeping the family secrets, preserving Daddy’s honor and ultimately enabling him in his alcoholism. In this reading, Ham is the whistleblower, the one who told the truth. He was the one who said, “Dad is naked and drunk. We ought to deal with this.” For his truth-telling, he received the father’s curse. He was the bad kid. And so it is in many dysfunctional families. So is the legacy of patriarchy.

Preaching on bad texts is a challenge. I want to inspire and give you something to take home. A cursing hungover Noah who starts slavery is hardly that. My point today isn’t about Noah as much as how we approach and read the Bible. I find it liberating to read the Bible free of the constraint of dogma. Letting the Bible be a human book, a collection of stories told by a particular people, a book that contains both warts and wisdom, allows us freedom to enter into these stories in ways we couldn’t when told how we were supposed to read them.

When we allow it to be a human book we may find that we connect with it more than when it is the church’s book of holy writ. When we remove its halo we may find that it has less power to do damage and can instead be a resource we can use to discover our humanity.

Amen.

Mazen Alsaqa Concludes Visit in Holston Presbytery

Dr. Mazen Alsaqa, a refugee from Iraq, and a speaker for the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program gave his final presentations Wednesday at Emmanuel Christian Seminary, Tusculum College and First Presbyterian Church in Greeneville.

This post is a wrap-up of his week with information on how interested individuals can learn more and contribute to peacemaking in Iraq.

Thanks to Madison Mathews for this article in the Johnson City Press, Visiting Peacemaker Says Faith Still Practiced Despite Obstacles and to Eugenia Estes for this article in Tusculum College's paper, Iraqi Refugee Speaks About Christian Persecution In His Native Country.

Wrap-Up

Friday Sept. 30: Mazen met with five members and their spouses of the Ethical Issues and Human Needs Committee for supper at Babylon, a restaurant in Johnson City that is owned and operated by Iraqi Christians.

Saturday Oct. 1: I took him Roan Mountain to visit the snow.



Sunday, October 2: Mazen spoke to the Sunday School and preached at Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Dandridge. In the evening he made a presentation at Cold Spring Presbyterian Church in Bristol.

Monday, October 3: Mazen spoke to students at King College in the morning...



...and at First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethton Monday evening.



Tuesday, October 4: I interviewed Mazen on my new radio program on WETS and WEHC. That program will be aired in November. I'll let you know when. Mazen presented at the Presbyterian Campus House at ETSU in the evening.

Wednesday, October 5: Mazen presented at chapel at Emmanuel Christian Seminary in the morning...



...at Tusculum College at noon...



and at First Presbyterian Greeneville in the evening where he was joined by the youth of Timber Ridge Presbyterian.

More Information

For pictures go to my Facebook album, Mazen Alsaqa, and please tag yourself or others you know. If you have pics please get them to me electronically and I will add them to the album.

Snad and Mr. Dewey produced a DVD of his presentation in Elizabethton. Contact Snad for details on how to get one.

Emmanuel also recorded a DVD of his presentation. Contact Heather Holland for details on how to get one.

For more information regarding the situation of Christians in Iraq go to the General Assembly Mission Council Iraq Webpage.

While there, you can make a donation to the Iraq Partnership Network.

You can also give to The Peace Fund for Solidarity with the Iraqi Churches.

Here is the link for the International Peacemaking Program.

You can also contact Dr. Mazen Alsaqa directly if you have questions or wish to learn more. E-mail him here.

Here are some background articles:

Visiting Peacemaker Says Faith Still Practiced Despite Obstacles
Iraqi Refugee Speaks About Christian Persecution In His Native Country.
Al Qaeda Turns to the Church

Iraqi refugees move to Michigan despite economy

Iraq native on mission for Presbyterian Peacemaking Program

Michigan remains a magnet for Iraqi refugees

Final Thoughts

I am honored to have been able to spend time with Mazen, to learn his story, and through him to be connected with followers of the non-violent peacemaking Jesus in Iraq.

This is a good way to end my term on Ethical Issues and Human Needs Committee. In the last three years we were able to bring in addition to Mazen, Augustin Mukendi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2010), and Vinita Eusebius of India (2009) to Holston Presbytery.

I learned that in the 90s we hosted Shehadeh Shehadeh (Israel/Palestine) in 1992, Zeni Soares (Brazil) in 1993, Elier Ceballos (Cuba) in 1994, Tamara Zgonjanin in 1996 (Bosnia), and Maen Bitar (Syria)1998.

I hope we can continue this tradition of hosting International Peacemakers in the future.

I will close with a photo that captures the spirit of the week. Mazen seemed especially energized to address students at Emmanuel Christian Seminary who are preparing for ministry and/or the mission field. After his presentation they gathered around Mazen and prayed for him, for the people of Iraq, and for all of us that we might walk in the way of peace.

The Jesus Seminar Renewed My Faith

We posted the October White Spire on the church's web page a few days ago. You can read it on-line.

I devoted my page to our upcoming Jesus Seminar on the Road.

You can register on-line or by calling 877-523-3545.

As part of our "evangelical" outreach, we are encouraging church members to invite friends and to invite high school, college, and seminary students. To sweeten that deal, students with ID get free admission.

We think religious literacy is critical in our time and we want students to be introduced to higher criticism of the Bible and the tradition. Students who wish to take advantage of this deal need to RSVP by email or by calling the church office at 423-543-7737. Go here for more information.

That is why I wrote this piece for the White Spire. The quest for the historical Jesus is more than intellectual curiosity. For me, it is a matter of faith, of integrity, of living a life that matters.

Dear Friends,
I am excited to welcome Robert Miller and Jarmo Tarkki of the Jesus Seminar to Elizabethton, October 21st and 22nd. This is the fourth Jesus Seminar on the Road that we have hosted and I am hoping that you will attend and bring a friend.

Our congregation is a beacon of religious literacy and the Jesus Seminar is a primary resource for an educated and literate faith. This year our scholars will be presenting on the historical Jesus. The title of the program is “Jesus in the First & Twenty-first Centuries”. From the brochure:

“The gospels portray Jesus as the Messiah and divine savior. Within the gospels, however, we can glimpse another Jesus, the Jewish teacher and healer with a radical vision of the kingdom of God. The search for the historical Jesus examines the gospels in order to discover who Jesus was before he became the object of Christian belief.”

The search separates the myth from the man. But it doesn’t end there. After we attempt to construct an historical Jesus from the 1st century, we might ask what this has to do with the present. Who is Jesus for the 21st century? How might we incorporate the insights of scholarly research for a contemporary faith?

Much of contemporary Christianity is pitiable: anti-gay, anti-science, tribalistic, superstitious, and mean. Jesus has been hijacked by the powerful for manipulative and greedy purposes. We need a new Jesus.

Two books, Marcus Borg’s Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time and John Dominic Crossan’s Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography changed my faith. Not just my thinking…my faith. Default religion (Jesus died on the cross to save some people from sin so they--Christians--can go to heaven when they die even though most people will go to hell) lost its appeal for me long ago.

Borg and Crossan introduced me to a Jesus who was a real person. He embodied a vision of justice, peace, and hope that wasn’t based on supernaturalism. In opposition to the injustice and dehumanizing forces of Empire, this Jesus preached the “empire” of God that is real, present, and participatory.

I don’t talk or write about my faith too often. It is mine. It is personal. It is sacred to me. Making it public risks misrepresentation and belittlement. I also know that talking about personal faith can sound self-righteous and grandiose.

At the risk of all of that I will say that for me, my search for the historical Jesus has enabled me to find content for my faith. It is not simply an intellectual exercise. This vision, this icon, this myth (in the true sense of that word) of the historical Jesus is sacred.

Jesus stood up for those who were put down.
I trust, I have faith, that I can do that too.
That is the Jesus who is “in my heart.”
That is my faith.
I thank the Jesus Seminar for their part in restoring it.
Maybe the quest will inspire you as well.

Blessed Be,
John

Iraqi Peacemaker at Emmanuel Christian Seminary

Dr. Mazen Alsaqa, a refugee from Iraq, and a speaker for the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program spoke at chapel today at Emmanuel Christian Seminary in Johnson City.

He told those preparing for the ministry what the cost of following Christ means in Iraq. He showed images of church bombings, of mass executions by radicalized Al Qaeda insurgents, and of church leaders who have been kidnapped and executed, including his own father.

The people of Iraq--Sunni, Shia, and Christian--are not for violence. Extremists are causing this. The seminary students were moved by his presentation and gathered around him in prayer for peace, for courage, and for hope.

He is a true peacemaker.
Many do not know that there have been Christians in Iraq for two thousand years. The story is not that Christians are the target of violence, as if that is worse than if Muslims, Buddhists or atheists are targeted for violence.

But the fact that tens of thousands of Christians (out of 600,000 Iraqis) have been killed since the Iraq War might make Christians in the U.S. open their eyes and ask themselves some questions. We ought to be asking ourselves...

1. Why have violent extremists found a foothold in Iraq since 2003?
2. Can we really end violence with violence?
   
3. Do Americans care about the people of Iraq (Muslim and Christian) or do we care more about our myth of the people of Iraq?
   
4. Do Americans care more for geopolitics (American interests) or the people of Iraq?
5. As people of conscience, and speaking for myself as a Christian, how can we walk with integrity and with the people?
   

Christians might be called to go to the cross, but never are we called to put people on the cross.

Mazen will make his final presentation tonight at First Presbyterian in Greeneville at 6:15.

For those interested in partnering with the people of Iraq, visit the Iraq Partnership Network.

Sign Up, Sign Up for the Historical Jesus!

Folks have until Saturday, October 8th to get the discount for our Jesus Seminar on the Road, October 21-22. Thanks to the Johnson City Press for publishing the news about it last Saturday. Here is the story.

ELIZABETHTON — “Jesus In The First & Twenty-First Centuries” will be the theme for this year’s Jesus Seminar on Road on Oct. 21-22 at First Presbyterian Church, 119 W. F St.

Dr. Robert J. Miller and Dr. Jarmo Tarkki will present an evening lecture on Oct. 21 as well as morning and afternoon workshops on Oct 22.


Miller (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School) is professor of religious studies at Juniata College in Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Born Divine: The Births of Jesus and Other Sons of God” (2003) and “The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics” (1999).

Tarkki (Ph.D., University of Helsinki) is senior pastor at Bethania Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Solvang, Calif. He is adjunct professor of theology at California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, a teaching fellow in philosophical theology at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, and the author of numerous books and articles.

The schedule of events includes:

• The Search For The Historical Jesus, Oct. 21 from 7:30-9 p.m. The gospels portray Jesus as the Messiah and divine savior. Within the gospels, however, we can glimpse another Jesus, the Jewish teacher and healer with a radical vision of the kingdom of God. The search for the historical Jesus examines the gospels in order to discover who Jesus was before he became the object of Christian belief.

• The Jesus Of The First Century, Oct. 22, from 9:30 until noon: What do we know about the historical Jesus? This workshop will examine selected sayings of Jesus, showing why scholars consider them authentic and suggesting surprising ways they might have been understood. In the process, they will introduce participants to the methods of modern scholarship used to distinguish the words of the historical Jesus from those later attributed to him.

• The Jesus Of The Twenty-First Century, Oct. 22 from 1:30- 4 p.m. What does the rediscovery of the historical Jesus mean for the heirs of the Christian tradition? Does this Jesus have any relevance for contemporary culture and for people who claim no allegiance to Christianity? The presenters offer their insights and engage participants in a discussion about the relation of the historical Jesus to these questions.

Pre-registration cost until Oct. 8 is $60 for the lecture and workshops, and $75 after Oct. 8. Lecture and workshop reservations may be made separately as well. Register or get more information via www. westarinstitute.org or call 877-523-3545.

Information is available also at www.FPCelizabethton.org or by calling the church at 543-7737.

The Jesus Seminar is a program of the Westar Institute. It was first launched in 1985.

Because we believe religious literacy is so important, we especially want to reach out to high school, college, and seminary students. If you know of a student, please encourage them to come. To sweeten the deal, students with ID get in free. Students, if you can, please contact the church at 423-543-7737 if you would like to attend.

Everyone, please get out the word to your favorite campus.

Iraqi Refugee and Peacemaker at Campus House Tonight!

Here is a rare opportunity to hear about the situation in Iraq from someone from Iraq. Dr. Mazen Alsaqa is an International Peacemaker with the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.




He will speak tonight at 7 p.m. at the Presbyterian Campus House, 1412 College Heights Road in Johnson City.





He is one of 25,000 refugees currently living in the United States. He is speaking about the plight of Iraqis and in particular Iraqi Christians who are being targeted for violence by Al Qaeda.

Last night he spoke to about 30 people at First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethton.


On Monday, he conversed with around 70 students at King College in Bristol.


I interviewed him this morning on the new radio program I am hosting on 89.5 WETS (ETSU) and 90.7 WEHC (Emory and Henry). More details to come about this weekly half-hour program that will begin airing in November.


Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there were 1 million Christians living there. Now there 500,000. Half of the 500,000 have been displaced. Mazen's father, a Presbyterian church leader in Mosul (modern Nineveh) was kidnapped and killed. An attempt was made on Mazen's life. He received refugee status in the U.S.

Some facts:

• The attacks are by insurgents, mostly recruited by Al Qaeda.
  
• Al Qaeda did not have a presence in Iraq until after the invasion.
• 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion and occupation.
  

From the perspective of Iraqis and Iraqi Christians, the U.S. military presence has not helped. It has only increased violence. Christians who have supported the war effort should re-evaluate what they are supporting.

Here is more information including his venue for speaking engagements in Holston Presbytery.

Here are some articles of interest:

• Al Qaeda Turns to the Church
• Iraqi Refugees Move to Michigan Despite Economy
• Iraq Native on Mission for Presbyterian Peacemaking Program
• Michigan Remains Magnet for Iraqi Refugees

O Brother, Where Art Thou? -- A Sermon

O Brother, Where Art Thou?
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

October 2, 2011
World Communion Sunday

Genesis 4:1-16

Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.’ Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.’

Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.’ Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.’ And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

So, Adam and Eve are the first humans.They are sent away from the garden. They have children, Cain and Abel. So far we have four people. Cain kills his brother and is sent away. Now we have three people, Cain and his parents, Adam and Eve. Then we read in verse, 4:17:

“Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch.”

Who was Cain’s wife?

Who were those people living in Nod and elsewhere that Cain feared would kill him? Where did they come from? The fancy literary phrase for that is, “Oops, it’s a hole in the plot.”

A gaping hole. Few editors would let that pass today. There you have it, a literary problem right there in the Word o’ God.

Problems like this were noticed early by careful readers and answers were provided. Enter midrash, a form of storytelling that provided comment on the biblical text and filled in the holes. A famous form of midrash on this particular question is found in the Book of Jubilees. The Jubilees are Hebrew commentaries on the Torah. 15 scrolls were found at Qumran with the Dead Sea Scrolls collection. Scholars date them to 100 BCE or perhaps earlier.

Here is how Jubilees solves the problem of Cain’s wife. After Adam and Eve have Cain and Abel, we have the story of the murder, then the banishment of Cain, and stories of Cain’s descendants. Then Genesis tells us that Adam knew his wife and they had a third son, Seth. Jubilees tells us that in between the birth of Abel and Seth and before the murder of Abel by Cain,

"Eve gave birth to her daughter Awan."

Awan is not in Genesis or the Bible, but she is in Jubilees. You know what’s coming.

Jubilees tells us that

"Cain took his sister, Awan, and she bare him Enoch."

Keeping it in the family. It still doesn’t answer who those people were who wanted to kill Cain.

There is another hole. The legacy of Cain is civilization: cities, agriculture, tools, and music. From Seth’s line you finally get to Noah. Then everyone gets wiped out. So does all of that civilization get lost? Yet from the point of view of the account of Cain’s descendants, all of this isn’t lost. We read in 4:20-21:

“Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools.”

The point of the story is that when you look around and see people using bronze tools and playing pipes and lyres that this is from whence they come. Cain. The plot hole is that they all are destroyed in the flood. The editors were stringing together re-tellings of ancient myths that they had inherited. We have a collection of “how it all came to be stories” linked together with less than careful editing.

These stories provide insight into the tellers’ understanding of what it means to be human, why we kill, why we feel loss, but the narrative string is nonsensical. It is like listening to opera--beautiful music with silly plots. The wise reader allows liberties with these tellers of tales. Before I get to Cain and Abel, I want to say something about God. God functions in at least three ways.

The first way is that God is a literary character. God speaks and God acts all within the context of a story. God’s character develops. A great book I recommend is by Jack Miles, God: A Biography. Miles’ book shows how the character, God, develops and changes through the course of reading the Hebrew Scriptures. This is the same for Jesus when we get to the Gospels. Jesus is a literary character.

In the story of Cain and Abel, God is a character in the story. He speaks to Cain, gives him warnings, asks him questions, puts a mark on him, and sends him away. By the time we get to the Joseph saga in the last part of Genesis, God is offstage, working perhaps behind the scenes through hints in dreams. God is someone the characters talk about, but he doesn’t appear directly in the story. The first way that God functions is as a literary character in a text.

The second way we speak about God is through theological and philosophical discussion. Theologians have written systematic theologies explaining the attributes of God. While this God might be based upon the God of literary text and story, the theologian’s God is not the same. The theologian’s God may be embarrassed by the God of text and story. This second way of thinking about God involves intellectual explanation of how people might conceive of God today.

The third way we speak about God is as a symbol or name for the experience of the sacred. This is the God to whom we might pray or experience in our lives. This is the God of personal faith.

The God we find in hymns and liturgy is a bridge between these three ways of speaking of God, God as character in text, God as subject in theological reflection, God as personal experience of the sacred. When we use God language we sometimes find ourselves speaking to each other unsure of which of the three ways we are speaking. Are we talking about my personal experience of the sacred, or theological theory, or the character God in the Bible?

For the sake of these sermons on the myths of Genesis, I am going to speak about God as a character in the text. I am not talking about the God of the philosophers or theologians or the God of your personal experience, just the God of the text. The hymns and liturgy might speak to these other aspects of God. But I am going to try to stick to the character "God" in the story.

That said, I am also concerned with why the authors of these stories conceived of God and created the literary character, God, in this way. Some of this will be a critique. This is the God of Western culture and of patriarchal myth. This God invites and deserves criticism. This God is not the only way to be human or to conceive of ultimate truths or ethics. These myths of patriarchy are dominant stories in our culture and they have pushed out other stories.

They are, nonetheless, our stories. We should know them. We ought to be consciously familiar with them, not just blindly to acquiesce to them, but to gain insights as to why those of us who are products of western culture and patriarchy do what we do. I find myself haunted by these stories and by the God of these stories.

This is the God of competition, of favoritism, of free choice that isn’t really free. This is the God of obedience and punishment. If you haven’t heard many preachers speak like this, it is because this is a God who does not tolerate heresy, questioning, or critique. Yet, on the other hand, this is a God who admires the wrestler and will grudgingly bless after wounding. This is a male God created by males.

Pat Willard is doing a great study on the women of Genesis. It isn’t a long study. There aren’t many women:

Eve,
Sarah,
Sarah’s slave, Hagar,
Rebekah,
Rebekah’s slave, Deborah,
Rachel,
Leah,
and their slaves, Zilpah and Bilhah,
Dinah,
Tamar the prostitute,
Potiphar’s wife who tries to seduce Joseph,
and Joseph’s wife, Asenath.

Cain’s wife, Awan, does not get a mention. You have to go to Jubilees for her.

Feminists, such as Phyllis Trible and her book Texts of Terror, have done important work in criticizing these myths and the absolute claims these myths attempt to hold over everyone, women and men alike. But it isn’t all criticism for me. I am not sure I equate patriarchy with evil. I don’t know if it is all of one cloth, that you take it or leave it, let go of this God altogether or embrace him wholeheartedly. Before we issue judgment, let’s enter the story.

"Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have created a man with the help of the Lord.”

Cain is the firstborn. He does not come from his father’s rib, but from the womb of the feminine, the creative force of life.

"Next she bore Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground."

Two sons. Two brothers. The first family. We hear nothing of their childhood. We hear nothing except what they do for a living. That is how they are identified and that is how men will be identified through the patriarchal myths. Who are you? When men talk to each other, it doesn’t take long until the conversation leads to the question,

“What kind of work do you do?”

That is your value. That is how the God of patriarchy values you, or devalues you. Women are bearers of children and men are tillers and shepherds.

“What do you do for a living?” we ask, checking out the competition.

There is competition in these ways of earning a living. We compete for resources. Don’t tell me our wars are about freedom or democracy. They are about stuff. They always have been. We see this creatively pointed out in Rudyard Kipling’s poem that we heard earlier in the service. Yet the competition for stuff, for resources, money, and power may also be a competition for something more, something deeper. It is competition for honor and for value.

If the myth is true that when the eyes of Eve and Adam were opened they saw that they were naked, they were seeing their shame. This is the shame of not measuring up, of not being valued, of not being OK. Are we born with this shame? Do we spend our lives in an attempt to cover it with success, with love, with what? Adam and Eve attempt to cover their shame with their creativity. They sew fig leaves. God clothes them with animal skins. God provides the cover for our shame, says the myth.

Cain, the tiller of the soil, knows where he must go to cover his shame, to be valued, to be honored. Cain wants to please this God.

In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground,

Cain is the first to bring an offering to God. Why? Perhaps he wants to honored and valued. He wants to be OK.

Do you love me now?!

Abel sees what older brother is doing and he catches on quickly.

…and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

There is a new book out that was featured this past week in Time Magazine. The author is Jeffrey Kluger. His book is The Sibling Effect. The thesis of the book is that, yes, parents do have favorites, even though they don’t admit it. This favoritism does have effects on siblings.

I remember hearing the story of Cain and Abel in Sunday school. I remember thinking this was terribly unfair of God. I remember telling my mother about it. The rule in Sunday school is that you always have to defend God no matter what God, the character, does. God slaughters the Amalekites. They deserved it. They were bad. She brushed my concern away by trying to tell me that Abel’s offering was better. Cain should have been a shepherd like his brother.

I always wish I could fix things like my brother. My brother can fix anything and he always knows the right gift to give. He makes my parents happy. I don’t fix things. I preach sermons.

What is it you do for a living again?

Cain should have been a shepherd like his brother. If he couldn’t be, he should suck it up knowing that he’ll always be second best.

So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

We know that look, don’t we? I see it on the faces of angry mobs. I see it the strut of the guy who wore his guns when President Obama came to speak. I see it drivers on the freeway. This anger is just under the surface.

The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

Cain could not. Can any of us? If we admit it, we know Cain. But we don’t admit it. We put on the mask of niceness. We pretend that we would not give in. We would not open that door and give ourselves over to what lurks there.

This is peacemaking Sunday. We all know about making peace and being nice.

But if we admit it, we know the taste of revenge. It is sweet before it goes sour.

It isn’t just that life is unfair. In a world of chance, that happens. I can live with that. The myth of patriarchy says that God makes it so. God chooses Abel over Cain, not fate, not chance, God. That is harder to take.

We know the rest of the story. Cain kills his brother. The Lord returns and asks Cain where his brother has gone.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Great question. The answer is yes. It has to be yes, no matter what. Regardless of favoritism, regardless of a fickle and unfair God, you must master your rage. The line has to be drawn somewhere. If we have any hope for peace in this world, we have to say yes to that.

God sends Cain away but puts a mark on him, a mark of protection. Cain will not find honor from God, so he creates. The legacy of Cain is civilization.

Cain knew is his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city.

That is what patriarchy does with its rage. It builds civilization. All these great buildings and great fortunes were built and made by people who didn’t feel loved. Find the successful man or woman and underneath you uncover someone who is still trying to please mom and dad, or God. From Cain’s rage comes agriculture, civilization, bronze and iron tools, and music.

I wonder as we celebrate peacemaking Sunday, what we might learn from Cain. He couldn’t squelch his rage. He didn’t know how to master it, to hold it down, to put a lid on it. But if the stories of his descendants shed any insight, he could create with it.

Maybe peacemaking is not about being nice or pretending that we don’t have the rage of Cain within us or that if we do, we can silence it. Maybe peacemaking is admitting the rage within and using its energy to build something new.

Amen.