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Incredulous, even as my fingers strike keys, that these are words anyone would ever need to write. Seems outlandish that one Jesus follower would be prompted to say to another, “judgment is not the way here brother,” “anger and fear will not produce fruit, dear sister.” Yet it becomes necessary as I read headlines of the fiasco in Warsaw, OH where after years of picket lines formed by bible quoting church folk outside the Foxhole Exotic Dance Club, the owner and employees of the Foxhole have finally decided to retaliate. This weekend, women in bikinis armed with signs that read, “Don’t judge us until you are living a perfect life” and “God loves all His children” walked topless at the edge of church property in an effort to fight back. And my head goes to my hands and my heart finds the floor. This isn’t the only news, of course, there are brutal murders and attacks on Christians in Iraq while the violence continues in Syria and the age old bloodshed marches on between Israel and Palestine. Citizens of St. Louis take to the streets to protest the murder of another dark skinned, unarmed teen . . . and believers in this church in Ohio decide the way to bring light and love and the hope of Jesus into our broken and bruised, war torn world is to carry cardboard signs outside of strip club; and I wonder does God drown in God’s own tears today. Today I write from my home, safely distant from the horrors that rage in most of the world, the gentle rain puddles outside my window and I ache inside for all that is torn and broken. I weep for children across the globe who have no idea if they will eat today or if bullets will spray across the tiny hovel they call home, for those awaiting persecution at the hands of militant terror regimes. And I plead, for all that is good and holy, with those who bear the mark of Christ, to cease from breathing contempt, lay down your words of hate, let go of the poison that is fear of other and instead, walk into love. As rain nurtures soil, so does love soothe and till and plant seeds of hope in the parched desert of soul. It is fear, not love that allows us to reduce those in our human family to rank and file of other, worse yet, “sinner bound for hell.” I wonder upon which passages we draw to find impetus for a broken, humble creature to serve as judge over another when surely the call of the holy writ is to love, and bear witness to the good news of Christ. In fact, the Greek μάρτυς means literally witness, out of which we derive the term martyr. Imagine for a moment, what would happen if followers of Jesus decided to live out the call to bear witness to the love of God as made manifest in Jesus rather than occupying their days and nights with the work of judgment which has, --‘er already been assigned. Today I hold hands around the world with frightened children and those imprisoned for their faith, I stand with those who cry for justice in St. Louis, with exotic dancers in Ohio and I breathe words of love and hope, and I pray for peace. I say to you what is true and eternal, God in Christ is with you and for you, you are loved and you are not alone. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid." John 14.27 To learn more about empowering women to walk out of fear and into love visit StrippedLove.org
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As promised....Fall 2015-2015 Course Booklists BIST 6210: Ehrman, Bart, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings., Ed. 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Reasoner, Mark. Imperial Roman Texts: A Source Book (New York: Fortress Press, 2013) CMIN 3050: Taylor, Barbara Brown, The Preaching Life (Lanham, MA: Cowley Publishers, 1993). Lischer, Richard, The Company of Preachers: Wisdom Preaching Augustine to Present (New York: Eerdmans, 2002). CMIN 2000: Kinnaman, David and Aly Hawkins. You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith (Grand Rapids:Baker Books, 2011). Stanley, Andy. Deep & Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012). In a word, yes! I have seen Jesus in a strip club, many times over. Jesus, the flesh and blood manifestation of the wisdom of God will be found where he said he’d be, bringing good news to the poor, sight to the blind, encouragement to the oppressed, freedom to the captives and proclaiming the Jubilee(Luke 4.16-19). Jesus resides wherever broken people are, where ever pain and loss and despair seek to stifle out all light and hope and love, that’s what Jesus does, that’s who Jesus has always been and will always be. The word ישוע the Hebrew form of the name Jesus means literally, deliverance, salvation, liberation. Inherent in the work of freedom is the leading people out of bondage. If you have ever worked with people in chains, literal, economic, social, political, psychological, physical or figurative, you know that they don’t walk away on their own, it takes someone, walking in, encountering them in their place of trouble, showing up over and over again, proving to be a safe person and ever so slowly helping those in chains believe again in the love of God so they can wake up to their dreams. This is slow, deliberate, Jesus work so that one day, these who are beloved of God can by Spirit power take your hand and walk out into the light. So yes, Jesus shows up in the strip clubs in my town often. Every other week my team and I walk in the door and our friend who is the house mom and bartender shouts, “Jesus is in the house!” We smile, rush over to hug her and greet all our other friends whom we call by name. These women have become a hymn to me, and the relationships forged in mutual sorrow amidst the brokenness of all our lives have become my song. I sit with them in the darkness, and they sit with me and we hold hands and tell each other the truth, share the pain and dissonance of our stories together before the next rotation on the stage. We laugh and we drink and we have conversations that are real and human, we admit what we cannot know and hold on to one another anyway. I bring them gifts and they shower me with love and we sit in the ash heap together, skin on skin, heart to heart and hope for a better tomorrow. You would think it is hard to talk about Jesus in a strip club, but it’s not, it’s actually the easiest place in the world. I have been forging friendships with women in sex trade for the past four years, and it turns out that Jesus can be found right where he said he’d be, in the “least of these” (Matt. 25.45). There is a prevailing notion and prejudicial image of women who take their clothes off for a living, we believe them to be seductresses and overly sexualized cat like figures using their feminine prowess to earn a buck but this couldn’t be further from what I have experienced as true. People in strip clubs are like people everywhere else, they are hurting. The difference is the women in the club are literally stripped bare so that they cannot hide their sin sick souls like we do, those of us huddled in the church in the suburbs, and it is in the stripping back of all pretense and pretty, the peeling away of what is not real or raw that I have come to know Jesus in the deep suffering and in the kindness of strippers and prostitutes. It is not only that Jesus is in me and I bring him into the dark, it is that Jesus is in these women, with them and for them, showing up in all the ways they love and welcome me; a busted up, self proclaimed church girl in search of what is Jesus, what is true. Would Jesus Hangout in a Strip Club? This is my response to a recent Christianity Today blog. Learn more about our ministry Stripped Love here Let me tell you about the day I had a meltdown at Costco over a rotisserie chicken. Most of us have been there, right? Managing so many things, trying to be what is needed for everyone in our lives, and we can make it all work so long as every aspect of the plan falls into line. But, inevitably, one little component, one minor cog in the wheel refuses to perform as it should and the entire machine malfunctions. It has been a long rough season on the road from Seattle to Boise to Oklahoma to Crete and I am deep bone wasted. In addition to fulltime ministry as professor of Bible I have also taken up the work of launching a new not for profit ministry in the last year. I have literally been, casting vision, sharing stories, spending time with the women to whom I minister and birthing a dream during every waking hour. The truth is, however, up under this, my life is shattered, broken into a thousand pieces and hollowed out by grief, but, it is more that I can deal with so I continue to push through, live on top of the heap, operate like a normal person—whatever that means. This is why I thought if I could just dash into Costco and get a rotisserie chicken that Sunday evening then I could feed my family for another day and all would be well. While I realize today, the phrase “dash into Costco” is obviously evidence of some sort of break with reality, on that day, it seemed to make perfect sense. I had fresh veggies at home and a rotisserie chicken would be the perfect no fuss compliment and cover me for supper so I could make it until Monday and do a full blown trip to the grocery, which I dreaded like being dragged behind a team of horses. I stood there, staring blankly at the empty shelves where golden chickens were supposed to be and I almost lost it then but I saw the blinking red light on the stove and dozens of chickens turning on the wheel ready to be packaged and one of them was going home with me. The lights blinked 5.00 so I scurried around, picked up a few more things, superfood salad, five pounds of strawberries only when I returned the lights were still blinking that empty promise of five minutes! My body flashed hot, I felt dizzy, I looked and grabbed the sample food lady in the paper shower hat and pleaded for her help. Courageously she went into the meat counter and spoke with some man in white and returned to tell me it would be five minutes more until the chickens were ready. Aaaah, but it had already been five minutes, I had been watching the clock read those numbers for ten minutes, my husband and niece were waiting in the car, I had to go…was there something she could do? Defeated I huffed sixteen miles to the front of the store, stood behind all the foolish shoppers who had seen Costco as the answer to their domestic dreams. I fumed as the lady in the red tee shirt asked questions while writing her check, when my clerk asked me if I found everything I needed, I let. Him. Have. It! And, what I said, which will not be repeated here, was neither Christian nor civil or sane. All of the sudden it was the Costco clerk’s fault that my life was falling apart and I could no longer manage all the broken pieces. As I crawled shamefully into the car waiting outside, nursing a verging panic attack, I knew I had come to the end and must find my way back to center. In that moment, I realized I was back where I had been years before, have picked up the chains again and am bound to a, life crammed full of all good things but absent of any margin, lacking any space to think, to pray, to dream or to deal with my pain. The truth is, when your life explodes, you do what you can to pack it all back where it went before, squeezing your hurts into shelves at the back of the closet that you promise yourself you will get to eventually. It just never seems the right time to unfold all of that, look at it and let it tear you up all over again, only that’s exactly what you have to do. I know that peace and rest are inseparable graces so I have intentionally taken two months off the road and declined any meetings except those that cannot be avoided. Today I am healing but it is slow, deliberate work sewn by the hand of a slow God who will not rush what is necessary and redemptive. I swim, I read, I laugh on a boat filled with my best girlfriends. My days are filled with the baptism of fresh salty tears over what is lost and the hard work of sorting through what life looks like without him. I am once again, finding rhythms of home and hearth, of laundry and sacred words, watering tomato plants at dusk and hoping some new good thing will be born under the warmth of the fireflies. If you find yourself having your own nervous breakdown in some deli in your town, I hope these words, my own confession, will find you where you are. Know that we are all in some way broken and in need of grace. My prayer is that you would know someone understands and that you would find your own way to Shabbat Shalom. On the occasion of Lylah Rose Watkins' Sweet Sixteenth! My beautiful and brilliant niece with hair the color of summer strawberries was five years old the first time I heard her recount the story of Lydia, “the lady with the purple cloths.” Blue eyes dancing, freckles sprinkled across her nose, she knew, she was aware that women were part of the story of God and she knew the story was her own. “Wise beyond her years , this one” we always said of her. I was thinking of my niece Lylah, dreaming of home while in a summer intensive on Wisdom Literature at the University of Notre Dame; it was then and there that I first began to see her take form. I caught a glimpse of her silhouette as I read through the apocryphal books, those early writings that informed the evangelists as they wrote the gospels, undergirded Paul as he shepherded the fledgling congregations, and inspired the early church for centuries until they were removed in 1790 at the formation of the Protestant Canon. Books of poetry and prose, ancient literature, windows into the world of theocentric faith prior to the revelation of Jesus, in many instances the missing pieces of the so called “four hundred years of silence” that literally thundered with Persians and Greeks and Romans. Wisdom protected the first-formed father of the world, when he alone had been created; she delivered him from his transgression, and gave him strength to rule all things. But when an unrighteous man departed from her in his anger, he perished because in rage he killed his brother. When the earth was flooded because of him, wisdom again saved it, steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood… There it was, staring back at me, the stories of the beginning, tales of the patriarchs but this time Wisdom saved, healed, rescued. Here Wisdom personified as in Proverbs, “she.” She gave to holy people the reward of their labors; she guided them along a marvelous way, and became a shelter to them by day, and a starry flame through the night. She brought them over the Red Sea, and led them through deep waters; but she drowned their enemies, and cast them up from the depths of the sea (Wisdom of Solomon10). The word for wisdom in both Hebrew hokmah and Greek sophia are feminine such that the ancients then wrote of the Wisdom of God as a female. This is the Wisdom that emanates from the mouth of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, the Wisdom that is Paul’s banner and proclamation in Corinthians, it is this Wisdom in John’s prologue that is God come to us in Jesus. As you trace the lines, follow the grace filled pathways to discover Lady Wisdom you will find God is not always nor completely “He” rather there is a long biblical tradition that stretches from Old Testament to New, wherein the Wisdom of God is female, you will begin to see our story written right into the text. Our little wisdom teacher turns 16 today and for all the gift she has been to us, I thank God for the gift of the Wisdom Lady standing tall and serene guiding us, reminding us we are God’s own. - See more at: http://www.kimberlymajeski.com/#sthash.IprduvTZ.dpuf Part three of four part series, adapted from "A Faithful Witness: Essays Honoring David Sebastian's Heart and Mind for the Church." God’s Story Once a connection has been established, the preacher can move to relating God’s story to the congregation. This is perhaps the sweet spot for those who have labored over texts and word studies, who have spent long years in seminary and ministry preparation, who have dug out the truth of the scriptures and the white spaces in between for the good of the church. It is tempting then, for an equipped and ordained preacher to unload all her knowledge in one sermon at one place in time and preachers who fall prey to this temptation quickly lose their connection to the people they have stood forward to encourage. The suggestion here is not that the study be negated or the methods of exegesis not applied, on the contrary, arduous study and the deep work of parsing ancient texts is a must, however, the preacher must distill this information, must evaluate what portions help illuminate the message, must decide which points help her tell God’s story to the church. Consider for a moment some of the miraculous, fantastic, life changing stories of Hebrew and Christian scripture. Recall God wedding God’s self to Abraham in Genesis 15, remember Lot’s daughters, seducing their own father after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19. 30-38), God moving in to kill Moses on the way down to Egypt because Moses’ son had not yet been circumcised (Ex. 4.24-26), Jesus’ revolutionary claim that he would be found in the least of these (Matthew 25. 31-46), Mary of Migdol’s history altering role as first herald of the resurrection (John 20. 1-18), Paul’s gratitude to Prisca and Aquilla for “risking their necks” for the his life (Romans 16. 3,4). The narratives of scripture are rich and potent and human such that our sermons should invite listeners into the struggle, allow them to get their hands dirty, to taste and smell the bread and wine, to hear the wind rustle in the silvery leaves of the olive tree and to feel the salt spray of the Mediterranean on their sun splotched cheeks. Likewise, preachers should draw from the deep well of inspired texts instead of moving instantly to draw spiritual platitudes in effort to domesticate ancient stories that are wild and free. When we relay the story of Jesus walking on the water, it seems ill informed to move to the application of Jesus’ ability to calm the stormy seas of life, rather, we should relay the power and supernatural wonder of the miraculous claim that Jesus—walked—on—the –water (Matt. 14.22,23). Read Parts I and II below. An Excerpt from my contribution to, "A Faithful Witness:Essays Honoring David Sebastian's Heart and Mind for the Church" In developing a sermon, perhaps we are helped here to discuss the process, the labyrinth from discovery to pronouncement in terms of a series of movements. Some years ago, Andy Stanley and Lane Jones authored a book called; Communicating for Change, and in it they outlined a helpful process for those learning the art of public speaking. In this text, Stanley suggests a pattern of, “Me-We-God-You-We” as the basic road map for effective communication.[1] For Stanley and Jones, the idea is that speakers would craft their material around the ideas above so that the calculated progression of the talk would build towards a climax through the notion of a natural flow of conversation. While Stanley and Jones offer a helpful guide, this essay will tweak the process and suggest some changes to reflect the particularity of sermon craft for the building up of the kingdom of God. Here the discovery of voice is fashioned around the art of story such that the sermon then is crafted from Spirit revelation in God’s story as well as in our own. Our Story The beginning of a sermon intended for the community of the baptized is always the collective human experience. Quite naturally, as we want to draw those assembled into our conversation, into the experience of the Gospel enacted, we begin by building connection. In Blue Like Jazz: Non-Religious Thoughts on Faith, Donald Miller reminds us that people only really listen to the folks they believe genuinely like them.[2] Miller’s point instructs us to remember that in our first moments of proclamation it is crucial that we connect, bond, forge relationship with the listener so that our teaching, our exposition, our truth will be received. To be sure, this is an important first step in the dynamic relationship of preacher and congregation established in the initial moments of the preaching act and it is here that many well intentioned preachers fail to relate to their hearers. This is where a pastor must know intimately her community, must understand the journey they are on together, must be aware of the struggles and losses and celebrations that together weave the story of those who have assembled. Here we reflect on the words of William Willimon who suggests pastors should understand worship as pastoral care. Willimon suggests that the question before each preacher is “How can I help my congregation do what they want to do (worship God) but may not remember how to do?”[3] This becomes more difficult, of course, if the preacher is visiting or is not known to the congregation. In this case, the preacher must be aware of universal needs, conversations that are national and local so that she might engage those who have come to worship. Whatever the context, some common thread must be found and spoken forth so that preacher and congregation hold hands and place trust in one another as together they move forward in the experience. In this task, we are instructed by the example of the Apostle Paul, who was, in every sense of the word, a relational leader. For Paul, it was critical to situate himself within the community so that he might speak to it. Paul was not only a student of Hebrew Scriptures but he was also well versed in the philosophies of Greek culture and Roman religious practices of the day. He was able to know and be known in the communities in which he preached such that after he departed he could write back to them and address specific community concerns. Though there are more examples than space will allow, consider his expert approach in Galatians where at once he is addressing the Celts of Galatia and the Judaizers from Antioch and knows so intimately the debates among them that he is able to thwart both at the same time. In chapter 3, he masterfully scolds the Galatians and discusses salvation in terms of circumcision which is the matter at issue while relating stories of Abraham and interpreting the circumcision act now a matter of heart (3.1-29). [1] Andy Stanley and Lane Jones, Communicating for Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2006), 46. [2] Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Non-Religious Thoughts on Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 222. [3] William Willimon, Worship as Pastoral Care (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), 18. It beats inside our hearts, a rhythm like the rush of a rolling river. The thrum and hum of words whirl and turn inside, attach themselves to images that are long held and known like the crevices of our own hand; the river is true and deep and wide. As children we sat at the feet of storytellers and saints and the ancient narratives caught our hearts, seeds planted and watered were nurtured to grow. We stood with Miriam in the reeds watching over the baby in the basket beside the shimmering cerulean Nile. We sat beneath the palm trees feet soaked in sun and sand and we heard the cries of our children, settled land disputes and listened for God’s call on the wind holding hands with Deborah, prophet and judge of Yahweh’s unfaithful bride. We knew a spiritual kindred, an eternal bond with Mary, this woman child who birthed forth the Word, we knew her, felt her heart, sensed her pain somewhere hidden and true. It is from this river that every preacher must draw, must reach down deep into that well of what she knows, into that current that is at the heart of her becoming to cradle the stories that have been her song to find her own voice, to know her own vessel unto the proclamation of good news. The pilgrimage of voice is a paramount process for every preacher. The labor of discovering one’s own unique timbre lives somewhere beyond the work of exegesis and the historical critical method, far out past manuscript variations, textual and syntactical issues, at the end of Hebrew translation and reception history. On the edge of study and before the birth of proclamation lies the sacred task of giving voice to biblical truth, to emanate words from one’s own story for the good of the community of faith assembled. Those who would prepare then, for the vocation of ministry, for the office of preacher, must do more than learn to mine the Christian texts and holy books. Those whose lives will be given as heralds of kerygma will also need to mine their own lives. Those who are called to the daunting task of preaching must not only be well versed in Biblical languages, Church history, and cultural relevancy, but must also find some confidence in their own unique voice so that the texts and the process must first incarnate the preacher before she might inform and challenge and shape the community. The discovery of voice, then, is shaped around the art of story so that the sermon is crafted from Spirit revelation in God's story as well as our own. Stay tuned for more... (An excerpt from my essay in "A Faithful Witness: Essays Honoring David Sebastian's Heart and Mind for the Church,"to order contact Anderson University School of Theology) What #YesAllWomen, #BringBackOurGirls, and Jesus' Wife Papyrus Reveal About the Hearts of Women6/10/2014 Over the past few weeks it seems like the blogosphere, facebook, and my twitter log have been filled with feminine angst. As I read across some of my favorite posts, it appears as if more than a few of us have bonded over heartbreak and the groundswell of public atrocities such as the kidnapping of 300 innocent girls in Nigeria and the vitriolic videos of the gunman prior to the mass shooting in Santa Barbara. In one week, the twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen reached 1million and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign united nations in the cry for justice and the safe return of the abducted school girls. It is not as if violence toward women is a new phenomenon in our world, perhaps what is new is the emergence of generations of women who have found our voice and now have public forums, such as social media, to collectively express our pain, fear, and white hot anger. As a follower of Christ, a Bible Professor and someone who works with women who are victim to sexual exploitation, I cannot help but wonder about the response of the church. I wonder if it is incumbent upon us to return to conversations about violence toward women in our own sacred canon, to struggle through the pain and confusion of the Biblical narrative which though Spirit breathed, preserves the stories of men, remembered by men, recorded and handed down to us by men. I wonder if this is not an opportune time to consider other ancient texts, ones held in high esteem and considered holy by early Christ followers such as the recently recovered Jesus’ Wife Papyrus which confirms in the least that Mary Magdalene was a disciple and held a position of leadership in the inner circle. I wonder if this is a moment when we should join with newly fashioned #YesAllBibleWomen and begin to resurrect those stories, the counter narrative also present in the canon of named and unnamed women who are a part of the story of God. It seems as crucial now as ever to begin to engage the stories of Miriam and those women prophets, to speak of Sarah and Jael and the wise women of old, to think about Susannah and Judith and Esther, Lydia and the woman caught in adultery, along with the women who remained at the foot of the cross until the end and were the first to arrive at the tomb. I wonder if our sermons and blog posts and teaching series should be filled with new scholarship aimed to reconstruct portraits of these Bible women carved out of stone and dust so we might know them and be better for it. I pray this is an opportunity for the church to harness the momentum and to respond to the palpable cries of women for respect, equality, and a need for a theology that embraces also the femaleness of God as both woman and man are made in the image of our Creator. Travel with me to Rome/Pompeii August 2015 to study Early Church Holy Women Favorite blogs: The Junia Project, Christians for Biblical Equality, SisterMaryDandelion, A Woman at the Well, Unsettled Christianity It looms there, staring down at us, always watching, always knowing where we are and where we might go. The air thick with the salt of the Aegean, our sandals slap against marble tiles that line the ancient road of Roman Corinth and we listen on the wind for the voices of fish mongers and leather workers, creatures of every color and class and stripe from across the Empire who have washed ashore to find their fortunes. At the fountain, where water used to flow in and out of arches carved out of stone and children would play and women gathered water for the day; it is always present, always in the line of sight. On the bema, where those accused stood before Praetorian guards, it's lofty height is the backdrop, the Acrocorinth, first a Greek acropolis then a Roman citadel and the home of the Temple to Aphrodite. The highest point of the raised city center, an ancient shrine of a by gone temple where the goddess herself was worshiped on the altar of prostitution. It is thought that more than 1,000 women served the temple at any given time in the first century, paying tribute through ritual shearing of their hair and giving their bodies over for sexual sacrifice. It is in this city, in the shadow of the Acrocorinth and under the stronghold of temple sanctioned prostitution where the Apostle Paul joined forces with Prisca and Aquilla to preach the gospel to the hoards of people who flooded the city looking to sell their wares, achieve their wealth and attend the Isthmanian games. It is to the struggling community of the baptized where named city officials and slaves, former synagogue rulers and barbarians, wealthy benefactresses and newly made freedmen that Paul would write of community, give us words for the ages to express the many who are one, it is to this cacophony of humanity Paul would urge, "we are one body." To know the story of Roman Corinth helps us take to heart the words of Paul's correspondence, sent first in response to reports from Chloe's people. To feel the thrum of the city, the vibe of human enterprise and the competition of wills gives us the backdrop needed to consider Paul's exhortation in context. When we understand the stronghold of Corinth was prostitution, we are able to read Paul's recommendations to women in worship in a new light. In first century Corinth, much like today, women sold into prostitution were not free to leave of their own devices. In community of the baptized then, there must have been women who had been smuggled or purchased from the temples, liberated from commercial sex trade. We wonder then if this is why Erastus' name is so important; as the city aedile, did he make financial gifts for the freedom of women possible? Was Erastus instrumental in working together with Paul and Prisca in the freedom of women enslaved? This backdrop then moves us to read chapter 11 regarding the covering of women's heads as they pray in a new light. Suddenly this text is no longer a restriction for women in worship, rather a compassionate consideration, the expectation of authentic community. Here Paul thinks of the women who have been set free from the temple, whose heads are shaven to mark them as prostitutes of Aphrodite and so, he asks women to cover so that the newly freed prostitutes are no longer ostracized by sight. Perhaps all of scripture, just like the Corinthian correspondence must be parsed out this way, by women and men who will walk the ancient roads, study the lost civilizations and unearth the narratives of antiquity that inform our sacred texts. After all, our holy books are living breathing words, artifacts of revelation and the divine, human relationship. Perhaps our study of the people, the times and the stories out of which the texts are formed is as holy as the texts themselves. |
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