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House of Mary: Ephesus, today Kusadasi Turkey. This is the small rock formed dwelling that is believed to be the dwelling place of Mary, mother of Jesus until her return to Jerusalem prior to her death. From the cross, Jesus gives Mary to John and tradition and archeology places them in Ephesus for many years after the crucifixion and resurrection. Popes John Paul II and Benedict along with pilgrims from around the world visit this holy site to light candles, and offer prayers on the walls surrounding the home. Celsius Library of Ephesus, 3rd largest in the ancient world built in the 2nd century C.E., here SOPHIA holds up the Western wing of the library. Ephesus became an important center for early followers of Jesus. It is to this prominent harbor city Paul sends Prisca and Aquilla ahead of him to begin to make connections with Jews and forge a community of believers. Paul will preach from Ephesus so that people can travel from surrounding areas to hear him and then take the gospel message back. We believe this is how the 7 churches of Revelation are begun. Extant material suggests that Prisca and Aquilla return to Ephesus after Rome and that a certain ΠΡΙΣΚΑΣ serves as Bishop of the small town of ΚΟΛΟΠΗΟΝΟΣ on the outskirts of the great city. In the Ephesian amphitheater, Sarah McLaughlin sang "Great is Thy Faithfulness" and South Korean singers followed after her in their own language. On this CBH Viewpoint trip we focused our study on women in the New Testament so that balanced our study time in ancient Ephesus with plenty of shopping with local merchants; hand sewn Turkish rugs and jewelry. Special thanks to Andrew Lyon and Lyon Travel for helping us to customize our experience so we could celebrate both the study of early church holy women and the gift of being women!
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Wept in front of this icon today, stood right in the middle of the monastery of Meteora and cried when my eyes fell upon the sermon I needed to take in. I've seen it before, of course, I must have, but today I was fully present, one thousand miles above sea level breathing deep the incense of sandalwood and rosemary, listening to the hushed voices of faithful chanting monks who live far away and above the cares of the world. I stood there in the candlelight, wax tapers that are the prayers of the saints and watched the reds melt into blue and gold, saw Jesus lifting Adam and Eve up out of their graves. The Resurrection, my own theology set to canvas, gilded in gold; Jesus enough for me, for you, for all. And you give thanks, for all these things.
The Real Housewives of the New Testament 2014 Tour of Greece and Turkey is happening NOW! We arrived this afternoon in Thessaloniki, 18 weary travelers looking forward to a life changing spiritual pilgrimage as we retrace the steps of women of the early church. Follow our trip here through daily posts. Also, check our post from fellow traveler and good friend, Sarah Scarbrough McLaughlin
We are haunted by the stories, we see their faces—those we imagine them to be—when we close our eyes. We pray for their rescue and we go to the grocery store and pay our bills and live our normal lives as if 276 girls weren’t ripped from their dreams and stolen from their beds in rural Nigeria. We watch the video footage on CNN where the terrorists taunt us and attribute their brutality and desecration to Allah as if God would order the abduction and horror and slavery of women, stripped from the safety of their beds. On Friday, April 14 during the night while 276 young women slept on cots and dreamed of completing their education, of drum beat and dance, members of the terrorist Islamist group Boko Haram overpowered the security guards at the school in Chibok, Nigeria. Caught completely unaware, almost 300 terrified girls were torn from their sleep and packed into trucks like cattle and smuggled into the forests of Cameroon. While more than 50 girls managed to escape, some 223 are being held by Boko Haram whose leader boasted to cameras earlier this week that by order of Allah, he intends to sell these girls, to force them into marriage so they can no longer go to school since education for women is sin. The Nigeria government says they are working tirelessly to recover the girls; other nations and international groups are standing with them in aid, including the United States. In Abuja, London, and Los Angeles, citizens are taking to the streets and organizing protests over the abduction and Twitter and Facebook have been inundated with the call to action hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. We wring our hands, our hearts beat fierce with anger and injustice and we wonder, what can we do; separated as we are by oceans and history, politics and Shariah law. We can get involved. We can join the conversation by using the hashtag and we can sign the petition and share with our friends and neighbors the call to U.S. Senators to interject themselves into this tragedy and advocate for these girls. We can raise our voices to compel our elected officials to work on behalf of these innocent victims who are a world away but who are our daughters, our sisters and nieces. We can sew justice. We must recognize that in our own nation and even within the Christian tradition notions of women as inferior, less than and not equal to men still prevail. This is proven in the discrepancy of wages and the restrictions on religious office. In many Christian denominations women are still subject to male rule and domination due to ill-informed study of ancient texts. Is this so different to the impetus for groups such as Boko Haram who derive notions of God ordained female slavery from the pages of the Quran? What is needed is a theology of women that demonstrates women are too created in the image of God; that God is not male, rather, God is some other out of which both maleness and femaleness are derived. What is needed is celebration of the feminine character of the Divine so that it grows in our breasts and informs the justice of our lives. We can pray for freedom. We can call the name of ישוע Y’shua, literally, salvation, deliverance. We can remind ourselves and those who gather in this name, that the God of Scripture whose son bears the name of liberation, who is always on the side of the oppressed, that this God is the one who opened up the sea so that God’s people might walk out of the bondage of slavery into freedom. It is to this God whom we must appeal and to whom we must cling. Freedom and Justice for Our Girls, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Once upon a time, women danced at the center of the gospel story, back when it was wild and free back when the stories of Jesus burned in the hearts and minds of those gathered in his name, long before the conversation shifted towards order and structure and assembly. We read across the shadows, the women of the early Jesus Movement, women who were of his own family and women whom he had healed and women who served him, like Joanna, wife of Herod’s steward and Susannah, who supported Jesus and his followers financially. We hear whispers of their lives, catch glimpses of their gifts and graces, see their forms bent and broken in grief at the foot of the cross, hands raised in victory at the empty tomb. It was natural then, that Paul turned to women to aid in his gospel mission, the man known as the Apostle to the Gentiles truthfully went first to the community of Jews in most cities and partnered with women to establish gatherings of the baptized in homes across the Roman Empire. It was Lydia, the wealthy business woman who sold purple garments who was the first convert in Europe and the answer to Paul’s supernatural Macedonian call. He baptized her and all of her household by the river in Philippi and she and other women such as Euodia and Syntyche lead the church in the region. It is the church at Philippi who helps to underwrite Paul’s future missions and whom Paul calls his “joy and crown.” Polycarp records for history that the church at Philippi is the most steadfast of all Paul’s churches, still standing strong into the 2nd century. It is compelling then, when Paul addresses his letter to Philippi in the 50’s AD to the επισκοπος, the bishops or overseers, that he is referring to Lydia and to the women who he will name in his letter who were likely leaders of house churches charged then with watching over the fledgling congregations that made up the Philippian church. After all, Lydia had been there since the beginning, had hosted Paul and likely welcomed friends into her home who received the gospel and became followers such that the church at Philippi was born. The evidence is even more compelling when we consider Prisca who together with her husband is Paul’s co-laborer in Christ. Meeting Paul in Corinth, Prisca and Aquilla are then sent by Paul to represent him and begin the work in Ephesus prior to his arrival and later seemingly go to Rome to do the same thing. In the letter to Romans Paul thanks Prisca and Aquilla for “risking their necks for my sake” and says the whole Gentile church is grateful to them. Later fragments confirm their return to Ephesus. In Romans Paul also names Junia and refers to her as his fellow prisoner and relative who is prominent among the αποστολοις writing that she and Andronicus were in Christ before him. These whispers haunt us and we want to know more, want to peel back the pages of history and hear the stories of our mothers. We dust off the ancient witness of 4th century Epiphanius, Bishop of Salmais and we read his own log, his record of the bishops who follow in the lineage of Paul. We scan the Greek, our eyes squint and we stare with wonder at two names scribbled out in the parchment, ΠΡΙΣΚΑΣ Bishop of Kolophon (outskirts of Ephesus), ΙΟΥΝΙΑΝ Bishop of Apamea, Syria (the Antiochene Episcopacy on the Orontes). Their names recorded here in male form, of course, by the 4th century no consideration is given to female leadership, no one is trying to hear what once was, so as Epiphanius wrote, as he recorded for posterity anyone who had served as bishop he recorded them as male. Only, these two names are shared by women, prominent women in the Pauline circle. Prisca and Junia are women whom Paul had entrusted with the gospel and with the leadership of the church, women who are named in the canon, women who were flesh and blood, who lived and breathed for Jesus and his church. And so we wonder, were we bishops… Photo: 2nd century mural from Greek Chapel in Priscilla's Catacombs; Rome, Italy For more information on Epiphanius' Indeces Apostolorum find my research at Academia.edu They were with him, weeping, lost and ruined at the foot of the cross, and they rose early a few days later to tend his bruised and beaten body at the tomb. His mother Mary through whom the Savior had come into the world and Mary of Migdol who became the first herald of the good news. It seems clear that in the incarnation and in Gospel proclamation, the hope of Christ, by God’s design and Spirit’s power was first made known through feminine vessels. Likewise, no one can argue Paul’s revolutionary claim in Galatians for the equality of male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free. It is clear that Paul relied heavily upon female benefactors and Roman dominas as the early church took root in homes across the empire. Paul lauds Prisca and Junia, Phoebe and several others throughout his letters thanking them for their service to the Gospel. And then, we turn the page. Most who study the New Testament are more than jolted by the shift between the presence and prominence of women in the Jesus Movement and in Pauline circle to the restrictions of what we have come to call the Pastoral letters, specifically, I Timothy and Titus. Though these letters are attributed to Paul, students of ancient literature know well that the letter to I Timothy reads more like Ignatius than Paul, with its distinguished Greek, some 60 words never used in Paul’s letters, and concern for liturgical order and structure of hierarchy. We wonder where have our mothers gone, why have their stories been erased, why are they told to keep silent when it seems their voices were so necessary in the beginning. It is as if in the 2nd generation of the church, the leaders wanted to correct some of the dynamics introduced by Jesus and Paul, namely the elevation of women. If context is key, then I Timothy intended for the struggling leader of the church at Ephesus is of great import. Ephesus is a city teaming with female power as it is the home of the world famous Artemesion and the cult of Artemis, the female goddess of fertility and abundance. In this cult, the female goddess is served by female priestesses who braid and adorn themselves with golden jewelry. What’s more, ancient fragments tell us that Prisca and Aquilla return to the city and continue to lead the church in the area after their time in Rome. While a 4th century witness indicates that Priscas was Bishop of Kolophon just outside the city. Ephesus is also the city where John and Mary move onto after the resurrection and reside for some time. By the late 1st century into the 2nd, veneration of Mary, the mother of Jesus has already taken root. If we take all of this into consideration, it is not hard to read I Timothy then as a push back to feminine power, to understand that for some early church leaders it was all a bit too much so that our roles were reduced, redefined and relegated to silence and childbearing such that the firey women of the Gospel are asked to conform to the norms of respectable Roman wives, to be seen, obedient, discreet and not heard. This is how the silencing of our voices began. For more information, access my research at Academia.edu Photo: "Holy Women" St. Apollinare, Nuovo, Ravenna If you think about it, the week we now call Holy takes us through the full expression of human emotion. The week begins with cheers and adulation, rings in with palm branches and children’s songs then moves to betrayal and abandonment to injustice and suffering and finally towards hope. What we have in the span of one week then, on the liturgical calendar, is an invitation into the darkness. For some of us we are relieved to finally have a season when our questions are valid, when our doubt makes sense, when our grief finds a home and we are not ostracized at our reluctance to celebrate the goodness of God in pithy unweighed theological statements like bumper sticker faith. For those of us who struggle in life lived with happy, clappy resurrection folk, who need a home for our lament, the cross allows us the space to ask, “Where are you God?” In fact, that’s exactly what Jesus asked, suffering as he was that day, life ebbing away on the rock of Golgotha. It is to Jesus I cling. It is to the story of the one who willingly suffered and died that I am compelled. It is to the one who prayed, “Father, take this cup from me,” who opened his eyes to find the cup still there and who drank deeply that I am drawn. If the truth be told, I am not sure I have reconciled to the God that allowed such agony to occur to his own son, to God’s own self, to lowly broken creatures like me, just trying to do our best in this world; why does such pain need to be known. This year as I walk through the Lenten season and into Holy Week, I am clinging to Jesus like Mary did, hoping, trusting, believing he will make some good out of all the pain. I need her strength, I need her courage, I need her understanding of suffering redemptive. As I walk through the darkness I am aware that this year it is not a mere liturgical season but the reality of my own life as not many weeks ago I stood over my own precious child—a nephew—gone too soon from us for reasons that are senseless and tragic. Like Mary, I anointed him with my tears, and I stayed with him until the end and I gave him back to God. It is in these moments of unspeakable agony when we, like Jesus, wonder where God can be found. We wonder how it is that we will make it through, and once more it is Jesus from the cross, thinking of Mary, and perhaps all of us who shows us the way. “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home” (John 19.26 ,27). Jesus knew his mother and his friends, he knew that we would have to go on, he knew that life is hard and tragedies happen and the world is blood soaked and broken. Jesus knew for those he loved life would continue, the sun would rise, the water would need to be drawn, the families would need to be fed, the laundry would pile up on the floor. Jesus knew what it was to suffer, to face the darkness and to feel as though God had abandoned you. He knew what it was to believe God could not hear your cries, had left you in your pain and Jesus knew, in those moments wrought with grief and loss, confusion and fear God could be found in the arms of someone who loves you, wrapped around you, bearing you up. In our sorrow, as we weep, as we struggle to find legs to stand, to remember to pay the phone bill and make grocery lists, as we remind ourselves to breathe in and out, we hold the hand of the one whom Jesus gave us, we lean in and we bear down and we remember in our loss we are connected, we are bound to Jesus and to each other, and in our bond God is found. Jesus showed us from the cross, this is how we make it through. So there has been a lot of talk this week about the now published report from Harvard regarding an ancient papyrus first revealed by Dr. Karen King in 2012. The fragment contains dialogue attributed to Jesus which reads, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…” and later “she will be my disciple.” Thus, the firestorm that began with the introduction of this fragment a few years ago has promptly been reinvigorated as scientists are now able to carbon date the ink of the papyrus as consistent with other similar fragments dating from 400 BCE to 700 CE. For scholars, this means that we move the papyrus from the late forgery column to consideration as an authentic ancient artifact. Before all of Christendom is struck with cardiac arrest and turns to the streets with picket signs or pulls sponsorship of some organization or the other over evidence that Jesus may have been married and continued affirmation, in addition to the canon, that Jesus had female disciples; I’d like for us to take a collective breath and weigh out what all of this means. Seriously, breathe in, breathe out, take my hand and let’s talk through this. On the canon... First, we must admit that the evidence we rely upon most heavily for the details of Jesus’ life lie in the canonical gospels. If we understand the gospels as theological documents containing stories written about Jesus, at the earliest in the case of Mark, some thirty years after his death and Matthew and Luke closer to fifty years later while John’s gospel is the fourth and final dated somewhere around 90 CE, then we understand it is likely that there are some things Jesus said and did that we do not have recorded. In fact, the canonical gospels share nothing about Jesus’ life as a child, save the Temple story in Luke, and focus on his public ministry in the Galilee and the culmination of his life in Jerusalem at the crucifixion and resurrection. For the canon to be authoritative for our lives, we need only affirm that we have what we need necessary unto salvation, that is to say, we are not forced to contend that within the canon we have all that was ever done or said regarding Jesus in the early centuries. If this is true, we need not be threatened by ancient evidence that emerges to tell us more about the earthly life of God incarnate. On marriage… The truth is, for Jesus to have been a thirty year old Jewish man living in the first century who was unmarried would have been a cultural anomaly. However, this would not be the only thing Jesus did that was culturally askew; he also ate with sinners, talked with prostitutes, touched dead people causing them to be raised, and he said, “Blessed are the poor.” Thus, the contextual argument alone is not enough to conclude Jesus’ marital status. It seems the bigger question is, what does it mean for Christendom if Jesus was married? What does it change about Jesus’ role in God’s salvific plan? Does Jesus’ marital status call into question the Catholic Church’s rationale for the celibate religious life? Perhaps but we don’t see issues of celibacy for priests addressed until the Council of Nicea in the 4th century which says a priest cannot be married after ordination. For Protestants, who allow clergy to marry, what are the concerns? I wonder if the anxiety and outrage over the “Jesus’ Wife” papyrus says more about us than it does about Jesus. It seems like this debate asks what’s true; what’s true about Jesus, sure, but also, what is true about Jesus’ 21st century followers. Are we afraid to admit, there might be things about Jesus that we don’t know? Are we uncomfortable with a wild and free God who might have stepped outside the boundaries of what we’ve come to accept? Do we wring our hands at the notion of new revelations and more to learn about Jesus, the man who walked the sands Palestine, whose sandals slapped the Roman road under the burning sun? Do we have room in our hearts, space in our minds to explore possibilities, to open to what God might want to show us in this millennia, are we willing to accept Jesus as he is, not as we want him to be? While attending the Festival of Faith and Writing conference this week, I heard Rachel Held Evans say this to students at Calvin College in a chapel service. “I don’t think God wanted Scripture to be easy, otherwise we wouldn’t need to talk to God and we wouldn’t need to talk to each other.” Maybe this is why new scholarship on ancient papypri helps us along. Maybe it’s good for us to scratch our heads, dig deep and consider new ways of understanding the life of Jesus. Maybe this reminds us we need to talk to God and we need to talk to each other. The season of Lent, the liturgy of Holy Week allows us our doubts, gives us space for lament, helps us put words to what we do not understand. Every once in a while, artists create something real and it strikes our hearts because it is true. The Garden series by the Liturgists has been this for me. Featuring Rachel Held Evans, Rob Bell, Amena Brown, and Gungor. Do your weary, wandering soul a favor and listen. |
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