Three Devotions..(:

1)Check out the

Facebook survey results at the tab on top of this website!

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2)The whole class is about interpreting TEXTS.

3)One more "Misunderstandings of Jesus" video ("text message"):

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We talked about texts and signs
last week.
You may get a kick out of my slideshows of funny signs from around the world..

Some of the signs are from hospitals: in Fresno..like these:

In front of the patient exit!

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WE'LL COVER the rest of the signs tonight.
First from from this chart:

#5, 8 and 9

5)INTERCALATION
8)SUBVERSION OF EMPIRE
9)PARALLELISM/RECURRENCE

5)"Intercalation" is a "sandwiching" technique. where a story/theme is told/repeated at the beginning and ened of a section, suggesting that if a different story appears in between, it too is related thematically. this outline of Mark 11:

CURSING OF FIG FREE

CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE

CURSING OF THE FIG TREE

We'll discuss how the cursing of the fig tree was Jesus' commentary of nationalism/racism/prejudice, because fig trees are often a symbol of national Israel. That the fig tree cursing story is "cut in two" by the inserting/"intercalating" of the temple cleansing, suggested that Jesus action in the temple was also commentary on prejuidice...which become more obvious when we realize the moneychangers and dovesellers are set up in the "court of the Gentiles," which kept the temple from being a "house of prayer FOR ALL NATIONS (GENTILES).

This theme becomes even more clear when we note that Jesus statement was a quote from Isaiah 56:68, and the context there (of course) is against prejudice in the temple.

When a text reference is made to another text/Scripture, this is called INTERTEXTUALITY.

Summary:

Most think Jesus' "temple tantrum" was due to his being ticked off about folks "selling stuff in church.". But he didn't say "Quit selling stuff in church" , but "My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations," quoting Is 56:6-8, whose context is all about letting foreigners and outcasts have a place..hmmm. He was likely upset that not that Dovesellers and money changers were doing business selling and changing , but that they were doing so in the "outer court," (AKA the "Court of the GENTILES"), the only place where "foreigners" could have a pew at "attend church." They were making the temple area "a den of thieves" not (just) by overcharging for doves and currency exchange, but by robbing folks..'all nations'... of a place to pray..and to "access access" to God.

Could it be that Jesus' temple anger was targeted at racism/prejudice more than (instead of) commercialism?

Maybe read this short article I wrote on the topic for Salt Fresno Magazine:

“Temple Tantrums For All Nations"

MORE ADVANCED LINKS ON THE TEMPLE TANTRUM:

Temple tantrums and the "others"

temple tantrum/ which curtain was torn?

Here and here are helpful Ray Vander Laan teachings on the temple courts.

This radical video below:

..and the following observations (believe it or not) may make the same point! (:
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ONE MORE CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF INTERCALATION, FROM Ben Smith:

the daughter of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman.

	Matthew.	Mark.	Luke.	Events.
A¹.	9.18-19.	5.21-24.	8.40-42.	Jesus is called upon to heal the daughter of Jairus, a leader in the synagogue.
B.	9.20-22.	5.25-34.	8.43-48.	A woman with a twelve-year flow of blood touches the clothing of Jesus and is healed.
A².	9.23-26.	5.35-43.	8.49-56.	Jesus raises the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus, since she has already died.

Jesus effects two healings in these pericopes. He heals both an old woman toward the end of her womanhood (the flow of blood is probably menstrual) and a young girl at the very beginning of hers. It cannot be coincidental that the girl is twelve years old while the woman has suffered from a flow of blood for twelve years. -Ben Smith

Here is that same intercalation of the two women in all three synpotic gospels..Note all three intercale different aspects. of the story..depending on their "TTP"--------------------

8)Subversion of empire

Subversion of empire:

We defined this by watching the video below..
to get the power of HISTORICAL WORLD..
We looked at Matt. 2:1a, and the historical world image of the Herodian fortress, in whose shadow was Jesus). YOU CAN WATCH our VanDer Laan "In the Shadow of Herod" video HERE in two parts:

VanDer Laan writes:

THE MASTER BUILDERThere was another side to Herod. His visionary building programs, his ingenious development of trade with the rest of the world, and his advancement of the interests of his nation are legendary. Many of his building projects were designed to strengthen the loyalty of his subjects, a goal he never achieved. Most seem to have been built to strengthen his relationship with Rome and to establish himself as the greatest king the Jews had ever had. Herod built on a magnificent and grandiose scale. His building projects included:

The Herodion: This mountain fortress overlooked the town of Bethlehem. Standing on a high hill, the upper fortress was round and more than 200 feet in diameter. Originally, it was seven stories high, with an eastern tower that stood more than 40 feet higher. Packed dirt covered the first four stories, giving the upper fortress a cone shape. Inside were a peristyle garden, reception hall, Roman baths, and countless apartments. The lower palace included an enormous pool, a colonnaded garden, a 600-foot-long terrace, and a building more than 400 feet long. The Herodion was the third-largest palace in the ancient world....

....The visitor cannot help being impressed with Herod's vision and ingenuity. However, all that remain are spectacular ruins, because Herod lived for Herod. By contrast, another builder, a humble carpenter born in Bethlehem, used a different material than did Herod (Matt. 16:18; 1 Peter 2:4-8). Jesus' buildevings continue to grow because He built for the glory of God. Like David (1 Sam. 17:46), Elijah (1 Kings 18:36), and Hezekiah (Isa. 37:20), He lived so that the world may know that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is truly God. His construction projects will last forever because He built for the glory of God the Father. -link

VanDer Laan's website is a great resource..it's here.

9)parallelism/recurrence: see below under tonight's community theme

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and #1 and 3-6 from this chart:

1)KINGDOM
3)ELLIPSIS/HEMISTICHE
4)DOUBLE PASTE
5)PROPHECY
6)6 DEGREES OF SEPARATION/SOCIAL NETWORKING

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1) 1)KINGDOM
What is the central message of the gospel?:

KINGDOM:In light of the video above, and the Bible's use of the term,

not realm, but reign

not place , but person

not race, but grace

not just "then and there," but 'here and now" (Matt. 4:17, 6:10)

We noted that (unlike which side of the road is "right" in England!), the 'direction" in which the Kingdom originates is "both ways": from the future, and from the past.

Many Jews of Jesus' day (and actually, the Greeks) thought of the Kingdom of God as largely a future identity/reality/location.
So when Jesus, in Matthew 4:17 announces that he, as King, is ALREADY bringing in the Kingdom,

this not only subverted expectations, but sounded crazy....and like he was claiming to bring the future into the present.

The Jews talked often about "this age" (earth/now) and "the age to come." (heaven/future).
"Age to come" was used in a way that it was virtually synonymous with "The Kingdom."

Scripture suggests that:

The "age to come" (the Kingdom)
has in large part already come (from the future/heaven)

into "this age"
(in the present/on the earth

by means of the earthy ministry of Jesus: King of the Kingdom.

Thus, Hebrews 6:4-8 offers that disciples ("tamidim") of Jesus have
"already (in this age) tasted the powers of the age to come."

In Jesus, in large part, the age to come has come.
The Future has visited the present,

"The presence of the Kingdom of God was seen as God’s dynamic reign invading the present age without (completely) transforming it into the age to come ” (George Eldon Ladd, p.149,The Presence of the Future.)

Here are some articles that may help:

Kingdom of God: by George Ladd

THE KINGDOM'S RETROACTIVE RETROFUTURE

The "Lord's Prayer" does NOT say "daily bread".

Kingdom Now and Not Yet

3)ELLIPSIS/HEMISTICHE:

Biblical verses of two or more parallel hemistiches will very often omit a word, a term or an idea already found in a previous hemistich (less common is the omission of content in the first hemistich). The reader is of course supposed to fill in the blank on her own. In other words, the first hemistich (or the fuller hemistich) is integral to one’s understanding of the deficient hemistiches in the same verse. This drawing of syllogisms or analogies between parallel hemistiches is of course one of the basic tools used in the analysis of biblical poetry-one used unconsciously by most readers of the Bible. From "From the verse to the complete work"

I have always felt that Mark's fuller quotation of Jesus ( "house of prayer for all nations")
was an intentional emphasis for many and multiplex reasons, and that (thus) the mere quotation of "house of prayer" (without for all nations) in Matthew and Luke (compare all four gospel accounts here) made it all the more emphasized and underlined... conspicuous by its absence.

Of course in Matthew's overarching Jewish context and audience, all the more need to emphasize
the inclusivity of the invitatio

Tzemah Yoreh's article on symmetry, parallelism and chiasm touches on the biblical use of the literary world device of hemstitch (PDF here) helps confirm the "temple tantrum as tageting racism" interpretation:

The two most common literary structures in Biblical literature are parallelism and chiasm. These structures exist in every book of the Bible and in units of every size ranging from a single verse to complete works. Almost every aspect of the structures in question has been discussed extensively in scholarship. One of the goals of this project is to use the macrostructures we have identified to examine one particular ramification of the structures in question--their role in larger exegetical questions.
Biblical verses of two or more parallel hemistiches will very often omit a word, a term or an idea already found in a previous hemistich (less common is the omission of content in the first hemistich). The reader is of course supposed to fill in the blank on her own. In other words, the first hemistich (or the fuller hemistich) is integral to one’s understanding of the deficient hemistiches in the same verse. This drawing of syllogisms or analogies between parallel hemistiches is of course one of the basic tools used in the analysis of biblical poetry—one used unconsciously by most readers of the Bible. - PDF here

Double Paste

This represents hitting the "CONTROL V" button, "pasting" two scriptures together, or "splicing" two scriptures into one new one. Classic example is Jesus in the temple tantrum.

ISAIAH 56:6-8 + JEREMIAH 7:11=MARK 11:16

5)PROPHECY

Prophecy

It is helpful to think of prophecy as:

a).not just
fore-telling (predicting the future)

but

forth-telling (telling forth truth)

b)often having multiple applications and fulfillments, to different "contemporary worlds" and across time.
We'll used this diagram to illustrate:

-Who was Immanuel?
-Who does "out of Egypt, I have called my son" refer to ?

Hosea 11:1
Matthew 2:15

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6)6 DEGREES OF SEPARATION/SOCIAL NETWORKING:

Six Degrees of separation:

"A documentary on networks, social and otherwise" (part 1):

Parts 2, 3, 4 , 5, (not 6) are also online
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Kraybill, in BIB 300's "Upside Down Kingdom," book, says,

"The Kingdom of God is acollectivity--a network of persons....more than a series of

individualized email connectionslinking the King to each subject...[It] infuses the web of relationships, binding King and citizens togeter" -Kraybill (emphases mine)

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Check out New Testament Social Networks
by clicking here. To see chart below, click it, then click again to enlarge:

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See also a preview of the book.

"Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks," by Dwight J. Friesen

Do you and I have any surprising common Facebook friends? Click here to find out

See this:

4.74 Degrees of separation

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"Chiastic Understanding of the Gospel According to Matthew,"

by James B. Jordan

In fact, they can become as large as life, See
James B. Jordan, “Chiasm and Life” in Biblical Theology Basics:

“Very much of human life is ‘there and back again,’ or chiastic. This is how God has designed human beings to live in the world. It is so obvious that we don’t notice it. But it is everywhere. This shape of human life arises ultimately from the give and take of the three Persons of God, as the Father sends the Spirit to the Son and the Son sends the Spirit back to the Father. We can see that literary chiasm is not a mere curiosity, a mere poetic device to structure the text. It arises from the very life of God, and is played out in the structure of the lives of the images of God in many ways and at many levels. It is because human beings live and move so often chiastically, that poets often find themselves drawn to chiastic writing. God creates chiasms out of His inner life, and so do the images of God.

Biblical chiasms are perfect. That is, they are perfectly matched to the human chiasms they address and transform. As we become more and more sensitive to Biblical chiasms, we will become more and more sensitive to one aspect of the true nature of human life under God. We will be transformed from bad human chiasms into good human chiasms. In this way, becoming sensitive to chiasm can be of practical transformative value to human life, though in deep ways that probably cannot be explained or preached very well.
One further thought. We saw in our previous essay that chiasms often have a double climax, one in the middle and the greatest at the end. The food we bought at market is put away in the cupboard and refrigerator when we get back home. Moving forward to a final climax is what all literature does, whether it has a middle climax or not. (Shakespeare’s five-act plays always move to a climax in the third and in the fifth acts.) This is just another way that human life matches literary production, in the Bible as well as in uninspired human literature. Becoming familiar with the shape and flow of Biblical texts will have a transforming effect on human life.”
James B. Jordan, “Chiasm and Life” in Biblical Theology Basics.
-link, Michael Bull’s blog: Theology you can eat and drink

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Mike Rinaldi, a Visalian, and filmmaker (and Fresno Pacific grad) told this story at the first "Gathering to Bless Christians in the Arts":
Blake Snyder, the screenwriter behind the classicSave The Cat" book became a Christian not long before he died.

Often at this point in such a story, folks ask "Who led him to Christ?"

Go ahead and ask.

The answer is:

Chiasm.

It happened in large part because Mike, not even knowing if such a well-known and busy writer would respond to his email, asked him if he had heard about chiasm.

Turns out Snyder was fascinated with it all, and Mike was able to point out chiastic structure and shape in scriptwriting....and one thing led to another...and then in Scripture.

All roads, and all chiasms, lead to the Center and Source.

Mike, of course, learned chiasm in THIS CLASS.

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CULTURE

After asking (not answering yet) our four quick questions (fill in the answers immediately with your very first gut instinct):

1)"In England, they drive on the ___________ side of the road"
2)"Boy, you can sure tell that_______________ is at work in the secular world nowadays! All you have to do is look around!"
3)"Israel is on the continent of __________."
4)How many of you are in a cross-cultural marriage? ____

We'll answer all these tonight at some point.

--
How do you define culture?

So many possible definitions:

Dallas Elder:" Culture is the heritage and identity of a people group which is manifested in their shared language, customs, behavioral patterns, values, beliefs and ideas; and which distinctively define the people group. "
Paul Hiebert: “learned patterns of behavior, ideas and products characteristic of a [group of people]."
Simone Weil: "What is culture? The formation of attention."
Other definitions here
Interesting the definition of culture within a hospital

How about:

"a way of thinking, feeling, valuing and acting by one or more people."

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We'll work at defining that as we go along tonight.

Cam you "feel it...when you go to work; when you go to your church"?
Is it "all around you...the world that has been pulled over your eyes?":

You each have your own culture(s),
            you work in a hospital that has its own culture (s)
                   doctors, workers and patients each with their own cultures.
Every encounnter is cross-cylturak.
                   and you may be used to an agent of institutional/cultural change there
                          You may even have caught your hospital's culture in time of shift.

Which means it's more malleble than you might think.

Graham Cooke:

"When the old wineskin is dying, the new wineskin is created by people who are not afraid to be vulnerable. "

Which in turn may be based on the line by Rudolph Bahro, ecologist:

"When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure."

Paul Tillich:

"Whenever a new period is conceived in the womb of the preceding period, a new image of man pushes toward the surface and finally breaks through to find its artists and philosophers.

Do you see yorself (as a nurse embedded in a hospital system/culture
as a cultural change agent? yourself as:

vulnerable

insecure

artist

philosopher ? (:

Not the usual categories for change agent, are they?

Communities, cohort,, organizations, hospitals: all acquire their own subculture (sharing inhouse jokes), and so can get ineffective and ingrown. Any system is vulnerable to systemic evil.

One would hate to think of a hospital system (or church) as ever becoming uncaring, but your Chapman teadings for tonight
offer help on ovecoming such tendencies, and building care into the system.

Oh, speaking of inhouse (BOUNDED SET) jokes:

Often those in caregiving careers/ministries...such as yourselves..

face a deep dilemma and profound paradox.. you care intensely..but ironically,

you live and work embedded in a system/matrix that "cannot" care.

Have you noticed that certain professions;

clergy, funeral directors, counselors doctors and NURSES

have "inhouse" jokes that might seem irreverent to outsiders to our "bounded set."? At its best, it's one way of keeping your sanity and remaining caring.

Watch this below...( well listen anyway, it's only audio) for a humorous example from those famous "theologians," Cheech and Chong (!!)in an old skit about Friday night employees of the E.R.:

_____________

Click the title below to read a related hilarious story:
one of my all-time favorite stories. Unfortunately, it's true!
From Eugene Peterson's "Under the Unpredictable Plant:

Sex and Drugs in Church: Peterson on Why the System Can't Care

All this to tie into "Hospitals and Those In Them) Need the Word of God," Fresno pastor/ajunct FPU professor Chris Erdman's amazing chapter 14 in "Countdown to Sunday," four pages that for me are as chillingly accurate,
and practically pastoral as anything in the massive "pastoral help" library.

As a pastor still wet behind my ears, I truly felt intimidated by the bravado of hospital technology and shrank before it. I didn't know then that the hospital itself, as much as the patients I went to visit, also needed to hear the Word of God in order to be what God intended it to be--an agent of divine grace, occupying its place as servant, not master...

I might not always carry a Bible [on hospital visits], but I always carry a text in mind that I speak among all the bleeps and blips and pokes. Hosting the text there among the gods of steel and electricity and drugs and know-how is vital work. The technology no longer intimidates me...

..So today, as I enter hospital doors and walk those hallways and sit beside beds and in waiting rooms and open those texts of ours. I don't stand and shout the Word--it's a power that doesn't need my strength or my energy. As I do, I not oy see the persons who need this Word leaning in, but I sense the walls themselves bending near...The real weapons that bring wholeness and peace are not machines but words, as small and feeble as they may seem. And all we have to do is mutter them.
Chris Erdman, "Countdown to Sunday," pp 71-73.

Reading this in the very real context and contour of a week of hospital visits to the sweetest saint imaginable; surrounded helplessly but not hopelessly by those bleeps and pokes and machines has brought tears to my eyes and whole images from Chris's chapter to bear on the situation.
I have never been one for wanting to look very pastorly/religious on hospital calls. I don't even park in the clergy parking!

And like a good stealth pastor, I keep my small pocket Bible tucked away.

But I can now pull it out to pay a pastoral (and prophetic) call on the relentless beeping heart monitor. Gently, I rage against the machine; I do not welcome myself to it or its domain.
Instead, I Word it back to its creative and redemptive purpose. And I have seen, like Chris, "medical people who know firsthand the limits of these gods and who themselves long to hear the Bible read in this place that often intimidates them too--they've seen the soft underbelly of the beast that demands their homage."

"Resistance is the protest of those who hope,"
as Jürgen Moltmann has it ( "The Power of the Powerless").

(above excerpted from my blog post: "Gentle Rage Against the HospitalMachines"

Can you change the culture of a hospital by doing something seemingly small like:
changing the language (and thereby culture_ of the ER room?

See Chapman pp.

when you choose your language, you create a new (and healing culture)

Every culture has tokens and totems

What do you think of Chapman's

token/totem of the HOSPITAL GOWN? see pp. 5-6, also p. 30. 37

What if every nurse, staff member from janitor to CEO to board member
were required to spend three days in a gown? Being a patient?
Three days a month doing someone else's job?

Have you seen "The Doctor" with William Hurt?(1st video below is the trailer) The gown scene? (2nd and 3rd video below)

"Now I know why they call it ICU"

Dr. Judah Goldberg, who is quoted in the article as saying, “To the extent that empathy can be taught through a ritual, a hospital gown, the common garb of human frailty, would be more fitting than a distancing white coat.” He is absolutely right: the single best way to get medical students to think about illness in a compassionate way is to put them in a hospital gown. Haines had the right idea in the film The Doctor, a story about surgeon Dr. Jack (William Hurt) who, after being diagnosed with throat cancer, is forced to view medical care from the “other” side. At the end of the film, Jack instructs all of his interns to put on gowns: they are to be patients in the hospital for the next 24 hours. Blood draws, hospital food, physical exams – they are going to experience it all, hospital life in full, from the disempowered and vulnerable viewpoint of the patient. link

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What do you think about COMMUNITAS AND LIMINALITY(lIMINAL SPACE)?:
NTRO TO COMMUNITAS/LIMINALITY::
1) COMMUNITAS?:
Definition here
Short application to church here.
Video below

What does this "Council of Elrond" scene from "Lord of the Rings" have to do with the our theme?
Well, for one, "you need people of intelligence on this sort ofmission....quest....thing.":

That's communitas..

Alan Hirsch discussed fear of failure at Catalyst’s second lab. Here is what he said:
Victor Turner is a cultural anthropologist that studied the rituals and rites of passage for young African boys into manhood. The ordeal the boys would endure through their rite of passage created a bond deeper that community. It created communitas (takes community to the next level and allows the whole of the community to share a common experience, usually through a rite of passage).
Journeys of adventure can change you significantly.
One of the most profound sense of communitas in the US was 9/11.
In the Bible, when David was in the cave with his band of warriors, communitas was created. When Moses and the Israelites wandered the wilderness for 40 years, communitas was created. The exile formed communitas. Jesus and the 12 disciples were a journey of communitas, so was the group of 70.
The Church in the west is in big, big trouble. The Church is fine in the east. The early church and the Chinese church grew exponentially (BOOM!) despite their persecution. Mission is risky. If you create a community that avoids all risk, the people are stifled.
In trying to reach men particularly, we can learn from this. We can journey together. C.S. Lewis says, “Women are face-to-face creatures, and men are side-by-side creatures.” There is something about a bonding experience that we can learn from, experiences like Habitat for Humanity.
Creating artificial environments at church do not prepare people to cope with the rest of the week. Middle class has an obsession with safety and security. The problem is that we undermine our ability to engage the real world. No wonder we form religious enclaves. We easily forget the good things that God has done for us when we are in a safe zone.
Take some journeys. You can change the world. LINK

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2)LIMINALITY:

Definition: Liminality

article: Forty Years in a Narrow Space

Liminality/liminal space:
Also:

The terminology comes from Victor Turner’s study of rites of passage - the process by which members of a group make the transition from one social status to another. ‘Liminality’, as Hirsch explains it, refers to periods of seclusion from the group and ordeal - for example, the trial by nature that young boys must go through out in the bush before re-entering the village as men. ‘Communitas’ is the intensified, unstructured and egalitarian form of community that develops in liminal situations. It is found in the early church and in churches that are suffering persecution. The Hirschian argument is that this condition should be normative for the missionary people of God.
The question, of course, is whether it is possible to live in a perpetual state of liminality. The exodus and the exile were unsettling and formative experiences, but they were spasms in the history of the people of God, thresholds, transitions in and out of a state of being settled - and ideallysecure and prosperous - in the land. LINK

I really recommend

Chapter 5 of "Hospital Ministry,' (ed. by Holst)

"Hospitalization: A Rite of Passage" by John Katonah..

We'll summarize it in class, but it is complete here below

(click each page to read, then click again to enlarge):

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Spiritual Opportunities in the Liminal Rites of Hospitalization

Hospital Gown for Birth

Liminality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

>>Here is a link to read which critiques Katonah's s three stages (see pp 302-303, about stripping but not consummating )

>>Another book suggests prayers/liturgies(click to read) that nurses/caregivers can offer to accompany each of the three stages.

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COMMUNITY THEME #2: Guidelines for Community:

On the mountain.

..

Then we'll introduce Colbert (interviewing a congressman about the Ten Commandments), which

turns out to have several helpful serious points about the "literary world" of the topic Here it is:

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Better Know a District - Lynn Westmoreland Update

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

2010 Election

Fox News

and the "question of the day"..

Off the top of your head, list words and ideas that come to mind when you think of the story of the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mt Sinai.

Then scroll down for the question..

Was "wedding" on your list?

.....or "love"?

What does all this have to do with a wedding?

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS A WEDDING:

The second Ray VanderLaan video on Mount Sinai is not online but both

episodes are on this DVD.

The second one dealt with the many"historical world" hyperlinks from Ten Commandments to wedding.

Too bad the video is not online, but most of the study guide IS..

see pp.197-251 here

THANKFULLY, though, here are ) the wedding videos of the Laughing Bride... these actually apply to our "historical world" conversation comparing the giving of the commandments to a wedding imagery:
Remember the 10 Commandments as a wedding?
Watch this:

We'll enjoy the Laughing Bride's wedding video:

Even more:

Here is a longer version with yet some more classic moments.

---------------

---PS Here is my wedding and funeral book story:

CLick:"It happens every time you officiate a wedding"

Check out this card I was handed at the wedding:

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Here is a 5fold structural parallelism in Matthew:

"Jesus is the new Moses."

Matthew could have said that, or even said that five times..but instead he embedded thematically five times in the literary structure/fabric of his book;

It is no accident that 5 times Matthew offers an almost identical sentence to close off his five teaching blocks..

"When Jesus had finished saying these things, he moved on..."

..shows up in

7:28

11:1

13:53

19:1

26:1

diagram credit

See page 269 of your Hauer/Young textbook (the three paragraphs underneath the "Higher Righteousness" section) for more on this..

There is huge signicance of fiveteaching blocks in Matthew, how they are identified, and what they likely symbolize.

Why 5?

Jewish people reading Matthew would say
"Oh, I get it. Matthew is trying to tell us (5 times, no less( that Jesus is the New Moses (or the fulfillment of Moses)!"
Why? The answer has to to with the obvious intentionality of the5 "teaching blocks" in Matthew..Five being a hugely significant number for Jews...it's the number of books in the Torah, AKA the Five Books of Moses, AKA The Pentateuch "(Five Books in One.") . Moses=5ness.

More "New Moses" symbolism in Matthew:

Jesus as the new Moses in Matthew

Jesus as New Moses,

BTW: Note an inclusio in that the first and last teachings happen on a mountain..hmmmm

--and if Jesus is a NEW MOSES of sorts, then we should look at

SERMON ON THE MOUNT:
Discussion on how Jesus was interpreting/reinterpreting the law of Moses/Torah(Matt 5:17-48).
Some would suggest that he is using the rabbi's technique of "Building a fence around the TORAH."

For example, if you are tempted to overeat, one strategy would be to build a literal fence around the refrigerator...or the equivalent: don't keep snacks around.

See:

What does building a fence around the Torah mean?

Some wonder of this is what Jesus is doing here. See:
Jesus' Antitheses - Could they be his attempt to build a fence around the Torah?

One can see how this could turn to legalism...and when do you stop building fences? See:

A Fence Around the Law

Greg Camp and Laura Roberts write:

In each of the five examples, Jesus begins by citing an existing commandment. His following statement may be translated as either "And I say to you... " or as "But I say to you ...” The first option shows Jesus' comments to be in keeping with the commandments, therefore his words will be an expansion or commentary on the law. This is good, standard rabbinic technique. He is offering his authoritative interpretation, or amplification, to God's torah, as rabbis would do after reading the torah aloud in the synagogue. The second translation puts Jesus in tension with the law, or at least with the contemporary interpretations that were being offered. Jesus is being established as an authoritative teacher who stands in the same rabbinic tradition of other rabbis, but is being portrayed as qualitatively superior to their legal reasoning.

After citing a law Jesus then proceeds to amplify, or "build a hedge" around the law. This was a common practice of commenting on how to put a law into practice or on how to take steps to avoid breaking the law. The idea was that if you built a safe wall of auxiliary laws around the central law, then you would have ample warning before you ever came close to breaking the central law. A modern example might be that if you were trying to diet you would need to exercise more and eat less. In order to make sure that that happened you might dispose of all fats and sweets in the house so as not to be tempted. Additionally, you might begin to carry other types of snacks or drink with you so as to have a substitute if temptation came around, and so forth. In the first example of not killing, Jesus builds a hedge that involves not being angry and not using certain types of language about others. One of the difficulties is that it becomes very difficult not to break his hedges. This might drive his hearers to believe that he is a hyper-Pharisee. Some interpreters have wanted to argue that Jesus does this in order to drive us to grace—except grace is never mentioned in this context. This is a wrong-headed approach to get out of the clear message that Jesus is proclaiming: you must have a transformed life. By building his hedges, Jesus is really getting to the heart of what the law was about. In the first example, the intent is not just to get people not to kill each other (though that is a good thing to avoid), rather it is there to promote a different attitude about how to live together. Taken together, the 10 Words (Commandments) and the other laws which follow in Exodus-Numbers paint a picture of a people who will look out for one another rather than just avoiding doing injury to one another. This becomes clear in Jesus’ solution at the end of the first example. The solution is not to throw yourself on grace or to become paralyzed by fear, but to seek right relations with the other person. There seems to be an implicit acknowledgment that problems will arise. The solution is to seek the best for the other person and for the relationship. This is the heart of the law. The problem with the law is that it can only keep you from sin, but it cannot make you do good. The rabbi Hillel said “what is hateful to you, do not do to others.” In 7:12, Jesus provides his own interpretation “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” He changes the saying from refraining from sin, to actively doing good. The thesis statement in 5:20 is “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” This then is how to exceed, or go beyond the law. In each of the five examples, the way to exceed the law is to make the relationship right.

Instead of drawing a new line in the sand that you are not supposed to cross before you are considered guilty, Jesus, confirms that the center is "love your neighbor" and then just draws an arrow (vector) and tells you to go do it. There is never a point at which you are able to finally fulfill the commandment to love. You can never say that you have loved enough. In the gospel of Matthew, the supreme example of this is Jesus' own life and death. His obedience and love knew no boundaries. --by Greg Camp and Laura Roberts

Ted Grimsrud, in your "God's Healing Strategy" book suggests:

"A better way [as opposed to legalistically legislating morality] to approach [the commandments] would be to ask first, 'What does this commandment teach us about God?'...Hence, the point of the commandments is not establishing absolute, impersonal, even coercive rules which must never be violated. The point rather is that a loving God desires ongoing relationships of care and respect....Paul's interpretation of the Law in Romans 13 makes clear the deepest meaning of the law not as rule-following, but as being open to God's love and finding ways to express that love towards others: 'The commandments..are summed up in this word, Love your neighbor as yourself.'" (pp. 33-34)

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OK, below is the backstory of the "LAUGHING BRIDE," which illustrates "building a fence around the Torah":

How do you name the difference in the shift of the 6 antitheses? What does it feel like Jesus is doing? He's making the law______:

harder?
easier?

Is he making it impossible on purpose?

I asked this question on Facebook:

Which is the greater sin?

(Just pick one, and don't add options-- On Thursday, I will post an interesting article about this choice) Feel free to explain your choice in the comments..

Which is the greater sin?

	To tell a lie?
	To lose your temper?

Be sure to check out the final vote (Lie-18, Temper-12 ....interesting!),comments and answers at tiny.cc/greatersin

Yes, I know the "real" right answer is "neither" or "both".. a "fuzzy set" and a
"Marker Trick," as Rob Bell would have it in the video below:

I also agree that it might depend on context.

But I was curious to see what answers would emerge, and which would win, among the wide spectrum of facebook friends. And I sure got some great, and hugely helpful comments. Thank you.

I also wanted to, after the contest was closed, feature as a follow-up, an excerpt from the book I stole the question from: Duane Elmer's "Cross-cultural conflict: building relationships for effective ministry." But it turns out the excerpt I wanted was not online, at least in a format I could paste in here . It is readable on Google Books, so I would recommend clicking here to read pp. 11-17.

OR if you are really brave, you can watch/listen to me reading that same section here. I was too lazy to type it all up. You'll hear the question addressed from a cross-cultural perspective.

Enjoy!

Elmer's story starts like this:

It was Sunday morning in the sleepy town of Amanzimtoti in South Africa's picturesque Indian Ocean coast. The heat was very intense. A light ocean breeze offered some relief, but I hardly noticed. I was scheduled to preach at a local church and was aferaid of arriving late. My directions to the church wrere not too clear. I never knew quite what to expect when I visited a church for the first time. Sometimes church services woiuld be held in a garage, sometimes under a flamboyant tree spreading under a high umbrella of shade, sometimes in a town hall, sometimes in a tent attached to a residence. The people of rural South Africa possessed boundless ingenuity for creating worship spaces.
It being Sunday, the stores were all closed. And since the extreme heat was .

...continued on Google Books, click here to read the rest, pp 11-17..or watch below to allow me to read it for you

--

Oh, a bonus: when we read the "beatitudes," the first section of the Sermon on the Mount:
-- do you catch any inclusio?
--Any chiasm ??? (seee this and this)
See 5:38-7:15 in this clip:

--

CULTURE
We'll suggest Jesus (in his historical world) was

CULTURAL
CROSS-CULTURAL
COUNTER-CULTURAL

1)CULTURAL:

"All divine revelation
is culturally mediated."
-Leonard Sweet, "Aqua Church 2.0," p.. 67...context

"Culture/matrix is with you..

.even when you go to church"

"Gaithers on Crack":

What is culture?
What isn’t culture?
Paul Hiebert explains that culture is the “learned patterns of behavior, ideas and products characteristic of a [group of people]."

Culture is "a way of thinking, feeling and acting by one or more people."

How many of you raised your hands for being in a cross-cultural marriage (Hopefully, all married people...I didn't say 'cross-racial')

2)CROSS-CULTURAL:
How many of you raised your hands for being in a cross-cultural marriage? (Hopefully, all married people...I didn't say 'cross-racial')

DanNainan:

BUT before we go any further:

Those four questions from the top of the page/evening?

Click here (or review the "Gaithers on Crack" video above) to see my suggested "right answers." to the first two
questions , and the first 24 seconds of the video below for answer to the 3rd:

Did you get it right?

Discuss how your answers to the 4 questions get you thinking about cross-cultural sensitivity and ethnocentrism..

]

------------

3)COUNTER-CULTURAL:
We'll just introduce this, and pick it up next time..
see John 5:19, 30, Philippians 2:5-11....also Acts 10:38

So the last will be first,
and the first will be last:
How counter-cultural is that?

map credit kingPin68

More versions here.

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WRAPPING UP:

-Connect anything we are talking about to "set theory" (bounded and centered sets from last week's post..

-If we have time, we'll read through Philemon to get oriented to your final project

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--- On the "Great Person" survey (see directions, page 21 of syllabus, you may conduct your survey via Facebook (status, tagged notes etc)/Twitter, or you may do all interviews via video

--Don't miss the "small print" at the bottom of page 21: This assignment includes a one-page essay.

If you did the interviews via video, you may do the essay on video as well (video of you processing the results out loud).

----------------------
Looking ahead:

CHAPMAN ASSIGNMENT option.

Answer Questions BELOW (as per syllabus) from Chapman book

OR write a 1-2 page review/summary of Chapman, empasozing any way you see potential for what you have read to change your hospital's culture):

Part One: Chapter 1, “Opening Challenge,” pg. 193
Part One, Chapter Four, “Sacred Encounters, Sacred Work,” p. 194
Part One, Chapter 9, “The Not-So-Surprising Outcomes of the Healing Hospital,” p. 195
Part Two, Chapter 4, “The Sacred Encounter in Practice,” p. 197

BIb 446 for Nurses Spring 2012 Fresno

Pages

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Week 2: More Signs/Chiasm,Culture,Communitas/Theme #2: Guidelines for Community

Facebook survey results at the tab on top of this website!

“Temple Tantrums For All Nations"

Temple tantrums and the "others"

temple tantrum/ which curtain was torn?

Here and here are helpful Ray Vander Laan teachings on the temple courts.

temple tantrum/ which curtain was torn?

Here and here are helpful Ray Vander Laan teachings on the temple courts.

the daughter of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman.

The "Lord's Prayer" does NOT say "daily bread".

Kingdom Now and Not Yet

Hosea 11:1

Matthew 2:15

-

"Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks," by Dwight J. Friesen

4.74 Degrees of separation

"Chiastic Understanding of the Gospel According to Matthew,"

Sex and Drugs in Church: Peterson on Why the System Can't Care

Definition: Liminality

article: Forty Years in a Narrow Space

Spiritual Opportunities in the Liminal Rites of Hospitalization

Hospital Gown for Birth

Liminality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CLick:"It happens every time you officiate a wedding"

A Fence Around the Law

Which is the greater sin?

(Just pick one, and don't add options-- On Thursday, I will post an interesting article about this choice) Feel free to explain your choice in the comments..

Which is the greater sin?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Pages

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Week 2: More Signs/Chiasm,Culture,Communitas/Theme #2: Guidelines for Community

Facebook survey results at the tab on top of this website!

Temple tantrums and the "others" temple tantrum/ which curtain was torn? Here and here are helpful Ray Vander Laan teachings on the temple courts.

Here and here are helpful Ray Vander Laan teachings on the temple courts.

the daughter of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman.

-

"Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks," by Dwight J. Friesen

"Chiastic Understanding of the Gospel According to Matthew,"

Definition: Liminality article: Forty Years in a Narrow Space

Spiritual Opportunities in the Liminal Rites of Hospitalization Hospital Gown for Birth Liminality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CLick:"It happens every time you officiate a wedding"

Which is the greater sin?

(Just pick one, and don't add options-- On Thursday, I will post an interesting article about this choice) Feel free to explain your choice in the comments..

Which is the greater sin?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Temple tantrums and the "others"

temple tantrum/ which curtain was torn?

Here and here are helpful Ray Vander Laan teachings on the temple courts.

Definition: Liminality

article: Forty Years in a Narrow Space

Spiritual Opportunities in the Liminal Rites of Hospitalization

Hospital Gown for Birth

Liminality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia