00:00:14.540 - 00:00:31.910

yesterday, I argued that politics is a primary concern for biblical interpretation, acute awareness of the symbolic universe in which we live and from which we read and critical analysis of the symbolic universe of scripture. I

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urged upon exhibits to negotiate the gap between the text and the present. I proposed the imaginative artistic practice of trying on the ancient text and experiencing how living within its symbolic universe confronts us with the limitations of

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our customary ways of looking at the world. I suggested that a reading scripture We 21st Century Christians might deliberately intentionally and explicitly bring our commitments to democracy and mutuality with us. As we encounter the text with

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its curie Arkle or imperial sub structure, we might bring an explicit theological commitment to equality and agency to our faithful engagement with scripture. Today, I want to speak of the power of the poetic imagination in

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reading scripture and used for an example, paul's reflection on God's geo Theological plans in Romans 9- 11 . When human imagination is engaged with the scriptural narratives of divine creativity, scripture opens up visions about how

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to live together in family, among nations and among peoples. In this interpretive process, we are not required to renounce our customary symbolic universe and submit to the authority of an ancient world view, but to

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investigate the past, see patterns build, try it on, make new meaning from it. Thus, scripture will operate as Elizabeth Schussler. Fiorenza recommends not as mythical archetype, but is motivating possibility. Opening

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prototype. Yeah. It's customary to always reconstruct and describe the setting of Paul's letters. Reconstructing the setting for Paul's letter to the romans is an exercise of the imagination informed by historical study, or you might

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also say, an exercise of historical investigation informed by imagination. Either way, when I reckon reconstruct the communities behind paul's letters, I put into play a number of feminist principles for reading paul's letters. I've

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tried to push the wide and broad application, but I haven't been successful yet. There's another try. The first has to do with what we imagine as the author and constituent community for the letter. Do

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we picture paul a solitary, heroic writer, single handedly founding Christianity amid a congregation of enthusiastic heresy, flirting, wrongheaded, passive pew sitters, including women who insist on praying with their heads uncovered paul,

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the single author, writing letters whose every word we attribute to his own unique genius. Or do we take seriously the many references to co workers, co strugglers, partners and colleagues, And imagine an early

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christian missionary movement of women and men apostles who spread the good news of jesus, christ from Jerusalem to samaria to the ends of the earth. If we choose to begin Reconstructing the world behind the text with

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Romans 16, the greetings to friends in Rome. Instead of beginning with Galatians, 1 11- 24 Paul's call. In our mental picture of the community , we will draw Phoebe a deacon in the church

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of can create who most scholars refer to as the person delivering the letter to Rome. We would depict Prisca and a killer app, Anita's mary Andronicus and junior, my relatives who were in prison with me

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, prominent among the apostles, we would greet the co workers in the Lord trife aena and try Phosa persists. Rufus and his mother also. And on and on. Fella glitches, Julia Darius and his

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sister Olympus and all the Saints. These are partners siblings, not sitting in the pews but preaching and singing, baptizing. Being imprisoned. They to carrying in their body the death of christ. In his

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10 commandments of preaching. In his instructions on preaching , Paul, Krister Stendahl had one command. There were other people, rather than consider paul the single author of every word, every soul stirring, beautiful

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word in the letters. Let us understand that the process of reading scripture in light of jesus christ was a communal enterprise taking place in the liturgical gatherings of baptism and Eucharist. And let us understand that the

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many exclamations of praise, our songs sung in chorus with many voices. For example, the prayer at baptism when sisters and brothers put on the garments of christ, there is no longer jew or greek,

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there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female. For all of you are one in christ, jesus or the him to christ, who though he was in the form of

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God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave being born in human likeness. No, in all these things we are more then

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conquerors through him who loved us. What scholarship calls pre pauline baptismal formula, I call community salvation songs . A third principle after the active presence of Stendhal other people and after communal authorship in reading and reflection

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. The 3rd principle is to recall the explosion of the spirit at Easter. The omnipresence of the risen christ in the gathered people and the energy that the crucified and vindicated messiah unleashed to heal and exercise and

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change the world luke has to appearance stories. Matthew has two different ones, John has four mark has zero which is the same as infinity but that's another story. And one of the oldest texts in the

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New Testament says this for I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received , That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried and that he

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was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he had appeared to Cephas and to the 12th. Then he appeared Two more than 500 brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom

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are still alive, though some have died, then he appeared to James and then to all the apostles . Now we know that Paul continues this list and it ends with him, who he says is the

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least of the apostles, but he doesn't mean it . But what I want to highlight about this Passage is the 500 brothers and sisters and to think about how they scattered far and wide and had their visions

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in the spirit and did their work of Evangelism. I want to focus on an early moment Before there was an impulse to place a quota of four on the gospels. I take my cue from john's Gospel

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And see this appearance to 500 as the tip of the iceberg of the risen Jesus Living Presence among the people in the early communities. But there are also many other things that Jesus did. If every one

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of them were written down, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written . The most wonderful shrug at the end of the Gospel of john, the anti canonical spirit. Now

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, let me tell the story of the easter movement of preaching the gospel of jesus christ in Greece and Asia minor in Italy. That will bring us to romans 9 to 11, jesus, a Prophet of

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God and galilee preach the nearness of the kingdom of God and the good news of God. Jesus led a movement of women and men who had received God's spirit and who were called their compatriots to renewed relationship

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with God and rededication to the commandments. Love of God and love of neighbor care for the stranger and alien john was Jesus ally. And before john Elijah and Alicia, before Elijah moses and Miriam and Aaron

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Jesus healed the mentally ill and the physically sick and when there was nothing to eat provided for the people of God from God's generosity, he headed into the danger of Jerusalem to preach and to eat the passover

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with his followers. There he was betrayed, arrested , humiliated and crucified as a faithful righteous martyr of God. He was buried On the 3rd day the faithful women went to the tomb and its emptiness told

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the entire tail which they proclaim to their fellow disciples , he has risen, I have seen the Lord , we will meet him in galilee. We will join the movement of God for the restoration of God's

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good creation and the defeat of the power of evil . The resurrection of jesus at easter showed that God's story with Israel had a new chapter. The plot took a new turn, but its goal was consistent

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with the author of the original story, the creator and the one who brings life from death. The story was told with old material and refigured in a new way. The story of God's love for people

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. God's plan for blessing the divine mission to rescue the world from sin and death. The spirit blue among them, making them all profits and healers and raising up the lowly and making the poor rich in

00:13:01.920 - 00:13:20.870

God. They proclaimed in baptism that in christ there was no more jew, or greek, slave, or free, male and female like scripture had envisioned . when the messiah came, the people of God

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would expand. The gentiles would come to Jerusalem bearing gifts. Nations will stream to thy light and kings to the brightness of the rising, along with his friends, Junior Phoebe, try Fiona and try Phosa

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, you o'DEA syndicate timothy, Prisca and a killer paul worked to spread the gospel of the crucified messiah who made former enemies to be friends of God. He established churches in which there were no longer slaves

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and masters, but siblings, sisters and brothers. In his letter to the Church at Rome, a community of jews and gentiles who affirmed the gospel as the power of God for salvation, for all who

00:14:13.840 - 00:14:31.850

have faith, the jew first, and also the greek paul affirm that God was working God's purposes out , even in the trouble they were in in the communal salvation song of faith and love, paul exults

00:14:31.850 - 00:14:50.270

that they are made Children in baptism, that God's spirit is groaning while the Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the Children of God, who will separate us from the love of christ will hardship

00:14:50.280 - 00:15:07.080

or distress or persecution, or famine or nakedness or peril or sword for your sake. We are being killed all day long. We are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things

00:15:07.080 - 00:15:22.890

, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us for I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor

00:15:22.890 - 00:15:41.430

anything else in all creation, we'll be able to separate us from the love of God. In christ , jesus, our Lord, the flood of gentiles to be, who wanted to be faithful to Israel's

00:15:41.430 - 00:16:02.970

God was amazing, but it appeared that Israel overall had rejected the good news In Romans 9-11, Paul faces the reality that some things don't seem to fit the perfect plan of God. What will happen to

00:16:02.970 - 00:16:19.540

Israel in sending jesus? Did God change the story , revise the plan? Did God change to, Did God stop being faithful and true to God's promise ? Was God still righteous and just? So this

00:16:19.540 - 00:16:37.940

is the Predicament that Paul Confronts. In Romans 9 - 11. His symbolic universe is that of jewish scripture. The world is divided into Israel and the nations jews are chosen by God have entered into covenant

00:16:37.950 - 00:16:56.000

and possess the law. They keep that law not to earn a reward, but to show who they are gods. When they break it, they returned through repentance. The law protects jews from the chaos

00:16:56.000 - 00:17:12.360

and destruction caused by idolatry, Illustrated with unforgettable detail in Romans, one which is the topic of another lecture, Israel is going to be the means of God's mission to the entire world, a light to

00:17:12.360 - 00:17:29.960

the nations. Paul does not need to explain or argue for this symbolic universe. It is shared with his audience. However, this symbolic universe does need to explained, does need to be explained now in

00:17:29.960 - 00:17:44.670

contemporary times, and that's what biblical commentaries often do , because it is no longer the one held in common by the modern and postmodern west were all mixed up and we think the gentiles are the christians.

00:17:47.840 - 00:18:07.360

So for paul and for others, the fact that Israel has rejected the messiah or stumbled and the nations have enthusiastically joined. This Messianic movement creates a problem for the credibility of God. So let us attend

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to how paul goes about addressing this problem. I place his reflection into the context of the communal reading of holy scripture in the assemblies in the first century and watch how imagination operates imagination is the spiritual faculty

00:18:30.590 - 00:18:48.550

through which we know God, imagination connects the known and the not known, the familiar and the unfamiliar through metaphor, Imagination takes one thing, connects it with another and make something new out of it.

00:18:49.840 - 00:19:03.850

Imagination is the right faculty to employ when reading scripture because it was imagination that animated the human beings who wrote the Gospels, the letters, the Acts and the apocalypse that has come to be our scripture.

00:19:04.940 - 00:19:18.070

They themselves knew God through scripture and prayer. They knew the risen jesus presence among them in the water of baptism and in the bread and wine of the Eucharistic meal. These writers took courage to try to

00:19:18.070 - 00:19:42.520

speak the unspeakable and voice. God's mysterious configure out herbal Plan. My discovery of the imagination was a little bit delayed because of my intensive socialization into biblical criticism, which and when I first started my doctoral

00:19:42.520 - 00:19:55.560

work, I thought I could save the world in the church and everything through teaching biblical criticism and more about the history of the bible. And I did that for quite a while. But then I realized

00:19:55.560 - 00:20:15.890

that the history leaves something out and doesn't fully explain what how this scripture works. So these early believers , they use the materials that they had narratives of slavery, liberation and wandering, receiving the law through

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a charismatic leader. They use the vocabulary of rain , see light lilies, seeds, treasure, Children , kingdom profits, and poets of the jewish and christian tradition read their time and spoke God's word through

00:20:33.850 - 00:20:56.410

their words, Paul's effort and struggle in these chapters , participates in the communal activity of rereading and making meaning as dr Walton sermon on friday night described, Paul is taking on the challenge of theocracy and in

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these chapters he acts like job questioning God, and he also acts like the psalmist, passionate loyal protesting injustice, railing, complaining, lamenting and naming the wrong In Romans 9-11, Paul looks to scripture the

00:21:18.720 - 00:21:37.040

stories of the Pentateuch to see what he can discern there about the pattern of God's goodness. The word of God has not failed. That would be a unthinkable tragedy. Paul is going to show that God's

00:21:37.040 - 00:21:56.320

word hasn't failed by attending closely to that word and playing with it, even messing with it, but messing with it within the boundaries and registers that his hearers would understand and accept and confirm, Paul will

00:21:56.320 - 00:22:12.560

engage with the words and make something new. When he reads. When he searches the scriptures, paul finds there a divine design of paradox and surprise. God keeps doing the surprising, ironic and paradoxical thing

00:22:14.340 - 00:22:33.950

, picking the youngest son for blessing, choosing the most unlikely means to do what he wants, hardening pharaoh's heart so he has mercy on whomever he chooses and hardens the heart of whomever he chooses. God

00:22:33.960 - 00:22:57.720

is about mercy first and always to illustrate this imaginative remaking, I will cite two examples of paul's playing with scripture, an amazing series of exige ethical home , elliptical and audacious moves The 1st 1 I call

00:22:57.720 - 00:23:15.760

the complaining pot. In mid argument, paul asks these questions in response to a rhetorical question. Er You will say to me then why then does he still find fault for who can resist his will?

00:23:15.940 - 00:23:30.650

But who indeed are you A human being to argue with God? Well what is molded, say to the one who moulds it? Why have you made me like? This? Has the potter no right

00:23:30.660 - 00:23:41.390

over the clay to make out of the same lump . One object for special use and another for ordinary use. What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much

00:23:41.390 - 00:23:55.170

patience the object of wrath that are made for destruction . And what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory

00:23:55.940 - 00:24:11.980

, Including us, whom he called? Not from the jews only, but also from the gentiles the question. But who are you? A human being to argue with God awakens our scriptural memory. Hear

00:24:11.980 - 00:24:29.680

the echoes of job, first job complaining and protesting against God, and then got out of the whirlwind , overpowering job with the vision of the creator. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the

00:24:29.680 - 00:24:48.630

earth? Tell me if you have understanding on what words basis, sunk, and who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together! And all the sons of God shouted for joy, paul alludes to

00:24:48.630 - 00:25:08.810

the image of God as potter First at the creation in Genesis 2 7 and Harold bloom describes it this way God picks up the moistened clay and molds it in his hands rather like a solitary child making a

00:25:08.810 - 00:25:23.970

mud pie or building clay houses near water. They're in the midst there in the mist, for no stated reason or cause. He scoops up a handful of wet earth and shapes it into what we would

00:25:23.970 - 00:25:42.260

call an earthling. But this earthling is still a mud pie or clay figurine until presumably only a moment later, Yeah, we blows his own breath, the wind of life into the nostril he has formed

00:25:44.640 - 00:26:04.950

. Howsoever the sculpture modulates from clay to flesh, and the first creature becomes a living being. Yet one whose name Adam retains always memories of the red clay dust from which she was formed. Dr Willie

00:26:04.950 - 00:26:30.250

Jennings lecture has renewed my attention to the earth, to dust the dirt to mud. And it reminds me of that wonderful story. When he said this , he spat on the ground and made mud with

00:26:30.250 - 00:26:41.240

the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes , saying to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent, unless you think that the mud and this story is not important.

00:26:41.240 - 00:26:56.770

It's repeated two more times they asked him and he answered. The man called jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes and said to me, Go what the pool of Siloam and wash. And then

00:26:56.770 - 00:27:18.020

the Pharisees asked him again and he said, he put mud on my eyes. Then I washed and now I see that amazing mud and then later in the gospel of john he breathed on them and said

00:27:18.020 - 00:27:36.970

to them receive the holy spirit. God makes things from the beginning. God is a potter. Humans are dust but quite amazing. Spirit filled dust. So in his question, well what is molded,

00:27:36.970 - 00:27:49.150

say to the one who moulds it? Why have you made me like this paul is implying how absurd it is for the creature to question the creator like job, where were you when I created the heavens

00:27:49.300 - 00:28:12.600

and the earth? My paraphrase. Shut up pot . Mm You can't you can't speak to the potter , Sit down and shut up pot. So it looks like paul is condemning human aspirations and initiative and

00:28:12.600 - 00:28:30.240

self assertions and yet in what he was doing with scripture and imagination, paul was the author. Poet does the opposite. He dares to speak for with about in the face of God, the pot becomes

00:28:30.430 - 00:28:47.460

the potter, the creature creates, imagines makes new things, paul. The poet potter plays and praise and finds God's ways. And God paul affirms can make infinite kinds of things from the same clay.

00:28:48.540 - 00:29:11.520

God can make a new people what God makes is infinitely pliable and flexible and ingenious. First and always about mercy. The second episode is the ungrateful vine paul struggles to understand how the accepting gentiles and non

00:29:11.520 - 00:29:23.790

committal Israel will play out in the plan and he wants the newcomers to be grateful rather than superior. So he uses the familiar image of the olive tree and he plays with it messes with it in ways

00:29:23.790 - 00:29:41.680

that defy horticultural rationality, but which work as poetry and sermon. He plays with the contrast wild and cultivated, To speak of new and natural novel and original. God is the gardener, God is the

00:29:41.690 - 00:29:56.670

grafter. And then the double grafter, this is paul's idea, this is paul's imagination based on what he knows about God, his faithfulness and mercy. But if some of the branches were broken off and

00:29:56.670 - 00:30:10.550

you a wild olive shoot were grafted in their place to share the rich routes of the olive tree, do not boast over the branches. And if you do boast here, we have a talking tree too

00:30:11.040 - 00:30:21.820

. Remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. You will say branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. That is true. They were

00:30:21.820 - 00:30:33.960

broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith, so do not become proud, but stand in awe for if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you

00:30:34.740 - 00:30:48.490

note, than the kindness and the severity of God's severity towards those who have fallen, but God's kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness, otherwise you will be cut off and even those of

00:30:48.490 - 00:31:03.850

Israel, if they do not persist and unbelief will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again, I want you to understand this mystery. Hardening has come upon part of Israel

00:31:04.340 - 00:31:26.710

until the full number of gentiles has come in, so all Israel will be saved. I am arguing that in Romans 9-11 paul's view of scripture and that of the faithful assemblies is bold and humble and flexible

00:31:26.910 - 00:31:47.050

and imaginative, neither rational or literalist or heavy handed . He finds patterns in scripture and invents new analogies complaining, pot stumbling in the race, ungrateful vine to grapple with God and human surprises. He views

00:31:47.050 - 00:32:04.280

himself as a creature, a prophet, a person , a sinner, a wrestler, L. A mentor, paul can be our model for reading in this literal age. Remember the missionary communion communities of

00:32:04.280 - 00:32:15.060

women and men taking the good news of jesus christ around the world, recall the assemblies gathered around the reading of scripture in baptism and Eucharist. Imagine them making sense, making meaning in light of who they

00:32:15.060 - 00:32:31.400

knew God to be and how they experience the risen christ. And as you picture that, envision our own christian communities, reading together, trusting the mercy of God. As paul draws on all the wealth

00:32:31.400 - 00:32:51.390

of scriptural poetry, our preachers and teachers and readers and all of us can do that also drink from the well and find life giving visions, compare this with political discourses where one always wins and one always

00:32:51.390 - 00:33:09.320

is defeated, compare paul's vision of the inclusive design of God. This imaginative work is an honoring of God and an attempt to speak into the mystery. It is a gesture of love. Paul's vision of

00:33:09.330 - 00:33:24.890

God is of one who is immensely creative and inventive , who works out of his fundamental, merciful, trustworthy character to rescue the whole human race and the creation groaning. In Travail, God is still doing

00:33:24.890 - 00:33:40.920

this. This is a vision we need in a divided world that lacks imagination of islam opposed to the west of north and global, south of first and two thirds world. God figured it out then and

00:33:40.920 - 00:34:04.460

is figuring it out Now there's a wide nous in God's mercy. We need reawakened imagination to find scripture like paul did and like his assemblies a place of refreshment and confidence and courage. Humans are not helpless

00:34:04.460 - 00:34:29.340

before the word, but you and I are agents , faithful readers who play with images contribute mess around and make new things, make things new, paul ends his heroic effort to explain by switching to praise

00:34:29.350 - 00:34:50.080

and docks ology and I'm going to do the same thing. The prayer that concludes his struggle represents a giving up of the solving but the effort of solving still remains. It is a confession of inability to

00:34:50.080 - 00:35:10.470

use words, but the words the attempt remains as a witness to faithfulness and is something holy for us to honor and upon which to gaze. This final exclamation of praise is also a communal salvation song.

00:35:14.140 - 00:35:30.960

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, How unsearched double are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways for who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor

00:35:30.640 - 00:35:54.550

or who has given a gift to him to receive a gift in return for from him and through him and to him, are all things to him, be the glory forever. Haman thank you. Mhm

00:35:55.540 - 00:36:42.410

. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. We have some time for some questions this morning. Thank you so much for that. Cynthia I really appreciated , especially today, the move toward imagination. And

00:36:42.410 - 00:37:00.050

my question is as you travel around with churches and congregations, do you have particular exercises you walk folks through to help them practice this kind of imagination? Thank you for your question. Um I've been practicing

00:37:00.050 - 00:37:21.110

this with uh congregations. Um I was very affected by a lecture I heard once by art educator and he said, what people can't enjoy art because they're told about art and they're told about ballet and modern

00:37:21.110 - 00:37:31.460

art and they and they and what they really what you really need to understand our experience of art. So, I I applied that to scripture and thought , well, what people really need is an experience

00:37:31.460 - 00:37:45.150

of scripture. But at least in some traditions, that's ah they're separated from that. So, other , other traditions are not, there's experiencing scripture all the time, but in my world, they,

00:37:45.530 - 00:38:00.270

there's a lot of blocks. So I've used a number of things with congregations to engage scripture. One is poetry, uh, somebody else's poems about uh scripture. It can it can light the imagination of

00:38:00.270 - 00:38:14.640

those archetypes, light dark mud, water, dirt . Um, and I was asked a question about this. Well, what if people don't like poetry ? I said, well, don't call it poetry

00:38:15.420 - 00:38:34.000

that solves that. Um I've also used exercises with the voice. Um a lot of exercises around speaking scripture, learning scripture by heart, and a lot of exercises with movement, bringing the body into the

00:38:34.010 - 00:38:50.130

experience of scripture. So, I'm experimenting all the time with, with ways to help evoke this experience of scripture. I also want to thank you Cynthia . This has just been wonderful. And I wanted

00:38:50.130 - 00:39:04.560

to to ask you to say more about something. Um you alluded to sort of making a transition in the way you approach the interpretation is a study of scripture. And it reminded me that I went through

00:39:04.560 - 00:39:22.160

seminary in a generation in which uh, the examination of scripture was sort of as exciting as a science laboratory experiment on mice. And uh, we we came we came to the end of it with something

00:39:22.160 - 00:39:35.770

something. But it was uh it was it was not the imaginative approach that I think you alluded to moving toward. And I wish you would just say a little bit more about that. Um, to

00:39:35.780 - 00:39:51.940

walk us, walk us slowly through that so that we might get a sense of what's at stake in shifting in the way that biblical scholarship has shifted toward a more imaginative there. I say poetic approach to

00:39:51.940 - 00:40:08.920

interpreting scripture. Thank you. When I was in seminary are exegesis classes, we had to find a one sentence meaning of what the text meant and then we had to get to go through all these things

00:40:08.930 - 00:40:23.580

to get to that. Um, I want to say that there's such a value and historical critical scholarships of bible. So I'm not, I don't want to appear to be, um, criticizing it or

00:40:23.590 - 00:40:35.690

or dissing it or even making fun of it because I think there's, it still has a very important role reading the text, seeing the words on the page, not not bringing in other words that aren't

00:40:35.690 - 00:40:54.310

on the page, I'm still a believer in that , but um in some ways, as scriptural biblical criticism has moved more to embracing uh politics, To embracing theological education of scripture, to uh believing that

00:40:54.310 - 00:41:08.590

social location is a part of scripture, has um rediscovered the history of interpretation of scripture, you know , in the church fathers and in other generations of uh reading of scripture besides just the 19th and 20th

00:41:08.590 - 00:41:29.270

century. Um it's expanded our understanding of what meaning is and it's and um it's what I'm aiming for and trying to work on with the students I teach is integrating that intellect and that imagination, the head

00:41:29.270 - 00:41:44.040

and the heart that all those corny um binaries. Um how can you really, really think about something so hard, like the slavery metaphor and paul and how to read it and also surrender to this playful

00:41:44.060 - 00:41:57.830

, um courageous kind of playing. It's I've seen biblical scholarship move that way. But when I started off it was you were either biblical scholar or you're a theologian. I couldn't decide. So I ended

00:41:57.830 - 00:42:10.990

up being a biblical scholar, but now I see many more biblical scholars doing theological work. So thank you for the question. Hi, thank thank you for for that really powerful lecture. I'm asking you

00:42:10.990 - 00:42:22.610

this question as a retired professor, christian ethics, Social ethics. So not a biblical scholar, but I was so moved by what you were saying. But then I was struggling as like often do with

00:42:22.610 - 00:42:35.060

the male language for God at the end of the him and I wanted to ask you about that and feminist principles as by standing. I remembered when I was teaching in an undergraduate institution and we had to

00:42:35.060 - 00:42:46.520

teach in joe to Christianity and I'm not a biblical scholar in a way. When I did the creation story, I used James Wendell johnson's home on the creation. And that line where he speaks about God

00:42:46.530 - 00:42:58.820

bending over like a mammy over her baby was so powerful. So I think that's kind of how I worked it and then, but I still have the greater question of how do we play with these gender

00:42:58.820 - 00:43:17.230

images play with gender please. Um, I was teaching in a um prison in Gatesville and I was , I wanted to do the poem about, I wanted to use the story of the healing at the

00:43:17.240 - 00:43:24.350

mud in the eyes and the healing is slow him and I, but I didn't, when I read it in john nine, I didn't, it didn't work. I didn't, I didn't like it.

00:43:24.360 - 00:43:39.440

So I just wrote another poem uh, using the mother as the yeah, the mother is the figure putting the mud on the child's eyes. And, and, and it was a reading of that story

00:43:39.510 - 00:43:51.890

. But it took away all the, um, the male language. It took away the superstructure around being in a gospel and all that. And it was an amazing way to work with that text.

00:43:51.890 - 00:44:02.210

So I, I really recommend, um, playing with the language changing the gender. That's another thing that we can do in parishes. It doesn't mean even even the people that don't want to change the

00:44:02.210 - 00:44:21.010

translation. You're not, if you're not in a setting like that, you can play it and just feel what it feels like. Thank you for asking that I wasn't gonna ask this until that last comment

00:44:21.390 - 00:44:36.290

. Yeah. I'm fascinated by the idea of playing with the text. I think I'd do that probably more than is healthy for me. But, but what I'm wondering about is what you think the poets

00:44:36.510 - 00:44:54.420

role responsibility, opportunity is to tell the stories around the edges of the stories, The ones that scripture either doesn't tell or doesn't emphasize, but in some way or another live at the corners and edges of

00:44:54.420 - 00:45:12.990

our consciousness as we read these texts. Could you reflect on that a little for us? That's beautifully put in the form of a question. Mhm. Yeah, we're uh this is what theologians do and

00:45:13.000 - 00:45:27.050

this is what the people of God does. The cloud of witnesses that frank was referring to is uh the speak God's words through their own words and the text, the scriptural texts with their carry Arkle sub

00:45:27.050 - 00:45:42.500

structure with their male language with their andro centrism. They leave things out. They're silent characters like the puppies under the table and the poet can give voice to those places that are not voiced in the text

00:45:42.890 - 00:45:59.750

and they bring to their their playfulness, all the principles around who this god is and how the how the symbols work and all that. So uh poets have a important role and a a role that creates

00:45:59.750 - 00:46:07.610

the people of God to bring to light what's in scripture. But you can't see. Thank you.