Liberal Christianity and the New Court of the Men

LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW COURT OF THE MEN

Sun. Sept. 2nd, 2018

My longest blog yet, I think.

Part One.

There was a reason why the Temples of Zerubbabel and Herod had a Court of the Women and a Court of the Israelites (the latter with a masculine plural Hebrew suffix, which turns out to signify a Court of the Jewish Men).  The Court of the Women really signified the Court of the Women and Children.

The Court of the Men really meant the Court of the Grownups Who Have Temporarily Stepped Away from the Children.

Part Two.

The trick or deal was, that in Ancient Jewish religion, only the men were allowed to step away temporarily from the children.  This brings us to a point where I think the Romans were more advanced than the Jews.  The Romans did not create a history which turns out to have an equal number of emperors and empresses.  What the Romans did have, however, before they changed from a republic to an empire, was that women had the right to vote.

The war between the Romans and the Jews (66 to 70 A.D., some thirty years after Jesus was crucified) was a textbook case of a very bloody culture war, which ended with a crushing victory for one side and a crushing defeat for the other.  But I believe that in a culture war, neither side is one hundred percent right, and some kind of compromise is always superior to the outcome where you have a crushing victory for one side and a crushing defeat for the other.  So I will balance off my remark about the Romans being more advanced than the Jews in women's rights, by pointing to another area in which the Jews were more advanced than the Romans.  The area of crucifixion.

Crucifixion was invented by the Romans, and it is a cruel way to kill a person, aimed at criminals and slaves.  Martin Hengel in his book Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross -- please imagine quotation marks around the word "folly" because it is not an un-Christian book -- documents the recent existence of a little group of scholars with their pants on fire who believed that crucifixion was not all that painful.  Hengel proves that group of scholars wrong, and I'm with Hengel.

Part Three.

To regroup, we have suggested so far that the Jews in the time of Jesus did not have either advanced or admirable ideas about women's rights.  We then took off on a tangent to add that does not mean we think the Romans were  to be praised for their actions in Palestine.  We now return to the theme we have stated, that those two courts of the temple in the days of Jesus, the Court of the Women and the Court of the Israelites, performed a function which still needs to be performed in religion today: the function of creating a temporary separation, either during the time of worship or sometime near the time of worship, between adults who are with children, and adults who have temporarily stepped away from the children.

In the churches I've worshipped in, it is a difficult separation, surrounded by negotiations!  I will come back to the reason why it is worth doing.  First: something about the difficulty of doing it.  It reminds you of the story of the sisters Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42, doesn't it?  One sister Mary sat down and listened to Jesus's teaching, while the other sister Martha prepared dinner.  Martha said to Jesus, Mary needs to help me with the work of the house.  Luke writes that Jesus began his answer to Martha by saying her name twice.  Her name twice -- the gospel writer's way of indicating, that Jesus talked patiently to the two sisters.  His answer was like this: it is good that one listens to me, and the other one does the work of the house.  But there is so much between the lines -- if everything that is between the lines in the Bible were written down, it would be twice as long!  I calculate that Martha was trying to set a good example for Mary: Martha began by thinking to herself, if I do what is needful, then Mary will soon join me.  But Martha's idea, if I set a good example, Mary will follow me, did not work out.  So Martha changed her tactic: perhaps it is better to bring the division of labor out in the open.  But Jesus was more focused on giving Mary the chance to hear the rest of what He had to say, than He was on clarifying the division of labor for future believers.

I calculate that we liberal Christians do have a belief about the division of labor, namely this: turn about is fair play.  The Christian who is one day with the Grownups Who Have Temporarily Separated Themselves from the Children, will on another day be with the Grownups Who Are with the Children.  "Turn about is fair play" aims to liberate both Mary and Martha, and to draft the men as well to take turns being among the Adults Who Are with the Children.

(Parenthetically, the story of Martha and Mary reminds us that the big divide between liberal Christians and conservative Christians is not in the Bible, but in the commentaries.  If you read Luke 10:38-42 in the Bible in a conservative church and then read it in a liberal church, it's pretty nearly the same story.)

Back to the point.  One day an adult worshipper worships in the Court of the Adults Who Are with the Children, and another day the same adult worships in the Court of the Adults Who Have Temporarily Separated Themselves from the Children.  I sense that -- though there are many negotiations -- that is a step in the right direction.

Part Four.

Now as promised, we come back to the matter of why it is a good thing, that there should be a Court in the temple for Grownups Who Have Temporarily Stepped Apart from the Children.  Here it is: not all the Bible has to tell us, is written for children.  I will give you my example.  It is the almost-sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham in Genesis chapter 22.  The outcome of the story is contained in verses 10 to 18 (in the Revised English Bible version):

10  He [that is, Abraham] reached out for the knife to slay his son,  11  but the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, 'Abraham! Abraham!'  He answered, 'Here I am!'  12  The angel said, Do not raise your hand against the boy; do not touch him.  Now I know that you are godfearing man.  You have not withheld from me your son, your only son.'  13  Abraham looked round, and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns.  He went, seized the ram, and offered it as a sacrifice instead of his son.  14  Abraham named that shrine 'The LORD will provide'; and to this day the saying is: 'In the mountain of the LORD it was provided.'  15  Then the angel of the LORD called from heaven a second time to Abraham  16  and said , 'This is the word of the LORD: By my own self I swear that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,  17  I shall bless you abundantly and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore.  Your descendants will possess the cities of their enemies.  18  All nations on earth will wish to be blessed as your descendants are blessed, because you have been obedient to me.'

Isaac wasn't Abraham's only son, because Ishmael was also Abraham's son.  It is a yucky Biblical bending of the truth.  But back to the point: The Bible is clear about the moral of the story.  Abraham is blessed by God because Abraham was obedient.

But I tell you this: we have to ask this Bible story the question which Micah asks of God's worshippers in his chapter 6 verse 8, What is it that the LORD requires of you?

O Bible story of Abraham and Isaac: what is it that the LORD God requires of you?

The LORD requires of you, that you teach that human sacrifice is wrong.

That is what Genesis 22 the first to fourteenth verses teach.  They taught Abraham, and they teach us, that human sacrifice is wrong.

In complete truth I tell you, that God did not enter into this Bible story to teach Abraham obedience.  God asked Himself, How will I teach my servant Abraham that human sacrifice is wrong, and how will I teach it to him unforgettably, so that he and his descendants will never forget it?

God answered Himself, I will pretend to tell Abraham to sacrifice his son, of whom I said to him in the last chapter 'it is through Isaac's line that your name will be perpetuated.'

And God said to Himself, If Abraham makes to obey me, I will stop him from killing his son; but if Abraham disobeys me, I will say to him, 'Blessed are you, Abraham, because you knew that human sacrifice was wrong before I told you.'  And God said to Himself, Either way, I will make known to Abraham that human sacrifice is wrong, in a way that his descendants will never forget.

WHAT THEN is Genesis 22:18?  "your descendants are blessed, because you have been obedient to me."  It is window dressing added to verses 1 to 14, because the children were listening.

Whenever the children are listening to the Torah, the lesson is always about obedience.

That is why St. Paul said that what is taught first to Christians is milk, and what is taught later to mature Christians is meat (or at the least translation, solid food!).

The grownups need to hear additional lessons, beyond the lesson of obedience.

Grownups sometimes have to be disobedient.  Grownups sometimes have to say "Can't do that, General!"  That is what Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. said to William Calley at the My Lai massacre: "Can't do that, Lieutenant."  And Hugh Thompson went home justified in the eyes of the LORD.

That's a fine howdy-doody, turning a lesson about the wickedness of human sacrifice into a lesson about obedience!  And it's all the fault of the people who said, there are children present, therefore the leson HAS to be about obedience!

There!!  I came to my point.  There has to be a separate Court, so that, when the grownups have temporarily stepped away from the children, the grownups can get in some Bible study, where the lesson isn't always obedience, obedience, obedience!  Sometimes the lesson has to be about the wickedness of human sacrifice.  Sometimes the lesson has to be about what the poet and hymnwriter William Alexander Percy said, "The peace of God, it is no peace, But strife sowed in the sod. Yet brothers pray for but one thing -- The marvelous peace of God!"  (http://www.covert.org/georgetown.html but labeled by my computer "not secure."  Apparently I remembered it wrong -- I thought it was "Strife closed in the sod.")  Sometimes the lesson is a painful and scary point for grownups to ponder, when their health is good and their constitution is strong, and they are in the quiet moments between duties.

Part Five.

Now it's time to talk about the relationship between the children's Sunday School teachers, and the theologians.  I will tell you a parable.  The theologians wished to express their gratitude to the children's Sunday School teachers, so the theologians gave a banquet to which the children's Sunday School teachers were all invited.  The theologians asked the cooks to prepare a feast to honor the children's Sunday School teachers, and the cooks complied.  But the children's Sunday School teachers all thought that the invitation was for one of the others.  One of them made one excuse for not coming, and another one made another excuse for not coming.  So the cooks and the theologians had to eat all the food themselves.

The moral of the parable is that ain't right, and we know better!  I know a church where both the children's Sunday School teachers and the teachers of the adult Sunday School classes were invited to a banquet, and all of them who weren't sick came, and a theologian came and spoke to them, and the food was delicious, and the teenagers helped serve the meal, and God was glorified!

But in spite of that, there is more to be said.  In fact, the relationship between the theologians and the children's Sunday School teachers is not as beautiful as it could be, and as it ought to be.  We all know a fact about the children's Sunday School teachers which we ought to honor, but somehow, we fail to honor this fact.  What we all know is that the children's Sunday School teachers are the first teachers of the Bible.  Here and there you come across a child who learns his or her Bible from their parents; and here and there you come across a child whose parents give them a book of Bible stories, saying "Read this," and the child reads the book of Bible stories and learns about the Bible.  But in most cases, the Christian child's first learning about the Bible is from their children's Sunday School teachers.

Every generation of pedagogy goes into this universal and interdenominational Christian project of teaching the children about the Bible.  The Ancients say "children need heroes" and the Moderns say "learning must be age-appropriate," and it all gets included, and God is glorified.

The children's Sunday School teachers are doing an honorable job, and the theologians are doing an honorable job -- this is my testimony; I am speaking from personal experience here! -- but those two groups of grown-ups don't actually get around to honoring each other very often, and somehow all the other grown-up Christians don't notice the fact that, except at that wonderful once-a-year banquet when there is a sort of a truce, they didn't actually honor each other.

The truth about Sunday School is exactly the same as the truth about Monday to Friday school.  Say it!  The children's teachers don't have time to teach the children everything.  The problem is not merely, that not all teaching which could be done in theory, is age-appropriate.  No, the problem is bigger than that: God did not design us to stop learning at the age of eighteen, or at the age of twenty-two, or at any other age.  Adult Sunday school is useful and good because we all spend the rest of our lives plugging in gaps in our knowledge, and that's not some kind of embarrassment -- it's the way God intended our lives to be!

We believe that when children's Sunday School teachers have finished teaching the children, there is still more Christian education for the erstwhile children -- now teenagers -- to learn.  And when the teenage Sunday School teachers have finished teaching the teenagers, there is still more Christian education for the erstwhile teenagers -- now adults -- to learn.  We stop spending all the day long in classrooms, and we start earning our bread by the sweat of our brow, but we don't stop learning.

I will single out one particular area of teaching and growth for adult Christians. Namely, learning difficult and useful information about foreigners.  The information that many citizens of foreign countries believe in the same God you and I believe in, and what's more, that many of them are doing just as good a job as you or I in putting that faith we miraculously share across national boundaries into practice -- that information is specifically for grownups, or mature believers, to use St. Paul's word.  It is simply too hard for children to grasp.  And teenagers are busy living through the most hellacious period of a Christian's life -- if we set aside portions of old age, which are sometimes like a second teenage, or at least like being shot at.

FindamateGiveupyourlifeforyourcountrysomeofyouBythewaythepeopleontheothersideofthewararenotallbadEarnyourlivingbythesweatofyourbrow.  As the man said in the movie when he looked at the grotesquely unstylish house, DAMN.

But, the rest of us grownup Christians, who hadn't actually noticed that the theologians and the children's Sunday school teachers weren't actually honoring each other most of the year until I mentioned it a moment ago -- we can help.  We can help them honor each other.  This is my vision, or part of it.  We, not only the cooks, but all the grownups who simply aren't teachers -- if we are living our walk right, we go to the door of the children's Sunday School teacher, and we honor him or her, and we go to the door of the theologian, and we honor him or her -- we are like Martha, trying to set a good example.  But we can also spell it out.  We can encourage the theologians and the children's Sunday School teachers, to honor each other.  The one group are teaching the learners who need milk for nourishment, and the other group are teaching that special subset of the young adults who are the edgy advanced learners, the disciples of the theologians.  They are all involved in a giant complicated project planned out by God, to help learners in every stage of their journey.  As Chaucer said of the teachers, "And gladly would they learn, and gladly teach."

Part Six.

We are getting near the end of our essay.  I read a funny, funny piece of literary criticism in the magazine called The New Yorker fifteen years ago.  It said that Margaret Wise Brown's children's book Goodnight Moon with pictures by Clement Hurd was a book about death.  In the book, the grandmother rocks in the rocking chair in the child's room and lulls the child tired at the end of the day.  "And a little old lady whispering hush."  The literary critic said the little old lady was actually talking to the other old people in the family.  "We have to slow down.  We have to stop being fretful.  We have to go to sleep in a little while."  That's awkward y'all.  I said to my folks "No, Goodnight Moon is not about death!  It's about putting the children to sleep so the grownups can have a little bit of grownup time to themselves at the end of the day!"  Today, I am standing beside the me of fifteen years ago.  I'm agreeing with the me of fifteen years ago.  Goodnight Moon is about putting the children to sleep so the grownups can have a little grownup time to themselves at the end of the day.

The temple architects designed the Court of the Israelites -- which we have renamed the Court of the Grownups Who Have Temporarily Stepped Away from the Children -- for that same reason: because the grownup Christians need a little grownup Christian time to themselves.

Frank Newton