Synapsis of Union Lectures

ELISABETH SCHUSSLER FIORENZA

LIBERATING SCRIPTURE: READING AGAINST THE GRAIN

LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD: MAKING THE SILENCED PRESENT

1 Peter 2:17

Note that “liberation” cuts two ways—scripture liberates the reader; but also the reader needs to liberate scripture from the context in which it was written (and all the inherent prejudices therein). 

Liberation Theologians have sought to find the core meaning of the Word separate from the cultural context and interpretation. For Fiorenza, this move is a decided necessity for women—feminism must liberate the Word from its patriarchal dominated sources.

Feminism in its truest form should be part of the Gospel move to liberate all human existence from whatever human bondage we inflict on one another. God wants us free to be whom God made us to be. Every person should be recognized fully as a person, no more, no less.

As applied to faith praxis, feminism is seeking the end of a domination model of societal structures and faith institutions. Domination has nothing to do with God’s relationship to the world and us within it. Such a model feeds only the trends of dehumanization that are so prevalent in so many different areas of our world (imperialism, persistent patriarchy in the developing world [if not the developed world] etc.).

Scripture becomes a tool for such liberation when it is allowed to speak to human spirits communicating the fullness and wholeness of the Least of These (God’s voice for all). However, the very real male-centric language poses a special challenge. One has to “think twice”—i.e., seeing beneath the language to see the true message presented. The Church has done nothing to help with this process, for its very liturgy, structures, and even interpretation do nothing to truly bring about a “think twice” reading, preferring to simply accept things at face value.

1 Peter stands as an exceptional example of the problem, for Peter uses no inclusive Greek terms, seemingly leaving women out of every aspect of the community’s life except that of wife within the home! Therefore, if we are to find women within the community of Christ flowing from Peter, we have to “read against the grain,” digging beneath what is presented to see what is really there. 

To help us begin to “think twice,” begin by more deeply understanding to whom the letter was written. Peter singles out resident aliens residing in Asia Minor—i.e., Diaspora Jews (men and women) who were Roman subjects. Asia Minor was cosmopolitan, being a major commercial center for the Empire. Therefore, Peter names the recipients by their societal designations (e.g., slave, citizens, etc.). Almost everyone sees that every single example is male, with the only exception being the “elect one” of 5:13, but no one agrees as to who this person is—a woman leader, Peter’s wife, the church in general, etc. If Peter intended a generic reading for the Church, then we can see he was addressing all members of the community on equal terms. If the recipient community heard the generic meaning, then there is the very real possibility that this early church saw the egalitarianism of the Gospel.

A major theme in this letter is suffering—localized persecution and hardship experienced by this particular community. Peter reminds them that Christ suffered, and that the best response to their suffering is to become model citizens wherever and however they are. Suffering is not a disgrace, but rather is the very essence of the gospel community. It becomes a means by which they will once and for all understand the truth that God is good and grace abounds.

Furthermore, Peter emphasizes honor. For Peter, this means meeting rejection with good behavior. Many of the cultures of the Empire were built on a shame/honor dichotomy. Shame was seen as more feminine, whereas honor was male. To be in power, to achieve success, and to rise in acclaim were all seen as actualizations of being male. The cultural rejection of Christianity was meant to shame the community. Rather than engage in counter insult, the community is called to meet the world in honor, following the example of Christ who met the rejection of the world in utter sinlessness. Suffering then becomes honorable because it becomes holy, aligning the sufferer with God’s own holiness who redeemed the world even as the world rejected God. 

The Church, then, can became an alternate reality to the world as it is. Glory through suffering stands the normal worldly paradigm on its ear. 

Again, the issue becomes the church’s inability to live by its own reality, applying/restricting full participation to the male adherents, determining the female adherents irrelevant. A counter comes in the letter itself (cf. 5:1ff.) wherein elders are charged to lead, not by abject authority (i.e., imperialism), but rather gently, with equanimity, and with self-emptying. The same standard is applied to the Least of These within the community (e.g., slaves [2:18ff]; wives [3:1ff]; etc.)—self-emptying will reveal a new standard of life within power—power gains nothing, but self-emptying proclaims Christ, revealing love as it is meant to be, and how that love can rework and reclaim all aspects of social order.

The sought consequence by this new standard is no less than converting the Empire itself—the greatest worldly power will be brought before God, transformed through obedience, acceptance, and grace. 

Now, jumping to our time and place, the marginalized are given a new model by which to transform and transcend their own context. By “thinking twice,” they can see anew and afresh the true liberation offered through Christ.

WHAT IS IN A NAME? REDISCOVERING OUR JEWISH ANCESTORS

As Peter wrote, there was still not yet a firm division or distinction between the new community of Christ and the existing community of Moses. Peter does address the new community as to be holy, inferring the same Levitical standard that governed Israel. The further implication was that the new messianic community was now the one object of God’s work as the covenant community. Peter’s hope seems to have been that the messianic community would eventually transform and transcend the former community, bringing all into recognition that the Messiah had indeed come.

One of our problems is that we have moved too far beyond that original context, seeing the Christian community as firmly distinct from the existing community—i.e., the letter is seen as exclusively a Christian work as opposed to being a Jewish work. The consequence is that our filters edit out the Jewish presence in the theology and ethics presented in the letter. The deeper societal consequence is a rejection of the Jewish community as “has been,” no longer an object of God’s focus and care. Recently, however, there has been a move to recapture the original essence (no distinction between Judaism and the Christ community), reemphasizing the inherent value and worth of Judaism. 

Historically, the ultimate division did not get cemented in place until the 4th or 5th Centuries, so all the New Testament reflects more mutuality than most of us give it credit for having. The original community of Christ truly did see itself as realized Jews—i.e., the Savior had come. However, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, there was no possibility of keeping the connection. The power and imperialism of the Empire infected the Church. We find this in the writing of St. Augustine as he lays the foundation for a rejection of Jewish theology. Supercession became the rule in determining the relationship between the two groups.

Our challenge then becomes eradicating the inherent supercession cemented in place by 1500 years of interpretation. Even as we attempt to show the connection in such terminology as “Christian Jews” and “Non-Christian Jews” still keeps the dualism alive. We need to “think twice” as we read the New Testament, realizing that those authors did not see themselves as anything truly distinct. They never called themselves Christian. That label was assigned by Rome with an especial emphasis on their impetus to social disorder and chaos! What this means is that the hard distinction came from outside the faith community.

Something else we need to recognize is that Jews have always been the subject of deep suffering and dehumanization because of their adamant stance of being distinct in their practice of being human as the covenant people of God. The community of Christ takes on that identity, and so for Peter, the only functional dichotomy is between Jew and Gentile. This interpretation, of course, depends on how one reads the superscription to 1 Peter—does Dispersion truly refer to the Jewish Diaspora, or is it a special designation for the scattered followers of Jesus? 

As we have seen, the distinction between Jew and Christian was still centuries removed from Peter, therefore, dispersion must mean Jewish peoples. Peter’s community, then, is a community of Jews proclaiming the arrival of the Messiah, a community that will define itself by a reinterpretation of the sacrificial essence of Jewish praxis through the lens of Jesus (cf. 2:4-10—the holy priesthood offering themselves as sacrifice, following the model of Jesus himself who sacrificed himself for the world). This view is further grounded in a reawakening to the existence of sacrificial messianic theology already extant in Judaism of the day. The prophetic tradition of “once you were not a people, but now you are a people; one you had no mercy, but now you have mercy” (cf. 2:10) is lifted up as the paradigm by which the community must be judged. Therefore, they suffer in faith within the oppressive order of Rome. Peter’s urging to create a model community is aimed at giving those outcast by society a place to be. The model community, in its suffering, will reveal the injustice of the Empire, forcing others to see the image of the follower of Christ, not as a rabble-rouser, but as a person formed by selfless love. These verses (4-10) employ image after image of Israel’s status as a distinct people within the world, showing the precedent for Peter’s urging of his own community—being of Christ, there is no excuse for not living as the covenant people, realizing both the promise and the curse of being so. 

For us, then, it becomes imperative that we see the Jewish roots and foundation of all that we believe. Rather than aid and abet anti-Semitism, we need to see the direct parallel between their existence and the existence of Jesus, a parallel that the community of Christ is to embody. We are one with Judaism, not apart from it.

READING OTHERWISE — READING FOR LIBERATION

Biblical discourse and interpretation must be done in such a way as to become a critical-ethical praxis that leads to the liberation of all peoples. We have to reject any interpretation or proclamation that works only to dehumanize the marginalized (i.e., scripture used as justification for the repression of women). A new model of interpretation could be called “the serpent dance” because it engages body, mind, and spirit, and because it is circular and spiraling, it confounds any attempt to force into a hierarchical order. By dancing our interpretation, we re-engage the creative imagination that brought us into being in the first place. Moreover, it is a touch of the infinite, for there is never a moment when one can say, “It is finished,” but instead it invites a continuing exploration and discussion of the ideas and ideals of scripture. In short, then, interpretation should be as emancipating as the message it interprets.

A liberating praxis of hermeneutics will flow through a variety of interpretive lenses (e.g., imagination, critical thinking, suspicion, reconstruction, experience, etc.), continually examining and re-examining the themes and revelatory points in any passage of scripture.

If one looks at 1 Peter, we can use the argument in chs. 3-4, wherein Peter admonishes the community to practice an idealistic system of good behavior, working through each strata of society from the emperor on down through the household slaves, all of whom are drawn into the household of God through Christ. Conventional interpretation simply sees and describes the systemic subordination of the strata, even to the point of creating a domination dominated image of God in relationship to creation, even placing Christ within the subordinate order. So how do we reinterpret this system to make it liberating? Peter actually argues that submission is the highest practice of love, reversing what is honorable—dominating is not God’s will, self-emptying service is! Sarah becomes a model for women to adhere to; while men/leaders should look to Christ who emptied himself, becoming a slave for all. 

The result is that the community of Christ becomes a threat, ironically, even as it becomes a complete embodiment of self-emptying subordination to whatever authority rules whatever level of society at which one exists. The Christian pater familias undercuts the traditional practice of power from the ordinary householder to Caesar himself, the pater familias of the entire Empire.

To practice “the serpent dance” with this text, one has to spend a great deal of time explaining the term subordination. Traditional hermeneutics defensively focuses on Christological reinterpretation of the term; whereas a Liberationist might well focus on the experience of one of slaves mentioned in the text. By delving into the experience of the people involved, the text becomes humanized as we are called to relate to the text, not simply ape whatever ethic is seemingly professed and proclaimed. We can begin to see what real options a slave, for instance, had as they sought to realize the promises of Christ in their very limited, utterly curtailed existence as a slave. As we do so, we may well find a hermeneutic that allows us to form bridges of compassion, redemption, and reclamation of victims of sex trafficking or domestic abuse, to use two very contemporary, very real examples. 

Furthermore, as we sift through all the different lenses of “the serpent dance,” we can help those to whom we preach begin to break free of their singular interpretation, beginning to see more than one point of view, broadening our collective understanding, and allowing for a far more systematic response that can tackle a social injustice from a myriad of angles. For instance, if we only take the language of scripture at face value, we miss the cultural norm of its ancient context in which terms we hear as specifically focused on only one group, gender, etc. were actually meant to be heard and interpreted  generically—i.e., Peter was a lot more inclusive than we suspect!

The consequence of the application of “the serpent dance” to interpretation is that rather than being a dictum of moralism, it becomes an opening to “well-being.” But the challenge will come when we realize that our hearers may be limited in their imaginations by their experience—how can child beaten from toddlerhood on ever understand  the concept of a Father who is love? Ergo, our task as preachers is also to be instructors, illuminating hidden meanings by explaining more fully the kaleidoscope of experiences that human beings have. Think of the inverse of the child-victim above—the child from a stable, love-infused home who really cannot fathom life in abuse—the preacher must welcome the victim of abuse by revealing the potential for life as seen in the other child while calling the other child to see and feel the pain of the abused. 

The simple summation is applying a hermeneutic that leads to transformation and transcendence of life as it is. That point is to continual push for an evolving interpretation that flexes as “the serpent dance” weaves through understandings and conclusions, continually shifting focus and conclusions dependent on who is hearing the text and what their avenues into the text might be as afforded by their lives.  Or even more simply, they own the text, freed from someone else telling them what it is they are supposed to hear. They hear God himself speaking to them as they are.