"There's No Place Like Home"

       
"Maybe there's a chance for me to go back
Now that I have some direction
It sure would be nice to be back home
Where there's love and affection
And just maybe I can convince time to slow up
Giving me enough time in my life to grow up
Time, be my friend
Let me start again." 

In the final chapter of Marcus Borg's book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, he lays out his image of Jesus - which is wholly contrary to the most commonly held beliefs and images of Jesus - as "a spirit person, subversive sage, social prophet and movement founder who invited his followers and hearers into a transforming relationship with the same Spirit that he himself knew, and into a community whose social vision was shaped by the core value of compassion."  As I've stated in previous posts, this is not the image of Jesus that we were introduced to as children.  Nor is it the image of Jesus that oppressed peoples around the country and the world are accustomed to.  Finally, it is not the image of Jesus that is being preached in most mini and mega churches today.

And while I know many of you are probably expecting me to weigh in on the latest controversy surrounding Eddie Long, and his alleged seduction and coercion of impressionable, at risk young boys, I will do so in the context of the bigger picture.  I want to focus my comments on what I believe to be the larger issue, and interestingly enough, the misconception of Jesus in church and society as professed from the pulpits of the institutional Black Church, which also includes mosques and temples.  While Jesus and Christianity is our focus, the insidious nature of using religious dogma, tradition and faith as weapons of bondage, oppression and tyranny against other human beings that the dominate group(s) in society have determined to be of lesser value, is a practice that crosses all religious lines.  But for us Christians, if we knew Jesus as a "spirit person, a subversive sage, social prophet and movement founder," that calls for us to engage and encounter one another with love and compassion; If we knew Jesus as one who saw the "sacred worth" of each and every one of God's people, the controversy surrounding Eddie Long would be moot.  We would not be here at all.

He, Eddie Long, would not have ever felt the need to castigate God's same-and-both-gender loving people.  And I, the media, progressive minded folk and other same-and-both-gender loving people would not be cheering and dancing around the proverbial camp-fire, roasting marshmallows around his "chickens coming home to roost" moment.  Honestly, I am troubled by the dichotomy of my internal urgings.  On the one hand, as a woman and a lesbian, I feel a supreme gladness in my heart that this man in particular, has had the cover of excessive exhibitions of masculinity, piety, marriage, and misguided misinterpretations of scripture snatched off of him.  On the other hand, I feel an equal sense of sorrow and a maternal need to protect him, as he too, is a victim of the very religiosity he so loudly purported.  It is never a good day when people are taken through what both he, and the young boys are about to go through.  It is an incredibly sad time for African Americans as well.  But, "Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh" (Galatians 6:7,8a).  And so, while I struggle in my own flesh - not with my sexuality mind you - but with what has happened to this man, who by the way, is still my brother, I do take heed, because God is passing by.

Now, back to the matter at hand.  Central to Borg's claim is that the bible can be summed up in three "macro-stories, the Exodus Story, the Story of Exile and Return and, the Priestly Story."  We, African Americans, know the Exodus Story almost intimately.  As descendants of captured, kidnapped, raped, beaten, lynched, exploited and enslaved Africans, we know what it was/is like living under the rule/yoke of Pharaoh.  Those long, hot days in the fields picking and chopping cotton and tobacco was akin to making bricks without straw.  We, too, bore the lash of the slave master's quirt on our backs for nothing more than for the taskmaster to exact absolute control of our minds and our bodies.  As such, we also know the Story of Exile and Return.  I, like many other African Americans, have made the pilgrimage back to Africa - that place where many of us call Home.  And like the Israelites on their journey to the "promised land," and the "Prodigal Son," we too have traveled to a far and distant land, and we found ourselves among new and unfamiliar people.  We, too, have landed in places closely resembling that of a "pig's pen" and longed to return Home.  To take this even further to the margins of the marginalized, when it comes to the institutional Black Church, we, same-and-both-gender loving people, have been set apart, put out and ostracized from a place in our community, our homes and yes, even our churches.  We have traveled near and far to find a place for us that closely resembles that which was, is comfortable and familiar to our hearing, our cultural understanding, racial kinship, tradition and worship experience.  We, too, know well the loneliness and longing for Home.

Finally, the Priestly Story is for me, Jesus' Story. It is the story of a man with a message of divine love, inclusion and compassion.  It is a message that welcomes all to the table of fellowship.  This is the story of one who stood against the kind of conventional wisdom that created the atmosphere that causes one like Eddie Long to live his life in dark, hidden and secret places.  One that leads to destructive behavior with, as we have seen, potentially catastrophic consequences.  Jesus' Story, as the imitatio dei (imitation of God), the incarnation of divine Wisdom, Sophia, is the story of a sage introducing a new and alternative wisdom whose message "sets the captives free."  That is, any and all persons who are or have been victims of conventional wisdom - racism, economic exploitation, religious arrogance and intolerance, sexism and homophobia - to be free.  We are to be free to be all that God has called us into purpose to be.  It is to be on the journey back to that place where we all were once before, floating in the abyss of divine love and compassion with God - HOME.  Oh how I pray; 

"If you're list'ning God
Please don't make it hard to know
If we should believe in things that we see
Tell us, should we run away should we try and stay
Or would it be better just to let things be?

Living here, in this brand new world
Might be a fantasy
But it taught me to love
So it's real, real to me
 
And I've learned
That we must look inside our hearts
To find a world full of love
Like yours
Like mine
 
Like home..."             
             (Charles Emanuel Smalls)
© Dorinda G. Henry, 2010

THEOLOGIA HABITUS EST! 

"Sophia, Sophia, Sophia"

Wisdom is a Woman and her name is Sophia!

One of my favorite books in the whole wide world is Alice Walker's The Color Purple.  In the book there is an amazingly large character in life, size, personality, tenacity and strength.  The character's name is Sophia, played by the incomparable Oprah Winfrey in Steven Spielburg's film adaptation by the same title.  We are first introduced to this "generous recipe of a woman," as the love interest of Harpo.  Admittedly I'm making some assumptions here about your familiarity with this book, so if you are not familiar with the book or the movie, here's a tip - stop what you're doing and go get it!  Don't walk, but run, run as fast as you can and go get it!  Okay, where was I?  Oh yeah, "Sophia, Sophia, Sophia!"  No doubt you are asking yourself, where is she going with this?  Well, be patient and you'll see soon enough.  Sometimes, the journey to a given destination is the best part, so hold on to your tail feathers. It may not have anything to do with it - and then again, maybe it does.

As you know, we have been dealing with Marcus Borg's book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.  We just finished chapter 5, which is entitled, "Jesus, the Wisdom of God; Sophia becomes flesh."  Ahhh, if you know anything about me, and maybe most of you don't, but a few of you do, you know that I was scratching like a dog with a bad case of fleas to get to this chapter.  Along with chapter 5, I asked the class to read Proverbs 1:20-9.  It would be irresponsible of me to simply go over the chapter without at least including Proverbs.  For without it traveling along with us on this journey to meet Jesus again for the first time, we would not be able to "eat of [her] bread and drink of the wine [she] has mixed" for our journey (Proverbs 9:5).  We might get to our final destination, but it won't be as fulfilling, nor as fun if we leave it behind.  I also suggest you read the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach.  Okay, are you ready?  Get set...  Let's go.

In both Hebrew and Greek, "wisdom" is a feminine noun.  In Hebrew it is Hokmah.  In Greek, it is Sophia and because in English, Sophia is a female name, whenever "wisdom" is personified as a woman or having female characteristics in the text - even if the text is in Hebrew - scholars commonly use the name Sophia.  Thereby remaining ever mindful of its feminine personification.  And so, when we read in Proverbs, "wisdom" saying to us; "The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.  Ages ago I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth.  When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.  Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth - when he had not yet made earth an fields, or the world's first bits of soil.  When he established the heavens, I was there... I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race," we must hear it in the feminine form (Proverbs 9:22-27a, 30a,31).

Along with that, we hear her echoed voice in the book of John, where a similar declaration is made; "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him is life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:1-5).  Now, before you men go getting all wound up and excited, traditionally, a common mistake is made here.  Jesus, is consciously and unconsciously, read into the text where the word "Word" is.  "Word," in Greek is logos, which is a masculine noun.  It is a leap, and a good try, but it doesn't signify Jesus, nor does it translate into the masculine.  Why?  Because in this context, logos is referencing the Hebrew connotation of "wisdom," which is and remains feminine - Sophia.  So no, Jesus was not in the beginning with God, the logos was.  And what is logos?  Scholars call it the "functional equivalent" of Sophia.  We must then read that passage thus, "In the beginning was Sophia, and Sophia was God.  She was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through her, and without her not one thing came into being...."  Whew!  Now that was a lot! 

   

Both of the referenced passages point to attributes of God - all powerful, all knowing, "the fashioner of all things," "the mother of all good things." And again, emphasizing the "functional equivalency" of words, not only was Sophia with God, but indeed, Sophia is the female image of God.  Whoa Lawd!  Hold on, hold on, don't go getting your panties in a wad.  I'm just saying!  Step out of your traditional comfort zone of conventional wisdom and into the new alternative wisdom introduced to us by Jesus the Nazarene.  Okay, okay, I'm gonna wrap this up, because it really is too deep and too much to try to cover in one post, but suffice it to say, in the synoptic gospels, that is Matthew, Mark and Luke, a correlation is drawn between Jesus and Sophia.  Jesus speaks of both himself and John the Baptizer as children of Sophia, "For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say,'He has a demon'; the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'  Nevertheless, [Sophia] is vindicated by all her children" (Luke 7:33-35).  Why did I insert Sophia in that text?  Remember, whenever "wisdom" is used in the female form, i.e. traits characteristically associated with a woman, Sophia is used.

I'll end this post with the gospel of John where we reach that climatic moment when... drum roll please - "And [Sophia] became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen [her] glory..." (John 1:14a).  Yes,  "Jesus is the incarnation of divine [wisdom], Sophia becomes flesh."  Umph, umph, umph, "Miss Celie!  I's feels like sanging!"   

"Sophia, Sophia, Sophia!  Ooooo wee!  Dat sho' is a purty name!"

© Dorinda G. Henry, 2010

THEOLOGIA HABITUS EST!