0021 - The Weight - Brent Strawn - “Hebrew Wisdom, Weary World”

Show Notes:

Conversations about the Bible in modern-day culture tend to dichotomize the Old and New Testaments in a manner that reduces the Old as archaic and obsolete while isolating the New as the bearer of relevance and truth. However, a deeper engagement with the texts of the Old Testament just might surprise readers when they find how relatable these stories of old are to an increasingly weary world. Was it not these very words that were used by Christ himself to proclaim his message to the world?

Dr. Brent Strawn is a Professor of Old Testament at Duke Divinity School, as well as a Law Professor at Duke Law School who joins us this week on The Weight. Strawn has published over 200 articles, chapters in books, contributions to reference works, and reviews. A prolific academic and researcher, Strawn’s work is inextricably linked to his pastoral identity as an ordained elder in the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, a calling he evokes as he “brings out treasures new and old” from the words of the Old Testament. 

In this episode, Strawn joins Chris and Eddie to discuss the unique role that the Old Testament can play in today's calamitous world. Revealing the multi-faceted nature of the oft-generalized testament, they discuss how the Old Testament can both accurately reflect the depths of anxiety and suffering felt in today’s world while also serving as conduit of substantial hope and empowerment. No matter where you fall on the religious spectrum, let this conversation be the beginning of a journey of rediscovery of the treasures hidden within the texts of the Old Testament.

The Weight - Afterthoughts:

We've realized that a lot of great conversation actually happens AFTER we say goodbye to our guests and turn the microphones off. So, we decided to turn the mics back on (and a camera) and create a new segment called, Afterthoughts.

This will live on our new YouTube channel and you can find our Afterthoughts on this episode NOW!

Resources:

In “The Old Testament Is Dying,” Brent details the ways in which the Old Testament is losing prevalence in the church while reminding readers of the vital role it should play in Christian faith and practice:

https://www.amazon.com/Old-Testament-Dying-Recommended-Explorations/dp/0801048885

“The Old Testament: A Concise Introduction” introduces readers to the three main sections of the Hebrew Bible while contrasting the story of the Old Testament told by scholars and the story that the Old Testament literature tells itself.

https://www.amazon.com/Old-Testament-Concise-Introduction/dp/0415643007

You can find a collection of Brent’s academic works here:

https://www.amazon.com/Brent-A.-Strawn/e/B0083HUZHU%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Chris references “Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty” by Walter Brueggemann, the author invites readers to engage with a scriptural imagination that helps us find God in the midst of global pandemic:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087VT869K/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0

The Pirkei Avot, referenced by Brent and Chris, is an ancient compilation of ethical teachings of the Rabbinic Jewish tradition. You can learn more about it here: https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot?lang=bi

Full Transcript:

Eddie Rester : 0:00

My name is Eddie Rester.

Chris McAlilly : 0:01

I'm Chris McAlilly. Today on the podcast we have the Reverend Dr. Brent A. Strawn, professor of Old Testament and professor of law at Duke Divinity School. He grew up Nazarene and he's a United Methodist elder. He spent years and years at Candler School of Theology. His research focus--he's now at Duke Divinity School--his research focuses on the ancient Near East, Israelite religion, Biblical law, the Psalms, the poetry and the theology of the Old Testament. He's written a couple excellent books in the last few years. One is called "The Old Testament Is Dying: A Diagnosis and Recommended Treatment." And then another one is "The Old Testament: A Concise Introduction." If you need a teacher, somebody who's an expert to take you back in to the Old Testament, Brent's an excellent guy. He's funny, thoughtful, and I think this conversation will help you connect to the moment.

Eddie Rester : 1:05

Yeah, it was a refreshing conversation as we talked about some heavy things. We talked about this cultural moment that we're in.

Chris McAlilly : 1:14

Where is God?

Eddie Rester : 1:15

Where is God right now?

Chris McAlilly : 1:17

How do you pray?

Eddie Rester : 1:18

And a lot of times Christians just want to jump to the New Testament. Let's just jump to Jesus. What does Jesus have to say?

Chris McAlilly : 1:24

Love everybody. 

Eddie Rester : 1:25

Yeah, love everybody. But he really drew together a lot of strands of the Old Testament that I think for me, personally, really, were exciting, were helpful.

Chris McAlilly : 1:36

Yeah, I think there's something in here for pretty much everybody. If you are struggling with prayer, or you're trying to figure out how do I pray in this moment? If you're an activist and you are trying to figure out how do I sustain hope in the face of structures or symbols that I'm frustrated with, or if you're someone who is really worried about the whole world being torn down, and you're worried about what we're conserving right now.

Eddie Rester : 2:02

Or you're just kind of not sure about the whole faith thing, because maybe the way scripture has been read to you in the past. This is just a helpful conversation.

Chris McAlilly : 2:12

So we look forward to... listen to the end. I think the end where he's talking about Job is the most important part of the conversation, and then let us know what you think on social media.

Eddie Rester : 2:23

We'd love to hear from you. Thank you for listening. [INTRO] Let's be honest, there's some topics that are too heavy for 20 minutes sermon. There are issues that need conversation, not just explanation.

Chris McAlilly : 2:37

We believe that the church is called to engage in a way that honors the weightiness and importance of these topics for how we live faithfully today. We'll cover everything from art to mental health, social injustice to the future of the church. 

Eddie Rester : 2:48

If it's something the culture talks about, we need to be talking about it too. [END INTRO]

Chris McAlilly : 2:55

Today, we welcome Brent Strawn to the podcast. Hey, Brent.

Brent Strawn : 2:59

Hey, how's it going? 

Chris McAlilly : 3:00

I'm so glad that you're here today.

Brent Strawn : 3:02

My pleasure. Thanks for having me on. 

Chris McAlilly : 3:03

We're recording this kind of mid-July 2020. And so it's one of those moments where we feel like we need to reach out to an Old Testament professor and see if we can't get a little help.

Eddie Rester : 3:19

These feel like Old Testament days.

Brent Strawn : 3:22

It's never... it's always a good time to reach out to an Old Testament professor, but I thought you were reaching out because it's almost my birthday. 

Chris McAlilly : 3:28

Oh, man, when's your birthday?

Brent Strawn : 3:31

July 20. So you know, we're getting there. It's close.

Eddie Rester : 3:34

Well, happy birthday. 

Brent Strawn : 3:35

Thank you.

Eddie Rester : 3:35

This is 31, 30?

Brent Strawn : 3:38

32 and a half, plus a few. [LAUGHTER] I'm hitting the big 5-0 this year, you guys. 

Chris McAlilly : 3:45

Wow, really?

Brent Strawn : 3:47

I never thought it would happen. You know? So it's good and bad, I suppose. [LAUGHTER]

Eddie Rester : 3:53

I get there in January. So you'll have to tell me how the first six months of that 

Brent Strawn : 3:57

Alright. Alright.

Chris McAlilly : 3:57

Hanging out with old dudes today. That's fine. That's okay. Well, younger folks like me need help. 

Eddie Rester : 4:05

Wisdom.

Chris McAlilly : 4:05

We need wisdom.

Brent Strawn : 4:07

"Wisdom of the ages" comes to mind.

Chris McAlilly : 4:09

That's right. That's exactly right. [LAUGHTER] So, you know, as pastors and then also I think folks who are listening, just trying to navigate the world right now. We're dealing with COVID-19, kind of the extended crisis of a global pandemic. And on top of that, there are economic dimensions and disruptions that a lot of people are dealing with. I think about the racial turbulence and turmoil that are going on, especially in America. And then everybody's just dealing with their own personal stuff, you know?

Eddie Rester : 4:41

There's a lot of anxiety out in the culture right now. 

Chris McAlilly : 4:43

I wonder as you read, what questions emerge out of this moment that kind of drive you back to the Bible? Where do you even begin to make sense of where we are, and what resources do you find yourself drawing from at the moment?

Brent Strawn : 5:01

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that these sorts of things ask us who are Christians and care about the life of faith, you know, where is God in all this, if anywhere? And what is our proper response to such things? And how can our resources in our tradition ultimately, for Christians, Protestant Christians, you know, what does the scripture say that can help us in times of need like this? So, you know, it's not hard for me as a Bible professor to be thinking about that latter question. It's kind of what they pay me for, to sort of think about scripture all the time. And I think a couple things about that, of course. And also I think about that sort of thing all time. One is that every new situation we face--and the new situation could be a massive one like a global pandemic, economic injustice, racial injustice, etc. Or it could be a small one. It could be that it's small in scale, still equally large: you know, disappointing diagnosis, a problem with a family member, etc. Each crisis or issue we face does actually give us reason to go back to scripture and reread. And when we do, we often read it freshly and anew because of these things that press in on us. Areas of scripture that we may have not attended much to can become important. And so that leads to the second thing I'd say about that, and that is that scripture is a really large book. I mean, it's larger, I think, than we tend to think, and at least tend to behave, vis-a-vis scripture. It's just, it's a library. It's not really just one single book or a single story or narrative. It's an anthology. It's a library, which means it has all kinds of things in it, resources as it were. Or to use a different metaphor, it's a toolbox with all kinds of different tools within it, that are ready to be selected and used at the proper time. So I think one thing to think about when we face either any of these issues we just raised, and maybe we should dig into each of them distinctly, but the first thing that I would say as a Bible professor is, man, there's a lot of stuff in the Bible that can get at that, directly and indirectly. And the first thing to say is simply that: that the richness that scripture offers us, and it's up to us, then, to sort of do the legwork, the heavy lifting of figuring out those resources and how best to deploy them. 

Eddie Rester : 7:53

Well, let's let's do what you just said there. Let's kind of break it down. Let's think about the pandemic first. As you think about the richness of scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, which is your area, what helps us think and be and make sense of the world around us in light of that right now or can point us in a purposeful direction during these days? 

Brent Strawn : 8:19

Well, I think one one thing to say maybe to start with is that, once again, scripture gives us different kinds of texts and traditions and insights about natural disasters, about even sickness and plague. And the variation that we find in scripture about such things, among other things that we could say, chases us from identifying too quickly any one single interpretive take on say, COVID-19. That is to say, it would be premature and not necessarily right, not biblical would be another way to put it, to claim simplistically, facilely, naively, "Oh this coronavirus is the judgment of God," Okay? Because there are other instances and other ways that scripture thinks about sickness and disease. And yet, scripture does think about sickness and disease, at least in part, as a manifestation of the judgment of God. So, what you have in kind of these sort of different takes on issues of plague or sickness, disease, is again a kind of multi-orbed or roundtable discussion on the meaning of such things, which allows us to consider, again, afresh and anew, I think, God's place in all of this. So, to quote, Walter Brueggemann, who actually dashed off at remarkable speed a short little book on on the virus and biblical faith: One way the Bible contributes in such a discussion about God's role in our place or in a pandemic like this is to say that it is possible to think of God being at work in, under, and behind the virus--whatever preposition you want to use--without necessarily being the cause of it. That's a different kind of perspective, and allows us to think, I think more intuitively, also wonderingly, about what such a thing teaches us or might teach us about God and God's world. One of those... so I could stop there, but let me just throw this out, you can come back on it, one of the things there to wonder, especially vis-a-vis scripture, is what is the role, then, of grief and sorrow and lament and anger and rage about viruses like this? Or anxiety, which you raised earlier? And simultaneously, what is being exposed, what is being revealed by this sort of virus that scripture also sort of attends to or offers resources to address?

Chris McAlilly : 11:13

Yeah, I came across an article, early on late March, I think, I came across an article from Walter Brueggemann. For those who are not familiar with Brueggemann's work, he's a scholar of the last generation, just that was very influential in shaping especially, I think, a theological reading of the Hebrew Bible, of the Old Testament. He wrote a little article in the Journal for Preachers about preaching, and he's very, like, "What are we gonna do with this?" You know, "There are multiple interpretive possibilities." And I think for folks that I run into who are kind of, you know, stepped away from the church a little bit, are aware of Christians and their place in American culture right now, and are like, "Yeah, I think I'll just step away from that and kind of do my thing." A very kind of simplistic way of approaching the Old Testament is just to say it looks like people who are blessed, they receive health, and then people who are cursed, they're sick. That kind of, I don't know, almost like a transactional interpretation that seems very much there. Another thing that he lifts up in the Old Testament, that Brueggemann lifted up in this article, was that the kind of purposeful mobilization of negative force that God will do at times to achieve a certain end. And then a kind of third interpreted possibility that you see in the Old Testament is simply the raw holiness of God--I think about Job here--that refuses and defies our best explanations. So that God's force is irreducible to the reality. It's an irreducible reality of the world. It just is what it is. I don't know. I think on the one hand, I see folks taking each of those too quickly or too soon. I appreciate the call to just slow down in the interpretive process and not jump to conclusions too quickly. Because the other side is, you know, it's like, well, those were ways of interpreting plagues a long time ago, but clearly we've we've advanced. I mean, how do you...

Brent Strawn : 13:31

They didn't know about bacteria back then.

Eddie Rester : 13:34

Antibiotics.

Brent Strawn : 13:36

They didn't have iPhones. How did they survive? 

Chris McAlilly : 13:39

That's right. That's right.

Brent Strawn : 13:40

How did they get the word out? How did the Word of the Lord get extended in those days without social media? It's funny. 

Chris McAlilly : 13:46

How do you... I guess one way to ask the question would be how do you stick with the Bible long enough that it, I don't know, that you allow its strangeness to... 

Eddie Rester : 13:57

And the wonder of it.

Chris McAlilly : 13:58

Yeah, the strangest and the wonder to impact you and dislodge you from your normal way of interpreting the world?

Brent Strawn : 14:07

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you bringing up those three options that Brueggemann mentions. He has that essay reprinted in this little book that I mentioned. Because they do, it does show a kind of toolbox. But as you also point out, our tendency is to quickly kind of side with one. So I think the key point, at least at a fundamental starting point, is to realize that the scripture has more than one. And that it doesn't easily decide one, so that we have to decide one. It actually offers, again, this kind of multi-orb perspective that requires the kind of patient listening and pondering of what the scriptures say. It's what, at the at the end of the day, what I think this suggests to us, is reading scripture is life-giving and exceedingly frustrating. It's exceedingly frustrating because what we want, especially in our own day and age, is a quick fix for everything. You know, we want a vaccine three weeks ago. Actually, you know, six months ago is when we want it. Even before that, right? And we want someone to tell us what to do. And we want the Bible basically to be a kind of quick-fix, self-help book. The Bible is is never usually that straightforward. It comes to us in these different ways and different forms and whatnot. And it's not a book of policy, per se, right? Or polity, even though what it says can contribute to those things. So that's the frustrating part about the Bible. The life-giving part of the Bible, though, is that, in the end, what we get is a kind of a lesson in wisdom, a lesson in prudence, a lesson in craftsmanship, if we want to go back to the toolbox metaphor. That is, that we get exposed to all these different tools, these different takes, these different traditions and insights and then the wise heart knows, to quote Proverbs, the wise heart will know what to do at the right time. Or to get to Matthew's parables of the kingdom, when Jesus drops all these parables of the kingdom of heaven on the disciples and the rapid fire--it's chapter 13, isn't it? I have to make sure. I'm not a New Testament guy, right. [LAUGHTER] Give me a second, let me make sure that I'm right about that. Yeah, it's all these rapid-fire seven or eight parables of the kingdom--some of them quite opaque--in Matthew 13. And then Jesus says to the disciples, "Hey, have you understood all this?" And they say, "Yeah?" You know, "I guess? Can you go back to the second one?" And Jesus says every scribe who's been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out his treasure, what is new and what is old. That every scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven knows what treasure to bring out at just the right time--a new one, or an old one, or whatever. So that that kind of habit of attention or patience is hard fought and I fear that it's a dying art among Christians, and especially those Christians who don't have time or patience to read Scripture. And so that's a difficult thing to overcome.

Eddie Rester : 17:35

I think that you've hit on something important, that we tend to use scripture as Google. I remember when I was a young kid--and people who are listening may remember--when the Gideons would hand out Bibles in elementary schools. They had in the back of all those Bibles, "If you're facing adversity, go to these verses. If you're facing this, go those verses." And so it was very piecemeal. 

Brent Strawn : 18:00

Right. 

Eddie Rester : 18:00

I look at scripture and I think we've raised up multiple generations who don't like the patient, "Let's go read Esther and Job beside each other right now. Let's go read the Psalms slowly over months." We raised up, "Man, it's hard right now. Let's go back and look at Isaiah 43." 

Chris McAlilly : 18:20

It’s super hard, though. I mean, I think the time issue is a real deal. I mean, I look at my life, or your life, Eddie, or the life of most of the folks in our church, there’s not time. 

Eddie Rester : 18:23

Not a lot of margin.

Chris McAlilly : 18:24

I appreciate, you call attention, Brent, to the dying art of attention and patience. I think that's real. You bring that up in your book, "The Old Testament Is Dying" in the conclusion. One of the things I appreciate that you drew attention to was a quotation from the Rabbi Hillel, "One shouldn't say 'when I have time, I shall study,' for you may never have time." That, oh. That was like a dagger to my heart. You have to make time.

Brent Strawn : 18:24

Right.

Chris McAlilly : 18:24

But I want to come back to the Brueggemann thread, because I think...

Brent Strawn : 19:09

By the way guys, say this real quick, Chris, is that it's it strikes me when I go speak at churches. The people come to the Bible studies or come to the talks are often, you know, the retired folks. They suddenly have time. But oh my goodness, I mean, I'm happy for that. But I want to get into the kids' brains, too. I want to get into the young adults. I want to get into the people having young children, because that's where a lot of energy is, that's where a lot of interaction is happening in the in the marketplace or in the school or whatever. So I love the retired folk, the octogenarians and nonagenarians. But, in some sense, their massive impact in the public square is passed. So I'm glad they have time to study scripture, but this is sort of now an avocation for them, right? And it is vocational for everybody. But those young people, it's vocational with potential massive impact.

Eddie Rester : 20:08

I think it's fascinating you said that. Somebody emailed me recently about something I said, and, you know, I responded, "Here are the voices that I'm listening to right now. Here the voices I'm reading. Here are the voices, the podcasts, the videos that I'm listening to." And it was a long list of theologians and biblical scholars. And they responded, "Well, here are the voices I'm listening to," and it was political commentators. And, you know, it just struck me. I didn't respond back, because I was like "we're going to end up somewhere we don't need to be." But it just struck me that for this person whose faith was so important, the primary voices were not voices of faith and scripture and, you know, deep wisdom on the scriptural story. It was cultural voices forming them.

Chris McAlilly : 20:59

I do think what drives people back is the crisis. When you were mentioning that early on that it's a crisis that leads you back to reread. And I think that, you know, the first thing that came to mind for me was a crisis. I mean, why is it that a younger person would be driven back to scripture or to a different interpretive lens for their reality? It's the way... I guess you kind of adopt a way of life: get a job, get married, chart out a path, middle class American dream, or whatever the thing is. Whatever your frame is, that's your way of living in the world. And then when that breaks down for some reason, you're driven to think about things in new ways. You go to therapy, and you kind of dig into your own personal narrative. I think the thing that's so intense about this moment is that t feels like there are, I guess, cascading fragmentations happening. So I think the COVID side, just the global pandemic, I think the thing about the Brueggemann stuff that we were drawing attention to--the article that I read in the book that you're referencing, Brent--is that it's interesting to me because he ends, the place that the end is not... Where we go initially, I think as preachers, or as just readers of the Bible, is what is God doing? Did God cause this or not? And what he wants to do, and it sounds like what you're kind of calling for as well is, slow down. Take into consideration the entirety of the toolbox, the multiple possibilities. And when you do that, you realize how odd and strange the Bible really is, and how foreign it is from the way that you interpret the world most days. But then also that your way of interpreting the world most days may not be tight and perfectly capable of helping you understand your reality most days. I wouldn't... you know, you mentioned the vaccine, I would settle for just some stable data and interpretation coming out right now. [LAUGHTER] Like that would be really nice. 

Brent Strawn : 23:12

Yeah, that would be nice. Yeah. 

Chris McAlilly : 23:13

But it seems like what's happening is both we're seeing science unfold in real time, you know, we're kind of

Eddie Rester : 23:19

We're not used to that. 

Chris McAlilly : 23:20

Yeah. So it's happening and so we're watching it.

Brent Strawn : 23:22

It doesn't happen as fast as it does on the TV shows. That's what I'm sort of,

Chris McAlilly : 23:26

I know. 

Eddie Rester : 23:26

Maybe we can give this to the CSI guys. 

Brent Strawn : 23:29

Exactly. Those people can get genetic testing done in less than an hour.

Eddie Rester : 23:34

Minutes!

Brent Strawn : 23:35

It's incredible. [LAUGHTER] No, that's right. I like what you're saying, Chris. And to me so, so to kind of try to unify a couple things here: This sort of dexterity that I think is the goal of a Christian life, all Christians' life--not just the clergy--a kind of biblical imagination that I think is the goal of a Christian life. It'd be a goal for Christians to speak scripture fluently, as it were, metaphorically, of course. It's a lifetime project. So of course, we're not going to know things at 18 that we know when we're still 49 and holding to it for as long as possible. But at the same time, I think the importance of the entire whole is significant and requires a disciplined approach to it. So. I'd say in my own mind, when I think about some of these things that we're dealing with today, of course, the lament tradition comes to mind and the psalms. And so those are resources to express our deep sadness and grief and whatnot. What's intriguing about that, not just generally saying, "oh, scripture allows us to be sad about things" of course. But then what are the details of some of these psalms? What do they say about this? And also, what do they say about, like, answers to that sadness or grief? You know, they're not very forthcoming about that. And at least one or two of them, particularly one psalm, Psalm 88, doesn't end in any sort of happy place. It just sort of stays in the sadness through the end. I mean, the last line of that psalm is "darkness is my only companion." But beyond that, to me, a text that's probably not on most people's radar that I think is remarkably pertinent to the present moment is the book of Ecclesiastes, which struggles mightily in my opinion, with the problem of finitude and the problem of finitude in terms of human death, and also the problem of finitude in terms of God's lack of finitude. So the author of Ecclesiastes is really kind of struggling on the one hand with human finitude and on the other hand with God who is beyond finitude, and these are sort of the author's big vexations, things that he can't figure out. But what's stunning about that book and in thinking about the present moment in terms of economic systems and the virus and how the virus has sort of exposed these economic systems and racial disparities that were already visible, of course, but made them even more visible, is that Qohelet, the Hebrew name of this book, Ecclesiastes, just really is in touch with the ultimate finitude of the human project, per se. You know? And to me, that brings us back to kind of fundamentally the first commandment. Where is our trust? What do we trust? I mean, what do we, to use language from the creed, what do we believe in? Do we believe in our economic system? Our constitutional democracy? Well, these things are not worth our belief. These things are finite human systems. They will come to an end sooner or later, such is the nature of the human project. Qohelet says all things will come to an end, and the toil with which we toil at them is, in the end of the day, worthless. It's a stunning book, right? And yet, what does he get? What does this book give us? Attention to the gifts of God that we have at hand, which are our family, our friends, our food, such that we have, and the potential to find enjoyment in those things, even in our toil, some toil. That's not massive global reform. On the one hand, we might want more from Ecclesiastes, but actually we have the prophets for that. We don't need Ecclesiastes to do that. We have Amos and Isaiah, Micah, and Hosea, etc. But we have Ecclesiastes to remind us that, ah, some of these things that seems so small? They're remarkably important. They're glorious, ordinary things. The slowing down causes us to attend to them, even in the midst of of massive upheavals. So a book like Ecclesiastes, on the one hand is a kind of a death knell on finitude, and on the other hand, it's, yeah, pay attention to those kids you have running around the backyard. Or, you know, savor that morning coffee. That's the gift of God, too, for the people of God. 

Chris McAlilly : 28:16

We interviewed Don Sailers. I know you spent some time in Atlanta with him. He said, "Don't just taste the coffee." No. "Don't just drink the coffee, taste the coffee."

Brent Strawn : 28:28

Taste the coffee.

Eddie Rester : 28:29

Taste the coffee As you talk about Ecclesiastes, and it really is, as you talked about, finitude. I just started flashing through science, government systems, economic systems, all those are finite. And if you really hear that, it really begins to shake at what you put your trust in. And it really begins to shake what your belief system is. I mean, even science. I spent a lot of time in high school, in college loving sciences. But even science is limited. And I think, I think you're right. I think Ecclesiastes is a book right now that, again, is part of the toolbox that we don't really go to a lot because it's kind of a strange, weird book. It's not as easy to read as some of the prophets or psalms or things like that, but it's part of the toolbox that speaks an important word.

Brent Strawn : 29:34

It's kind of a depressing book. Crabby. 

Eddie Rester : 29:35

Yeah, crabby. That's a great word for it. So if you were speaking to somebody right now to say, "here's some of the... here's parts of the toolbox." Ecclesiastes obviously is one of them. But as we face these things here's some pieces of the toolbox that right now, I'd say, if you're going to invest time, where would you call us to invest our time? 

Brent Strawn : 30:01

Well I do think Ecclesiastes is a remarkable book, crabby, but, you know, sometimes the saints are crabby.

Eddie Rester : 30:09

It's like your grandpa sometimes. Grandpa's crabby, but it's okay.

Brent Strawn : 30:15

We had Grandma Hamilton in our church growing up, and she would not hold back from saying, "oh crap" sometimes during service.

Eddie Rester : 30:22

Oh, gosh.

Brent Strawn : 30:24

I don't know what she said it to, I was young, but she was known to say this. So you know she and Ecclesiastes might have gotten a long just fine. She might have been Ecclesiastical.

Eddie Rester : 30:32

She might. Yeah.

Brent Strawn : 30:34

She was pretty old. But Ecclesiastes, especially in terms of just representing a kind of entre into the larger tradition of wisdom in scripture, and maybe scripture as wisdom--that is, the kind of thing that, you know, in the ancient world and the Iron Age, etc., even in the Greco-Roman period, they didn't have science like we have science. But even if they had, the biblical authors would not have put all their trust in science. They would have thought about sapience as much as science and wisdom as much as science. And wisdom begins, according to Proverbs, with the fear of the Lord and the Lord who gives wisdom. So, I think that's one tradition. I would add the tradition of the psalms. I mean, I think the psalms are always useful, and it's partly because there's so many of them and they have so much to say to us. Luther called the Psalms "the little Bible," because everything in the Bible is down there. And then the final thing I think I would encourage people to look at would be Amos, right now. So, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Amos would be my three if I could only pick three. Amos because he's really our most articulate prophet of judgment in the Bible, and his judgment is God's judgment in that book. And it's basically around two poles: God's judgment, God's wrath. It's for two reasons, and it's economic, and social injustice. And it's unrighteousness. It's a lack of righteousness. So those two things are woven deeply together in scripture, especially in the prophets. But Amos is unrelenting. I mean, he would be as crabby, perhaps, as Ecclesiastes. And I think those books are ones that hold a very... strike a sober tone and hold up a very somber mirror to us, who are or have been too often secure, too often settled, too often trusting in things ultimately other than the Lord. You know, the final text I'll mention here that I've thought about a lot in recent days is the manna narrative. That's where they can't hoard that stuff. It goes. it spoils, you know? We're learning in some ways that hoarding of resources spoils things. It ruins things, and it partly ruins it for everyone who doesn't have a chance to get enough or have enough. But what Israel learns in that narrative is that, according to Deuteronomy's phrasing of it, "human beings do not live on food alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God." And that text is, of course, cited in extreme circumstances at an hour of dire need by Jesus and his temptation with Satan in Matthew.

Chris McAlilly : 33:45

Yeah. All of that is just really good and helpful. I think it brings to mind kind of three different characters that I've been in conversation with, three types of person that I've been in dialogue with. One is the person who's really struggling to figure out how to pray. And that's not just been driven by COVID-19, but it's just a kind of a lifelong worry with prayer, with the idea that you can change God's mind with your intercession. You know, this one particular individual said to me, "You know, I came up with a theory that prayer really is praying to yourself, almost." To me, it's kind of this sense of a collapse of the imagination into the material world where there's no divine intervention or agency to break through. That's one person. The second person is the young person who's really desiring for themselves or for their neighbors. That kind of activist character who's out on the streets, protesting racial injustice at the moment. Seeing realities, whether they be symbolic or structural, that are not changing to the benefit of their neighbor or of themselves, and they're really struggling to figure out what to do and looking for resources, often secular. But I think at the heart of that is this sense of hope that what they're going to do, the work that they're going to put themselves to is going to actually pay off in the end. 

Brent Strawn : 35:12

Sure. 

Chris McAlilly : 35:34

And I think the third person that I've talked to people who were really worried on the more, in a revolutionary age, where monuments and flags and different things are being torn down, that there's the question of what is going to be conserved? What is worth conserving? It really raises the question of our traditions. What should we hold on to? What should we conserve in an age of tearing things down? Those are kind of three directions that maybe we could talk about here in the last period. You could take any of those three, but I'd love you to speak to all of them.

Brent Strawn : 36:15

Yeah, I love all three, very helpful. And I would like to talk about all three. I mean, the first one, let's just, to coin a term, let's call that the humanistic approach to prayer, that it's just primarily about us. There's more than one way to think about that. In one sense, there's resonance with such a position. And Martin Luther, among others, who did think that the purpose of prayer was to change us, not to change God. But Luther would never have called it pray to ourselves. We're still praying to God, but in the process of the prayer, we change ourselves. How does that... to step back for a second: prayer. I mean, yes, this is the problem, isn't it? I mean, how many times have we all felt guilty about prayer? We don't pray enough. We don't know how to pray. We ought to be doing it more, etc. What is it? "That person prays really good, I suck," etc.

Eddie Rester : 37:16

I forgot to pray for so-and-so.

Brent Strawn : 37:18

"I forgot to pray for so-and-so." Yeah. Right. My thoughts and prayers are with you, whatever that means. So Luther said, prayer ought to be brief, fervent, and frequent. And some of our prayers in scripture are exceedingly short. One of my professors used to say that the shortest prayer in the Bible is the cry, "violence!" It's the outcry, "violence!" That's a prayer. The first prayer in scripture is inarticulate to human ears. It's the blood of Abel's body as it leaks into to ground. Genesis forces, "it cries out to God." That language of crying out is prayer language. So the first prayer uttered in scripture with formal prayer language, formal prayer verb is Abel's blood, the blood of a victim. Oh, man, come on. We're right now, we're right to the present with that. I mean, we saw on the news crawl every day, that's police brutality and everything else. We don't need a preacher to connect the dots. All we need is to read it. But to go to this fact of this more humanistic approach to prayer, I think for such a person--and of course, "he said very carefully and pastorally"--I would feel nervous. I'd be worried about such a person if their theory of prayer is, at the end of the day, only kind of talking to the self. That to me is an idea of prayer that's not sufficiently informed by scripture proper, which shows that prayer is addressed to God, not to ourselves, for one thing, and that even the most deeply intense and personal prayers that we find in the psalms invariably end up addressing all that to God and to one higher than ourselves. And we also have the texts, not a lot, but we do have them in the Bible, that show remarkable prayers, who evidently changed God's mind. I mean, the ones that come to mind are Moses's intercessions, his key intersections around the golden calf, particularly in Exodus, but also recounted in different ways in Numbers and Deuteronomy, and Abraham, who intercedes over the fate of Soddom in Genesis 18. Those texts, and these are not normal individuals, grant you. This is Moses and Abraham we're talking about. They're saints of the most extreme kind, yet those texts show that God can, in fact, be moved and changed due to human prayer. So I think that what Christians have to do in light of the testimony of scripture is say, "We ought to pray. We ought to pray a lot. We ought to pray for all of our concerns and all of our needs, and the needs of others, etc. And we also ought to prepare to be disappointed." Because sometimes those prayers aren't answered. They're not answered in the way we would want, at least. So those are a couple things I'd say to your first category. The second category, the activist category, I think that, too, can be seen in different ways, insofar as the activism is inspired by, rooted in the God who calls us to action. I think it's great. I think it's spot on and I think that the scriptures give us resources, even within prayer, to think about hard, gritty realities, ike economic oppression, and social injustice, racial oppression, economic disparity, etc. The psalmists are brutal about their enemies. I mean, brutal.

Eddie Rester : 41:15

Bash their children's heads on the rocks kind of stuff.

Brent Strawn : 41:19

That's right. That's it. I mean, the cursing psalms like that, Psalm 137 is one of those, are the most extreme psalms. But even in some of our most beloved psalms, like 139, which is, "where can I go to escape your presence, oh, Lord," at the end, that beloved psalm ends with, in verse 19, "Oh, that you would kill the wicked O God." So this, this sort of stuff, CS Lewis said that these tricky parts of the psalms will not come away clean. You know, we can't just excise them, because they're deeply embedded. So the scripture does, the psalms, even these prayers have these resources to speak brutally about one's enemies--to curse them, even--but they do so within the confines of prayer. It's such an important point. Because what we find these days, I think, in my humble opinion, with all due caveats, is not an articulation of anger over our enemies in prayer, but just in vindictive ways on social media, in public platforms, etc. And essentially, that just comes to blows. You know what I mean? It comes to blows. It's going to come to verbal blows, or it's going to come to worst blows. 

Eddie Rester : 42:30

Right. 

Brent Strawn : 42:31

And what happens in prayer is that the real, honest speech that we need to say is said. It's released. It's not repressed, but it's released to God. And God can somehow absorb it in a way that our enemies can't, our enemy bodies can't. And that brings me, the second thing I'd say about this activist paradigm and that is that, again, within the scriptural imagination, our action is never just our action. In Psalm 146 has this, is an example of this. In this prayer where it ends, the last stanza, "the Lord sets the prisoners free, the Lord opens the eyes of the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous, the Lord washes over the strangers. He upholds the orphan and the widow. He brings the way of the wicked to ruin." The Lord does those things, not a lawyer, not a doctor, not a social worker, not someone who is in Department of Health and Family Services, not a judge. The Lord. It is the Lord who does these things. So, ultimately, does God use our hands? Sure. But does God have to use our hands? Not always. And even if God uses our hands, it's God's hands ultimately, you know, that's what scriptural imagination says.

Eddie Rester : 43:50

And for activists, sometimes, we get so tied up in this moment of fixing something and resolving something rather than knowing that our work is a part of what God is doing, not just what we're doing to bring justice to the land. There's a wise, wise man named Chris McAlilly, he tweeted this morning. Can I read what you tweeted?

Chris McAlilly : 44:17

I pulled it from from Brent's book.

Eddie Rester : 44:20

Did you really? It all comes back, doesn't it? 

Brent Strawn : 44:23

Wow well let's attribute it to Chris because it's gonna be more profound that way.

Eddie Rester : 44:27

"It's not your job to finish the work, but neither are you free to walk away from it." And that's from a rabbi.

Brent Strawn : 44:34

Yeah that's right. That's another one of those great ones from the Mishnah, from the Pirke Avot, as is the other one that Chris mentioned. Yeah, you're not free to walk away from it, you got to do it. But at the same time, the human project, vis-a-vis God's, is remarkably small. That we are after God's work. God has a lot stories going on, you know what I mean? God's pretty big, last time I checked, and the human project is finite in comparison. The American project, finite in comparison. And if nothing else, the wrath of God is, as evidenced in the Old Testament, shows that even God's most special project, even its most special people, not off limits for judgment, if they fail. If they fail to do God's will and work in the world, all bets are off. God's got big plans. And those plans transcend our small abilities to enact, let alone to understand at times.

Chris McAlilly : 45:45

What about that third dimension, which is kind of in an age where judgment and wrath and kind of a calling to kind of reconsider the human projects or the religious projects or political or economic projects, that are social projects that human beings find themselves in? How do you know when to conserve things? Or to tear down things? Or when some traditions probably need to die, but there are others that need to be revivified and renewed and refreshed. 

Brent Strawn : 46:23

Right. 

Chris McAlilly : 46:24

And that requires remarkable discernment. I guess, what resources are there for thinking through those very difficult realities in the Hebrew Bible?

Brent Strawn : 46:37

I like that. I like this third paradigm as well, because it is an important one to wonder about. Of course, I would say in my own sense of things is that the scriptural traditions have to be conserved and preserved and attended to in a way, because, beyond all others, because they are so precious and special to the Christian tradition. I wonder, in thinking about this question as you framed it, if something like the book of Job is an instructive microcosm for the issue. And by that I mean that you have in the book of Job this extensive debate between Job and his friends over the meaning of his suffering. And what's stunning about this is that they disagree so viciously about it. For chapters at a time they go back and forth about it. And so, at the end of the book, what's really fascinating is that God finally shows up and has some words for Job. They're not exactly what Job wants to hear. Job has been asking about the meaning of his suffering and everything, and God, kind of along the lines of some of the things we've already said, shows up and says, "Hey, check out this amazing cosmos I made." He doesn't really directly address Job's suffering, which is not, on the one hand, very helpful. On the other hand, it's instructive in its own way, that God is encouraging Job to have a look at this larger picture, of this theater of God's glory and figure out how he fits into that. So what's interesting about the end of the book, after the God's speeches to Job directly is that God then talks to Job's friends and God says to them, "my wrath is kindled against you, because you have not spoken well of me as my servent Job has." This is just the fascinating conundrum from the book of Job, right? Because Job has said some brutal things about God that are not very nice, including things like: God doesn't care about justice. God doesn't care about me. God wouldn't listen to me. God doesn't listen to me. God won't even give me a break so I can swallow my spit. God sets me up as His target. This is all in there. I'm not making it up. This is all in there.

Eddie Rester : 49:26

When people talk about the patience of Job, I'm like, you have not read the book. 

Brent Strawn : 49:30

That's right. That's right.

Eddie Rester : 49:31

If you think Job was patient, Job was brutally honest. 

Brent Strawn : 49:36

That's right. That's right. So what is going on that God says Job has spoken rightly of me, but you, these friends, haven't? And then if you go back and look at the friends, they say some wonderful things about God. That God does care about justice, and that God attends to the needy, and God sets the record straight and so on and so forth. So you're like, wait, what? Right. What? Because this Job saying these things that sound like blasphemy, those are true or right somehow? In Hebrew, it's [Hebrew word]. And what these friends say is wrong somehow? Well, two things have to be said in response to this question. One is that I've recently come across this in my research, an interpretation of that particular little preposition in Hebrew where God says, "You have not spoken well OF me." That's the NRSV, in those translations, could be just as well translated--and I have to say, I think it's kind of right--"You have not spoken correctly TO me as my servant Job has." If you go back and look at Job and all the stuff, Job is the only person who directly addresses God. The friends just talk about God, but Job talks to God. And so there's a fascinating thing in there that maybe what's going on with the friends and why they're rebuffed is because they didn't talk to God. They just were experts in talking about God. And that's the theological conundrum right there: that we talk about God and stop talking to God. That's why prayer is so important. And that's why everything, according to Brother Lawrence, can be a matter of prayer and practice in the presence of God. But the reason why this is also important, why I mentioned that little exegetical detail is because, to me, it helps me understand all this variation that's going on in Job. That not everything that Job says that's negative about God is necessarily right or valorized. What's valorized is his disposition to God, that he takes these things to God in prayer, as it were, like the psalmists do. In this sense, Job is just like any of the psalmists. But it also sort of says that the friends, they are terrible friends. All right. I mean, 

Chris McAlilly : 51:10

These aren't the freinds you want.

Brent Strawn : 52:03

No, right? These are people, like, engaging in high-level discussions of the problem of evil while Job sits in the morgue, you know. It's not really great timing on their part. He's in the ICU or whatever, and they're, "Hey, by the way, have you considered the problem of evil?" Yeah, this is not really the time for that. He calls them worthless physicians and all this, and practicers of lies and things like that. But not everything they say about God is wrong, either. And so what the book of Job as a whole shows me--this gets to your point. See, this is the way it goes, Chris, you ask a professor to talk about something and about five states over and then they eventually get back to where you're going--

Chris McAlilly : 52:42

It's all good. [LAUGHTER]

Brent Strawn : 52:43

is that Job conserves all that. Job conserves all those different takes on God. And in a sense, all of them are right. And so, to go back to the rabbis for a second, just because it's so... you just can't miss it in the rabbinic literature, is the rabbis, in the Mishnah and the Talmud, they just debate the meaning and interpretation of the law. And Rabbi Hillel will say this, and guess what? Rabbi Shammai says the exact opposite. Right? They're both rabbis, though. And then a couple of other rabbis get into it who are not as famous, maybe. They all talk around a subject. How late can you recite the Shema and it still count as going towards that previous day? Or at what point does it count for the next day? You know, because you've got to recite the Shema, but when does the day end? Or when you forget, how late can you say it and it still counts. They debate things over and over again. And they all just sort of walk around it and they debate it. And it's this rabbi, rabbinic roundtable. They're all rabbis. You better listen to them. And it's quite useful. The interpretation of Hillel might be what you need, if you forgot and it's too late. Or Shammai might be right, quite right, if you forgot, and it's too late, but you're just going to count for the next day. That kind of situation is exactly what's happening in Job, you know, where Job and Eliphaz and Zophar and all that, they're sitting around a table, as it were, talking about this thing. And they get some things right. Some of them, they get things wrong. We know, at the end of the day, is that exegetical idea is correct, that God ultimately appreciates the conversation that includes Him, is directly addressed to Him. That's the one that God most appreciates. But that, what's going on in Job happened in the whole Bible.

Chris McAlilly : 54:37

I just think that's so helpful. Wherever you find yourself and whatever the struggle is or the pain or the suffering or the reality within this moment that you're dealing with. Part of it is, to enter into the Bible is to enter into the conversation and the debate. And ultimately, it's not just about God's place in the whole midst of it. The goal of the conversation, I guess, it would be to gather up that conversation in a certain kind of disposition of prayer to God. We're going to have to come back. The threads of the conversation, we're gonna have to tease some of these out. I'm sure we're not going to be moving out of this particular cultural moment anytime. 

Eddie Rester : 55:20

For a bit, yeah.

Chris McAlilly : 55:21

The one that I really want to engage next time is the one on violence. I feel like that's one that people really struggle with. But I think we'll set it down there today. Brent, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us and to, you know, bring out the treasures new and old.

Eddie Rester : 55:39

Just great. Just great to get to talk to you.

Brent Strawn : 55:43

Oh, my pleasure. 

Chris McAlilly : 55:44

We'll have to do it again, man. Thanks so much. 

Brent Strawn : 55:46

I look forward to it. I look forward to it. Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks for having me and blessings on you and your work. 

Eddie Rester : 55:51

[OUTRO] Thank you for listening today. Go ahead and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And go ahead and hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts. 

Chris McAlilly : 56:01

This wouldn't be possible without our partner, General Board of Higher Education in Ministry. We want to thank also our producer, Cody Hickman. Follow us next week. We'll be back with another episode of The Weight. [END OUTRO]