CONNECTING III

I have been rambling on about connecting for three weeks now. One of the times when I made a serious disconnect was when I suggested to some members that when we read the Epistles of Paul we are reading someone else's mail. Boy did that tick them off, but it is true for the most part. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to Christians he knew in Corinth. He addressed issues that concerned them in particular. He connected with them. Since we live 2,000 years later in a very different culture, we need to do some careful reading to connect with Paul. Hence my metaphor about reading someone else's mail.

The same thing is true about the Gospels. Mark, for instance, was written to a specific group of people that Mark knew. We don’t know exactly who they were (or who Mark was), but we can make some guesses. They are people who are able to communicate in Greek and probably didn’t understand Aramic because Mark translates Aramaic words. They were largely a group of Gentiles (non-Jews) because Mark explains Jewish customs to his audience. They were Christians. Throughout his Gospel Mark makes connections with his audience, sometimes breaking into his narrative to speak to the audience. For example in Mk 13:14 he writes “let the reader understand.” It’s a sort of stage whisper to the audience.

Actually, it probably came off as a stage whisper. The practice in Mark’s day was for writings to be read aloud. You can imagine a group of Christians gathered for worship as one of their number read aloud a portion of the Gospel and changing voice tone at the words “let the reader understand” and people either nodding appreciatively or perhaps looking perplexed when they failed to understand.

Actually the whole Gospel tradition is far more oral (spoken) and aural (heard) than we moderns are used to. The bits and pieces that Mark used in his Gospel were certainly shared by word of mouth for a generation before he wrote them down. The stories had certain forms that made them easier to remember. When Mark connected the stories, he was able to make points that extended over a far quantity of material than the original oral tradition. But in an age when few people would have had a scroll of Mark’s writing to study carefully, Mark would have had to written in such a way as to constantly remind the hearers of themes so they wouldn’t forget them over the time it took to read the whole Gospel.

An example. Early in the Gospel, Mark introduces the phrase “Son of man” used by Jesus to refer to himself. In performing a miracle Jesus announces: “ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--he said to the paralytic- ‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’” (Mark 2:10-12). So the Son of Man is confirmed as having the power to forgive sins by demonstrating the power to heal a paralyzed man. And having established that point. Mark adds a very different significance to the title. “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31). Again and again Mark repeats that connection. This is the primary theme of his Gospel. You must understand Jesus as the one who dies and rises. It is not Jesus the miracle worker or even Jesus the teacher who is most important, but rather Jesus the crucified Savior.

Maybe the most subtle way this is displayed is near the end of the Gospel. “Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God's Son!’” (Mark 15:39). The centurion (a gentile) has seen no miracles. He has heard no teachings. He has seen Jesus die, and that convinces him that Jesus is the Son of God.

All of this is about making a connection with Mark’s audience. It’s not just a technique being used to keep the audience on topic, but a speaking to their concerns. They are Christians for whom adoption of the new religion has resulted in suffering and persecution. This can’t be right, can it? Yes, says, Mark. This is exactly right because it is what happened to Jesus. He was revealed as Son of God in his suffering. Don’t give up your faith. So Mark connects the story of Jesus to the situation of his audience.

Stay connected.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne




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CONNECTING II

Last week I was talking about connecting with an audience and theatre and suggested that had something to do with the Scriptures as well. For probably the last 15 years or so I have encouraged people to “find themselves” in Scripture. Where are you in the story? Occasionally I have done imaging exercises to help people find themselves in a particular story. For some people it is a powerful experience.

Let me relate one of the most fascinating experiences I had with a person who suddenly connected with Scripture. A youngster around 14 came to me with a question. She had attended a Christian school during her elementary years and now was enduring the rocky experience of a public high school. The inevitable science-religion conflict arose. So she asked, “How do Adam and Eve fit with the cavemen?” I stumbled through some unsatisfactory explanation until I hit on this. “Think of Adam and Eve not as a story about people who lived a long time ago, but as a story about you.” And her faced brightened as if the sun had suddenly shone in her. “You mean it’s like drama.” “Exactly,” I said. And she went away satisfied. She knew how drama worked, how it revealed much more than the mere story. She knew how to find herself in a drama, now she knew you could find yourself in Scripture. She connected.

This was my first experience with a “theatre kid.” (Side note: I wrote a short skit for her and a friend to perform at a Christmas Eve service that year. One of the few works I’ve ever had performed.) Since this was shortly before I moved to a new church, I didn’t have the opportunity to see how she developed over the years. But I know from later experiences that young people involved in theatre often have better insights into people than psychologists. I suspect that when they are free of strictures about how you’re “supposed” to read scripture, they probably have amazing insights there also. They know how to connect.

I had another experience some years earlier that taught me what happens when a person is prevented from connecting with Scripture. A member of my congregation asked me to speak to a youngster around 12 who she was trying to “convert” to Christianity. I said I would meet with them as long as the girl’s mother was aware we were meeting and knew what we were going to talk about. My member and the girl had been reading the Bible together. Unfortunately, they had started in Genesis rather than with the Gospels. The stories of Genesis seemed so outlandish to her that they were an insurmountable obstacle. Noah was the story causing the greatest problem because she couldn’t figure out how Noah could have stopped the lions from eating the antelopes and so forth. And it occurred to her that there was no way no many creatures would fit on the ark. I wanted to help her understand the story as a metaphor when the woman from my church began banging on the table with her fist and shouting at her, “You have to believe. You have to believe.” She had reduced faith in God to believing every word in the Bible was literally and historically true. Because I couldn’t around this woman’s views, I couldn’t open the Scriptures to the girl. She couldn’t connect. I lost her. (Eventually the woman quit the church because I was obviously a heathen.)

An observation: one of the greatest catastrophes in Scriptural studies was the addition of verse numbers to the text. It chopped everything into isolated pieces that people string together like beads rather reading to grasp the wholeness of what is being said.A very different approach is offered by Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen in their book The Drama of Scripture. The present the entire Bible as a Drama in six acts: Act 1, God Establishes his Kingdom: Creation. Act 2, Rebellion in the Kingdom: Fall. Act 3, The King Chooses Israel: Redemption Initiated. Interlude, a Kingdom Sstory Waitning for an Ending: The Intertestamental Period. Act 4, The Coming of the King: Redemption Accomplished. Act 5 Spreading the News of the King: The Mission of the Church. Act 6, The Return of the King: Redemption Completed.

It’s a sweeping approach to Scripture, but it is the subtitle of the book that grabbed my attention: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story. Hey! I’ve been saying that for years! I don’t even get a footnote, but they do credit N. T. Wright, the Anglican Bishop of Durham for coming up with the idea of the Bible as a Drama. I guess my special contribution to the discussion will be the notion of connecting. How do we connect to the Scripture? Where are we in the story?

I suggested in discussing theatre that the actors connect with the audience to convey the wholeness of the play. Did you ever consider that the writers of the Bible were intentionally trying to connect with their audience? They didn’t just write stuff for others to figure out, they tried to communicate where people fit into the story and what it ought to say to people.

Well, this is getting a little long again. So I’ll try next week to show you what I mean. (Note: Those of you who have been in my Bible Study on Mark will already know everything I have to say next week, so you may take a break.)

I hope you will always be connected with a loving community and with a loving Lord. May the Lord bless you on your journey, and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

P.S.

I note that last week's blog received 46 hits, more than any of my blogs to date. I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of my writing, but maybe people searching out a review of "Once Upon A Mattress." Having seen it four times, I can testify that it was a great success.

That being the case, here's a shout out to O.C.T. performers Alex, Christine, Angela, Amanda, Scotty, Christopher, David, & of course Katie who contributed so much. And to Jason and Shane down in the pit. And to the director, Tom.

BRAVI!



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CONNECTING

Our local theatre featured One Upon a Mattress this summer as a “teen” musical. I put “teen” in quotes because a number of the actors are already in college. It was a well done performance with several of the actors performing far beyond what you’d expect in the typical “high school” musical where you’re just glad they got through the whole thing without a major disaster. No, this was much better than that.

I was speaking with one of the talented performers about a quality I called “connecting with the audience.” Now you have to understand I don’t know the first thing about acting. Yes, I do readers’ theater, but that only requires me to stand in one place and read the lines well enough so that no one in the audience says, “Are they nearly done yet?’ (That has happened.) I know a bit about the literary qualities of plays, I know a good bit about vocal music (having once taught it), I know when I enjoy a production, but I don’t know anything about the technique or artistry of acting. I just know what I perceive. As a result I don’t know exactly what I meant about “connecting with the audience.” According to the philosopher G. E. Moore, if you don’t mean exactly something, you don’t mean anything at all. Maybe I don’t mean anything, then again . . .

Let me give you a non-theatrical example. About 20 years ago I went to hear an American theologian speak at a conference. I had read his books, and found him very interesting. I should have stuck with his books. The speaker could not remember anything that was on his lecture manuscript, so he had to read what he had written. He was exceedingly near sited so he read bent over his pages, never looking up. He read in an absolute monotone without the slightest inflection other than a slight pause at a period. OK, the information was there. It was presented, but the processes of communication was laborious, far more opaque than if he had just passed out copies for us to read, which he wasn’t going to do because he was working the material into a book. This is the most egregious example I can think of “not connecting with an audience.”

Of course theatre isn’t the same as giving a lecture. Except in some types of theatre the performers don’t interact with the audience by waving to them or chatting with them. But that’s not what I mean by connecting with the audience. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just say that a play tells a story. (Yes, I know there is a lot more to it than that, but I’m not writing a dissertation here.) The actors don’t read the story, they act it. And we, the audience, watch and listen. The actors know there is an audience out there and we know they know. We aren’t just spying on real life.

Now, all sorts of things happen because there is an audience that wouldn’t happen if the actors were just doing the play for themselves. Actors have to use gestures that are broader than you’d normally use in ordinary life. They use makeup that looks outlandish off the stage. They speak so as to get their voices beyond the footlights. And the stage is set for the audience to see what’s going on. Look at the convention of sitting at only three sides of a table on stage. All for that is necessary for the audience.

There is something else to it, though, something harder to explain. The actors not only present the story, but they help the audience understand the story. Some of the actors on stage are actually standins for us. If one character is speaking and another rolls their eyes, we know that something outrageous is being said. If characters look frightened we know that fright is the proper emotion to have. For example, suppose a script called for a character to say, “Boo!” How the actor delivers that line communicates its intention, whether it is supposed to be really frightening or not frightening at all or just a nuisance like a little kid who sneaks up behind grandma to scare her. But we are also helped by the way other characters respond. Do they cower in fright or go on without noticing or give a little jump? All of that is necessary to connect with the audience. The big one in comedy is allowing space for laughter. If an actor talks right through the audience’s laughter, they disconnect from the audience. There’s probably all sorts of things like that going on that I’m not aware of, but maybe you get the drift. A good performance connects with the audience.

It’s not just in theatre where this is important. There are religious implications to this as well. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Theatre has its roots in religion. Today’s theatre grew out of the mystery plays of Medieval Christianity. And the development of theatre has touched Christianity, especially worship. Even in so-called free worship there is structure. There is use of actions (ritual), stage setting, ways of speaking, costume, incidental music. The congregation has a fascinating ability to slip back and forth between being the audience and being actors. (The word “liturgy” means the people’s work.) I have sometimes speculated on whether a sociologist from another planet would be able to distinguish theatre from worship.

One of the most interesting areas where “connecting with” is important is in the Scripture. That’s going to take some explaining. Maybe you could connect back again next week for that topic.

Until we reconnect, may the Lord bless you on your journey, and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne






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