A Few words about words

Last year as part of my lead in for the sessions on: Opening the Book of Faith , I wrote a presentation about A Brief History of Bible Translations. One of the first things I talked about was the problem of Dynamic versus Functional translation, basically do you want a word for word translation or one which captures the spirit of the passage. Each has its virtues and shortcomings. I next talked about the problems of lexical elaboration or why some cultures have multiple words to describe an object or concept, the classic example is the different words that Eskimo culture has for snow.

Our Pastors have talked in their sermons about the single word in English, which we translate as love is actually three different words in Greek, Eros , philos and agape. We are also aware of the concept of TIME in Greek being represented by two separate words, kyros and chronos , meaning God's time and time measured by man. Since the SPCA, PETA and the Michael Vick haters do not want me to continue flogging a dead horse. Let me write about some other words from the Greek that translators have wrestled with.

The first one comes to us thanks the King James and his Authorized Translation of the Holy Bible. This is the dear Bible many of us grew up with, and it has an interesting history. For those of you curious about that history, I highly recommend God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible , by Adam Nicolson. If a camel is a race horse designed by a committee then you will appreceiate the problems of the KJV after reading Nicolson. But I digress ! The first word I want to talk about is Church. A word dear to you who are reading this posting. After all, we are members of a church and we attend a church. and all this comes from a single word, kirk being used to describe the assembled gathering, in Greek ecclesia.

Saint Paul talks about 'being one body in Christ' (Romans 12:5) and 'being baptised into one body' (I Cor 12:13). The word he uses to describe the early gatherings of Christians is ecclesia, and it meant the gathering of people, not the building. This is simply because the early groups met in other member's homes. There was no special building for worship, churches did not come into being for several hundred years and those were primarily pagan temples which were converted for worship when Christianity became the religion of the land, after Constantine.

What bothers me is that we tend to have greater concern for the building than for the gathering within the building. There are all manner of issues which distract us from our relationship with both God and the members of the 'Body of Christ'. All to often, when there is a division, we tend to take sides. We want God to be on our side rather than to on God's side of a discussion. Again we see the flat learning curve for Christians, Paul found himself writing to the various ecclesia that he founded where there were arguments about who had the most important spiritual gifts or was it allowable to eat food from a pagan Temple. Today we get caught up in such important aguments as: should we have carpet in the entire worship area, what style of worship is better or who should visit the sick in the hospital. I feel that we should not get caught up in the WWJD mentality, but should gather together in the ecclesia to pray and discuss the matter. But then that is just one man's opinion.

Peace,

Clyde

What's the difference between meditating and just goofing off?

I love August, the hot humid days are the swan song for summer and the cool nights, a harbinger of the crisp days of autumn. Well, I was on vacation in Maine for a few days and as the man at the little gas station in Winthrop said when I told him I loved the cool weather, "Better enjoy it, winter is just around the corner." It sounds even better with the downeast accent of a true Mainer, or is that Maniac?

Anyway, I was the house guest and cook for my Navy buddy Steve and his family for several days. Steve and I go back to the early 70's when we were stationed in Italy, and the friendship has lasted over the years with shared family vacations and lengthy phone conversations about any number of topics. The only problem, is that Steve does not know how to relax. He is the stereotypical hard working self reliant New Englander. The day I arrived he was wrapping up a two day seminar for High School AP US History teachers at Colby College, Steve is the Maine coordinator for AP History certification. The next morning we had an appointment to meet with the surveyor and walk the 20 acre property line on the land his mother had given him on the family farm. And the next was work on the Mustang he was restoring with their son Keith. My plans for some relaxation was getting lost in all this work.

It was then that I remembered a previous vacation when I helped Steve auger post holes for the deck foundation on a mother-in-law apartment above his garage. I had brought four books to read and my kayak to get in some water time and meditation and this was devolving into another work party. Fortunately none of the family are early risers, so I had time to myself after six and before nine a.m. I did get three of the four books read and some time was spent on Echo Lake, listening to the loons and admiring the changing color of the sky in late afternoon. And the several evening when the sky was clear there was time to enjoy the Perseid Meteor Shower and the opaque path of the Milky Way overhead.

With a goal of 'clearing my head' and getting some thoughts together for both Men's Group and the Adult Christian Education classes, I felt that this was in no way just goofin' off. It was a productive time as well as time for reflection and restoration. But here a strange question pops into my head, "What is wrong with just goofing off ?" We get so caught up in being productive that we have justify any time that does not show up on the balance sheet as time well spent. Sometimes, just unwinding and relaxing is time well spent; after all, recreation is time spent in re creating our self and our world. For all the obsessive type-A people we need to remind ourselves of a very important passage from Genesis: " By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work" (Gen 2:2). So, my reply to anyone who accuses me of just goofing of, my response is, "No, I'm just being Biblical !"

peace,

Deacon Clyde

Tradition

I have been reading and thinking a great deal about what and how I will be presenting material this Fall in the class dealing with Christian Theology. Now all of this comes from a question that arose in one of my classes this past Spring. When after saying several times "Well Lutheran Theology on this is..." and the participant replied, "You keep saying Lutheran Theology, why don't you say Christian Theology?" As I attempted to answer the question, rather poorly, I realized that when we say Christian Theology, what we really mean is our specific denomin-ational theology. And this is shaped by our traditions. So, what are traditions?

Professor Phillip Cary of eastern University says: "Tradition means the handing down of wisdom (both practical and theoretical) from one generation to the next." He goes on to explain that Christian theology is the centeral intellectual activity of the Christian tradition, consisting of critical reasoning about what should be taught in the Christian community. This concise statement really blew me away, because this is what I was trying, in my particular rambling way, to get at in my classes last year when we explored the order of worship and the two creeds we recite in worship. Actually, as Lutherans we confess three Creeds, but for the practical reason of needing to get home from worship before sunset only use two in worship.

I would like to get us thinking about tradition in the way that professor Cary uses the word and see how that changes the way we look at what we believe. Believe in what you may ask. And that is exactly what I want to think about, believe in anything. Tradition and belief are two very powerful agents of stability; and, they support each other. I keep going back to Tevi in 'Fiddler on the Roof' when he proclaims, "Without tradition we would be as unstable as a fiddler on the roof." Consider some traditions outside of our faith community, such holidays, certain birthday celebrations, where and how we take vacations. all of these help us to define who we are and how we relate as individuals and as part of a larger community. I probably tend to ruminate about these things more than more normal people because that is just the way I am, and it has been reinforced by training in psychology and anthropology- be careful about letting your children study either field!

Tradition and belief, the two mutually supporting agents shape us, not only in what we believe, but also what questions we can ask about what we believe. And they provide both the lenses through which we view life, but also the filters that limit what we ask about the three fundamental questions we ask at some time in our lives. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Belief will eventually lead to a discussion of the question, "What is sound doctrine and what is heresey?" Again, for those of you who journeyed with us last year we had a brief discussion of the various beliefs that jostled for acceptance in the church. If you missed this or want to review, the lessons are available at the church website. My opening statement from these discussion about what happened after 'the great commission' (Matthew 28: 19-20) still holds true and we will look at how some of the problems were addressed and doctrine came into being in the first several hundred years of the church after we became Christians. I hope to see you in September, bring two things: an open mind and good questions.

Peace,
Clyde Beury