Faith Works 5-23-20

Faith Works 5-23-20

Jeff Gill

 

How seminary prepares us for the unexpected

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So there's my Hebrew class.

 

Truth be told, I've really not used my studies in Hebrew in any, or at least many substantive ways as a preacher of the Christian Gospel.

 

While the good news has many roots in the Old Testament, and I reflect on them often in my preaching, there are plenty of great resources for understanding everything from Genesis to Malachi in English (yes, including the version ol' King James authorized and oversaw).

 

Occasionally I'll consider aspects of the Hebrew text in the language it was first recorded, I have to admit it's rare. What the study of Hebrew for a mere year did do for me, though, was to awaken in me an awareness of the essential distance between me and the original manuscripts, and the various textual and editorial bridges God has used to get those insights to me, on a page or in pixels on a screen.

 

When I read "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" I don't always think precisely in the moment about "Adonai roee, lo echsar," but I'm aware it's there, hovering in the background.

 

Which is relevant to our present moment not because you can find a cure for CO VID-19 in Hebrew, but because that wider, deeper awareness of how things fit together is really what's equipped me for dealing with the complications of life "under quarantine."

 

It's been a running joke for many of us in ministry that Bible college or seminary or our pastoral training did not include how to shoot and edit video, or ways to link up technophobic people through online conferencing tools, let alone ways to set up a worship area where everyone is six feet away from each other.

 

And it's an older piece of dark humor that we don't any of us get an education on how to read financial reports or audits, in plumbing or electrical work, or even much training on teaching (which is different than preaching, let me tell you).

 

What most ministerial training does do, whether it's online or by extension or residency, is give us a deeply rooted grounding in the theology and devotional understandings of our tradition – how we think with and respond to the great questions of faith in our time. Why is there sin and evil in the world? Why doesn't God stop bad things from happening to good people? How can communities of faith respond to the brokenness of this world with a healing word and a redemptive message, both in word and deed?

 

The thinking being, I'd say, that you can learn financial literacy from a number of sources, and definitely there's lots of advice on broken toilets you can get from the home improvement store to your church parking lot, but there are relatively few places where you can sit down, in person or virtually, with a group of people and wrestle with what it means to be faithful, ethical, and holy. Holiness is not discussed on many street corners, or with your average person on the street.

 

One theology professor I had in seminary, who was challenged on his sharp tone in quizzing a student about the day's reading, responded "if you find question's about God's goodness hard to answer on a sunny weekday afternoon in a classroom, wait until a grieving parent asks you to explain these things at 3 am in an ER waiting area." The class was very quiet for a few moments, and then we went back to work on the text at hand.

 

Which is where the challenge of doing digital and distanced worship, while simultaneously reaching through these electronic obstacles and opportunities, is directly related to Hebrew and Greek and theology and the Bible, in my mind. We have to be aware of the complex and layered reality of the human condition, and that both sin and blessing are often pretty tangled up in people. As we deal with this world problems, we're trying to hold up eternal realities to the light of day, to illumine dark corners of our experience.

 

And I can say this after thirty-five years and more of working in church contexts: if we tried to tidy up the curriculum by current standards, and teach today's seminarians about video production values and online tools, how relevant would it be in twenty years, in ten? When I was in seminary, electronic stencil cutters were pretty cool (but I learned about them on the job, not in class).

 

Like any level of education, what's cutting edge today is junk tomorrow. The need for ministerial training is to help develop those deeper understandings of God and world and renewal and connection . . . and learning Hebrew is simply a tool to that more lasting work.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's still trying to master Zoom. Tell him what you have enjoyed learning from scratch at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.