Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B: Climate Anxiety and Workers’ Bodies
Andrew Hudson
The ecological themes are all over this week, but they converge in the experiences of three of the “leading men” of the Bible: David, Paul and Jesus. An ecological approach helps follow along with them as they point their contemporaries and us toward the Creator. These are people who, rather than be above it all, had harrowing life experiences and came through them - with Divine help. This will hopefully help congregations with ecological angst and/or people who suffer in their bodily experience that is often unacknowledged.
Commentary
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This story really comes to life when looked at through an ecological lens. Behind the man triangle of Saul-David-Goliath are a host of beasts: first there are sheep and the “lions and bears” who attack them and that David develops his fighting skills against. Then there are animal references in David and Goliath’s verbal battle: a comparison with a dog, and finally the threats exchanged to give each others’ bodies (and the Philistine army’s, in David’s case) to carrion birds and wild animals. The physicality of both the action and the focus of the dialogue brings the humans into an unusually even level with the animals referred to, making interesting interpretive possibilities in considering the role of YHWH, who is both creator on one hand, and on the other the LORD who relates with a chosen people.
The lion (ha-ari) and bear (had-do-owb) referred to were likely similar to today’s asiatic lions and brown bears; they really were lions and bears. In other words, David had serious experience with creatures just as deadly as Goliath. David also comes from a shepherd’s field to a battlefield. As with wars everywhere, this battlefield is probably a desecrated farmer’s field. Typical of imperial war stories, the native inhabitants - creaturely, indigenous, agricultural - are not even mentioned. Both the characters and the typical reader are unaware of this context. Does David have eyes to see that this field is, as Wendell Berry would say, a sacred/desecrated place? Is part of his advantage that, as a pastoralist, he is on ‘home turf’ in some way? David is certainly at home in his own skin, and also at home putting it all on the line for his flock - first the group of sheep and then the similarly lost, fearful men of Israel and Judah.
Those fearful men quickly turn to pursuers, chasing the Philistines back as far as Gath, the home of their defeated champion. The violence raises questions, and the vocation David is emerging from lends some wisdom there. David did not kill willy-nilly; not at all. David and his flock were in competition with bears and lions, who ostensibly need to hunt, for survival. Daniel Quinn, in “The Story of B,” refers to this as “the law of limited competition.” War does not occur in nature, he contends, but there are limited instances where individuals compete to the death as part of the larger story of life. This does not resolve the many problematic issues related to violence in the Bible, but it does help begin parsing out human violence that fits with the patterns in creation as compared with those brought on by empire.
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To approach this passage requires a couple context notes. This psalm is an acrostic, which seems to be continued by Psalm 10. Then there are the breaks, places where selah, and/or some other word, is inserted. Following those breaks, it seems that vv. 1-16 are a section, followed by a brief section of 17-20. This lectionary reading, then, cuts across the natural breaks. This is most important for an ecological reading, in that before the lectionary passage, verse 6 says “my enemies’ cities have rooted out.” This sets the tone for the dialectic between the sinking of the enemies of the people of God and the rising of the faithful.
Rising, on the part of God’s people, and descending, by the enemies, is a holistic theme in the passage. The image is slightly personified by making Zion “Daughter Zion” in verse 14. A direct reading makes this a “daughter of God” image. Whether or not this is an overreading, there is a salvation associated with this ascension - to go up with the people is to have the poor remembered and the needy saved from perishing. It is a going up that allows clear vision, a mountaintop experience. The image of “Daughter Zion” invites God’s people to an identity with both God’s great reach and God’s compassion.
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This passage, like many in Paul’s writings, can seem obscure if it is perceived as mere argumentation. There is a fair amount of what can be described as riffing on binaries: treated with honor and dishonor and with verbal abuse and good evaluation…both fake and real, as unknown and well known… and so on. Earlier (5:12), he says they aren’t trying to commend ourselves to you again”, and now he begins verse 4, “we commend ourselves as ministers of God…” Is he just playing both sides of everything, what is going on here? And how can all this back-and-forth Greek argumentation contribute some insight for our role in creation? It turns out that Paul is introducing his bodily experience into otherwise rigorous Greek theological argumentation. It takes some unpacking.
One entry point is the strong use of spatial language in the passage. The Corinthians apparently responded to his previous letter by saying he was being restrictive. Paul picks up on the spatial nature of that word and runs with it. Not only is the end full of spatial terminology - spoken openly … hearts wide open … no limits … placed boundaries…open your hearts wide - but earlier there are images that are less apparent in English. In verse 4, the first triad of difficulties ends with ‘calamities’ (NRSV). This is a spatial term - something like ‘narrow straits.’ Perhaps most significant is at the end of verse one, “in vain” in NRSV, is also spatial - into emptiness. Paul is setting a tone of thinking in three dimensions, rather than only on the two-dimensional plane of politics and argumentation. He writes plenty into this “flat” reality. This entire passage - and indeed, all of his writing - is reminiscent of and recreates different imperial arguments. The way he tells of his sufferings would have brought to mind Augustus Caesar’s ‘gospel’ of his accomplishments. Paul turns this strategy on its ear not only by changing the content, but by making being a red-blooded person with a real life something of theological significance. That he is a person who suffers becomes part of the discussion - a dimension that polite conversation - then and now - normally avoids.
In the middle of this passage he launches into that other dimension - the turbulent real-life joys and sufferings he and people like him have experienced. I do not know the life of the Corinthian church, but most scholars today would not have experienced beatings, imprisonments and riots. Nor would they have experienced manual labor nor hunger. (I skipped “sleepless nights,” but in this context, it might be compared to the sleepless night of a third shift worker - something the modern scholarly class would not experience.) Paul moves directly from these experiences to displaying purity, knowledge and patience, which is exceptional. Being gentle and God-focused is a totally different thing when one is physically stressed than it is when one is, and has been for a while, physically comfortable. Paul and his companions go further into this ‘space’ with only “the weapons of righteousness” in both hands. There, they are jerked back and forth: treated with honor and dishonor, verbal abuse and good evaluation, seen as both fake and real, etc., with the back-and-forth getting increasingly visceral, going beyond “punished but not killed.” What is beyond that? Economic reality. Poor but making many rich, having nothing but owning everything. He says this not only with his words here, but with his life; Paul, unlike scholars then or academics now, chose to be a laborer - a tentmaker - rather than take the comfortable and compromising path of patronage. Going down this different path involves a dimension that is hard to communicate to those who do not have to live in it, but Paul insists on drawing their attention to it. He “goes there”, and returns with a certain type of authority as a souvenir.
For much of this passage Paul has drawn attention to his experience to set the stage for talking about his relationship with the Corinthians. There are questions to be earnestly asked about where Paul goes from there. The Wisdom Commentary, which I draw on several times here, rightly asks if Paul is conflating his being reconciled to the Corinthians with them being reconciled to God. A couple translational issues take some of the edge off of this question. In verse one, the NRSV incorrectly inserts “with him” - the sentence is actually a reference to Paul and the Corinthians being co-workers. Similarly, in verse 13 NRSV makes it sound like Paul is talking down to his audience, when he is really talking as a child (of God) to another child. In between these humble statements, Paul illustrates his lived physical and psychic experience, and invites the Corinthians to contextualize themselves similarly. Paul is living three-dimensionally, including much of both pain and, with God’s help, overcoming and living joyfully and generatively. He is giving all he can, both emotionally and economically. Can they say the same? His line of questioning draws a thread through the issues of ecology and class that are usually treated separately in our comfortable academic and ecclesiological circles. The two come together in the sufferings of the underclass. Our bodies are part of creation, and when we (they) groan, creation is groaning. Paul calls out to his comfortable audience, then and now, saying he chose to be of the working class, and there is something of God there that they must stretch their comfort-deadened minds to respect and learn from.
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Even among biblical miracles, this one might be especially difficult to talk about to a North American audience. “Really?” the educated mind asks. “Did he really calm a naturally-occurring storm?” There is so much more to this story; finding the right amount of attention for the post-modern question is difficult. First of all, it is beside the point of Mark or any ancient author. But to go deeper, perhaps our (post-) modern scholarship is circling back around to a way of thinking friendly to communicating with natural phenomena. Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer has found great traction urging a re-enchanted understanding of nature in her book “Braiding Sweetgrass.” She talks about the “honorable harvest,” where people are to ask permission from an area before harvesting from it.
So if “breaking laws of nature” is not the point, what is? A clue can be found: repeated words or themes, of which there are several here. This is one of six crossings of Lake Galilee in Mark. Four of them are substantial, and all four are narrated using the phrase “to the other side.” Like going to the other side of the tracks, this is both a geographical and a socioeconomic journey. Here is, rather than metaphysics, the incarnation in the story. The next time they go “to the other side,” Jesus has to make them get in the boat. This betrays emotional resistance, as does the fact that the storms both happen on the way to gentile territory. These storms describe both the real lives and the locations of the working people Jesus lived among, and also the overwhelming tensions the early church (Mark’s audience) felt in seeking to reach over to “the other side” across the Jew-gentile divide.
And where is Jesus while the storm rages? Asleep?! This is very curious, though generally overshadowed by the calming of the storm. What is the significance of his exceptional ability to relax? Confidence in his ability to control nature? Spiritual mastery? The text simply moves on to what he does next.
Teaching and Preaching Ideas
Significance of the bodily experience of workers
The world of the North American middle class has taken for granted the work of the laboring class for my whole lifetime. Lights go on, water runs from taps, cars run, clothes and food appear in stores and excrement disappears from bathrooms without most people of means ever giving a second thought. That is, except when someone - with whom there is usually no other relationship - is summoned to rectify things. This is all still true, and there is now an additional layer of abstraction brought with the internet. Now we do not even leave our desk to procure clothing and even food. This has brought a sharp class divide we need to start noticing - the divide between those who can work from home and those who can’t.
The pandemic brought “Zoom culture” and the relocating of many white collar jobs to people’s homes. This is still being navigated in many work spaces. However, many jobs not only can’t be done from home, the idea is ridiculous. Can a plumber telecommute? What field would a farmer work from home? Would it be in Farmville?
There is a vast, largely ignored issue of incarnation brought on by the recent internet-based restructuring of society, and this week’s readings present one of several ways to address it. It matters in Paul’s conversation with the Corinthians that he is one who suffers physically as a worker as well as in spreading the good news. It matters just as much in our contexts where we (white collar) Christians are of a class that is supported and served by many other subservient classes that meet our needs. Paul was a tentmaker. Jesus was a worker, a “tektone” (Mark 6:3). Their social location was not metaphorical, they were each physically very vulnerable, and that embodied experience was foundational in an ongoing way for their ministries. This is hard to put into words, but Paul makes a heroic effort to communicate it to the Corinthians.
It is worth asking if the extreme bodily experiences of coming up as a worker in the crushing context of Galilee were essential in Jesus’ formation as someone with a special relationship with physical reality. He was not a fisherman, but, as Myers explores, he might have traveled by foot all over Galilee in pursuit of work. He would have had something like what we might now call class solidarity with farmworkers and fisher folk, giving context for the deep understanding of those areas of work he displays in his parables and teachings. Why would someone from that background be sleeping on a cushion during a rainstorm? There are probably multiple valid directions to go in answering that question, but it would be helpful in building a context for justice for people who are usually physically comfortable (and indoors) to relate to not only the extreme nature of the moment, but the incarnated experience that led to the remarkable behaviors there. (David’s formation crosses lines in a similar way.)
God is with us in the climate crisis
Responding to the climate crisis is a big thing in the church these days. There is political advocacy for reducing greenhouse gasses, micro grants for putting in charging stations, and of course, everyone has changed their lightbulbs. These are endeavors of the broader culture that are good ethical actions for the church to get involved with, as institutions and as communities. But the ecological crisis is at its heart a spiritual crisis of sorts and, sadly,it is uncommon for our spiritual communities to address the spiritual angst and sense of conviction experienced by vast numbers of people these days. This would be a good Sunday to gain entry into this area.
The image of Jesus sleeping on a cushion fits the cry in the soul of many in contemplating the crisis we’re in. “Where is God in this?” People are asking. That question often comes in the form of a statement: We’re screwed; or something to that effect. It is rare for people to pray directly about the crisis. In North American churches, the cultural divide tends to lead to churches where the group ignores the crisis on one hand, or prays for the winning out of a “green” secular agenda; when they actually pray about it at all. How do we even pray about it? It is a difficult historical moment of coming to terms. Perhaps we could cry out with radical honesty like the disciples, “God, where are you, do you not care that we are perishing?” Any of the Psalms that include the phrase “Save us”, or new testament passages that use the phrase “Hosanna” (which means save us) will apply.
To follow the story in this way is challenging. Jesus wakes up, calms the storm, and chides the disciples. How do we overlay that on this situation? The whole point is that the climate storm is out of control. How, moments later, can God just wake up and set everything right? Perhaps this would be a good point at which to look at geologic time, and how this storm has risen up in a sudden and out-of-control way. In that frame, even if God is going to set things right, we are completely vulnerable and powerless. This is actually a spiritually fertile place to be; it is the soil in which humility grows. We badly need such humility as a beginning point for understanding history differently. When we do, normal life looks entirely different, and a humble take on modern life leads toward the humble cosmology we need for making better choices as a society. As Pastor/farmer John Pitney sings in “The Earth is the Lord’s”:
“This is promised land full of things you did not build
Houses filled with things that you have not filled
And fields and factories not fashioned by your hand
Just remember if you can; don’t forget who owns this land.”
This moment, when we are crying out and have not yet heard Jesus’ voice in response to the climate storm, is an opening that can lead to transformation.
And in case the congregation (or its pastor) is feeling all alone in approaching this spirituality, there are small groups of people praying about it “with eyes open.” One is Climate Intercessors. This online community meets one day a month for an hour of prayer. (Each day has four different hours around the clock for people in different countries.) An email assessing in depth some aspect of the climate crisis is sent out a couple weeks ahead to give structure in approaching prayer time, so there is plenty of intellectual engagement. The prayer time, however, is mostly heart-centered, with the host holding space for people from many countries to pray their creaturely prayers in the face of being on a boat in such a stormy sea.
A less direct but also important way of approaching the issue spiritually is Wild Church. This movement, very approachable for mainstream churches, invites people to consider what an outdoor worship is - without the strictures that being in a building puts on a group - and then resources them to follow their sense of calling there. There are traditions, but no dogma. Wild Church is a good entry point for groups feeling angst who can’t imagine what a first step would be.
Sources and Resources
https://www.climateintercessors.org/
Myers, Ched. Binding the Strong Man : A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1988.
Myers, Ched, An Introduction to Mark’s Gospel, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA1Lqlrvb6c
John Pitney, “The Earth is the Lord’s” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MhAs75Av7Y
Miriam Spies, “Covid Exposed Christian Ableism: What Happens When Churches Reopen?” Sojourners Magazine, October 5, 2020
https://sojo.net/articles/covid-exposed-christian-ableism-what-happens-when-churches-reopen
Quinn, Daniel. The Story of B. New York: Bantam Books, 1996
https://www.wildchurchnetwork.com/
Wire, Antoinette Clark, Mary Ann Beavis, and Barbara E. Reid. 2 Corinthians. Wisdom Commentary Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2019
Contributor bio
Andrew Hudson is a Mennonite pastor and organic farmer currently based in Sarasota, Florida. He puts his two vocations together in “Sabbath Gardening”, supporting congregations in using biblically-informed gardening to deepen their relationship with the land where they worship. He has a grown son and lives in community with chosen family.