Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: ("digging deeper" insights; Chapter 7 study guide, part 3)

   Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is the third on chapter 7 (which covers the first section of the Good Samaritan parable): a couple "digging deeper" insights from the study guide. These are things that I cut from the book itself in final edits but were important enough to be included in the book's study guide.

DIGGING DEEPER 

In defense of his honor and authority, Jesus uses the Socratic method, a rhetorical strategy named after Socrates because of the way he forced his interlocutors to answer their own questions, sometimes leading to a result the interlocutor did not like but had to affirm explicitly. The same fourfold pattern occurs twice in the two sections (or “rounds”) of this encounter. The lawyer asks a question (10:25, 29); Jesus responds with a counterquestion (10:26, 36); the lawyer answers (10:27, 37); Jesus responds with an answer demanding action: “do this and you will live” (10:28) and “go and do likewise” (10:37). 

And, against those who argue that the priest and Levite were "following the law":

Jews were required to assist a neglected corpse, or, “for most Jews,” to save a life (Snodgrass 2018, 355, 738 n.129): “Laws were suspended when life was endangered.” Similar sentiments about the necessity of burying a neglected corpse are found in Josephus (Against Apion 2.211; Antiquities 5.317; Jewish War 3.377; 4.317) and Philo (Hypothetica 7.7). Compare how Tobit, who “walked in the ways of truth and righteousness” all his life (Tobit 1:3) retrieved, cared for, and buried the corpse of a murdered man during Pentecost (Tobit 2:1– 8). The priest and Levite fail to live up to Tobit’s example. “Half dead” also could involve the principle that saving a life supersedes almost any other requirement (e.g., m. Yoma 8:6: “Whenever there is doubt whether life is in danger this overrides the Sabbath”).

For more, please see chapter 7 of the book. 

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: (key quotes; Chapter 7 study guide, part 2)

  Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is the second on chapter 7, which covers the first section of the Good Samaritan parable. It includes some key quotes from the chapter, and later this week I will add some "digging deeper" insights from the study guide in the next post. 

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION 

The first quote is key because of many misunderstandings about why the priest and Levite did not stop to help: 

Our best evidence suggests that the consensus among first-century Jews, including priests and Levites, was that saving a life is much more important than any potential issues of purity. 

This quote is from perhaps my favorite Thurman meditation, "We are all Indebted":

We are all indebted to people whose names we do not know, whose faces sometimes we are not able to see.…I am not myself alone, but I am a part of all the life that breathes through me and through which I breathe. We are all of us indebted to a vast host by which we are surrounded. 

Here is a quote about Thurman's foundation for loving ourselves and others--we are all children of God:

To love one’s neighbor as oneself by necessity means that you should love yourself, and an essential foundation of truly loving oneself is the recognition that you are a child of God and that God loves you. Loving oneself leads to what appears to be selfless love, but it is instead loving one’s neighbor as if the neighbor were you.

One of Thurman's ideas was that some people should be "apostles of sensitiveness," or, as Barbara Brown Taylor renamed them, "eccentric apostles." A critical part of being an apostle of sensitiveness/eccentric apostle is, in Thurman's words:

"meeting people where they are, and treating them from there as if they were where they ought to be. By doing so, one places a crown over their heads that for the rest of their lives they are trying to grow tall enough to wear.” 

And, finally, one of my conclusions in this chapter is that:

Loving one’s neighbors does not just include loving one’s perceived enemies; it also includes loving everyone around us, people that we see and may not see because of our lack of attentiveness and mindfulness and an inability to escape a tun nel vision about ourselves, our own situations, lives, problems, or everyday affairs. Portraying the priest and Levite as villains, for example, distances us from them and thus can reduce the story’s realism and weaken its impact on modern readers. More importantly, however, modern interpretations that are too negative often descend as drastically as the road from Jerusalem to Jericho into misrepresentations of Judaism and even anti-Semitism.

Next up: Some "digging deeper" insights from the chapter 7 study guide. 

James Janknegt, The Parable of the Rich Fool

James Janknegt, The Parable of the Rich Fool

My last post included a "slow-looking" exercise on this painting:

James B. Janknegt, Portrait of YOU as the Good Samaritan

If you are interested in seeing more of his work, I discussed Janknegt's painting on the Rich Fool parable at King's College, London's Visual Commentary on Scripture website. You can find it here.

I conclude the 300-word piece with this (note: the "this humble house" refers to the house on the right): 

What remains worthy of preservation is the community found in this humble house, which is also a reminder that ‘life does not consist in an abundance of possessions’ (12:15).

Here's a peek at the work of art (click on it to see it in isolation):

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: Good Samaritan parable, Janknegt painting, Thurman meditation "We are all Indebted"; Chapter 7 study guide, part 1

 Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community:

 From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is about chapter 7, which begins the discussion of Thurman and the parable of the Good Samaritan. This post includes one of my favorite mediations from Thurman and a "slow looking" approach to the Good Samaritan painting by James Janknegt.

                    Thurman Meditation

In “We Are All Indebted” (March 26, 1965), Thurman reflects on the “stranger” to whom he dedicates his autobiography, the paradigmatic Good Samaritan who, in Thurman’s view, totally changed his life. We are all indebted to a host of Good Samaritans—known and unknown—and we are all connected one to another and responsible one for another.

Take a few minutes and listen to this meditation. Hearing Thurman is a much deeper experience than just reading his words.

Visual Art Reflection

James B. Janknegt, Portrait of YOU as the Good Samaritan

Unlike previous posts, where I offered some analysis and directed you to some of my other publications on the art work, this time I'd like for you to examine the visual art on your own in a "slow looking" way. 

Thurman believed that artistic expression—visual art, music, dance, theater, film—can stimulate heightened spiritual consciousness and bring diverse people together on common ground. Artistic expression can also enrich and deepen our understanding of the subjects it engages, including biblical texts. In this case, I want you to explore your own imaginations.

A more focused “slow looking” approach would be to consider the title of the painting, then focus on the figures in the painting from left to right, and, after discussing those representations, come back to the meaning of the title. What do YOU think it means? 

It was Nancy Gowler who recommended that I share with others the slow looking” guide by Claire Brown, some details of which are noted below. 

Start with observations and descriptions by examining the work slowly and carefully. What catches your eye? What do you notice? Does anything surprise you? Take a few minutes and write down everything that you notice in the work. Share those elements with a discussion group (or partner). Reflect also on the setting—colors, shapes, lines, figures, movements, textures, the foreground and background—and think about how you would describe this work to someone who had never seen it.

What questions does the piece of visual art raise? What emotions and thoughts emerge as you gaze upon the image? If the image includes representations of people, try to place yourself in the situation of the different people portrayed and imagine their perspectives.

After this close examination and description, now consider how you think the image works. What are the various parts of the image and their purposes? Do they work together to aid interpretation? How does the visual art engage with, interpret, or add to the story it seeks to represent?

What, for you, does this image mean? What details, parts, or overall aspects of the image lead you to this conclusion?

Finally, for you, what does this piece of visual art want? What do you think is it trying to convince you to think, believe, or do?

After doing that, if it helps, you can check out how the artist describes it (also found here).