Reading the Bible Upside Down
By Rev. Tony Aja
Associate Director for People in Mutual Mission of the
Worldwide Ministries Division
[9-19-05]
Introduction:
(My own experience with middle class immigrants in Miami
versus migrant workers in Kentucky; began my own quest to learn how to see
Scripture from the perspective of the "underside," the oppressed and
marginalized by both society and church)
We have used the Bible to justify just about anything we
like or dislike. We have used the Bible to justify slavery, racial
discrimination, misogyny, homophobia and subjugation of native peoples.
Let me clarify that we believe and affirm that the Bible
is the Word of God, true and authoritative. The problem is that the
interpretations we give the Bible in many cases are not true and
authoritative. Why? Because: All biblical interpretations are valid to the
one who is doing the interpreting.
Depending upon our particular theology, context or social
status, we bring our own biases to the interpretation of the Bible. Our
reading of Scripture is never developed in a social or cultural vacuum.
Theology: The synergism
created by the interaction of God and human beings within a historical,
social and cultural context (Tony Aja)
True, we use all the tools we have now days to interpret
the Bible. I am not going to bore you with all the stuff we learn in
seminary, all those "criticisms" that are valid resources to find the
meaning originally intended by the writer.
However, no matter how scholarly we are, how careful we
are in the way we use our tools, we cannot escape our cultural and social
biases. We can say that "all official interpretations reflect the social
location of those with authority to make their personal interpretations the
acceptable societal or theological norm."
That is why we still teach in our seminaries "theology"
from a Western European perspective in the core curriculum and "other
theologies such as Feminist, Liberation (of different persuasions), etc., as
"elective courses."
And this has deep repercussions on the way we do mission,
both here and abroad, especially in our efforts to do justice. Because we
not only do justice with what we do but how we do it.
We live in a world that is getting smaller by the day. The
center of Christianity is shifting rapidly from the northern hemisphere to
the southern hemisphere; from West to East, from the pristine, ornate
chapels of Europe and North America to makeshift storefront churches in
Latin America, Africa and Asia. The center of Christianity is shifting from
the rich north and West to the poor south and east.
And moreover, many of these poor, non-English speaking
peoples are coming to the U.S. and Western Europe in great numbers, changing
our landscape from monochrome to multicolored; from monolingual to polyglot;
from a perceived monolithic cultural to multi cultural and pluralistic.
And all of these folks live in a totally different
cultural and social context. We need to believe that they may not take at
face value our interpretations of the sacred texts.
So how do we prepare ourselves for this shift? How do we
prepare our mission personnel for the new realities? We don’t have time this
afternoon to deal with all these dynamics, but I would like to challenge you
all to begin by reading the Bible "upside down."
(Take your Bibles and turn them upside down; try to read a
passage; hard to do because you are not used to reading the Bible that way;
you have been acculturated to reading the Bible the right side up. Let’s use
this as a metaphor for the exercise we are going to do now.)
I have selected several passages and I am going to ask you
to divide in small groups to study them and interpret them. I am going to
ask you all to read the passages with what is called "hermeneutical
suspicion."
First, ask yourselves these questions: What is the normal
or standard interpretation of this passage? What have you learned about this
passage either in your Sunday School or seminary?
Then try to interpret the passages from a different
perspective, "upside down."
Genesis 21: 8-21
How do you think Hagar the Egyptian felt about this
situation? How would a woman in Latin America think of Sarah and her
particular situation?
Ezra 4: 1-3
How did the "people of the land" feel after the rejection
from the Israelites to their offer to help them rebuild the temple? (or new
immigrants, or African American communities?)
Acts 4:32-37
How would the poor communities in New Orleans, or any
other city in the U.S., interpret this passage?
Acts 8: 26-40
How would the eunuch, a sexually marginalized person at
that time, interpret this passage? (or a present day GLBT person?)
Matthew 20: 1-16
How would an undocumented migrant worker feel about this
passage?
Matthew 14: 13-21
How would a poor farmer in Ethiopia interpret this passage
when read to him by a mission worker?
"…biblical interpretations are no longer
stagnant. They are continuously forced to change as the present day
realities faced by both the individual and society change; it is those
realities that dictate how the Bible is to be read in order to guide those
who struggle. Each new and changing reality forces the Christian to
interpret God’s word afresh and return to the text again to reinterpret
God’s word. For those who are disenfranchised, in this way the reality of
life’s hardships and oppression continually intersects with the biblical
message of hope and liberation. Interpreting the Bible is forever linked
with a commitment to critically analyze society so as to bring it closer
to the justice of the reign of God."
(Miguel A. de la Torre, Reading the Bible from
the Margins, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 10545, 2002, page 103).
