SBL Annual Meeting Papers — November 2007

WORKING DRAFT: Please do not cite without permission of the author

D. Andrew Kille
Interfaith Space/ Bible Workbench

Four Springs to Ground an Experience of the Sacred

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Introduction

What would psychological biblical criticism look like outside the academic classroom? How might it shape the curriculum or the mode of study in a Bible study group, in a retreat, or a seminar? I have written previously that psychological biblical criticism is not so much a methodology or a group of methodologies, but “a way of reading that is critically sensitive to the psychological interactions in and beyond the text.”1 Specifically, a psychological approach to the Bible will bring an “informed sensitivity to the psychodynamics of human interaction, communication and symbolization.”2 How can that sensitivity be brought to bear in the context of a Bible study group?

In this presentation I would like to trace the family tree of one particular approach to biblical study through four manifestations over the past century or so which has been a significant vehicle for psychologically informed study of the Bible. From its roots in the work of H.B. Sharman and his studies in The Records of the Life of Jesus, through its fusion with psychological theory by Elizabeth Howes and the Guild for Psychological Studies, and its subsequent dissemination by way of Walter Wink’s Transforming Bible Study and The Bible Workbench, published by the Educational Center, this approach has enabled thousands of participants in seminars, Bible study groups, and church settings to encounter the Bible in new and life-changing ways.

By way of full disclosure, I confess that my interest in this work is not merely (or “purely”?) academic. Beginning in the early 1980's I attended a number of seminars offered by the Guild for Psychological Studies, including “The Basic Records,” I met Walter Wink in 1984 and have valued him as a colleague in the field these many years, and I was just recently named Editor of The Bible Workbench, to follow Dr. William L. Dols, founder and editor for the past fifteen years. I have used the method in a variety of settings and formats over the years, and I welcome this opportunity to reflect more deeply on it.

H. B. Sharman and “The Records of the Life of Jesus”

The patriarch of this family tree is Henry Burton Sharman, a man whose name means little outside the inheritors of the study process he developed, but whose impact on biblical studies among students, especially in Canada, at the turn of the 20th century was broad and deep. As a nineteen-year-old agricultural student already grown skeptical about Christianity, Sharman attended a revival meeting in 1884, intending to challenge the preacher. Instead, Methodist evangelist H. T. Crossley impressed Sharman greatly when he said, "every statement of Jesus could be proved as surely as the experiments the students were carrying on in their laboratories."3 His friends later declared that on that evening, Sharman dedicated his life to “the will of God,” a theme which became central in his study and teaching.

Growing up on a farm in Ontario, Canada, Sharman spent some time working for various family enterprises, raising cattle and receiving an associate degree in Animal Husbandry, traveling to England to arrange for importing Herford cattle, working as a bookkeeper in a foundry and continuing his studies. After three years of farming in Manitoba, he returned to earn his teaching credential and was eventually appointed Supervising Assistant in Chemistry at the Agricultural College at Guelph.4 He remained impressed with the idea that Jesus’ teachings could be proven scientifically, and devoted himself to study of the life of Jesus. The questions he raised about Jesus and the method of study he was beginning to develop anticipated much of the critical work on the historical Jesus that would not emerge until well toward the end of the 20th century. Upon reading Scottish evangelist Henry Drummond’s 1883 work Natural Law in the Spiritual World, Sharman remarked, "I could not see how or why it was necessary for Christ to come into the picture of God and the running of His universe."

The teachings of Jesus remained central to Sharman’s life-long work. He not only studied privately, he began to lead classes in Bible study, hoping to lead others to the insights he had achieved. In his close study of the Gospels, he soon became aware of the synoptic problem, and was convinced that his approach was more productive than traditional ways of reading the gospel record.5

In 1893, Sharman ended his studies in science to become corresponding secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement of North America (SVM)6 Following a conference that Summer, he was asked what he thought of the Bible study. He declared that it had been thrilling for those who attended, but left little that they could communicate to friends back home. Challenged to develop a program for the next conference, Sharman began to prepare a set of questions that would challenge students to deepen their own thinking about Jesus. The questions would be used to guide discussions at the conference, and could then be taken back and used at home. The questions Sharman developed were published by the YMCA in 1896 as Studies in the Life of Christ.7 The questioning process remained the core of Sharman’s work for the rest of his life.

The increasing inroads of “higher criticism” in biblical studies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to controversy among many religious organizations. Sharman found the new critical methods to be highly compatible with the work he himself was doing, but the leadership of the YMCA and SVM were not so accepting. Sharman resigned his positions in 1900 and went to study theology at the University of Chicago, earning his Ph.D. in New Testament in 1906.8

He taught there as a docent for three years, but when offered a regular appointment he turned it down. The controversy about “higher criticism” was growing, and he did not desire to be caught up in the battles. Instead, realizing that he would need to support his own work independently, he returned to Canada and established Ontario Metal Culvert Company, which he developed into a successful enterprise, allowing him to return to Chicago in 1915 and devote himself to his “one thing.” Until the end of his life, he spent nearly every moment directing independent Bible study classes. Apart from a three-year term as lecturer in history at Yenching University, Beijing, China, while continuing to lead his summer seminars in Canada, and teaching at Pendle Hill, Pennsylvania for three years, Sharman independently developed and refined his seminars with college students and faculty.

The text for these classes was Records of the Life of Jesus, Sharman’s own organization of the gospels, published first by the YMCA and subsequently by Harper. Further developing a framework he had used in his dissertation, “The Teaching of Jesus about the Future,” The Records of the Life of Jesus presented the synoptic materials side by side on the same page, broken into sections and paragraphs to allow for close comparison, with notes on the text and Old Testament parallels below. A separate second section presented the Gospel of John.9

In his introduction to Records of the Life of Jesus, Sharman wrote,

It has been the aim so to set forth the material as to provide primarily for an historical rather than a critical knowledge of the records. Stated in another way, the foremost intention has been to produce, in the language and in the order of the original records, a Life of Jesus. But it is thought also that, in the pursuance of that aim, the literary phenomena of the records have been so exhibited as to provide the basis for somewhat thorough critical study of the source relationships of these records.10

A year later, YMCA published Sharman’s collection of questions as Jesus in the Records. Designed for individual and group use, Jesus in the Records contained 23 lessons, designed to occupy a week’s worth of reflection. Each section begins with a statement of the “Purposes of the Study” and “Method for the Study,” which laid out a framework for approaching the texts. Then follow seven daily readings, selected from one of the gospel accounts, followed by questions to challenge the reader to think deeply about what he or she has read. At the end of the section are “Leading Problems of the Study” and “Some Findings for the Study.”

The questions were always intended to be used in a group setting, whether a group committed to spending an hour each week discussing what had come up in their study or as part of one of the extended Summer seminars. From 1923 onward, Sharman held seminars in Canada, most often at Camp Minnesing, Ontario11. In a remote place which could only be reached by railroad and a ten-mile canoe trip uplake, these “Jesus as Teacher” seminars would last for six weeks, spending each day from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in intensive study with afternoons free for reflection, preparation, meditation, and recreation.12

Sharman’s teaching method was the Socratic seminar, without lectures or instruction. "Our approach," said Sharman, "is to be fresh, open, free from the limitations imposed by theories, doctrines and dogmas."13 He described the process as “scientific,” "THE METHOD OF STUDY we shall use in this work together is that generally known as the SCIENTIFIC METHOD."14 In an article written by L. Earl Wilmott as introduction to Studies in Jesus as Teacher, the goal is called “group thinking.” “Group thinking produces something that members individually cannot produce– it creates a group idea that may be better than the best individual idea or all the individual ideas added together.”15 Neither an argument nor a debate in which someone tries to convince others of their correctness, the group was to be a “discussion.” Only in the group conversation was the best solution to the problem to be found, and no one could know beforehand what the outcome would be. In order for this process to be successful, certain requirements must be met: each member must participate fully, sharing their viewpoints with an attitude of cooperation and open searching; the group must have an orderly process and sequence; members of the group must feel their connection to the group and responsibility for the outcome. For these reasons, a group should be between six and fifteen or so (larger groups diminish the opportunity for full participation)16, and should be seated so they can see one another’s faces, around a table or in a circle.

The role of the leader was central. The leader had to be capable of keeping the group going, encouraging participation, and moving through the material. The leader was not there to be an expert or a source of information, but to guide the process. He must “hold all preconceptions in abeyance” even more than group members17, avoid revealing his reaction to group members’ contributions, trust that “the successful functioning of the group does not rest upon him.” The leader should encourage “all possible points-of-view,” remain impartial, and hesitate from talking too much or forcing his own opinions. Exercising “consideration, tolerance, and tact,” the leader should trust that the group can learn by experience and seek to sense the group’s “intention and attitude” toward anyone who might be speaking.18

According to his students, Sharman was somewhat intimidating– always formal and aloof, (he wore suits and stiff white collars even during the seminars in the Canadian wilderness) and as a seminar leader demanded rigorous preparation from participants– some two hours of study every day outside the group. Although he never betrayed his own opinions or conclusions and even his reactions to what others said, it was clear that he believed that it was vital that students discover for themselves who Jesus was and what he taught. In order to clear away the cloud of opinions and presentations of Jesus, it was necessary to recognize one’s own preconceptions, set them aside, and trust that an objective study of the records would lead to truth. He did not seek agreement within the group, but he did demand serious commitment to the search.19

Sharman retired to Carmel, California, 1933. He led seminars at Camp Minnesing until 1945. In declining health and worsening eyesight, he continued to publish his books and maintain connections with friends20. He died suddenly in 1953 in Carmel. Although he had considered how the work might continue after his death, he had resisted developing a structured organization.21 "All you need to do to kill anything is organize it.” he is reported to have said,  Then it will roll on long after it is dead."22 Students were encouraged to begin Records studies in their own areas, but with some notable exceptions, these did not continue without the presence of the charismatic founder.

While Sharman’s work clearly had significant psychological dimensions to it, especially in its group process, there is no indication that Sharman had any specific interest in psychology as such. Personally, though described by friends as “a sensitive, deeply committed, warm-hearted man behind the stern disciplinarian,” Sharman was cool and formal in his relationships even with his close friends. Some colleagues considered him to be completely out of touch with the emotional of side life, committed entirely to the intellectual and rational23. Nonetheless, while remaining devoted to the rationality and objectivity of what Sharman considered to be a scientific investigation of the teachings of Jesus, the questions he used to provoke his students’ thinking often required self-examination and reflection that touched closely on psychological issues. Studies in the Life of Christ included questions for personal reflection like, “Does the Herod spirit lurk in my life?” and “Is there any practice in my Christian life which is purely external, which does not spring from a corresponding inward and spiritual reality?”24

His final published work, Paul as Experient, Sharman evidences his interest in Paul as a historical figure, whose letters reveal “the outcomes of an indubitable experience” that is obscured by the text, especially by Paul’s plurivocal use of the term “faith.” Without clarity on the many different meanings of this word, he writes, “Paul must regrettably remain an unsolvable psychological enigma, in his religious experience and in his subsequent reflection on that experience.”25

Surely in his investigations of the historical Jesus and his teachings he must have had a similar interest in Jesus’ own experience. Although we have no direct evidence, one of his students, Elizabeth Boyden Howes, recalled many years later Sharman’s critique of William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience that “It is indeed strange that the most wholesome religious experience in history is omitted, as it always is; namely, the experience of Jesus himself.”26

Guild for Psychological Studies

It fell to Elizabeth Boyden Howes to explore the psychological dimensions of Jesus’ experience.  Elizabeth Boyden was an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley, when she began attending Sharman’s seminars around 1930. Soon she and a fellow student Frances Warnecke began promoting studies of the Records in the Bay Area.27  A student of psychology, she made several trips to Germany before World War II to study with Fritz Kunkel and continued to work with him after he emigrated to the U.S. Through Kunkel she became acquainted with the work of Carl Jung, and was fascinated that the insights of analytical psychology confirmed what she understood Jesus to be saying. It was her experience with Records study that led her to analytical psychology “both for personal reasons and because it seemed the school of psychology adequate to explain the deeper levels, the archetypal dimensions, of the religious experience of Jesus and its personal meaning.”28

She and Kunkel founded a retreat center, the Pines, in Southern California, and through the 1940's offered seminars which were based on the Sharman method, but which incorporated explicitly psychological perspectives.29 Kunkel himself became more and more interested in psychology of religion and psychology and the Bible. In 1947 he wrote Creation Continues, a Psychological Interpretation of the first Gospel, [Kunkel, 1987 #32] and at the time of his death in 1956 had been working on his magnum opus, a psychological interpretation of the life and work of Paul30. At about the same time, Elizabeth Howes along with her colleagues Sheila Moon and Luella Sibbald, purchased a lodge in the woods near Middletown, California, and established the Guild for Psychological Studies.

The Seminars that Elizabeth Howes and her colleagues developed over the next  forty years combined study of the Records of the Life of Jesus, insights from Kunkel and Jung, and elements of mythology, wisdom from other traditions, exploration in art, music, and movement, and the environment of Four Springs itself as a sacred precinct.31 The three traveled several times to Switzerland, where they studied with Jung and his associates and were known as Jungian analysts in addition to their work with the Records.

At the core of the Guild process are the two key elements of Sharman’s seminars– the text of the synoptic Gospels as presented in Sharman’s Records of the Life of Jesus, and the Socratic circle. Around these basic tools the Guild leaders carefully crafted seminars which included psychological models of individuation, parallel materials from myth and literature, imaginative exercises, and the physical environs of Four Springs as a psychic container to intensify and contain the work. The foundational seminar, known as The Basic Records, was a seventeen-day residential seminar held at Four Springs.

The Guild summarizes its work in this way:

The method allows each person in the group a chance to explore the synoptic Gospels almost as if one had at hand for the first time a newly discovered text. The investigation of the text and subsequent discovery of meaning and relevance proceed via questions prepared beforehand by the seminar leader. The questions arise from the material and at the same time lead the individuals back into it. Correspondences or resonance between text and the participants is evoked at various levels. In these moments something about the unknown is revealed. When the text is illuminated this way, the participants, too, in varying degrees are illuminated. Meaning for individuals, not consensus, is the hoped-for outcome.32

Although psychological models of individuation are important for the Guild, the purpose of seminars is not to “illustrate individuation,” but to enable participants in the effort to discover how Jesus’ own relation to God “may offer a way of living that is individually and historically fulfilling.”33

As with Sharman’s work, the questions and the leader remained vitally important. The questions need to be truly open, allowing for different individual responses, and yet grounded in the text itself. Typically, questions move in three concentric circles. The first level (and the only level at which there might be a “right” answer) is intended to orient people to the details of the text. For example, if one were dealing with the conflict over eating with sinners described in Mark 2:13-17 and parallels, one might ask What is Jesus doing? Who complains? Who were the Pharisees? Who were tax collectors, and why were they despised?

The second circle seeks to explore the outward, objective implications of the text. What did it mean to sit at table with someone in that time? Why might have enabled Jesus to sit with tax collectors and sinners? Why are the Pharisees upset? What might they be trying to protect? The third movement involves questions that invite the individuals to make connections to their own lives and experience: What parts of yourself are “sinners,” aspects you are ashamed of? Standing silently with eyes closed, imagine these parts of yourself as people standing outside your window, looking in. Send them away forcefully. Imagine them again, and this time invite them in to eat with you. Write about the experience.34

The goal is never to arrive at group consensus, but through the process of group sharing “a process similar to what Jung calls amplification in dream analysis develops. The symbols and symbolic statements in the text expand and become more meaningful, and each person takes from the text what he or she thinks and feels Jesus perhaps meant.”35 There is no summary or vote; what matters is what each person does with the text in terms of their own life and inner work.

The role of the leader was even more important. Howes and her colleagues were all trained psychotherapists, as were many of the leaders who followed. Associate leaders were expected to develop a mastery of the critical and mythical materials, and go through many years of training. apprenticeship, and personal analysis before leading seminars. Seminars were never group therapy sessions, but leaders were trained to be ready to deal with the deep psychic material that could be stirred up by the process.

Although the Guild focused primarily on the synoptic gospels, it found the method fruitful as an approach to the Hebrew scriptures as well. Sadie Gregory, an early member of the Guild, noted the necessity for people, “whether Jew or Christian,” to “rediscover the neglected Judaic images in our own unconscious.”36 She argued that the Old Testament “contains much potent material from deep levels within the human psyche” and published A New Dimension in Old Testament Study, a collection of questions for use with texts from the Torah, Prophets, Psalms, Ruth and Jonah.37 38

Transforming Bible Study

In 1973, Walter Wink, then teaching at Union Theological Seminary, issued his now legendary challenge to historical-critical study of the Bible and its domination of the academy. “Historical critical criticism is bankrupt,” he declared.39 Biblical studies had, despite its many significant contributions, objectified the Bible and detached scholars from engagement with the texts and their communities. He called for a new paradigm in biblical studies, and suggested that a more psychologically informed model, one which paid attention not only to the text being interpreted, but to the interpreter and his or her relation to the text. To illustrate how such a process might look, he described an approach to the story of the healing of the paralytic (Mark 2:1-12 and parallels). His examples were drawn from his experience with seminars with the Guild for Psychological Studies and his subsequent development of that model in his own teaching.40

Arriving at his first Guild Seminar in 1971, Wink soon discovered a convergence of four significant strands of his own life: “a commitment to transformation, a love of the New Testament, a sense of the value of Jungian psychology and of the questioning method.”41 Desiring to make the potential of this form of study available to a wider audience, he published Transforming Bible Study in 1980 as a “how to” book for people in everyday ministry locations who might not have the time or the opportunity to take part in the intensive experience available through the Guild.

Wink drew upon left brain/ right brain studies to explain in part why this approach to the Bible provided an important counterbalance to traditional Bible study. Against the dominance of left brain rationality, logic, and analysis, exercises that allowed for imagination, art, music, meditation, and attention to dreams opened up new ways of seeing and engaging the text, and made possible an integration of the whole person.

Transforming Bible Study is intended to be a guide and a starter kit for people in “a classroom, church, prison, living room, retreat center, or office.”42 The format is very similar to that of the Guild seminar: a group of eight to twenty, each with a copy of the text (preferably in parallels, if studying in the synoptic Gospels, or in different versions). The texts he describes are all from the Gospels. The group meets in a circle; the leader’s role is to pose questions that challenge and open up the text. Wink sets out three ground rules: 1. The text (and not the leader) is the focus; wrestling with the questions is more important than finding the “right” answers; 2. Each member of the group should participate, since all have insights to offer, whether they have formal education or not; and 3. Each member of the group brings their own expertise, which grows out of their life experience, their perspectives, and their unique personhood.

There are three movements to a study. It begins by looking critically at the text. What does it say? What differences are there in parallel traditions? What is the historical situation of the text? This critical look allows group members first to attend to the text on its own terms, and to be cautious of simply projecting their own desires or presuppositions onto it. The second movement is one of amplification, of imaginatively allowing the text to move participants deeper into the text and into themselves. Finally, there is an application, a non-rational exercise– “music, movement, painting, sculpting, written dialogues, small-group sharing”– that allows the group members to experience the implications of the text in a different way.

Wink provides a number of questions on various Gospel passages, but encourages leaders to develop their own, even before looking at his examples. Noting that it is best to learn by participating in groups and observing more experienced leaders, he suggests some approaches that can help one to begin: consciously recognizing and setting aside one’s preconceptions, trying to look at the text from uncommon angles, and asking the text to speak to us “in its own right.”  He devotes a chapter to “Engaging the Other Side of the Brain,” and urges groups not to make non-verbal and experiential exercises optional. These experiences are precisely what enable a “whole brain” engagement with the Bible and lead to the deepest insights. For those who are likely not familiar with this side of the study, he briefly describes how to use painting, writing dialogues, mime, role playing, movement and music, and so forth.

Acknowledging that leaders in a church or community are not likely to have the intensive training that prepares leaders in the Guild, Wink nonetheless focuses careful attention on what kind of leader is needed in order to lead the process successfully. He devotes two of his nine chapters to the role of the Leader. A leader must be one who has let go of needing the right answers and is instead ready to seek the right questions. The authority of the leader is over the process, not over the content. He outlines how to begin a study, and highlights some of the likely challenges that may arise: interruptions, people dominating the discussion, debates or arguments, or sidetracking into personal anecdotes. Above all, leaders must be open to being transformed themselves as part of the process.

The Bible Workbench

The inaugural issue of The Bible Workbench appeared in late 1993, keyed to the lectionary readings for first Sunday of Advent, November 28, 1993. Published in a loose-leaf, 8 ½ by 11 format, it appeared intentionally more like a workbook than a study book. In his introductory note, founding editor Bill Dols pointed out that “This first issue of The Bible Workbench represents at one and the same time something both innovative and familiar, new and evolutionary.”43

The Bible Workbench was published by The Educational Center in St. Louis, MO, which had a history of developing creative religious education curriculum for the Episcopal Church that stretched back to the work of Dr. Charles Penniman. Dr. Penniman, whose motto “the child is the curriculum” was based on his years of research with children in the `40s and `50s, was influenced by the work of Jung, along with Kierkegaard, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Martin Buber. He worked together with the Rev. Elsom Eldridge until his retirement in 1961, and Eldridge became director of the Center.

Eldridge’s work was motivated in part by his dissatisfaction with the curriculum being offered at the time, that told a contemporary story and then related it to a Bible story. Eldridge felt the structure was contrived and artificial, and worked for many years to develop an approach that became Centerquest for children and adults and Centerpoint for adults. These incorporated the model of individuation developed by Jung along with a method of planning and Socratic questioning aimed at connecting the student’s inner world to archetypal dimensions of literature.44

William L. Dols came to The Educational Center as Director in 1987. He was an Episcopal priest who served parishes in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, had been in Jungian analysis and had become a “Specialist in Psychotherapy” at the Pastoral Counseling Center and Consultative Centers in Washington, DC. In 1983 he traveled to California to study at the Graduate Theological Union, where he received his Ph.D. in biblical studies and psychology.45 During his sojourn on the West Coast, he encountered the Guild for Psychological Studies and became a member of the leadership group. When he arrived in St. Louis, he found great compatibility between the Center’s approach and the Guild approach, but did not have any specific plans for bringing them together.

Although much of the Centerquest material used biblical texts, they were secondary to the core issue of identifying the “issue” at stake. The Issue was central to a lesson plan, and was defined as “a description of how I feel when internal forces are in conflict.”46 A story (biblical or contemporary) provided an entry point into the issue for the lesson, but once discussion had begun, the story was left behind.

The respect for the text itself which is central to the Guild process and Dols’ own reflection and experimentation led him to the importance of a biblical text as an archetypal story. Many stories have this capability, but the Bible has a particular resonance for church people. Following a weekend retreat with the Rev. Joe Cooper and some others, in 1991 Dols launched Lifetext, a lectionary-based Bible Study program that brought together elements of the Center’s educational process and the Guild process. Two years later, Lifetext evolved into The Bible Workbench.

The first lesson plan, for the First Sunday in Advent, was created by William R. Herzog II; other contributors to the inaugural issue included Michael Willett Newheart, Judith Anders-Richards, a presbyterian minister and psychotherapist in England, and Dols. Advisory Committee members included Marcus Borg, Elizabeth Howes, Morton Kelsey, Parker Palmer, John Sanford, and Walter Wink.

Thirty-four pages of the first issue were devoted to an introduction to The Bible Workbench and how to use it. Three models of Bible study were described, a transmission model, in which the goal is to transmit information about the Bible. The second is the interactive model, in which the goal is to gain insight into one’s own life. The Bible text might offer a topic, focus, or illustration for discussion. The third model is the transformative, in which the student experiences the text as a reality within themselves. “The task is to awaken the entire drama within you in ways that bring energy and consciousness for creative choice to both your personal and public lives.”47 Readers were encouraged to gather a collection of art supplies to work with throughout the year, and even to hang a small mirror on the wall to remind them that “what you are studying can be read not only on the page but in your life.” [Dols, 1993 #41, p. 4]

The Bible Workbench is based on one of the lectionary readings for each Sunday of the year.48 Each lesson includes four kinds of material: the lectionary reading, Critical Background, Exploring the Pattern: Themes and Motifs, and Parallel Readings, drawn from literature, poetry, newspapers, and more. Exploring the Pattern is at the core of each design, offering one complete set of questions for approaching the text and perspectives from the Editors on additional themes. Included in the designs are suggestions for non-verbal ways to engage the text. Additional materials in each issue include sermons,

As Bible Workbench has evolved over fifteen years, the story has come more fully to the center. In the early issues, the text itself was immediately followed by the Critical Background, which was intended to provide some of the critical work that both the Guild and Transformative Bible Study considered an essential first step. Gradually, though, it was felt that the critical background set the interpretative framework too rigidly at the beginning, and it is now the last section of the weekly design.

In the early years the lessons were primarily drawn from the Gospels, as being the richest source of profound stories, but gradually the focus began to include stories from the Hebrew scriptures as well. Editor Dols shied away from non-narrative texts, feeling that they did not provide a story “core” for the student to engage. A colleague challenged him on this point, arguing that it was the discursive passages that most needed to be reframed, and Dols realized that there is a story in every text– if not in the text itself, in the tensions, questions, and lived realities that the text addresses.

Bible Workbench likewise employs the study circle and Socratic questioning model inherited from Sharman. Leaders are encouraged not simply to plow through the week’s questions like filling out a workbook (although the process can still work even under those minimal conditions), but to do their own work with the text, the questions, the parallel readings and their knowledge of their own group to develop a session. The goal is to enable the members of the group to enter into the “bubble” created by the story (“the world in front of the text”) and to make connections with their world and their lives.

Three fundamental questions guide the engagement: What is happening in the text? How is this text happening in the world around you? How is this text happening in your own life? These dimensions were essential to Centerquest and other resources developed by The Educational Center. In addition, questions will often highlight the tension of opposites that are significant in Jungian perspectives and which lay at the heart of Issue Centered Education developed by the Ed Center. What might be pros and cons, the costs and promises that confront and move the figures in the story and ultimately, the student in whom the story is awakened?49

Comparing the Methods: Plucking on the Sabbath

A quick look at how each method addresses a common text may help us to see some of the commonalities and differences among these approaches. Mark 2:23-28 (//Matt. 12:1-8; Luke 6:1-5) describes controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees over the disciples’ act of picking heads of grain on the Sabbath. The full text of each can be found in the Appendix.

Sharman

This passage appears as the sixth day of Study IV in Jesus in the Records.50 The Study, titled “Development of Opposition to Jesus,” follows studies based on “Foreshadowings of Jesus’ Career,” “Activity of John,” and “Beginnings of Public Activity.”

The chapter is based on the layout of the Records of the Life of Jesus, encompassing §29-33. Our text is designated as §32, “Criticism for working on the sabbath.” Throughout this section, since both Matthew and Luke follow Mark closely, Sharman cites only the Markan version. [See table 1]

Table 1

Records of the Life of Jesus, §29-33

DEVELOPMENT OF OPPOSITION TO JESUS

The stated purpose for Study IV is to discover what Jesus did that led to criticism and opposition and to understand how he justified those actions, and thus to identify the foundational principles in which Jesus differed from his contemporaries. [Sharman, 1934 #6, p. 30] Consistent with Sharman’s concern for seeking scientifically valid understanding of Jesus, the student is asked to restate Jesus’ statement, the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath as “a broad principle that can serve for the evaluation of any institution.”51 One of Sharman’s stated “findings” for this section is “The breadth and soundness of the principles that Jesus brought to the testing of established institutions.”52

Guild for Psychological Studies

In the design of the Basic Records seminar, this text appears as part of the material covered on day four of the seventeen day seminar. The previous three days include an introduction to the seminar process and the synoptic problem, and orientation to using the Records of the Life of Jesus. The first text studied is Luke 10:25-29 (§84, Section A), loving God with “all.” The next two days cover the activity of John and Jesus’ baptism (§17 & §18), the temptations in the wilderness (§20), beginning of opposition to Jesus (overview of §21-33), reception in Nazareth (§22), winning fishermen followers (§23, 27), and Jesus and those with unclean spirits (§24, 25, 34).

On day four, Section 32 is the introduction to consideration of the “Son of Man” theme.53 The opening set of questions focuses on identifying the differences between Matthew, Mark, and Luke and identifying the possible sources that would account for those differences. Then questions such as “For what are the disciples criticized?” and “To what does [Jesus] refer in his response?” serve to focus on the text itself. Then, while noting the term “Son of man” which appears in portions F and G (Mk. 2:27-28 and parallels), the leader introduces information about the term “son of man”– where it appears elsewhere in the Bible and apocrypha, and how it has been understood by scholars. Possible interpretations include: Jesus as messiah; Jesus himself; a special quality in Jesus alone; a special quality in Jesus and potentially available within each person; humankind in general.54 Participants are invited to hold all these potential meanings and then consider which seems to fit best in this text.

Critical attention is again given to sources while considering §32, D and E (Mt. 12:5-7). “Is it more likely that they omitted F, or that it was later added to Mark? Why?” The leader then calls attention to a footnote citing an alternate text in Codex Bezae and asks what it would add to understanding– “On the same day, seeing someone working on the sabbath, he said to him, Man, if indeed you know what you are doing, you are blessed; but if you do not know, you are cursed and a transgressor of the law.”55 

The questioning then turns inward– “How might you be different if you were in touch with the Son of Man as it functions here?” “What would it be like to become people who can dare to make their own decisions over and against the established or conventional ways?” “What is this passage saying can be the basis of authority?” [20]

Day four then moves on to other passages– the healing of the paralytic (§29), and associating with sinners (§30 and §31). The reflective exercise for this unit involves imaginatively inviting one’s own “sinner part– the part which is cut-off, denied and judged” to sit down with the value which Jesus was touching and expressing that possibility in a word or phrase..[23]

Transforming Bible Study

Wink includes “Plucking on the Sabbath” as an independent unit in his first set of examples with the overall theme of “Jesus on the Law.” Group members should have before them Sharman’s Records of the Life of Jesus, Throckmorton’s Gospel Parallels,56 or copies of each of the parallel texts to allow for critical comparison. The opening questions serve to identify the issue in the story, attend to specific details, and to suggest a historical context: “What is the charge brought to Jesus? What significance do you attach to the fact that it is the disciples, not Jesus, who are accused? Is the issue religious or economic?” Participants are invited to do some critical reflection on the differences among the three Gospels, “How does Matthew change [Jesus’ defense]? Explain the absence of v. 27 of Mark in Matthew and Luke. What do you think is the original core of the narrative?”

From this point, the questions move toward consideration of Jesus’ attitude toward the sabbath and its implications: “What was [the sabbath’s] purpose? Does Jesus make `man the measure of all things’? Does he make himself?”  “Does Jesus appeal to his own authority, or to a principle inherent in the situation?” Wink also refers to the Codex Bezae reading and, bringing the questioning closer to the personal, asks “How can we become the kind of persons who know what we are doing?” Following some additional questions about how we might relate to the “son of man” as it appears here, Wink invites participants to write a dialogue with the “son of man.”

Bible Workbench

The text appears in The Bible Workbench as the Gospel reading for the second Sunday after Pentecost (Year B) in the Revised Common, Episcopal, and Catholic lectionaries.57 The lectionary reading includes two stories: picking grain on the sabbath and healing on the sabbath, from Mark 2:23- 3:6. The questions begin with exploring the importance of sabbath in Jewish tradition, and then invites participants to imagine how Jesus might be feeling and how his dialogue with the Pharisees might have unfolded.  They are asked to write what Jesus is saying “Without using church or Bible words,” and then to imagine what the Pharisees would say as they turn to one another.

A question about “son of man” incorporates background information of the sort we have seen in the other approaches, including a reference to the Codex Bezae reading. “Who do you hear Jesus saying is `lord of the sabbath’? What leads you to this conclusion? Among possible options, consider.. . every human being; Jesus himself; a Son of Man who is yet to come (like in Daniel); followers of Jesus committed to his Way; those who know what they are doing (recall a version that includes with this text the Jesus saying: `Blessed art thou if thou knowest what thou doest; cursed art  thou if thou knowest not what thou doest’; something or someone else.”58

The questions now turn toward personal experience. The participant is asked to list “laws or regulations that you consider to be of highest value in your life,” and to ask in what ways those “laws” are “lords over your life” and how you are “lord” over them. Then, choosing one of their personal “laws,” group members are invited to reflect not only on how it might guide your life, give sense and meaning, protect and offer a sense of security, but how it might save you from having to make difficult decisions or take away your freedom.

The design ends up with questions that ask students to consider what might be different if they were to treat their internalized laws as “made for you, rather than you for them?” “How might you relate to them as `son of man’ in the way Jesus illustrates here? What would be required for you to do this? What might you have to give up?

Several other possible approaches to the text are briefly raised in “Additional Themes and Motifs”– identify the Pharisees as “keepers of  the-way-things-are-supposed-to-be” and exploring that part of your self which defends the status quo; reading the story of David that Jesus uses to answer the Pharisees, considering why Mark’s Jesus would consider this story helpful and what the Pharisees’ response to it might be.  In the overall lectionary selection, what might be the connection between the story of picking grain and the healing of the withered hand; is there more going on here than sabbath observance? Although the confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees over healing the man is sharp, no dialogue is reported. Try using art materials to represent the feeling of the encounter– the man, Jesus, the Pharisees. Imagine what words might have been exchanged as you move step by step through the story.  Mime the encounters, reading only the lines that appear in the text. How does it feel? What about these conflicts is so threatening or infuriating to the Pharisees that they would determine to destroy Jesus?

Rounding out the materials offered for designing a session for this Sunday are Parallel Readings: one from the New York Times on struggles over tradition and culture in the American South and another on crime and forgiveness, and W. H. Auden’s poem "The Unknown Citizen JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument is Erected by the State," about an individual who always lived by the rules. The Critical Background, also written by Dols, includes references to Walter Wink’s and Pheme Perkins’ insights on the “son of man,” Thomas 27b and the Codex Bezae text, Ched Myers’ observations on the socio-economic implications of povery and Jesus’ mission, Herman Waetjen’s argument that Jesus is reordering reality in his challenge to the sabbath, and a brief comment on David’s lying to the priest in the 1 Samuel story. Dols concludes, “Jesus would seem to be suggesting that the `son of man’ or Human Being can responsibly be not only law breaker but also liar!”59

Observations

The Circle

A consistent feature of all these methods is the circle, a significant, yet relatively invisible aspect of the group. Most fundamentally, it is a spatial acknowledgment of the pedagogical assumption that no one is superior to anyone else and that all potentially have something to contribute. In order to head off argument or debate, participants may be invited to imagine that they are offering their responses to the center of the circle, where together they are creating a shared space, rich and diverse. In some groups, the center is kept empty, in others, there might be a candle in the center.

It is essential that participants join the circle with an attitude of openness and willingness to look at the text in a new way each time. The leader is essential not only as one who will formulate genuinely open questions that allow the group to grapple with the text, but also as the one who will hold the space. The authority of the leader is not to impart information or to seek agreement; it is exercised to ensure the integrity of the process. The Guild especially was aware of the psychological dynamics that could both help and hinder the study– projections onto the text, leaders, or others in the group, transference and countertransference issues, and unconscious resistances, diversions, and derailments. The lengthy training and apprenticeship for Guild leaders was intended in part to develop the leaders’ skills in recognizing and intervening when the space was threatened. The context of the seminar circle is also part of the process. The Guild’s Basic Records was a seventeen-day residential program. People not only gathered in the study circle, they roomed together, ate together, and experienced the retreat environment of Four Springs together. The circles were only part of the whole, which included morning readings and movement, personal rituals on the grounds, silence and meditation.

Wink’s desire to make such a transformational experience available to a wider audience, led him to take the basic elements of text, circle, questions, and creative exercises to a new context in churches, homes, and other gathering places. The necessary tradeoff was that leaders likely would not be as skilled and participants would not experience as intense an encounter with the Gospels. Wink rightly argues that it is most important that the leader has the ability to hold the space and is him- or herself engaged in personal spiritual growth, but acknowledges that with a leader who also understands group dynamics and about critical issues in Bible study, a group may achieve deeper levels of encounter.

It is much the same with The Bible Workbench. Although the Educational Center does offer training for group leaders that gives a basic orientation to how to lead a group, training that includes modeling and coaching by experienced leaders, many people who purchase the materials work with them in their own way, including clergy who use the questions to guide sermon preparation, individuals who do only personal reflection, and groups which gather together, but soon depart from the text into personal sharing.

Psychological. Biblical. Criticism.

To what extent can it be said that these methods represent “psychological biblical criticism”? Of the four, clearly the Guild for Psychological Studies has developed the most thoroughly and overtly psychological approach. Yet if we consider not only explicit psychological dynamics but the implicit assumptions of teaching style, it is evident that all of them, even Sharman’s approach, share some significant psychological dynamics. By its very nature, the process of using open-ended questions, questions to which there is no definitive answer, opens up the possibility of a deeper encounter with not only what we know, but how we know it, and what difference it makes. In the circle, each individual is challenged to find his or her own answer, and not to depend on outside authorities to avoid confronting the question.

As Elizabeth Howes observed, the responses to a well-crafted question in a group become a form of amplification, allowing multiple facets of the text’s symbols and imagery to be unfolded, to open new ways of perceiving, and to bring archetypal dimensions into view. When this unfolding is coupled with intentional non-verbal and non-linear exercises, the potential for profound connection between text and soul manifests itself in as many ways as there are participants.

Gadamer has said “We cannot have experience without asking questions.”60 Questions “break open the being of the object” and likewise challenge the perspective of the subject in that in order truly to ask, we must acknowledge that we do not already know.61 Questions are, of course, not inherently open; it is difficult to ask a real question. Thus, each of our methods emphasizes the importance of a genuinely evocative question. Carefully formulated questions can enable participants to recognize their preconceptions by pressing them toward close reading of the text; invite them to take new perspectives on the text, and encourage them to not merely to seek information, but to make connections. All of these possibilities involve underlying issues of perception, cognition, valuation, and the movement of unconscious archetypes, whether or not they are explicitly named or acknowledged.

The Guild consciously and explicitly incorporates psychological concepts and awareness into its seminars, especially those of Jung and Fritz Kunkel. Wink invokes split-brain studies to understand how creative exercises may work, but notes that “One need not understand why something works for it to work, of course.” [Wink, 1980 #4, p. 20]. Most of the writers for The Bible Workbench have some background in Jungian psychology, and often use material from psychological writers in parallel readings and critical background, but the foundational psychological assumption is implicit rather than explicit.It is that biblical stories have archetypal dimensions that potentially stir resonances in us as we are willing to approach them as our story in a very real way. Even as archetypes are never exhausted in their multiple symbolic representations, the stories are never finished moving, shaping, and challenging us as we enter into them.

What anchors all of these approaches, while distinguishing them from many other Bible Study groups, is the centrality of the text. Far from being a formless sharing time in which group members freely associate from words or phrases, or launch off into theoretical speculation or theological assertion, the process continually calls the group back to examine the text. What does the text say? How does the text unfold? Although parallel materials from literature, mythology, or psychology may be added to amplify potential meanings, we return always to the text itself.

The overall effect of each of the methods is shaped by the texts it includes and, in a sense, each has its own “canon.” The broadest, of course, is The Bible Workbench. Based as it is on the church’s lectionary, it deals with the widest range of texts, not only narrative, but Pauline epistles, psalms, and the prophets.This presents particular challenges in design, as it is necessary to identify the “story” even in non-narrative readings. It also means that sessions independent from each other. Bible Workbench groups may develop skill and familiarity with the process over time, but it is possible to miss a session or two without interrupting an overall sequence. Sharman’s own studies were based on the synoptic Gospels as he had arranged them, and he demanded a firm commitment to working sequentially through the study. Jesus in the Records covers from “Forecasts of the Career of Jesus” (a brief selection of readings from the birth narratives) through the “Events Subsequent to the Death of Jesus” (a similarly brief selection from the resurrection narratives).The bulk of attention is given to Jesus teaching.62 Even seventeen days are not sufficient to cover all the Gospel material, and so the Guild has developed its own sequence of texts in the Records, focusing on certain portions according to the theme or issue being studied rather than in their sequence in the Gospels. Guild sessions build upon each other, and it is essential to follow through in sequence.

All of these approaches are more or less explicit forms of biblical criticism. Sharman first developed his methods out of critical comparison of the synoptic Gospels, and considered that work so important that he created Records of the Life of Jesus to provide an easily-accessible tool for study. The Guild also took the critical work quite seriously. “Without the critical study,” writes Howes, “the life and message lose the historical dimension and become blurred with the projections and interpretations of an evolving religion, Christianity.”[Howes, 1984 #30, p. xx] The first day of the Basic Records includes an orientation to the synoptic problem and the four-source theory, and participants work with Sharman’s Records to allow comparison of the different Gospel versions. Additional historical-critical material is included by the leaders when deemed appropriate to aid in locating the “objective” meaning of the text. Wink presumes that his readers will have some level of awareness of biblical criticism, and includes a brief introduction to the synoptic issues.

In The Bible Workbench the critical work is less immediately evident, in that the texts are lectionary-based, and not parallels-based. Still, historical, literary, and sociological information is often included in the designs, and every design includes Critical Background to help ground the text. However, the goal is never to determine the meaning of the text; it is to enable it to come alive, to be recognizable in the world around and in the inner lives of the group members.63

Conclusion

It has been a little more than a century since H.B. Sharman began his work of inviting students to a serious and intense engagement with Jesus and his teachings. The enduring value of the process is demonstrated by the impact it has had over that time, not only on the methods we have examined, but in other venues– at Pendle Hill, in “Psyche at the Sea” seminars at Asilomar, in the varied formulations of the Sequoia Seminars.

Fifty years have passed since the Guild for Psychological Studies began offering seminars at Four Springs; those seminars continue today. Walter Wink has led hundreds of Transforming Bible Study workshops, and thousands of people have gone away different people. Each week, Bible Workbench groups gather across the continent, entering the circle ready to live into the text, and allow it not only to speak to them, but to move them, stir them, challenge them and transform them. There is something in the power of the circle, of the question, of the text, of imaginative exploration, which holds transformative potential. As Robert Frost once wrote:

We dance in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.64

Appendix: Approaches to Mark 2:23-28 and parallels

I. H.B. Sharman

Sharman, Henry Burton. Jesus in the Records. New York: Association Press, 1934, p. 34.

Sixth Day: Criticism for Working on the Sabbath

And it came to pass, that he was going on the sabbath day through the cornfields; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? And he said unto them, Did ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: so that the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath.

1. Why should an appeal to what David did be regarded by Jesus as meeting the criticism of the Pharisees?
2. “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath”: state this saying of Jesus in the form of a broad principle that can serve for the evaluation of any institution.
3. What reason does Jesus give for asserting mastery even of the sabbath?

II. Guild for Psychological Studies

Questions for a Seventeen Day Seminar Based on the Synoptic Gospels as Found in the Records of the Life of Jesus Edited by Henry Burton Sharman. San Francisco: Guild for Psychological Studies, 1998, pp. 19-20.

Day Four

Here we will look at:

Introduction to the Son of Man via episode of Jesus’ disciples plucking corn on the Sabbath, Section 32
More on Son of Man and Forgiveness, Section 29
Additional Episodes of Jesus’ Activity Breaking Laws: Sections 30 and 31
Explanation of Document P, Section 33D

Introduction to Son of Man: Section 32

A. Sources

- What document are Matthew and Luke following?

- Except for what portions?

- In Portions D and E, what are the source possibilities? (Portion F is found only in Mark. We will follow Mark first.)

B. Portions A and B, Mark

- For what are the disciples criticized?

C. Portion C

- This is the first step of Jesus’ response. To what does he refer?

- What was the criteria for breaking the law in David’s situation?

D. Portions F and G

- What term do we see here?

N.B. The phrase “Son of Man,” was rarely used previous to Jesus’ time. It is found in the Hebrew Scriptures in Psalms, Ezekiel, and Daniel and in the apocryphal book of Enoch (though part of Enoch is later than Jesus). In the synoptic Gospels it is only used by Jesus. It is used in the Gospel of John, Acts, Revelation and some early Church literature. Then it drops out of sight. There has been much debate over the meaning of this enigmatic term. Here are some possible interpretations from scholars.

Son of Man refers to:

1. Jesus as messiah.
2. Jesus himself.
3. a special quality in Jesus alone.
4. a special quality in Jesus and potentially available within each person
5. humankind in general.

- holding these meanings of the phrase, looking at Mark, what seems to be the function of the Son of Man here?

- According to the text, the basis for how to act on the Sabbath resides where?

- How is one to determine how to act on the Sabbath?

E. Portions D and E, Matthew

- What is the content? What position does it support? How do you account for it being only in Matthew?

- Is it more likely that they omitted F, or that it was later added to Mark? Why?

G. Summary

- Of the possible interpretations of the phrase “Son of Man,” which do you think Jesus might have meant when he used it here (relate to function of Son of man here)

- look at footnote 2, from the Codex Bezae. What does this add to our discussion?

- How might you be different if you were in touch with the Son of Man as it functions here?

- What would it be like to become people who can dare to make their own decisions over and against the established or conventional ways?

-Where are we bound up by the “authorities”?

- What is this passage saying can be the basis of authority?

III. Transforming Bible Study

Wink, Walter. Transforming Bible Study: A Leader's Guide. Nashville: Abingdon, 1980, pp. 130-131.

Plucking on the Sabbath (Records §32; Parallels 69- Mark 2:23-28 par.)

1. What is the charge brought to Jesus? What significance do you attach to the fact that it is the disciples, not Jesus, who are accused? Is the issue religious or economic?
2. What is his defense? Does it meet their objection? How does Matthew change it?
3. Explain the absence of v. 27 of Mark in Matthew and Luke. What do you think is the original core of the narrative?
4. What is the basis for action on the Sabbath? Why did the first person keep the Sabbath? What was its purpose? Does Jesus make “man the measure of all things”? Does he make himself? Why doesn’t Jesus take up the comparison with David and conclude, “So the Son of David is lord even of the Sabbath”? Does Jesus appeal to his own authority, or to a principle inherent in the situation? In the material that Matthew adds, is appeal made to Jesus authority or to a principle inherent in the situation?
5. Is this license? What attitude does Jesus take toward the Sabbath here?
6. Look at the variant for Luke 6:5 from Codex Bezae. What is the principle of discrimination? How can we become the kind of persons who know what we are doing?
7. Who or what then is the “son of man” here? Is it Jesus? How would our decisions be affected if we were related to this “son of man”? The “son of man” might bring what to our decisions?
8. What do you learn about Jesus here?
9. Write a dialogue with the “son of man.”

IV. Bible Workbench
The Bible Workbench
Volume 4, Issue 5, pp. 11-25
Pentecost 2: June 1, 1997
[pp. 13-18]

Exploring the Pattern: Themes and Motifs

1. What do you know of "sabbath" in the Jewish tradition? Why might the law about the
seventh day be important to Jews in the time of Jesus?

2. What might Jesus be feeling when he is confronted by the Pharisees who challenge him? What might he be thinking and not saying?

3. Write in your own words what you hear Jesus answering the Pharisees. Without using church or Bible words he is telling them that. ..

_____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________

As you imagine the story, the Pharisees turn to one another saying

_____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________

4. Who do you hear Jesus saying is "lord of the sabbath"? What leads you to this conclusion? Among possible options, consider...

· every human being

· Jesus himself

· a Son of Man who is yet to come (like in Daniel)

· followers of Jesus committed to his Way

· those who know what they are doing (recall a version that includes with this text the Jesus saying: "Blessed art thou if thou knowest what thou doest; cursed art thou if thou knowest not what thou doest."

· something or someone else

5. What are some laws or regulations that you consider to be of highest value in your life? Note a few of them. Such principles or virtues or ordinances may be religious, civil or simply personal to you.

In what ways do these "laws" serve as "lords" over your life? In what sense are you "lord' over them?

Pick one of the ordinances from your list and explore

how it guides and serves to give you life

how it gives sense and meaning to your life

how it protects and gives a sense of security

how it saves you from having to make tough decisions

how it robs you of your freedom

 

Consider a time in your life when you were tempted, called or driven to break this law. What did you learn about the law? What did you learn about yourself?

6. What might it be like for you to treat this and the other laws that serve as "lord" in your life as having been made for you, rather than you for them? How might you relate to them as "son of man" in the way Jesus illustrates here?

What would be required for you to do this?

What might you have to give up?

How might your life be different?

Exploring the Pattern: Additional Themes and Motifs

Gail Rogers suggests that the Pharisees are keepers of the "status quo" or the-way-things-are-supposed-to-be. In this passage Jesus has another idea. In what ways are you like the Pharisees, always choosing to keep the law or maintain the status quo way of doing things? For you, what might be the cost of keeping the status quo? The promise? Take a few minutes in the silence to scan your body from head to toe. Where in your body do you feel the Pharisee? What might be needed to help your Pharisee change point of view or perspective? Focus on that Pharisee body part while breathing deeply into that area and relaxing the muscles. What have you learned about yourself from doing this?

Read the account of David when he ate the shew bread in 1 Samuel 21:1. Note what David says about his relationship to Saul and what actually is going on between them. In what sense does David lie to the high priest (named "Ahimelech" in 1 Samuel rather than "Abiathar" in Mark)? Why might Mark's Jesus choose such a story of deception as model or precedent for his disciples plucking grain on the sabbath? How do you suppose the Pharisees, who might be familiar with this David/ Saul story, react to hearing Jesus draw the parallel? Imagine what they are saying to one another as he recalls the ancient story. In comparing himself to David in this earlier story, what might they hear Jesus saying about himself? In this context, what is jesus suggesting about "son of man' or the requirements of following in his Way?

Roger Tilden poses the connection that may exist between the discussion of sabbath in terms of plucking grain and the healing of the man with the withered hand. What dynamic might be suggested between house of God as temple and the synagogue? Beyond the issue of breaking the law, what else might be at stake for Jesus and the Pharisees?

Although much is going on between them in the synagogue, there is no verbal dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees around the healing on the sabbath of the man with a withered hand. There is, however, much watching and waiting, silence and looking around, grieving and conspiring. Do the scene in art giving expression to the feelings that are emerging. Perhaps let the colors do the work. Then proceed with a dialogue as you would imagine it might occur - not what they are saying to each other but to themselves. Walking slowly through the story of the man whose hand is restored, write down at each stage what Jesus and the Pharisees are thinking but not saying. What might they be saying to themselves about what they are feeling? What is going on within the man?

Work with the two stories in drama. Invite participants to meditate for a few moments on the roles of Jesus, Pharisees and the man. Proceed through both the two stories. Ask people in the roles to mime and express their feelings through the body and to read only the lines in the text. Give everyone an opportunity to share what it was like being these people. Encourage conversation between the "actors" and the others in an effort to get the accounts under the skin. Rather than explain or figure out, ask how the feelings and similar events are familiar in our lives.

Why might the controversy over the sabbath– plucking grain and restoring withered hand– lead the Pharisees to go out and immediately conspire with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. What has he done to deserve being destroyed? What angers them so? How does the Jesus of these two brief accounts threaten them and their world enough to deserve death?

==
In addition, the following materials were part of the Sunday design:

Parallel Readings

Kevin Sacks, "South's Symbols Split Races and Cultures, " The New York Times, February 8, 1997.

Albert Tomei, "Touching the Heart of a Killer," The New York Times, March 7, 1997.

W.H. Auden, "The Unknown Citizen JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument is Erected by the State," from The Collected Poem of W.H. Auden, (NY: Random House, 1945), pp. 142-143.

Critical Background by William L. Dols

works cited:

Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1984), p.121

Pheme Perkins

Gospel of Thomas 27b

Codex Bezae, Luke 6:4

Ched Meyers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988).

Herman Waetjen, A Reordering of Power: A Socio-political Reading of Mark’s Gospel, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989)

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