The Power of an Absent Ending: Making the Listener the Main Character

 

rushing train image is from Dreamstime.com (https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1JJTC_enUS1011US1011&q=google+image+rushing+train&tbm)

Evangelist Bill Iverson was walking through the ruins of burned-up Springfield Avenue just as the Newark, New Jersey riots subsided. The streets were empty, when he met an elderly man carrying a little doll in his hand. The sun’s heat was beating down mercilessly as all the shelter had been scorched away. “Hot day!” said Bill. 

“Not as hot as it’s gonna be!” the man snarled.

What does a white man say to a black man in the aftermath of a race riot?

Bill said, “What’s a big man like you doing carrying a little doll?”

The man he’d just met immediately softened up and said he had found this little doll and was bringing it to a little child he knew who had been displaced by the fires.

Bill then commended him and told him that a lot of people felt that way, but Jesus was here in the midst of the disaster, just like this man, himself, doing acts of love for all the victims.

Known for his emphasis on the maieutic method of evangelism, the midwifing technique he’d learned from Plato’s dialogues of Socrates bringing truth out of those he met through questioning, Bill was also drawing on a strategy that the Holy Spirit implemented throughout the Bible to spark an interest in hearers and readers. Jesus also employed this effective approach, as did the historian Mark, all of which Bill deftly melded together.[1]

The power was in asking questions and evoking answers rather than simply dumping a truckload of information on targeted people, often in the form of answering someone who was asking no question.  As in Bill’s case, the issue was compounded: how do you handle an angry person?

This was the situation that God faced with Jonah. Jonah was furious. The Ninevites were infamous for killing babies and desecrating corpses.[2] Jonah wants to see them destroyed. So how does God help Jonah look beyond his anger? God asks him three questions. In Jonah 4:4 God asks, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

God creates a living parable. God provides a plant to give Jonah shade as he sits outside the city waiting for the fire to fall. The next day God makes a worm and a sultry east wind destroying Jonah’s shade and making him the hot one. No fire falls on the city.

Then God repeats and expands the question: “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?”

Jonah shouts, “Yes! Angry enough to die!” (Jonah 4:9).

Then the Lord asks the pay-off question that ends the book of Jonah. God points out, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” (4:10-11 NRSV).

And then Jonah’s conscience rises and he leaves the question for his readers so their consciousness will rise too. Will we move into forgiveness if our adversaries repent or just continue to sit and snarl in our anger?

Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son works in a similar way. Jesus echoes this technique when he tells three parables to the Pharisees and the scribes who are complaining about Jesus welcoming sinners and eating with them (Luke 15:2).

In the first, a story about a shepherd losing one sheep, leaving his flock to search for his lost sheep, Jesus appeals to a neutral topic, their concern for their livestock just like God asked Jonah. The second is a little more pointed. It’s about a woman losing money and searching for her lost coin, since the Pharisees were known to love money (Luke 15:3-10; 16:14).

The final parable is analogous to Jonah’s situation, where an elder son, representing the Pharisees and the scribes, challenges his father’s mercy for the younger son who had been consorting with prostitutes and losing his father’s inheritance yet was forgiven by his father.  The elder son is furious like Jonah, but the compassionate father, representing God, forgives (Luke 15:11-32). Again, as with Jonah, we are never told the final response of the elder son. Jesus leaves the answer for the Pharisees and the scribes to complete, just as Jonah did with his account, leaving it to the readers to respond.

A final example is the ending of the gospel of Mark, was it lost or, again, as an inspired biblical writer, did Mark leave the ending for the reader to complete? Mark tells us the tomb is empty and even adds the angel’s explanation and command to the women to tell the disciples that the Lord has risen, but the last words he writes tell us the women were terrified (Mark 16:4-8).. The shock is for the hearers and readers to take away with them and form their own affirmative response to Jesus’s shocking resurrection. Mark’s gospel’s great feature again is the absence of an ending that the reader must supply, how will you respond?[3]

It's so easy to overdo it when we want to point someone toward the gospel. We want so much for them to meet the real Jesus and experience the joy of salvation we can run into them like the 2:30 express and have them jump off the tracks and flee rather than get on and catch the ride to glory. Our job may actually be to leave a space for our listeners to respond, to enable them to become the final character of our narrative. Restrained provocative questioning makes room for the Holy Spirit to work wonders in a person’s heart. After all, we are just the conductors, not the Engineer!

Bill and Aida     

---

[1] For an explanation of the Socratic method of education, see: William T. Iverson, Jesus and the Ways of Socrates: Human-Shaped Education for the Twenty-First Century (Crossbooks, 2012).

[2] E.g., Nahum 3:10.

[3]  The other endings in Mark 16 are later ones, missing from all the oldest Greek manuscripts and many older translations. See Aﺃda Besançon Spencer, “The Denial of the Good News and the Ending of Mark,” Bulletin of Biblical Research 17:2 (2007): 269-83 for an explanation of a main theme in Mark and how it relates to the current ending and a discussion of the different manuscripts.

Going on a Mission Trip? Biblical Tips for Cross Cultural Travel, Destination: Dominican Republic, Latin America

A picture of a successful bargaining. We bought the bamboo drum for our son at a fair price and they received the money and an orange and a couple of chocolates! In Belize 2023

Some of you may have the privilege to take a short trip to a Caribbean country, maybe as a short-term missionary. I have been a “missioner” (missionary in the United States) in the past and a frequent traveler to the Dominican Republic (DR). I was born and reared there. In addition, my parents retired there, so Bill and I used to travel two to three times a year to visit them. Now we stay in our condo in Santo Domingo, where we visit once a year for three to four weeks.

Here are a few biblical tips for the first-time traveler, especially to the DR. How may you reach out and further God’s kingdom while traveling there or to a similar third world country?

1.“To everyone asking you, give” (Luke 6:30).

a. Jesus’s command in the New Testament addresses our treatment of enemies. Sometimes people who beg on the street do not appear to be our friends. They may appear threatening. And, those who beg from us may misuse our monetary gifts, such as for drugs. What to do? Bill and I go to the supermarket when we arrive and buy either a bag of oranges or small juice cartons. They are very reasonable. When people beg, then we give them an orange or a juice carton. If they claim to have no teeth, they still can enjoy them! If indeed they are needy, they are often overjoyed and wish us “Que Dios te bendiga!” (May God bless you!). Ninety percent of the time this works. If instead they persist in asking us for money, then most of the time they do not have a worthwhile purpose in mind. We ask for our orange back and that will usually shut them up! (Usually most of the begging occurs around tourist areas, by the way.)

b. The poor in the US are much better off than the poor and the blue-collar worker in the DR and similar countries. Therefore, I try to enroll in a free credit card before I travel that offers a free suitcase. In that way, I can bring two suitcases. I put all my clothes in the small overhead suitcase and in the large one I place give-away items. Find someone reliable and honest to give these things away for you. All clothing is summer wear. All should be fixed ahead of time and not have any holes or rips.

Dominicans love presents but these do not have to be expensive. Dominicans are willing to receive and to give. Hospitality is important. For example, when on a plane, if we ask someone if they want some gum to chew to relieve the air pressure, if they are Dominican, they are likely to say “yes.” But if they are North American, they will almost always say “no.”

 At times, it is better to pay someone to do a task rather than doing it yourself. For example, if Bill is wearing shoes and not sneakers, he always pauses to have shoe shiners to shine his shoes (after agreeing on a price!). This way you can share your wealth, even if it is meager, as the apostle Paul enjoins: “At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality” (2 Cor. 8:14).

2. Jesus proclaimed the good news of the kingdom wherever he went. His proclamation was verbal and action-oriented (Luke 4:43; 5:12-13, 27-39).

Always bring a few full Spanish Bibles to give away to someone. Pray for the right person, who is eager to read God’s word. Bring a whole Bible. Many visitors bring just a New Testament but few bring a whole Bible. Everyone I have offered a Bible has been delighted. The Dominican Republic in name is a Christian nation. It is the only country in the world with an open Bible on its flag. But because the people may be religiously inclined does not mean they are Christian in action. Generally the DR is like the US Bible belt. Most Dominicans are nominal Christians (mainly Roman Catholics mixed with some superstition and veneration of Mary). But, in reality, individuals will all be quite different. For example, our lawyer is agnostic but appreciates it if we say “May God bless you.” Yet the Evangelical faith is increasing. When Paul spoke to the Athenians, he used their religious nature as a way to approach them: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god’” (Acts 17:22-23a NRSV). Thus, an appreciation of Christianity may offer opportunities for proclaiming the good news.

3. “God is “not far from each one of us…for in him we are living and we are moving and we are existing” (Acts 17:27b-28a), Paul told the Athenians.

I remember one time Bill and I traveled to Europe. I had had a full teaching schedule and was eager to step away for a while from public life and be incognito. As I breathed a deep breath of relief on the plane, I accidentally dropped something in the aisle. I was reaching over to pick it up. But a hand shot out ahead of me and a smiling woman said, “Here you are Dr. Spencer.” I was shocked. How on earth could a Gordon-Conwell seminarian be on this plane with us?

Sadly, some visitors go on short-term missionary trips not to promote God’s kingdom, but to plan a clandestine sin away from those they know well. Yes, this has happened several times to my knowledge in the case of affairs (either with a fellow traveler or a chance resident of the country). Somehow they felt that the “Lord of heaven and earth” (Acts 17:24) dwells only in their home town in the US and no one in their visited country will figure out what is happening. No, God is always near us wherever we go and our sin will be found out. Instead of promoting Jesus, such people instead will be dragging his name in the mud. Rather than being a bad news messenger, wouldn’t it be better to receive God’s commendation as a faithful servant?

4. Other suggestions from the wise:

a. In the book Ministering Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships, Sherwood Lingenfelter and Marvin Mayers tell us of differences about time in different cultures. This book is worthwhile reading for all travelers. For example, they note that the concept of lateness differs. In North America, five minutes late is excused. But after half an hour there is hostile tension. For Latin Americans, a half hour late is excused, but there is hostility after two hours. But for the Yapese, two hours late is excused, but there is hostility after four hours (p. 39). One thing different about the US and the DR is certainly the understanding of time. Paul teaches the Ephesians to be wise, “making the most of the time” (Eph. 5:16). For many of us in the US, to make the most of the time means to be on time, but for Paul it is to use your time well doing the Lord’s will (Eph. 5:17). 

Expect everything to take a while in the DR. For a visiting North American entering the DR is like entering the Bermuda triangle of time, where time gets sucked up into a vortex of dismay. If you get one errand a day done, you are blessed by God. You are in a new gestalt. In addition, in order to get anything done, you need to have a local person to be your mediator. For Yankees especially it is all about “self-reliance,” “Yankee know how,” and “pull yourself up by the bootstraps,” but for most Dominicans, time is all about relationships. So, you may as well enjoy the culture and lower your goals of items to be accomplished versus relationships to be made.

I learned the hard way, when I traveled in the interior to greet people first before asking for directions. They considered that respectful and courteous. Yet, in the US, I do not want to bother strangers by not getting quickly to the point—the directions! Latin American countries are different in their view of time. At the same time, Puerto Rico is so Americanized, they do not have such a flexible view of time as does the DR, which is more traditional. So the rules are more nuanced than “one size fits all.”

b. Many Dominicans will expect you to bargain for everything (except in large department stores). I find that normally (since I look more North American than Dominican) I am charged at least twice the price. So, I then offer less than I want to pay or half the price and we settle in the middle. The best is of course to find out the real price ahead from a trusted local, then offer below and settle at the right price in the middle. Or, just offer the real price at the start! In the DR bargaining is generally simple, but is much more intense among Haitians, even Haitian Christians. You do not want to overdo bargaining either, since Dominicans will mostly probably need the money more than you. But, when you feel guilty  about bargaining, remember Proverbs 20:14 “’Bad, bad,’ says the buyer, then goes away and boasts” (NRSV). Bargaining is fun for some natives. The same is true in Turkey. On one of our trips to Ephesus, coming by boat, we needed a ride to get to the ancient site. I offered to bargain for the taxi for a group of us. A young man was sent to settle the price. We both had lots of fun, as I lowered the price and he raised it. The price went down and down and I was ready for one final try, but the other American travelers finally cracked from embarrassment because the price was getting so low they would not let me bargain for a lower price and stopped all our fun bargaining. 

Tips are also parts of people’s salary. Usually we pay one half of a US tip in the DR. But if you want to get something done quickly, consider an incentive tip. As Proverbs 17:8 says, “a bribe is like a magic stone in the eyes of those who give it; wherever they turn, they prosper” or Proverbs 18:16, “a gift opens doors; it gives access to the great.” Your goal should be a just one, not like Proverbs 17:23, “The wicked accept a concealed bribe to pervert the ways of justice” (NRSV). Once Bill and I left on a smaller plane from the Dominican Republic. The plane door started to close and then suddenly opened and a man slipped inside. His friends asked him how on earth he got in since he was so late and he did not even speak Spanish. He answered, while rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, “I used the universal language.” A good tip got him on the plane!

c. In the US we are taught that the police are our friends, and this is true most of the time. If we have trouble, we can go to a police station and expect help. But in the DR the police are not necessarily your friend. The US may have random dishonesty, but the DR has (or had) systemic dishonesty. The police used to be the force behind dictator Trujillo. Lately the nation has been blessed with honest presidents, but years ago, the president was questionable and some of the crimes were committed by off-duty policeman. When I was young at every corner stood a policeman. Once I was in a hurry and did not stop when the Dominican flag was being lowered (as we were mandated by the country) and a policeman yelled at me. Later, I was curious to see the dictator when he took his nightly walk on the George Washington boulevard next to the Caribbean Sea. When I was only 5 blocks away, a policeman stopped me, treating this little elementary girl as a potential assassin! If you are ever stopped by a policeman, always speak to him as a friend. They are underpaid, but yet beware. If they wave you down while you are driving within the speed limit, try simply waving back with a big smile and see if you can bypass the stop altogether.

d. When traveling around the country, drive defensively, embedded in prayer. Spanish people are communal and in the DR their driving is communal as well. Traffic lines are made, not necessarily followed. When I was young and I played “bumper cars,” I tried not to hit anyone or to be hit. This was good preparation for driving in the DR. Also, don’t assume the pedestrian has the right of way when you are walking. Never eat food cooked on the street. But of course fresh foods such as bananas or mangoes or avocados are fine. Enjoy the bananas not ripened by gas. They are sweeter. The mangoes are tangy and the avocados are huge. Fresh food with a cover can be eaten right away, but fresh food without a skin has to be purified. Bottled water is safe to drink. Always check to make sure the water and the ice are from bottled water. If you go to a Dominican home, and you may be offered something to drink that your health does not allow, be ready to ask for a replacement that you can drink, such as a “refresco” or soda. In that way, you do not insult their hospitality.

5. Some of you are much more experienced than I when doing short term missionary trips. May I ask you to add a comment to this blog so that others can learn from you too? If you agree with any suggestion that I have made, let others know, but feel free to add your own suggestions.

For more information, I have a comparison of the Dominican and the ancient Greco-Roman hospitality in “Hospitality as a Means to Further God’s Reign in the New Testament and Dominican Context,” in Scripture, Cultures, and Criticism: Interpretive Steps and Critical Issues Raised by Robert Jewett, edited by K.K. Yeo.

And if you ever want to rent our condominium in Santo Domingo, email me. We will be delighted to rent it to you at a reasonable charge. This condo is the legacy from my parents. It has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Short term missionaries have rented it from us in the past to our mutual satisfaction.

Aída

Big George Foreman Delivers a Knock-Out Punch

https://www.biggeorgeforeman.movie/ 

At its heart, Big George Foreman is a hard-hitting film about miracles and the proper response to them. That God worked directly in the life of heavyweight champion George Foreman, his family, his career, and his subsequent ministry in response, is the theme that becomes central in this account. Why did God do this so dramatically? The film suggests that God honored the prayers that flowed from the steadfast faithfulness of George Foreman’s sacrificing, hard-working, completely devout Christian mother. That fervent prayers of thoroughly faithful parents are honored by God is a constant biblical theme. Consider the faithfulness of Hannah and its result. Hannah, a barren woman, struggling with her opponent, a second wife, promised God that, if God would give her a child, she would dedicate this child to God’s service. When God granted her request, she fulfilled her promise. God was so pleased with this faithful parent that she was then granted three more sons and two daughters and the son she gave back to God became the great Judge Samuel (1 Sam. 2:21), who is honored for his faithfulness to God in the book of Hebrews 11:32-33.

Similarly, George Foreman’s mother dedicated her firstborn son to God. Rebellious George fought her constant reminders he was dedicated to God until he was unable to deny that God was alive and at work in his family because of his mother’s steadfast faith. This is the pulsing heart of the movie.

The story of his life unfolds in the boxing ring. George Foreman accomplished a feat that no one else before him ever succeeded in doing. His response to God’s undeniable miracle in his family led him to leave boxing and become a pastor. When the money he earned disappears through the misdealing of a trusted friend and he and his ministry are left facing bankruptcy, he feels forced to turn back to the career he promised all he had left behind. Way bigger now than he should be and in his late 30s – which sounds suicidal for a boxer to stage a comeback – he feels compelled to return to the ring to reopen his youth center and preserve his church. In short, his is a remarkable tale based on a true story of a warrior who would not give up.

A Sony film from its subsidiary the Culver, California-based Affirm Films, thanks to whom we have been blessed with such wonderful movies as Paul: Apostle of Christ, Risen, Mom’s Night Out and so many others, Big George Foreman is again an excellent production. Astute direction by George Tillman Jr., who co-wrote the screenplay with Frank Baldwin in an adaptation of George Foreman’s remarkable life done with Dan Gordon, deft production by David Zelon, with executive production by George Foreman himself in collaboration with Peter Guber, Wendy Williams, Henry Holmes, and superb acting by Khris Davis, in the lead role, Sonja Sohn, as his faithful mother, veteran Oscar winner Forest Whitaker as his mentor, and a team of actors, everyone of whom delivers a stellar performance, makes this a finely crafted film that is not to be missed.

On opening night at our AMC, all but a handful of wise viewers were missing this movie,[1] although, I am told, the church groups did pack the theaters on Saturday night in some towns. Some may have hesitated because this is, after all, a film about boxing and, yes, it contains “some sports violence” as its PG13 rating tag admits. Consciousness-raised Christians do deplore the gratuitous depiction of cinematic violence (we ourselves have come to avoid R-rated movies), and I honor this reservation. As a rule, I tend to honor positions held by people I know who have integrity and, as Aída and I have been long-term friends of Ron and Arbutus Sider, I honor pacifism. But I myself have always preferred a Just War position in this fallen world. I see the pacifism of Jesus and, of course, I think that Christians should emulate that when we are challenged on our faith. But I also see that Cornelius was never chastised for being a soldier (Acts 10), nor was the officer whose servant was healed by Jesus (Matt. 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-19). And Israel went regularly to war in the Old Testament, with some of these wars being honored and aided by God. The clearest evidence of that truth, of course, can be seen during the time when Israel was a theocracy. Few Christians, if any, live in one today that is ruled directly by the God of the Bible. Further, nowhere in the Bible are we ordered not to enlist in the military in order to defend our nation and our homes. Jesus appears to tell his disciples to buy swords in Luke 22:36, but later stops Peter from using his sword to defend him (John 18:10-11; see also Matt. 26:50-54; Mark 14:46-49; Luke 22:49-53).

My experience as a small child no doubt affected my persuasion of position. Born in the wake of WWII and reared during the Korean War, I was taught that struggle and conflict are to be assumed in a fallen world. These were introduced to me, among other ways, by sporting events. I watched baseball with my mom, wrestling with my grandmom, and boxing with my dad. My family, still reeling from my sister’s untimely death, followed closely by my dad’s serious accident, interlaced with a series of miscarriages and, I believe, a stillborn (whom my mom once referred to as “Bob”), kept its lone surviving child, me, close at hand. My mom would iron on her days off from work (clothes, sheets, socks, everything) and in baseball season she’d look over the ironing board and comment on the games. My grandmom kept a score sheet of every bout, especially the matches between Killer Kowalski, the quintessential villain, and Bruno Sammartino, everybody’s favorite hero (she often muttering, “Ol’ Bruno’s gonna fix ‘im!”). My dad was the strong, silent type and I’d sit on his lap and watch these athletes skillfully pound away at each other. I had understood from my father that this was an ancient sport, but I had no idea just how far back in time it went.

The Encyclopedia Britannica notes boxing became an Olympic sport in 688BC, with its depictions appearing in Sumerian artifacts from 3000BC, Minoan Crete (c. 1500BC), Thebes in Egypt (c.1350BC), and elsewhere, revealing “contestants represented all social classes.” Boxing was also given rules by the ancient Greeks (like no clinching, or hitting opponents after they held up a finger that they’d had enough). [2] Even the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:26-27 compares himself to a boxer (puktuō) not just beating (derō) air (our word is a cognate, adapted from the Greek aēr), so he’s picturing a pugilist hitting something or someone, in his case his own body to toughen it up for the sport, which he uses as his analogy for spiritual training and discipline.[3]

As for our contemporary sports’ heroes, they don’t always last long, often being shooting stars, flashing across the diamond or the ring, or finally fading in their forties if they made it that long. For someone to go out of the ring in their mid-twenties and then ten years later stage a successful comeback to become, at this writing, the oldest heavyweight boxer to win the title at age 45 and hold it until age 48 is a remarkable accomplishment.[4]

As Aida and I reflected on all of this, I realized once again that motion pictures are driven by conflict. A film where everyone gets along and there is no conflict from the weather, the boss, the family, a disease or accident, a treacherous mountain, an invading force, a strong opponent, discrimination and prejudice, or whatever disturbs one’s progress forward, is usually ruled out as a boring movie.

This film is not boring. The story moves along a trajectory that allows viewers to inhabit sets of scenes that depict each phase of the protagonist’s life in which he grows until seething anger is replaced by heartfelt mission and forgiveness replaces vengeance as his modus operandi.

We are often told that sports are character-building. Winning is a reward for industry and does not need to be achieved at the expense of fair play or a reliance on cruelty. This film convincingly portrays that ideal as workable.

The explanation that George Foreman gives to all about the changes he experiences is that Jesus has come and has entered him. Jesus does that by responding to an invitation first given by his mother and then by himself to take up residence in his life. Affirm Films has invited Jesus to take up residence in this film and, rather than muting this great sports story, Jesus’s presence hyper-spaces it.

My simple definition for art that I have shared with students when I’ve taught the course “Theology and the Arts” here at Gordon-Conwell is that art is fine craft that points to something significant beyond itself. This film, in my definition, is art.

Bill

 

---

[1] Ted Bahr has told me the difference between a film and a movie is that a movie is made primarily to make money. This film is so much more than that, but I hope this one makes much money for Sony and Affirm so that they will make more Christian films of its caliber.

[2] https://www.britannica.com/sports/boxing/International-boxing

[3] The NIV Archaeological Study Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 1873, note to 9:24-27explains that Paul is alluding to the Isthmian games, in which boxing was included, and wherein “the prizes in these games were perishable wreaths.”

[4] For an impressive list of the “Oldest Professional Boxers in the World,” see Oldest.org at https://www.oldest.org/sports/professional-boxers/