Building a Community of Interpreters: Readers and Hearers as Interpreters

Foreword

I am often stirred by poetry or a work of art at a depth that both words and reason fail to touch. Viewing a sculpture by Rodin or a painting by Dali, there is in the aftermath a sense of knowing that is beyond thinking and an experiential dimension that is outside ordinary space and time realities.

In just that vein, Walter Dickhaut’s writings herein are more art than logic. As you wend your way through the pages of this book you’ll discover that the author has, with intention, blurred the lines between prose and poetry and between rigid rationality and mysticism. It is appropriate and perhaps necessary, since the God that he would have us encounter cannot be captured within the limits of rational thought and ordinary language. While no medium can fully capture the one who is inscrutable, Walter Dickhaut’s poetic language and mystical images offer insights that expand our sense of this Holy Mystery.

At the conclusion of each chapter, I am aware that his words and images have pierced the former boundaries of my sense of God. I am left with a God who is more wonderful than formerly conceived, more mysterious and further beyond my knowing than I had heretofore imagined, and yet, paradoxically, a God that I now feel I know in a more profound way. I believe that you will find something similar as you read your way along. For example you may well arrive at the conclusion of Building a Community of Interpreters sensing what Rudolph Otto referred to as the mysterium tremendum: a marvelous mystery that is terrifying in its awesomeness.

While this book has no explicit didactic purpose, it can make us more skillful and attentive listeners to Scriptures being read and sermons preached. And, if we let it, it will make better preachers of those of us who share that enterprise. We are reminded that there is something quite profound going on as we read and interpret a text or as we listen to a text being read. Thus for both clergy and laity it provides tools to identify the assumptions and biases which color our interpretation of Scripture and offers lenses that open the texts to new insights. The author models the use of such lenses in crafting his interpretive pieces based on the texts in Genesis 1, Deuteronomy 30, and Isaiah 40, uncovering the vibrant themes which are alive with mystery awaiting exploration, with expectation awaking our future, and with surprise that is indeed surprising.

True to the author’s sections on the dynamic interplay between a Scripture text and the reader, and between the publicly read text and the hearer, this book itself assumes an active, rather than a passive reader. The author is inviting us to engage in a conversation with him as together we explore our approach to Scripture, the act of interpretation, the multifaceted nature of hearing and reading Holy Writ. While this book may challenge the assumptions you currently employ as you read and hear Scripture, its approach is one of presenting new possibilities, not judging current ones.

So read on, carried along on the wings of elegant prose, stirring poetry, penetrating questions, and arresting images. And in that pleasant journey you may come to a new appreciation for the work of reading and hearing Scripture. You will be offered new tools for scriptural inquiry, nudged to enlarge your sense of God and be called to deepen your understanding of what is expected of God’s people (see, for example, the section Nativity Amidst Darkness).

But most of all, Walter Dickhaut’s words and images, I believe, will leave you as they do me, experiencing something too deep for ordinary words, something beyond the confines of logic. It is this something that causes me to sit very still at the end of each of his interpretive pieces wanting to stay in touch with the sense of a Holy Presence, fearful that if I move or seek to explain what I sense, it will be gone.

Fahy G. Mullaney

Advent 2011

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is like raising a child: it takes a village.

First I must acknowledge the impossibility of naming all the people—much less the events—that have brought me to the terminus of this project. Nevertheless, there are some who stand close in time to the completion of this work, whose names and faces have not wandered off into the shadows of many years. As a means of claiming my debt to them, I wish to cite their names.

As first among unequals, I want to put in print how uncommonly grateful I am to Marilyn for her patient interest during the gestation of this collection of thoughts and ideas. She has listened to many readings of as many portions of the script, and read as many more herself, that I can neither recall nor recount them all. Moreover, she has graciously tolerated my distractions from other important matters of house and home when I was preoccupied with the material. So I am happy to have this occasion to thank her in print for her tolerant and patient engagement throughout the course of this venture.

Allan has been a friend and colleague since he was called to the rectorship of the Episcopal Church of St. Francis in Blue Hill, Maine where I had been serving as interim. He has not only read and made suggestions for parts of the manuscript as it developed but also has brokered advice and guidance from more seasoned teachers and writers of his acquaintance, all to my benefit.

Jack, whom I have never met in person, has been of inestimable assistance. It is largely through his encouragement that I have pursued this project. In addition to the gifts of his provocative writing, he was willing to become my correspondent and mentor through email alone. I am very grateful for his interest, generosity, and willingness to stick with me.

Joe read the manuscript at various stages of its evolution and offered constructive critique of what it said, what it didn’t yet say, and what it might say. As a noted and courageous church leader, he was especially helpful in pressing considerations for the pastoral and prophetic health and faithfulness of church and nonchurch communities alike.

Mary Ann, an educator and administrator by profession, was generous with both time and attention in reading and noting areas calling for additional consideration. She was uniquely insightful as an unordained person, making particularly important comments and raising pointedly significant questions from the angle of one whose human vocation requires especially skillful listening.

Mickey’s contribution would be difficult to overstate. As one who met the costs of a graduate education, in part, by editing the work of others, her exhaustive attention to both substance and editorial detail has been invaluable.

Phil, longtime fellow traveler from Southside Settlement House days, focused the so what question among numerous other suggestions. Were it not for the pressure of his question, the afterword would surely not have materialized as it did, if at all.

Ron, along with Skip, has lived with this manuscript almost as long and nearly as intimately as I have. His interest in pursuit of the implications of reader-response criticism was keen indeed. And sometimes, he got so engrossed in the subject under discussion that it seemed some portions of the writing were coauthored.

Skip, my brother-by-adoption, was not only so generous as to write the foreword but he also accompanied me all along the stages through which the creation of this manuscript has passed. He was ever eager to read portions and give me sharply focused critique whenever he was asked; his suggestions were always constructive.

Rollin was so much more than casually conscientious when it came to reading and evaluating the script. He not only provided me with an extensive list of punctuation and grammatical corrections but also offered valuable questions and possibilities for the additional development of ideas.

While they are as yet unaware, a small group of friends and colleagues—Jeff, Paul, Bob, and John—who meet monthly (or thereabouts) to discuss a variety of readings have stimulated my thought in both direct and indirect ways, and I am the beneficiary of their seriousness about these and many other issues. Among them, Bob has made an unmatched contribution in his detailed review of the manuscript, providing invaluable criticism of the very best variety. I wish to thank him especially for introducing me to the reader-response apostles of biblical criticism and I can say, without the slightest reticence, that without Bob’s careful and pointed criticism, this manuscript would cast a far dimmer light.

Uli, editorial artist and artistic editor, has long been interested in my writing efforts. Her forthright candor, coupled with consistent encouragement and guidance have helped me to maintain focus and keep at it.

Virginia, friend and colleague of many years, has always been willing, even eager, to read what I have written. An educator by profession and a careful listener by vocation, she was always on the lookout for more, whether of implications and potential.

There is one more name I must add. Doris belonged to the first worshiping congregation I served as a part-time Episcopal priest in Blue Hill, Maine. She would sometimes say, on her way out the door after worship, As I read the readings earlier this morning, in their Hebrew and Greek versions, I saw some things you did not mention in the sermon. Can we arrange a time to discuss them? As one who traveled through seminary without pause to learn the biblical languages, I always took Doris’ comments seriously. A notable writer and literary critic by profession, she became not only a constructive critic, mentor, and teacher but also a great friend and was always eager for the two of us to exchange our literary efforts for review.

Summarily, there are many others who remain my unnamed allies: former students as well as teaching and preaching colleagues at Bangor Theological Seminary and other accomplices whose encouraging words have kept the project afloat. Were I to conduct a census of all the hospitable citizens of this village, such an enrollment might equal or exceed the length of the book. So, to all these named and unnamed, my thanks abide under a canopy of their generosity. And while so many have contributed to the final outcome, the shortcomings of the end product belong to me alone.

Introduction

There are scholars who are specialists in linguistics, communication theory, biblical studies, the history of interpretation, and other such highly technical fields of inquiry. Though I have invested more than a score of years in and about the academy, I am not a specialist of that order.

While I have spent most of a lifetime reading, studying, teaching, and practicing the artful craft (and the crafty art) of preparing and preaching sermons, the aim of this book is as much, or more, to address those who read Scripture and hear it read, and those who listen to preaching. Likewise, it is intended for those who read and study Scripture in groups as well as in the meditations of their own interests and necessities. I will refer to them often as a community of interpreters.

As reader, teacher, or preacher, my goal was always to work in such ways as is faithful to the biblical world remembered by biblical texts, as well as to the world in which the text and I met up. So always near at hand in this most practical work is a cognizant regard for the critically essential engagement of the hearer: listening is a practice too.

Whether you, the reader, have invested hours and years in the hearing, reading, and study of Scripture (with a worshiping congregation, in study groups, in solitary contemplation), in preparing and preaching sermons, or in more tentative and episodic encounters with biblical material, very likely it is safe to say that I am a nonspecialist writing for other nonspecialists. In any (and all) case(s), writer and reader come to a common crossing, a meeting of divergent trajectories where experience and understanding intersect as preparation to move on.

So, when I began this writing, I was thinking of readers in particular—not only those who may read these pages but also those who will read other pages, written by other writers. While some may be inclined to think of what a reader does in largely passive terms—curled up inside a plaid wool blanket, almost hidden in an overstuffed chair-and-a-half, alone, on a cold winter night, in front of a roaring fire, with a comfortable beverage and a good book—the truth is that the reader is no less engaged in reading what an author has written than the author was engaged in the writing of it.

Reading requires as much creativity as writing. Think about it. A writer begins with an idea: a proposition to advance, a question to explore, an argument to develop, a tale to unfold, a plot to unravel, an image to describe. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer (January 1, 1916) Robert Frost wrote that "A