E 173 A Fresh Look at Scripture (with Stephanie Spencer)

Today we are joined by Stephanie Spencer, co-founder of the organization 40 Orchards.  We discuss the Jewish practice of Midrash, the value of asking questions in community and how to expand our engagement with ancient texts. 

Learn more at:

40orchards.org

Searching the Sacred podcast

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Transcript

E 173 A Fresh Look at Scripture (with Stephanie Spencer)

[00:00:00] Christina: Hello, it is great to be with you today. I'm grateful to introduce Stephanie Spencer to the podcast. Stephanie is the co founder of the organization 40 Orchards, which creates circles for all people to wrestle through biblical texts so that together we can expand each other's experience of what is sacred, whole, and good.

[00:00:20] So before we dive into what all that means and how we might look at ancient texts with a fresh lens, I'd like to welcome you, Stephanie, to the podcast. 

[00:00:26] Hi, good to be here. 

[00:00:28] So I know that you engage in Jewish Midrash, which is a practice of approaching scriptures. And so I wonder if you can explain a little bit of what that is to people that aren't familiar with that term and maybe personally how you got involved with that approach to looking at the text.

[00:00:42] Stephanie: Sure. So Midrash is there's a capital M Midrash and there's a lowercase M Midrash. So the capital M Midrash is some ancient rabbis who wrote down their take on scripture a long time ago, and people go back and refer to that. those works of capital M Midrash. But conceptually, there's also a lowercase M Midrash, which is a way of approaching scripture that values questions over answers and allows all sorts of perspectives on the biblical text to coexist.

[00:01:11] And I think for a lot of people who have had a really narrow way of interpretation of scripture, it can be really freeing to realize there's this whole tradition that exists that is wide. That upholds the value of the text without saying we all have to have the same opinion on it, or we all need to come to the same conclusion.

[00:01:30] The ancient rabbis were really felt very free to disagree with each other and publish it all and say, here's multiple perspectives. You choose your way. And so as a practice of Midrash then at Forty Orchards, we gather people in what we call scripture circles, where we leave room for everybody's voice to participate in the conversation and bring in their wisdom and their perspective.

[00:01:52] And and I think for a lot of people, they've had something, maybe they've had it like the closest experience they've had of something that that might be called like a Bible study, except usually a Bible study has some sort of book or fill in the blank or something that you're doing with it, where you're studying still being guided by somebody else's ideas.

[00:02:10] And in scripture circles, we really facilitate a much more open conversation where we assume there is wisdom in the room and we want to hear it. We assume that questions are better than answers. We assume that we are meant to bring our real actual lives to life. to the text with vulnerability and look for the overlap of the human experience that is in the Bible.

[00:02:31] And that those metaphors of the human experience are something that we're meant to bring forward, that we're not just meant to look back and say historically, this happened at this time to this people group, but we're supposed to look at the story and go, Oh, wow. Egypt in biblical Hebrew is Mitsrayim means the narrow place.

[00:02:49] Why is it hard to leave narrow places in our lives and how does the story of a people group trying to leave a narrow place mirror the human experience of trying to leave narrow places? And how can we ask a whole different set of questions than at least I grew up asking of that text. And so we Forty Orchards began with influence of studying with a rabbi who you get in a room with somebody who has a different approach and you go, Oh, I didn't know you could do that.

[00:03:16] And a community started forming around that that eventually became Forty Orchards and and so we really have launched from that approach into a a whole group of people that continues to study this way.

[00:03:29] Chris: That's fascinating. I love your explanation of the big ilm, which I just recently learned that it was like six Jewish rabbis, or maybe it was a small number over the weekend. And then lo and behold, I'm here on a podcast with somebody else talking about midrash and I myself have not 

[00:03:48] participated in a Midrash, but I've done things like Lexio Divina. I've done things like a practice called dwelling in the word. And it's similar to what you describe but maybe you could talk about what makes Midrash unique to other spiritual practices. You talked a little bit about the community, but maybe what are some outcomes of participating in Midrash.

[00:04:15] Stephanie: That's a great question. There is a lot of overlap with something like Lectio Divina, and I would say one of the primary differences is the communal versus individual. Like my experience of Lectio Divina is most often like a quiet contemplative individual exercise, whereas what we do is inherently communal.

[00:04:31] There is a, there's a guiding force that you can use. I don't know who came up with this and when, but the guiding force of Midrash there's an acronym that you can use. And the first is a Hebrew word Peshat, which means plain or simple. And so that sort of guides a first layer of questions to ask about Text.

[00:04:49] What are the dates? What are the places? What are, who are the people? What's their story been to this point? The next level is Ramez, which means hint. And so that sort of thing, like, where does this text start to hint at themes of scripture beyond itself? Where does it expand out? Where does that push shot layer maybe even hold a little bit more than we thought it did?

[00:05:11] It can look really obvious in Genesis 12 that Abraham is being asked to leave. His native land and his kindred and his father's house. And at the end of Genesis 11, that Terah dies. So there's a plain Terah's father. At first you can look at the plain reading and be like, Oh, his dad has died and he's being asked to leave.

[00:05:30] But if you look back in Genesis 11, his dad hasn't died yet, if you actually do the math. So he's being asked to leave before his dad has died, which is a really big deal in the ancient world. So Ramez starts to go a little deeper, wider than that Plain layer. And then derash means to seek.

[00:05:47] And it's actually where the word midrash comes from is this idea of seeking. And I think of this word as what it means to look for the ketchup in the refrigerator or pick your condiment of choice. How often you open a refrigerator and you know, it's in there somewhere. but you cannot find it. And the way that you find it is by engaging in a deeper search, by actually physically like moving the milk and moving the orange juice and finding out what's behind.

[00:06:16] And there's a way of searching that we practice, that we do, or we tend to just look with our eyes and not see it. And we stop and Duresh is deeper. It says, I know there is more here. I need to do the work of looking for it. And so Duresh starts to do that work of looking for Ways that passages connect with each other, like a trajectory of the word.

[00:06:36] So if we're thinking about what it means for something to be good, Tov in Hebrew Duresh would say where else is the word good used besides this passage that we're in? Oh, it's used all the time in the creation narrative in Genesis one. How does the fact that the beginning of that word is about a generative goodness of the earth affect how I think of the goodness here in Micah six of he has told you, Oh human, what is good?

[00:07:00] How am I then expanding out through that searching? And then sued is the last layer. And sued is hidden. So it's this idea of something mystical being a part of it. So that gets into things like the mystical understanding of numbers. Why is it that the number 40 repeats so often in scripture?

[00:07:17] Is it coincidence? Or is there a mystical understanding of 40 days and 40 nights and 40 years? It's all connecting to 40 weeks gestation of a human life and what it is to have a death and a new beginning with cycles of 40. And so sued would start to get at that layer. And so just like a little backstory in 40 orchards, this is part of our name because that acronym is P R D S, which is the word Pardes, which is the word orchard in Hebrew.

[00:07:43] So this is a part of, there's many reasons we're called 40 Orchards. That's one of them. I just pointed towards why we called 40 as well. We want people to have a transformative experience of 40. And so I think all of that was a long explanation, but when I think then of your question about outcomes, I think that people experience something that is rooted and expansive at the same time, which is unique where we can say there's actually a way we can really keep going back to this text at the center, but have it be the roots that help us grow a whole lot of different trees.

[00:08:15] Again, 40 orchards where there's then room in that communal space for people to take it in different directions and, but, and really apply it to their lives while it's still connected to something at the core that we have in common and that we can dig into. And I think I find. This is going to be oversimplification of Lectio Divina that people could but fight back on.

[00:08:36] You've done it more often. I generally find Lectio Divina to be like an encouraging practice. I have some sort of word that helps me feel meditative or connected. Midrash can sometimes be a little bit more challenging of a practice, like I can have something where I feel pushed to make a change in my life.

[00:08:55] I feel pushed to think more expansively about the humans around me. I feel pushed to actually cross over from that place to work from where I've been to where I'm going. And so I, it's a little bit, it's still encouraging, but it's a little bit, maybe more forward. And it's energy to actually be impacting our lives.

[00:09:14] Christina: you hinted earlier that this wasn't maybe how you grew up approaching scriptures. And so I'm curious for those that, I grew up Greek Orthodox. So I think I have maybe a different view, but I have lots of friends that grew up in maybe more evangelical circles or traditional circles where The way in which the Bible was approached was very much maybe coming from a leader or even like in Catholic or Lutheran, like there's an expert that goes to seminary and then teaches the scripture, as opposed to this explorative, I get to ask questions and wrestle with.

[00:09:41] And, Chris alluded earlier to a practice called dwelling in the word, which again, it's maybe a little bit similar where there's some hard text that you're wrestling with and you don't leave with a nice clean answer. It's I'm just left with more questions or maybe some frustration or some confusion.

[00:09:56] So I'm curious as you're maybe engaging with folks that have had maybe one approach to scripture, but are curious and want to expand, and that sounds exciting to them. How might you navigate some of the obstacles or discomfort that comes up in engaging in this sort of practice? Thanks. 

[00:10:10] Stephanie: Yeah, I think one of the things that we often have to help people with is to not be afraid.

[00:10:15] To say really let's actually think about the worst that could happen if you're wrong about this question of the text is someone going to die? Is let's put in context why we have so much fear about bringing ourselves to the text. So I think that's one thing is just letting go of fear and saying all we're doing is playing with questions like we get to do that.

[00:10:37] And if I remember even as a facilitator, I remember asking this whole set of questions that felt like it. Had really good fruit in the room. And later on realized I was completely wrong about the word in Hebrew that I was asking questions about. And I had this like wash of shame from my evangelical past of I did it.

[00:10:55] I led people astray, like whatever. But then I was like, but did I really like, did that mistake cause harm or was it generative? And does, do, does something need to be perfect in order for it to be generative and good? And the sense of that doesn't mean that I'm going to intentionally make mistake mistakes or that we're going to be ungrounded from the text, but that there's just some room.

[00:11:16] There's more room than we think there is to play to wrestle to make mistakes. And I think one of the correctives that I would put on that then is also the communal piece. So I think one of the reasons a lot of us have fear about that is this sense of like we've probably seen people. abuse the text through a weird interpretation that gives them like, Oh I'm allowed to do X because the Bible says Y and you're like red flag.

[00:11:43] That's actually not okay. That doesn't align with who God is in my mind. Like you, something's wrong. And that's where the communal becomes. It's a guard that, that we get to, if we're bringing our, what we're saying people, the room of people is helping us hold that well, or think about it differently or give their own perspective that affects ours.

[00:12:03] And I think that is a better guard than people realize against the things that we're afraid of to say if I'm in a room and I say, Oh, because I see this text, I am now going I don't can't think of a good example. But like people would it. You would either not say it, you would self guard and be like, Oh, this sounds weird.

[00:12:23] Actually. I'm not going to say this out loud or the room would be like, really, is that really. I see it this way. And I think both those things help. And I would say that to me is this I hold a correction when I was in seminary. One of the things I was taught was this principle of exegesis. Which is like the way seminaries like to make big, fancy words about things that don't need to have big, fancy words.

[00:12:45] So exegesis is just the act of removing yourself from your interpretation of the biblical text. So the idea is let the Bible speak for itself. Take yourself out of it versus ace Jesus is I bring myself to the text and that creates false interpretation. But what I would say is it's actually a false interpretation to think we can take ourselves out of the equation.

[00:13:08] All of us will always have a lens on the biblical text, and so we are better off using that lens with intention and opening ourselves to other lenses in order to expand as compared to thinking that there is an objective way to read the Bible, because there is not. I am a white female in the Midwest. I will have a different perspective than a black male in New York City.

[00:13:35] I should intentionally read Drew Jackson's poetry because he's coming from that perspective. I should intentionally expose myself to liberation theology from from Central and South America because that is going to be a different perspective than I have and it will expand how I see. And so that's what we're trying to do in circles is expanding how we see through bringing one another's perspectives in and that I think once you experience that, it feels more liberating and less frightening.

[00:14:03] Chris: I think the word that, that comes to mind that I think has been mentioned a few times is the word wrestle. And if you think about wrestling and you think about the big biblical text, You think about the latter, right? The experience of the latter and the wrestling that happened.

[00:14:21] But I also am bringing my own context of what it means to wrestle. And I think what you alluded to is that there's a playfulness to an approach to the midrash and, Wrestling was a part of my upbringing. I had brothers, I had sisters I had cousins and it's this way of determining the boundaries, right?

[00:14:43] You're like, you're pushing, you're pulling, you're pinching. Sometimes you're cheating a little bit. But there's a playfulness to it. And I really love The explanation that you gave for how one would enter into this experience because I think oftentimes we walk in and it's it's just like a one and done.

[00:15:06] I have one chance to get all this right. And if I make any mistakes. Then I just heap all kinds of guilt and condemnation on myself. There's not a sense of exploration or joy in this thing of wrestling with, ancient texts. And so I really appreciate what you're bringing in.

[00:15:27] So how does one keep from taking themselves too seriously in something like, what are the boundaries? How do you keep from taking yourself too seriously? 

[00:15:37] Stephanie: It comes to mind, I'm going to add one more word to how you described wrestling, which is intimacy. You are close to someone you're, I'm not going to wrestle with a stranger and in wrestling, I'm going to, I'm going to get close to someone in a way that I haven't been close to them before.

[00:15:51] And I think that one of the things that happens in certain ways that we hold the text is if we are always looking to experts, then we're never getting the intimacy of wrestling. And we're probably avoiding the things we need the most because they're hard. And so I, I would say it doesn't always feel playful because wrestling does feel hard.

[00:16:09] It's uncomfortable. And it's moving towards those uncomfortable places. And wrestling with the thing that's actually ours to wrestle with. Like in that Jacob story, he has been gone from his family and had a bunch of kids. But he was destined to be the one to be the new head of household and he's living someplace other than his household.

[00:16:34] And so the time has come for him to come back home, but coming back home means facing his brother, who he is wronged. And the wrestling match happens on his way back as he's by himself by the river Yabook, which happens to mean emptying. So he's by himself by a river of emptying. And this man angel God figure comes and wrestles with him of all things.

[00:16:59] And Jacob won't let go. And he won't, and he says, I won't let you go until you bless me. Why is Jacob asking for a blessing? It's because 14 years ago, he stole a blessing from his brother. So he's been walking around, not feeling blessed. After all of these experiences, he still doesn't know who he is.

[00:17:20] And he's being pushed to wrestle for his identity before going back to take the future that's his before going back to reconcile the past and step into the future. He has to wrestle for his identity. And so I don't know that he felt playful, but I do think that he knew it was time. And maybe that's a part of it for wrestling is we sometimes there is some wrestling and questions that are playful and there's some wrestling that happens when we've reached the end of ourselves and finally have no other option.

[00:17:51] But to receive a new name and to have that name be the new name that carries us forward. But that new name that he gets is Israel, which means one who wrestles with God and with humans and is able. And that becomes the name that is given to the people of God after that. Is that we're all meant to hold the identity of wrestlers.

[00:18:09] So whenever we're wrestling, we're being who we're meant to be as people of faith that there's a whole narrative in Christianity that can make it sound like certainty is the mark of faith. But in the biblical narrative, wrestling is the mark of faith. People of faith were called God wrestlers. And and so I don't know if that answered your question about not taking ourselves too seriously.

[00:18:30] I do think maybe the piece that I would, that would connect to that is the humility it takes to wrestle to say I'm letting go of some control. If I'm letting this wrestling match happen, I might like Jacob walk away with a limp afterwards. But I'm going to do it anyway.

[00:18:45] Christina: It's fun hearing the two of you approach this so differently. Before we hit record, we were talking a little bit about the Enneagram and just even how our, again, to your point of you're a white woman in, the Midwest and how our personalities play in, our backgrounds, just all the different ways in which we approach scripture is just so fun to consider.

[00:19:03] Stephanie, if someone's curious and wanting to learn more, where might you point them to learn more about the work that you're doing or how they could get involved? 

[00:19:10] Stephanie: So 40 orchards. org is our website and we have scripture circles that you can participate in that'll be up on that website. We do things we are in Minnesota.

[00:19:19] So we do things in person in Minnesota, but we also have several virtual options and often have people participating from all over the country or even the world in our virtual options. And so we try to put them at different times of day for different time zone needs when we can. Our best virtual spread we had was we had somebody in Las Vegas and somebody in Pennsylvania and somebody in Australia all in the same circle.

[00:19:42] I don't think we'll ever break that record of like number of timezones that we had. But many of the things are in person as well. But I also think that our podcast, which is called Searching the Sacred, is a great way to get a taste of what this is. So Lisa, who co leads 40 orchards with me and Jason, who is pastor in the twin cities and also on our board the three of us have conversations about the biblical text and we do midrash together and we come to different conclusions.

[00:20:08] We leave room for multiple perspectives. Lisa does work with people who are incarcerated. And so she's often bringing that perspective into the room. What would the prisoner have to say about this? And how would the prisoner be looking for liberation? And that's so valuable to hear that perspective coming in and justice and what is this actually doing in the world?

[00:20:27] So searching the sacred is our podcast 40 orchards. org is our website. 

[00:20:31] Christina: Thank you so much, Stephanie. And to use your own words, this has been such an expansive conversation about how to think about scriptures and different biblical texts. So thank you for sharing with us.

[00:20:39] And now is the part of our podcast where we talk about what we are into. So what are we into my friends? 

[00:20:52] Chris: I have typically been a coffee drinker, but I have a friend from England who has been trying to get me started on tea and drinking English tea. And so I've been experimenting with different teas and I learned the difference between English breakfast tea and an Irish breakfast tea.

[00:21:11] I didn't know that there was a difference. Apparently Irish breakfast tea has more caffeine and it's stronger. So I have been into experimenting with different teas. 

[00:21:21] Christina: That's cool. I didn't know that either. And I drink both, so now I will pay attention to that. I am into cloud slippers. So one of my kids got a pair of cloud slippers, and I would sneak her cloud slippers to wear around the house or to go out to the garage.

[00:21:33] And so it was recently my birthday, and my oldest child is like, Hey, I noticed that mom likes the cloud slippers. So they are these like squishy, fun, comfortable shoes that I wear. I have them on right now, actually. So that is very much what I am into. 

[00:21:46] Stephanie: I I'm into going to the nature center near my house.

[00:21:49] So this time of year it's a great place to walk and run. And the birds start coming back at this time of year and things start coming to life again. And I just am visiting it every day if I can to see what greets me in the nature center.

[00:22:04] Christina: Thank you so much for joining us and until next time, make it a great week.