Tracy Hartman - Letting the Other Speak: Proclaiming the Stories of Biblical Women

Letting the Other Speak

Tracy Kemp Hartman

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hartman, Tracy Kemp, 1960

Letting the other speak : proclaiming the stories of biblical women / Tracy Kemp Hartman.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 978-0-7391-6784-7 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7391-7255-1 (electronic)

1. Women in the Bible. I. Title.

BS575.H34 2012

220.9'2082--dc23

2011037917

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For Jay, Jana & Jonathan
Your love and support have helped me find
my voice and made this work possible.

Table of Contents

Foreword

In her Introduction to this volume Tracy Hartman states that her own preferred mode of Biblical interpretation is that of a kaleidoscope in which she looks at a Biblical text through the prism of many colorful lensesincluding the insights of diverse interpreters, both historical and contemporaryallowing her own understanding of the text to emerge in the midst of the ever spinning wheel of engagement she has with them. That method serves her well as she provides for us, her readers, an overview of the way these texts about six diverse Biblical women have been interpreted through the centuries by Jewish and Christian, early church and Reformation, liberationist, post-colonial and feminist interpretersall the while allowing our own sight and insight to be broadened, deepened and changed by the experience. As an exercise in multi-faceted Biblical exegesis alone, this book is worth the price of admission!

But in many ways kaleidoscope is not only a metaphor for how Hartman interprets scripture; it is also an image for how she functions as a homiletician. For Hartman does not leave us with the fruits of her Biblical exegesis alone. Instead she invites us to join her on the next stages of the journey as she moves from text to sermon, and in that process as well, allows us to look at the art of preaching through many of its own colorful lenses.

One lens she asks us to consider is that of congregational context. It makes a big difference, Hartman maintains, whether we are preaching these texts to people of privilege or to people who are poor, to those who are in a racial/ethnic majority or to those who are part of a minority group, to those who are insiders (socially, racially, economically) or to those who are outsiders. Consequently with each Biblical woman whose story she considers, Hartman provides us with two sermons preached in two very different contexts. By so doing she allows us to see for ourselves how greatly the contextual lens through which we are viewing a text influences our interpretation of it in preaching.

A second and related lens Hartman engages is the prophetic/pastoral continuum in preaching. Not only are the sermons in each chapter preached in two different contexts, we also see how context helps determine whether the sermon needs to be more prophetic in tone or more pastoral in tone. So, for example, when preaching the story of Hagar to an upper-middle-class Caucasian congregation in suburban Washington, DCmany of whom employ immigrants (both documented and undocumented) in their homes and businessesthe sermon becomes a prophetic message reminding the hearers of the pain and suffering the Hagars of the world often experience at the hands of their oppressors, and calling for just, ethical, and compassionate treatment of those who are immigrants in our midst. On the other hand, when preached to a group of women in the military who are experiencing sexual harassment from their colleagues and commanding officers, the sermon takes on a pastoral and encouraging tone as it reminds these women that they, like Hagar, can have encounters with God that can empower them to become agents of nation building.

A third lens Hartman provides for our viewing is the lens of sermonic form and design. Hartman not only includes the full texts of sermons in this volume, she also provides commentary on each one, discussing in detail the sermon structure and form and why the preacher makes the rhetorical decisions she does. In the process, she teaches us a lot about what makes for effective sermon design.

A final and most important lens Hartman offers us is the lens of her own experience in a church that has not long ordained women to ministry (Baptist), and her own fervent desire to reclaim these stories of Biblical women for the pulpit in a way that does not fall prey to the temptation either to valorize and sentimentalize them (as the church has been prone to do with stories such as those of Sarah and Ruth) or that demonizes and victimizes them (as preaching has frequently done with stories such as those of Hagar and Rahab). She also reclaims for the pulpit one womanthe medium of Endorwho is often viewed more as a prop in the Samuel story than as a significant character worthy of proclamation in her own rite. Perhaps this is the greatest gift of this volume: namely, that we come away from it challenged ourselves to preach these women and their stories more complexly, more contextually, and more effectivelyhaving been equipped by Hartmans own excellent teaching and modeling of how to do so.

Leonora Tubbs Tisdale

Clement-Muehl Professor of Homiletics

Yale Divinity School

New Haven, Connecticut

Acknowledgments

This book began as a paper presented to the Academy of Homiletics in November 2007. I am grateful to L. Juliana Claassens and Sandra Hack Polaski, my Old and New Testament colleagues, for their help in brainstorming about biblical women and the other. I am also indebted to Tom Troeger who encouraged me to expand the original paper into a full book manuscript. In the spring of 2008, I lectured this material at Westminster Canterbury in Richmond, VA, and at University Baptist Church in Charlottesville, VA. I offer my thanks to Victoria Atkinson White and Tom Leland for extending those invitations and to their congregations for their feedback on early versions of this material.

As the project moved into the book stage, I was blessed with the support and encouragement of numerous family members and colleagues. I am grateful to the faculty and trustees of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond who granted me a sabbatical leave to write. Thanks to colleagues (and mentors) Israel Galindo and Beverly Zink Sawyer who provided helpful insights at the proposal stage and to Woody Jenkins, Brittany Riddle, Jay Hartman, and Jana Hartman who provided invaluable feedback on early drafts of the manuscript.

I remain indebted to the Baptist women on the front-lines of ministry who took time to contribute sermons: Sharon Bobb, Amy Butler, Lindsay Comstock, Jayme Reaves, and Susan Stovall Vinson. Their voices add richness and depth to this volume, and their friendship and collective hearts for ministry have been a source of blessing and encouragement to me.