These days, we live in Bundibugyo, where the primary language is Lubwisi. In the 30+ years of Serge input into this place, a primary focus has been to translate the Bible into Lubwisi, thereby preserving, encoding, dignifying, recognizing this group of people and their culture. In 2016 we celebrated the completion and publication of the New Testament. Which means that there is now WRITTEN LUBWISI that we can read (after years of hiring language helpers, listening, making cards, asking questions, trying to imitate, all aural learning). Faithful local translators operate out of one of our community center offices, and I see them daily, chipping away at the Psalms and the Pentatuch.
So, every morning when I'm reading the day's lectionary of passages, I try to also read a portion of a Gospel in Lubwisi. I certainly don't understand all of it, and it is painfully slow and tedious, though knowing what it's SUPPOSED to say sure helps. But an unexpected delight is to see stories in new ways through new eyes and words. And one from over a week ago sticks with me, inviting pondering.
In the middle of Matthew chapter 9, an important man comes to Jesus with urgency--my daughter has just died, he says, but come and lay your hand on her and she can live. His faith is remarkable, and usually the thing remarked upon. But in a different language, what jumped out was muhala wanje, my daughter. Perhaps because I'd been trying to tell people about my kids and my new daughter-in-law and I was noting the difference between muhala (daughter) and mugholi (a word I never really needed until now, daughter-in-law, that people keep saying back to me). Perhaps because this exact scenario plays out for me several times a week--someone comes to find me because their relative has a particular medical issue they are convinced I should help, and I sense the urgency and advocacy in their effort. So the muhala wanje spoke to me of tenderness and courage and persistence, the love of a father for his little girl, the desperate desire to restore her life, the quivering grief threatening to engulf him as he refuses to accept reality and holds out for a miracle. The father-daughter relationship is unique in its pure delight and blessing.
Then a few verses later, the procession to his house is interrupted. This time it's a middle-aged woman with perimenopausal excessive bleeding. This woman does not have a father advocating for her healing, in fact she's probably excluded from the center of community life, considered unclean, perhaps alone and not very valued at all. She's perhaps invisible in the crowd, and has perhaps absorbed the general low estimation of her value. Perhaps her bleeding has lasted about as long as the little girl in the ruler's family was alive (12 years). Perhaps she impulsively reaches out to touch Jesus (like the ruler who wanted him to physically touch the dead girl, they sense a power in his bodily presence). A huge risk, a woman taking initiative when few would approve. And what does he say? "Muhala wanje". My daughter! The exact same phrase that the distraught father used to plead for his daughter's life, Jesus uses to address this marginal woman.
What a wonderful and understated literary device, enfolding the middle-aged unimportant woman's story with her unmentionably embarrassing problem, into the narrative of a relative princess whose well-connected father is moving heaven and earth to help her. And introducing both with the same phrase, to subtly but powerfully show us: Jesus feels about this woman the same way the ruler feels about his daughter. Longing for her wholeness, desperately on her side, delighted in her as a person, bereaved by her suffering, eager to see her well. An invested, passionate, tender love. Suddenly the woman becomes visible, or at least she and the crowd now grasp that she is seen and loved by God, that she is just as appealing in God's eyes as the celebrity girl to whom they rush.
And even in 2019, that's counter-cultural. Being in the 50-something range for women is rarely lauded as ideal, compared to a girl or teen or 20-something, or compared to a similarly aged man. Not in the USA (just look through advertising, movies, TV, social media). And certainly not in Uganda, where my peers are juggling gardens and grandchildren, often widowed and landless, dependent on the good will of brothers or grown children, displaced by younger wives. But the Gospel is literally good news, and I'm grateful for this vivid picture (in a long line of such stories from Hagar to Hannah to Esther to Mary) of El-Roi (Gen 16:13), the God who sees.
So, every morning when I'm reading the day's lectionary of passages, I try to also read a portion of a Gospel in Lubwisi. I certainly don't understand all of it, and it is painfully slow and tedious, though knowing what it's SUPPOSED to say sure helps. But an unexpected delight is to see stories in new ways through new eyes and words. And one from over a week ago sticks with me, inviting pondering.
In the middle of Matthew chapter 9, an important man comes to Jesus with urgency--my daughter has just died, he says, but come and lay your hand on her and she can live. His faith is remarkable, and usually the thing remarked upon. But in a different language, what jumped out was muhala wanje, my daughter. Perhaps because I'd been trying to tell people about my kids and my new daughter-in-law and I was noting the difference between muhala (daughter) and mugholi (a word I never really needed until now, daughter-in-law, that people keep saying back to me). Perhaps because this exact scenario plays out for me several times a week--someone comes to find me because their relative has a particular medical issue they are convinced I should help, and I sense the urgency and advocacy in their effort. So the muhala wanje spoke to me of tenderness and courage and persistence, the love of a father for his little girl, the desperate desire to restore her life, the quivering grief threatening to engulf him as he refuses to accept reality and holds out for a miracle. The father-daughter relationship is unique in its pure delight and blessing.
Then a few verses later, the procession to his house is interrupted. This time it's a middle-aged woman with perimenopausal excessive bleeding. This woman does not have a father advocating for her healing, in fact she's probably excluded from the center of community life, considered unclean, perhaps alone and not very valued at all. She's perhaps invisible in the crowd, and has perhaps absorbed the general low estimation of her value. Perhaps her bleeding has lasted about as long as the little girl in the ruler's family was alive (12 years). Perhaps she impulsively reaches out to touch Jesus (like the ruler who wanted him to physically touch the dead girl, they sense a power in his bodily presence). A huge risk, a woman taking initiative when few would approve. And what does he say? "Muhala wanje". My daughter! The exact same phrase that the distraught father used to plead for his daughter's life, Jesus uses to address this marginal woman.
What a wonderful and understated literary device, enfolding the middle-aged unimportant woman's story with her unmentionably embarrassing problem, into the narrative of a relative princess whose well-connected father is moving heaven and earth to help her. And introducing both with the same phrase, to subtly but powerfully show us: Jesus feels about this woman the same way the ruler feels about his daughter. Longing for her wholeness, desperately on her side, delighted in her as a person, bereaved by her suffering, eager to see her well. An invested, passionate, tender love. Suddenly the woman becomes visible, or at least she and the crowd now grasp that she is seen and loved by God, that she is just as appealing in God's eyes as the celebrity girl to whom they rush.
And even in 2019, that's counter-cultural. Being in the 50-something range for women is rarely lauded as ideal, compared to a girl or teen or 20-something, or compared to a similarly aged man. Not in the USA (just look through advertising, movies, TV, social media). And certainly not in Uganda, where my peers are juggling gardens and grandchildren, often widowed and landless, dependent on the good will of brothers or grown children, displaced by younger wives. But the Gospel is literally good news, and I'm grateful for this vivid picture (in a long line of such stories from Hagar to Hannah to Esther to Mary) of El-Roi (Gen 16:13), the God who sees.
some women God sees
and some girls who are loved
My dad, with my sister and me visiting his mom
A dad and daughter near my heart, just over a month ago (feels like a year)
1 comment:
Dear Jennifer,
Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful insight with me. I so deeply appreciate your blog and the hard persistent effort and thought you put into reading God's message to us. Beloved daughter, tender young daughter, God's child forever, is a particular comfort when the daughter has become an octogenarian. Today, not feeling my best, I am reading your message at supper, and its beauty, the reflection of God's words, made me weep with its grace and comfort. Your spiritual grace and understanding have blessed me once again. May God continue to sustain and bless you as you labor to turn the end of the road into a flourishing vineyard of his Peace. May God bless your hands and heart in this purpose. You have lifted my heart tonight. Judy in HMB
Post a Comment