Fr. Martin
Walsh, OP

Cabbage Not Blood
By Fr. Jude Eli, O.P.

    We started to make our final descent to land at the Nairobi airport in Kenya. As I looked out my window I could see the various types of trees always associated with African terrain. It was 6:20 in the morning and the flight from Amsterdam was exhausting. I was glad the plane was landing. After going through customs I was met by Fr. Maury Schepers, O.P. the Vicar for the Vicariate of Eastern Africa and Bro. Daniel Thomas, O.P. of our own Western Dominican Province. As we drove to our Dominican community house at Spring Valley, I discussed with Fr. Maury the details of what I was going to do during my stay. I was asked to teach a course on biblical hermeneutics to a group of novices and other people in formation at our novitiate in Kisumu, as well as a class on the Gospel of Mark to our Dominican Nuns at Corpus Christi Monastery in Karen, a small town outside of Nairobi.

    The next day after a long eight-hour drive from Spring Valley to Kisumu, I was welcomed by our Dominican novices and Fr. Ben Croell, O.P.,  their novice master. As I looked around the Dominican compound, I realized that Kisumu was not Nairobi. Kisumu is rural and poor – dirt poor. It made me wonder in terms of education what kind of students I would have the following Monday. I would soon find out.

   Monday morning was clear and temperate. The room where I was going to have class was spacious, with plenty of desks and blackboard space. After Fr. Ben introduced me to the students, (postulants and novices from various African nations and religious communities), I began a general presentation on the nature of biblical hermeneutics. Hermeneutics concerns itself with the method and mode of interpreting, explaining, and applying the meaning and the understanding of words found in sacred scripture.

    There are many hermeneutical methods and each has its own way of making intelligible the sense or meaning of scripture. It became apparent to me after a short period of time, that the students were experiencing some difficulty in understanding what I was saying. It wasn’t the content of what I was saying, but rather it was my accent, my California accent. And not only that, I was speaking too fast. Now I have been teaching since 1970, mostly at the collegiate level. However since 1994, I have been an itinerate preacher and teacher offering courses in adult education. Needless to say I stopped the class and inquired, “Am I going too fast?” They laughed and asked me slow down. By the end of the day I was cruising at the appropriate speed. But as I was soon to find out, that was only part of the problem.

    The next day I began to explain the Jewish notion of kosher and how it related to the teachings of Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus changes the classical laws concerning ritualistic purity by stating in verse 7:15, “there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defiles him ... thus he declared all foods clean.” I explained that for the Semite, the world was composed of two distinct categorical realities: things you could taste, touch, and handle and those you could not. This referred to people, places, and things. For example, blood is an arch defiling substance and as stated in the Book of Leviticus, blood should never be eaten. Leviticus 17:14 states “for the life of every creature is the blood of it; therefore I have said to the people of Israel you shall not eat blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off.” Jesus changes this dietary teaching by declaring all foods to be clean.

    At this point one of the novices raised her hand and asked, “Why blood and not cabbage?” When I heard the question, I thought to myself, “What in heaven’s name is she talking about?” Maybe I didn’t hear her correctly, or perhaps it was my accent acting up again. So I asked her to explain what she meant by her question. She told me very clearly that in some African cultures it is vegetation, not blood, that is the source of life for every creature. “Why does it have to be blood? We all eat plants don’t we? Cabbage for us is the source of life.” I immediately thought to myself, welcome to Africa.

    This is a perfect example of what the anthropologist calls the “etic” and “emic” of society. These two terms refer to the correct use of words or concepts that one society has in understanding the words and concepts of another. For example, is shepherd to sheep in Mid-Eastern society the same as Eskimo to seal in First Nation society? Do the terms equivocate, that is having two or more significations capable of double interpretation? This is similar to what the biblical theologian calls the referential fallacy, that is attributing the same meaning, value, or signification of a passage of scripture to another passage but coming from a completely different time or theological context. To put it simply, is the Judaism we experience today in our society the same form of Judaism that Jesus experienced? The answer is no. There are similarities of course, but not one-to-one identification. The comparison is only by way of analogy.

    And so it is with cabbage and blood. This is a typical example of a hermeneutical problem. How does a North American explain the God of Israel to African nations? To be sure, our God is a God for all peoples, nations, and lands. That is why the Church is called to evangelize in a way that respects cultural integrity while at the same time retains the authenticity of the gospel.

    This cabbage and blood question embodies the very reason why the Church embraces many modes of expressing the truth of its teaching.

    As I finished that first week of class and then went on to teach the Gospel of Mark to the Dominican Nuns at Karen, I found myself once again teaching a Jewish gospel in an African setting. It was and is a challenge – a wonderful challenge.