The Prophet Jeremiah and African-American Maternity in the USA: A Conversation with Dr. Jaime L. Waters

This is the twenty-first episode of  the second season of What Matters Most, featuring Dr. Jaime L. Waters of Boston College, an Associate Professor of Old Testament and Program Director of Courage to Preach.  I met Jaime in person last summer in Omaha, Nebraska at the Catholic Biblical Association meetings and we bonded over biblical studies, a shared run as authors of the Word, the scripture column at America Magazine, and a shared anxiety about getting to the airport in time. Basically, it’s never too early.  

Dr. Waters is a native Philadelphian and alumna of Boston College (BA, Theology and Philosophy), with graduate degrees from Yale Divinity School (MA, Religion) and Johns Hopkins University (MA, PhD, Near Eastern Studies). Before joining the Boston College faculty, Dr. Waters taught for nine years in the department of Catholic Studies at DePaul University.

She also spoke of her love of Jeremiah and some of the imagery of animal suffering, which evoked her own interest in ecological hermeneutics, the environment and the non -human characters in the biblical texts. But also, her discussion of the relevance of Jeremiah for African  American women, especially the passages that talk about the suffering of childbirth, the pain and anguish associated with it, and how many African American women in the US suffer from inadequate medical care, which is not about not having resources or access to care, but whose experience is not being listened to. As she said, her keynote paper at the CBA was a way of developing her own feminist and womanist kinds of ways of reading the Bible. We will certainly hear more on this as Dr. Waters is currently working on a commentary on the book of Jeremiah for the Wisdom Commentary Series (Liturgical Press), as well as a book on methods of biblical interpretation (Baker Academic). 

She also wrote “The Word” column in America: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture, 2019-2022, which we discussed in the episode, and you can find her work online at America magazine on the link above.

If you want to dig into more of Dr. Waters work, click on the link to her Boston College webpage here and you will find some of the writings listed below:

“A Biblical Model of Love.” Pages 73-80 in Fratelli Tutti: A Global Commentary. Studies in World Catholicism 13. Edited by William T. Cavanaugh, Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez, OP, Ikenna Ugochukwu Okafor, and Daniel Franklin E. Pilario, CM. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2024.

“Prophetic Tenacity.” Pages 62-74 in Do Black Lives Matter?: How the Christian Scriptures Speak to Black Empowerment. Edited by Lisa M. Bowens and Dennis R. Edwards. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2023.

“Pain and Provocation: A Social-Scientific Reading of Jeremiah 15.” Pages 127-135 in A Sage in New Haven: Essays on the Prophets, the Writings, and the Ancient World in Honor of Robert R. Wilson. Edited by Alison Acker Gruseke and Carolyn J. Sharp. Ägypten und Altes Testament, Band 117. Münster: Zaphon, 2023.

What Does the Bible Say About Animals? Hyde Park: New City Press, 2022.

Threshing Floors in Ancient Israel: Their Ritual and Symbolic Significance. Emerging Scholars Series. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015.

Before moving on, I mentioned my old colleague Arthur Kennedy, a bishop in Boston – imagine that a Kennedy in Boston - and in 2006 Cardinal O’Malley asked him to return to Boston and appointed him as Rector of St. John’s Seminary where he remained until 2012. On June 30, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston. He was ordained to the episcopal office on September 14, 2010 at Holy Cross Cathedral. 

What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation.  This is a podcast about big questions, about big issues, about what matters most to people, what’s important to you, what gets you up out of bed in the morning or keeps you up late at night wondering. We are looking at these big questions and big issues through the lens of individual stories and individual lives. Religious traditions and institutions might be systems, ancient and modern, but people are people and religion lives in and through people. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors.

And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes:

Dr. Sara Parks of St. Francis Xavier University, where I hope to discuss many things, but definitely her excellent book Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus, Women in Q. if you have an opportunity to read it before she appears later this summer, please do. It’s excellent and I learned something new within the first five pages of starting it. Also check out her co-authored book with Shayna Sheinfeld,and Meredith J. C. Warren,  Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean, a recent winner of the 2023 Canadian Society of Biblical Studies Frank W. Beare Award.

As I mentioned in the last episode, there will be a hiatus of recording new episodes with guests at some point this summer, but we are going to get you new material all through the summer. On June 3rd, Father Nick Meisl will be interviewing me at the St. Mark’s library regarding a new study Bible I edited with Fr. Paul Turner called the Liturgy and Life Study Bible. It is a finalist for the Association of Catholic Publishers Excellence in Publishing Award for 2024 in the Resources in Liturgy category. It’s a Bible focused on worship within the bible and how the Bible is utilized in worship today. We will be taping the conversation and will have that available for you within a week or two of our conversation.

We will also be making available the keynote lectures from our Pope Francis conference from May 2023, featuring Massimo Faggioli, please don’t sue me, Emilce Cuda, who is so good, and Cathy Clifford, whose keynote Sam Rocha told me might have been the best lecture he had ever heard.  

Some upcoming events:

We will be having some new events starting in Fall of next year, including a joint presentation on September 13 on AI with regent College and VST. In October, date to be determined, we will have a webinar on the American election featuring Steve Millies and his new book, A Consistent Ethic of Life: Navigating Catholic Engagement with U.S. Politics. We will also have a Canadian respondent. Much more to come on Fall 2024 and other speakers!

Finally, the CCE is presenting a conference in 2025, The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future,  MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Please consider sending in a proposal for a paper. If you are a graduate student and we accept your proposal to present a paper, we will cover your conference registration fees and the cost of the conference banquet. You do not have to present a paper to come. You can purchase a conference pass and simply attend all of the sessions. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025.

Three Confirmed Plenary Speakers: 

Dr. Margaret MacDonald, St. Mary's University, Halifax

Dr. Samuel Rocha, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo, De Paul University, Chicago

What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation.

Thanks to Martin Strong, Kevin Eng, and Fang Fang Chandra for all of their help and support in crafting this and all the other episodes. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. In addition, the Cullen Family, Mark and Barbara, continue to support the work and outreach of the CCE, particularly in our lecture series. 

Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on Twitter @biblejunkies, or on Facebook, at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me or Ms. Fang Fang Chandra at cceconferences@stmarkscollege.ca. Let us know what you think.

I also want to thank people who have been rating the podcast. The ratings have grown in number and they remain at 5 stars. Thank you so much for your kind support. ask you to help out by letting people know about the podcast. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. You can also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. This lets people find the podcast more easily and lets people like you enjoy the work that we are doing. I think these are important and inspiring discussions and I would like people to have a chance to listen in! 

John W. Martens

Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC