While the calendar says that this is New Years day, for Christians, it’s still Christmas. January 6 marks the end of Christmastide with the celebration of Epiphany.  This is when we remember the visit of the Wise Men or Magi. Take a moment and re read Matthew’s account of the visit of the Wise Men. This is a familiar story yet we sometimes forget to appreciate its oddness and irony.

First, a little background on magi. The “wise men” or “magi” were astronomers and astrologers, most likely from Persia. While they had access to royalty, they themselves were not kings.  Magi claimed special insight and special abilities based on their studies. The powerful and the well to do consulted them. But at the same time, not everyone believed in their abilities. Some dismissed them as frauds. The Magi were neither universally acclaimed nor universally reviled, they had a liminal status. One didn’t necessarily dismiss them out of hand but neither did one want to whole heartedly believe them. Whatever Herod thought about the magi, their appearance was potentially troublesome for him.

It is also helpful to remember that it was not unusual in the ancient world for important persons from the “east” to travel to Jerusalem or Rome bringing gifts for rulers.  And many people believed that the birth of important persons were marked by the appearance of special phenomena in the sky.

Matthew’s story is odd and even funny in places. These learned astrologers skilled in the art of reading celestial signs follow the star to Jerusalem and then need to ask for directions. Even more oddly, they ask the current king where the new king is! “Oh King Herod, would you happen to know where your replacement is? “  Given Herod’s ruthless reputation, perhaps not the wisest thing these wise men ever did. Never the less, the magi did notice the star, (no one else seems to have noticed it), they traveled to find the person its appearance proclaims, and they recognized that worship was the appropriate response once they found the person.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the chief priests, the scribes and all of Herod’s court missed this sign? The religious elite know where the Messiah was to be born (v5-6)because Scripture tells them,  but the quest of the magi doesn’t prompt them to go look for the Messiah. They leave that to the magi. Verse 3 tells us they found the knowledge of the Messiah’s birth frightening.  Were they afraid of Herod’s response? Were they afraid of the status quo being shaken up? Were they afraid that they would lose status and power?  Perhaps they were too busy to be bothered. The text doesn’t say.

After the religious and political elite in Jerusalem have been notified of the Messiah’s birth by the magi, and after the magi receive help from those learned in the Scriptures, (odd how they each need the other for complete information, isn’t it?) the star reappears to finish its work. The magi, gentiles of dubious reputation,  find the Christ child and worship him.

Notice that this worship of the magi, which has both religious and political overtones, is odd and out of the ordinary. It doesn’t happen in Jerusalem in Herod’s court or in the Temple. This worship happens in little Bethlehem in a humble home.

 This is a story where the people who should have been seeking the Messiah don’t leave the comfort and security of their homes. The people who seek and find the Messiah are gentiles with shaky reputations. Jesus is just a baby and already he’s hanging out with the wrong sorts of people.

There is much more that can and should be written about this story. My goal today is to encourage us to appreciate the odd and interesting ways God is a work in the world.  Now that the holiday hoopla – in all its various guises- is over, it might be appropriate for us to read the story of Jesus birth again. Read it in the quiet of January, without the choirs, without the fanfare, without the festivities.  Not that there is anything wrong with choirs and fanfare and festivities, they are all quite nice and even appropriate ways to celebrate the birth of the Messiah. But the story ( and we its readers) also benefit from a quiet, careful reading, a reading that listens to the odd and amazing story of God.

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If you would like read more about the Magi and the Nativity stories here is a list of some resources:

 “Read More about it”

Here is a link to last year’s post on “The” star.  “Wondering about the Star of Wonder”

When you were young, did anyone ever tell you that animals can talk at midnight on Christmas? I don’t remember who told me, but I do remember looking expectantly at the family Dachshund for several years. For the record he never said anything, at least not in a human language.

A quick internet search didn’t find much about the origins of this legend. A little surprising and frustrating in this day of easy on-line research. But that does give us the space to speculate and theologize a bit.

There is a longing in children to talk with animals. What else explains the Doctor Dolittle stories? What else explains the long one sided talks with a patient dog or cat. ( Or horse or hamster)

I wonder if that longing isn’t the remnants of the memory of the way things were supposed to be. Somehow as children we know that our relationship with animals is not what is should be. A child should be able to put her hand near the asp. We should not flee from a bear or run from a lion. As children we long for the harmony that we know is missing from the world.

The missing harmony begins to be set right at Christmas. Long before we have the theological language to describe it we know that when Jesus is born, God come among us, the healing has begun. The Good News is here. At the birth of Jesus, the incarnation, heaven and earth are joined. Angels and shepherd sing. And legend suggests that the animals joined in praise. The world set right for a moment. 

The underlying assumption of the legend is that the animals know God and are in relationship with God. Until we get talked out of it, many of us start with the very Biblical assumption that all of creation, everything and everyone, can praise God.   Animals in their animal way praise God and on Christmas we humans may be given a glimpse of the reality of animals.

I’m a grown person now, well past the age of childhood dreams. But yet, I catch myself each Christmas looking at my cats and hoping this is the Christmas they speak. Hoping that this is the Christmas that the world is set right.   May it be so…

I wanted to think a bit today about what it means to call Jesus king. For those of us who observe the liturgical year, tomorrow is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year.   The gospel reading for Christ the King Sunday this year is John 18: 33-37.   

 ”King” is a difficult word for Christians in the US. We have a historical and cultural bias against kings. We don’t talk much about kings, at least not in a “nice” way. But once a year the liturgical calendar causes us to consider the “king” word. It is fortunate that Christ the King Sunday comes right before Advent when many of us begin singing carols to the “newborn king”. It is good for us to spend some time thinking about this king and  this king’s kingdom.

  We often get ourselves in trouble one of a couple of ways when we think about kings and kingdoms. We either overly spiritualizing Jesus’ kingdom or we assume that Jesus will rule as typical human kings rule with crushing power and might.

The passage in the Gospel According to John can be read in more than one way. Sometimes, depending on the translation, Jesus’ reply to Pilates question is “My kingdom is not of this world”.  People can interpret, “not of this world” to mean a sort of dualism. Jesus’ kingdom is spiritual and not part of the material world. Jesus doesn’t, and by extension Christians ought not to, concern himself overly with the things of this world. This earth is not where the kingdom is found or located.

The NRSV translates Jesus reply as “My kingdom is not from this world”. The “from” points us toward thinking about origins. We ask people, “Where are you from?” It’s not an idle question. The answer can tell us some important things. “I am from here” can suggest that you and I have some things in common- a shared local culture, perhaps a shared worldview, perhaps a shared history.  To answer ” I am not from here”, might serve to highlight distinctions. I might be defining myself  as different in some way. Where I am from can tell you some important things about me.

In Greek, the word in question here is “ek”  ( I have to apologize, I don’t know how to get Greek letters into WordPress.) It means “out of” or “by” and is used with the genitive case which describes or defines. Ek can have to do with place, with origin, source, or cause, or with time. ( My  Greek Lexicon has 3 pages of fairly small print concerning how the word “ek” is used, so my discussion here is not exhaustive. ) According to my lexicon, in John 18:36 the meaning has to do with origins. My kingdom is not of earthly origin.

I would like to suggest that Jesus is not talking about the present and/or future location of his kingdom but rather where his kingdom originates and therefor where his kingdom gets its values. Jesus goes on to clarify this  by telling Pilate that if his kingdom were like other kingdoms of the world, Jesus’ followers would be fighting for Jesus freedom. But behavior in Jesus’ kingdom is not typical kingdom behavior.

Jesus’ followers are not fighting because this world doesn’t matter. They are not fighting because they are living in this world by completely different rules. Where Jesus is from shapes the actions of Jesus and his followers.  Certainly the actions of Jesus’ life tell us that Jesus and his followers are living by another set of values.

Pilate has never encountered a king and a kingdom like this. The disciples have lived with this king and by these new values and they still find if difficult. Modern followers of Jesus have seen glimpses of this kingdom but it is so easy for us to get confused. We start thinking Jesus will be a king like any other great king, crushing opponents, ruling from a position of power, rewarding the faithful.  On the other hand, if we try hard to visualize what Jesus’ kingdom looks like,we have such difficulty that we can’t imagine how it can work in this world and we shift the kingdom into a spiritual realm.

But the reality is somewhere else. The kingdom is here, in this world operating with a completely different set of values. It’s tough to hold on to. It’s tough to see. It’s tough to live. It’s good to have “Christ the King” Sunday to remind us.

I’d like to know,what do you think?

This week, I am posting a sermon which I originally preached in 2003 at Parkville Presbyterian Church where I was a seminary student intern.

Hebrew Bible lesson, Ruth 1:1-18

New Testament lesson, Mark 12:28-34

Ruth is moving to a new town, actually a new country.

 It can be hard to move, even if you’re looking forward to the move. It’s hard to leave friends and familiar routines. When you get to the new town, you have to find a place to live, you have to find a new grocery store and you have to find where they keep the chocolate milk in the new store. You have to find a new gas station. You have to figure out which day is trash day. You hope you can find a new pediatrician before one of the kids gets sick. There are a thousand things that you did in your old home that you have to do in your new home but they’re all different and difficult because you are in a new place. Even if you are excited about the move, the actual moving and resettling is hard and stressful. Most of us don’t move for the “fun” of it, we move for a reason. A new job, to be closer to family, a better climate; lots of reasons, but we have a reason. So why did Ruth move? Why does Ruth follow Naomi? It’s not because Naomi was begging her to come along. In fact, Naomi gives Ruth every reason not to come.

     In their culture to be a widow and childless is to be in a precarious position. Women had no inheritance rights. Their security was found in their husbands and children. Think of other Bible stories about widows. I can’t think of one who is not in dire straits. Naomi is widowed, childless and she is living in a foreign land. Her situation could not be much worse. So she decides to return home. Her daughters in law want to come with her. Naomi reminds them, she is not going to marry again. She is not going to have more sons. None of the means available to women in her time for personal security will exist for her.

Naomi has nothing to offer Orpah and Ruth, she cannot offer them well being. Their best option is to return to their mother’s homes. There, perhaps, another marriage can be arraigned and their future secured. Orpah is obedient to her mother in law, as their culture expected her to be. And although she was sad, reluctantly she went home. But Ruth is not obedient; she does not follow society’s expectation. She does not obey her mother in law. Instead Ruth declares her loyalty to Naomi,

“Where you will go, I will go,

where you lodge, I will lodge,

your people shall be my people,

and your God, my God

Where you die, I will die- there I will be buried”

     Ruth has just proclaimed her intention to radically change her life. She will live with Naomi, even though Naomi has just told her there is no future for them together. But why?

   She will change her homeland and cultural identity. But why? She is a Moabite and the Moabites have historically been Israel’s enemy. Remember in Deuteronomy, Moabite men are excluded from the congregation because the Moabites denied food and water to the Israelites during the Exodus. The king of Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel. The Moabites have been one of the oppressors of Israel. Ruth may be willing to make the Israelites her people. But will they accept her?

    She will worship Naomi’s God.  But why? She can’t just add the Lord to the Moabite gods she grew up with. She must renounce her gods and her faith. She cannot worship them and God. She must worship only the one God of Israel.

    She will be buried with Naomi. But why? In their time it was very important to be buried in ones’ homeland. Remember Jacob’s request to be returned home from Egypt after he died? And Joseph takes his remains home. And before Joseph dies he also requests to be returned home. And the Israelites take his remains home.

     Ruth’s commitment is, when you think about it, extraordinary. The Rabbis’ place Ruth alongside Abraham for her decision to follow. And they point out that Ruth, unlike Abraham, does not have a direct revelation from God. Ruth in Jewish tradition is the ideal convert. But why? Why does Ruth make such a drastic conversion ?

Why does she follow Naomi?  Is it something about Naomi?

  It’s certainly not that Naomi is perfect. She’s not a one dimensional, too holy to be real character. After Ruth declares her intention to journey with Naomi, the text tells us Naomi, “said no more.” Now it could be that Naomi has simply accepted Ruth’s decision to come along, but some scholars suggest that Naomi is mad, so mad she stops talking to Ruth. They think that Naomi knew it would be hard enough to return home widowed and childless, after being gone ten years and now she has a Moabite widow tagging along with her.

 And when Naomi returns home and is greeted by her friends, you can hear her pain,

“Call me Mara, (call me bitter),

for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me,

I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty;

why call me Naomi when the Lord has dealt harshly with me

and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

      So why does Ruth follow Naomi?

 Is it something about Naomi? I think it is.

Ruth lived with and observed Naomi for at least ten years. Ruth saw Naomi’s actions day in and day out, in good times and in bad. Ruth saw Naomi lose her husband and all her children. After these losses, Naomi feels she must send the rest of her family, her daughters in law, away. But even as she tries to send them away, Ruth hears Naomi entrust them to God and ask God’s blessing on them.

     What an amazing person Naomi must have been. I think Ruth was able to convert, to give up her people, her homeland and her gods because of the faithfulness, the loving kindness she saw day after day, year after year in Naomi’s life. The loving kindness. The Hebrew word is Hesed. It means loving kindness but it means more. Hesed is a kind of steadfastness, a loyalty. It is to care for another with whom you are in relationship. It’s a care that goes beyond what is expected or required. Hesed is frequently used in the Bible to describe God’s acts of mercy and grace.  It is an attribute, a characteristic of God. It’s an extraordinary commitment.

     Actually this little Book of Ruth, its only four chapters, is full of people performing acts of loving kindness and loyalty. After Ruth and Naomi return to Bethlehem, Ruth goes to glean or gather grain in the barley harvest. As it turns out she gleans in the field of Naomi’s kinsman, Boaz. Boaz notices Ruth and after learning who she is, he ensures she is able to gather enough grain. He instructs his harvesters to leave a little extra for Ruth. Boaz and Ruth end up getting married. They have a son, Obed. And Obed becomes the father of Jesse. And Jesse becomes the father of David. Who becomes King of Israel. The story is a wonderful tangle of relationships, each person caring for the other. Ruth for Naomi, Naomi for Ruth. Boaz for Ruth. Naomi for Boaz and on and on. And through it all God is working through regular people, day after day, year after year. It’s a nice story, with a happy ending.

      But, this story raises an uncomfortable question for me. If someone watched my life, or your life, and they are watching, if someone was watching my life, would they see in me the faithfulness, the Hesed, that Ruth saw in Naomi?

     I can think of people I have known who were like Naomi. All Saint’s Day is an appropriate time to recall those faithful people we have known. I remember my father in law, Walter Lloyd Jones. He pushed his church, a large middle class church in a changing downtown, to feed homeless people on Sunday mornings because other food programs didn’t operate on weekends. So First Presbyterian Church of Flint, Michigan offered Sunday morning breakfast to the homeless and my father in law invited them to church too. He also devoted his latter years to a jail ministry, and in spite of painful arthritis and a failing heart, he went to the county jail twice a week because he cared about the prisoners and what would happen to them.  We can be thankful for the witness of his life and of so many others like him.

     Perhaps you can think of others who live faithful lives. Like the kindergarten teacher who daily loves a roomful of wiggly five year olds and helps them discover how wonderful it is to learn. The neighbor who shovels your sidewalk just because he was outside first. The receptionist who is patient with a customer who is confused. The desk clerk who is kind to an angry person and tries to solve a problem she didn’t create.

     If someone was watching my life, would they see in me the faithfulness Ruth saw in Naomi. When things get difficult at work, the boss is unfair, or the workload escalates what do my co-workers see?  When the line is long and the service poor and the store is too hot, what do the people around me see? When it’s those difficult couple of hours in the late afternoon, the kids are home, and they’re hungry and tired. Its time to start dinner and homework and then the juice gets spilled. What do my children see?

     In the gospel lesson today, Jesus tells us we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength and to love our neighbor as our self. It seems to me that must have been what Naomi did; love God and neighbor even as she lived as a stranger in a foreign land, even when she lost those most dear to her. Ruth must have seen the loving kindness of God in Naomi’s life.

          For us as Christians, in a sense; Jesus is our Naomi. Jesus is the one who shows us how to live. Jesus is the one we are to follow, the One for whom we forsake the false gods of our culture. Jesus is the one who calls us to live as strangers even in our own land. As Naomi and Ruth walked home to Bethlehem together, Jesus walks with us. And even death does not separate us.  For some people, the only way they are going to meet Jesus is through you and me. If someone were watching my life, who would they see?  

     The One who is truly God and also truly human shows us how to be most truly and fully human. As Ruth looked to Naomi and followed, will we – day in and day out, in good time and in hard times- will we look to Jesus and follow him?

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Two notes:

A quite belated thank you to the people of Parkville Presbyterian Church for all your kindness. They were ( and I’m sure still are) a wonderful church, welcoming and encouraging myself and other seminary students.

I’m giving a presentation tomorrow afternoon( Humans, Animals, and God: Rethinking Creation) at the Midwest Popular Culture/American Culture Association Annual meeting in Detroit. If you are going to be there too, please introduce yourself. I’d like to meet you.

I spent the day yesterday at the Interfaith Dialogue Conference, sponsored by Grand Valley State University and the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. The link above will take you to the GVSU site, the Kaufman Institute and the conference site. Yesterday’s talks are not yet available on line (as of Friday, October 16, 2009) but the talks from 2006 are and are well worth your while.

One of the speakers, Donniel Hartman, made in interesting observation. He commented that God appears to care about what we humans think about God. We are prohibited from profaning the name of God. Hartman asked how can it be that the Creator of the Universe cares what we think? It is, he says, an absurd idea. Why should this matter to God?

It’s a question we might forget to ask. Those of us in the Abrahamic traditions have our Scriptures which we believe are God’s revelation to us. The idea that God reveals God’s self to us and that our response matters to God is part and parcel of our faith. That familiarity doesn’t mean the idea should go unexamined.

This concept that  God’s reputation matters shows up in the Bible. Here are a couple of examples, you may add your own -and please do.

Psalm 115:1-2 

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” 

In Psalm 74 a defeated Israel asks, “How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? How long, Is the enemy to revile your name forever?” (v10-11).

When the people make the golden calf after the escape from Egypt, God is angry and tells Moses,

“Now let me alone,so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”  But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought our of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to the, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the starts of heaven, and al this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” (Exodus 32:10-14)

So it seems to matter to God what people think. At least Moses thinks God’s reputation is important. Otherwise why would he bring it up? And this line of reasoning works, God does not destroy the people who will become Israel.

 Why does what we think matter to God? And it’s not only what believers think but what the neighbors, the non believers think. And not only non believers think but  what the enemies think.  Why does God care what his enemies think? I don’t know.  Even though I don’t know why this is so, this does tell us something important about God. For reasons known only to God what we think, no matter who we are,  matters to God.

 Now I know for many of you this seems incredibly obvious.  We matter to God. But why is there anything about us that is even remotely interesting to God? It’s amazing. We ought to be walking abound all day stunned by this revelation.

But as is our human inclination, we take God’s interest in us as our due. Of course God cares about what we think- how could God not find us fascinating and wonderful? We’re simply the most wonderful things ever made, right?

Even if we are the most wonderful thing ever made, or one of many wonderful things God made, the reality that God desires to be in a relationship with us is still astounding.

On at least one level, the fact that God cares what we think about God implies that the relationship with humans is important to God. And of course, if it’s important to God it should be important to us.

Relationships matter to God. Our relationship with God matters.  

God cares about the relationship with Israel and with Israel’s enemies. So we should care about our relationships with our “Israel”, our families, neighbors, fellow citizens and  also with our enemies.

God cares what people think about him. I don’t think this is because God is worried that people won’t like him.  God is concerned that people know the true God, the God of Covenant faithfulness, the God who stands by Israel through thick and thin. God wants to be honestly and truthfully known. That is important for us as well. For us to be concerned about what people think about us doesn’t mean we should try to be someone we are not, but rather we should be concerned that we are known as a person of faith.  A person of faith for whom honest and caring relationships matter.

Why does God care what we think about God?  A mystery but a joyous one.

I’d like to know, what do you think?

Earlier this week at Jesus Creed, the topic was Biblical authority and the historical reliability of the Bible.  ( by the way, the Jesus Creed post-God, Science, and Evolution is worth a read as well). 

These sorts of discussion always cause me to wonder why some of us  Christians are so insistent that Scripture conform to society’s standards, in particular standards about historical and scientific reliability.  The problem is that usually when we’re talking about the historical and scientific reliability of the Bible, we’re using concepts that modern historians and scientists no longer affirm and use.

I’m no historian, but to the best of my knowledge, historians now understand that the worldview and culture of the person writing history affects how the history is written. So if we are reading a history of colonial India written by an English colonist, we’ll learn a different story than if we read about colonial India from the perspective of an Indian.The idea that there is one correct version is history is, well, history.  When people are discussing the historical accuracy of the Bible, we ought to ask, whose version of history are we talking about?

If Egyptian records do not mention the Exodus, does that mean it didn’t happen? Or does it mean that Egyptian historians decided the event was not worth recording? Or that it was too embarrassing to record? Or too politically dangerous to record?

In some regards we are back to the perennial question, “what is truth?” and can we ever really know  what truth is? But for today perhaps our question could be phrased, ” Is history the best and final authority on what is true?”

Now, please note, I’m not saying the Bible is fiction. There are historically accurate events recorded in Scripture. On the other hand, not everything presented in a historical fashion is historically correct in every detail.

But does historical accuracy really say anything about the trustworthiness of the Bible? Only if you reduce truth to facts.

It seems to me that Christians have unwittingly accepted a small definition of truth.  Truth has become what is historically or scientifically verifiable.  But don’t we find truth in other places?  Can truth be found in beauty?  In art? In music? Can truth be found in relationship? In community? Is there truth in love that cannot be described or quantified by history and science?

It is important to understand where the Bible is historically accurate and where it is not. It is important to think about why Biblical authors made the decision to tell the stories in the way they did. It is important to think about why certain stories have been handed down for centuries.

By the way, an insistence on the primacy of the historical and scientific accuracy of the Bible is a relatively modern phenomenon. The Church has never restricted itself to only a historical or literal reading of Scripture. Even the apostle Paul writes that the story of Hagar and Sarah is an allegory (Gal 4:22-27).

The “either or” argument – either the Bible is entirely true or it is all false- has never made much sense to me. If we can’t prove Baalam’s donkey really talked, the entire Bible is untrue? That just seems illogical to me. We know that there are a variety of writing genres in Scripture.  My hunch is, that ancient people realized, better than we, that Truth is too complex to be confined to historical facts.  If you have ever cried over the ending of a novel, you know that’s true.

I want to suggest we have let our understanding of  truth become too small. We have forced truth into the small boxes of history and science. Scripture is about more that history and science.  The stories in the Bible, the historical and all the rest, are about relationship. The relationship between God and people. This relationship is found in historical accounts. But the story of this relationship is also told truthfully in poetry and song, in parable and in prophecy.

I wonder if we lessened our desire for the truth of historical accuracy and strengthened our desire for  the truth of  a relationship with God -the relationship the Bible tells us about, how would our lives change?

I’d like to know, what do you think?

One of the commentors from last week posed this thought,

…but I have to say I don’t believe “original sin” can possibly mean different things to a theologian and other Christians who study God’s Word. If so, and if only theologians are capable of thinking rightly on this key doctrine, God’s Word is not fully effective for the laity. This is contrary to everything Luther taught–and I can’t believe Calvin thought otherwise, either. Perhaps you’re saying the theologian has more terms available.

We have an interesting situation don’t we? Our tendency as people (myself very much included) is to look for the one correct interpretation. We Christians certainly do this with the Bible. It appears to me that Muslims and Jews have similar debates over interpretation. Scientists debate the correctness of various hypothesis. We want to know. We want to make sense of the world and our experiences in it. We want to understand.

And of course, we each want to be right.

So how can serious and sincere students of Scripture come to different conclusions? We know it happens. You don’t have to spend much time in Bible study before you will hear someone say, “Well I always thought Paul meant …. when he said …”. Almost without fail someone else will say, ” Really? I was taught that when Paul wrote ….. he meant ……”

What do we do with this? How do we know what the correct interpretation is? How can we be sure that we are “thinking rightly”? Which interpretation does God prefer?

For some of us, the idea that there might be more than one plausible interpretation to a particular portion of scripture is troubling. We can become anxious about the correctness of our beliefs. Most sadly, we can divide ourselves into groups based on our differences. I would like to suggest that we don’t need to be overly troubled by this.

Just to clarify: I am not saying that every possible interpretation of a particular Biblical passage is correct.  I am suggesting that more than one interpretation may be valid and faithful. I also am not saying that appropriate Biblical interpretation rests solely on our personal preferences and beliefs. However our particular life situations shape the ways we respond to the Biblical text. I am also not saying that we can never know what God intended a particular passage to communicate to us.  I want to be clear, I am not saying that we can know nothing concretely about God and that religious faith is nothing more than personal opinion. On the other hand, we cannot know and understand everything, there are limits to what God reveals and to what we are capable of understanding.

So with those caveats out-of-the-way, some thoughts about why we don’t need to be overly upset about differing Biblical interpretations.

It seems to me that we should acknowledge and appreciate the richness and complexity of the Bible. The interactions between the individuals in any particular part of scripture, the human author(s), the Holy Spirit, and later readers are complex. There are also social and cultural differences that must be recognized.  This can account for a variety of readings but that doesn’t necessarily support the idea that there may be more than one plausible and faithful interpretation.

We also know, if we have lived long enough, that our interpretation of what we thought a particular story or parable was about when we were 20 might be different by the time we are 50.  Does that mean that what we understood at 20 was wrong? Or is what we think at 50 wrong?  Can they both be right?  How do we know?

I want to suggest four things today- and this certainly won’t exhaust the topic.

First, God is complex, more complex than we can imagine. As finite human beings our ability to understand God is limited. As we change and grow, our ability to understand God changes and grows.  To paraphrase Saint Paul, we only see in part.  You and I each bring different experiences, different personalities, different abilities to understand to the same complex God. Perhaps rather than obsess on our differences, we should be more amazed and grateful that there are areas where we agree!

Which brings me to a recurring theme on this blog, humility. While it is good and important to search for truth, humility about our conclusions is also good and important. It’s tough to balance proper humility with proper certainty.

The third piece to the puzzle of interpretation is community. We don’t have to figure everything out by ourselves. There is certainly reading and thinking that needs to be done by each of us, individually. But the community of faith can and should help us. The community of faith includes people we know, the authors and commentators we read and listen to, and the historic teaching of the Church.  We are shaped by this community and we each help shape the community. It’s a huge web of ideas and conversations extending all around us. It can be difficult to make sense of things when we are in the midst of multiple conversations. Like sausage making, the process isn’t pretty. But slowly and gradually we gain understanding as individuals and as the Church.

In the end, it comes down to our trusting relationship with God. God is present in all these conversations. God is present in the middle of the variety of voices.  It seems to me that it’s not so much about being correct as it is about being faithful.  Faithfulness in Biblical interpretation is the process of continuing to study, continuing to learn, continuing to listen. We won’t always be right. Sometimes, we won’t even be close. But we can know that God is always with us. Anselm gave us a phrase that’s helpful, faith seeking understanding. He got the order right, I think. First faith, second seeking, and lastly understanding. 

I’d like to know, what do you think?

For some Christians part of their difficulty in accepting evolution is that in evolution death and violence occur in creation before the appearance of  humans and what Christians call “the Fall”. In some classical accounts of the Fall  the pre fall world is a place without death and without suffering. Death enters the world because of and as a consequence of the actions of Adam and Eve. 

I think  there is a problem with this notion of a sinless, perfect pre fall world. Even a literal reading of Genesis 3 doesn’t appear to support this. What’s the problem? The serpent. The serpent, made by God (v1), who exists in pre fall Eden.

Take a moment and re read the story. It’s a rich and wonderful story full of divine wisdom and truth about the human condition.  But the text doesn’t explain how sin entered the world, it assumes that it is present. For the Genesis writer, the serpent simply exists. It is part of creation. There is no explanation about why the serpent acts the way it does. There is no explanation about why Eve and Adam listen to the serpent.  Notice in the text that the presence of a talking serpent doesn’t seem to surprise Eve. She carries on a conversation with the serpent as if that were a normal occurance.

The Bible assumes many things. For example Genesis one doesn’t  explain the existence of God. The Scripture assumes God exists. The Bible also doesn’t explain some things. Like how sin entered the world. Or why evil exists. As John Calvin and others have noted, God doesn’t explain everything to us. Some things are beyond our comprehension.  But we humans like to try to fill in the gaps.  We need to be careful, as we all know, when we read the Bible that we read it carefully with attention to the culture of the original audience and with the awareness that our reading is shaped by 2000 years of Christian theology- some of that theology better than other. 

As I read the story, it seems to me that unless Adam and Even knew what death was, the consequence of eating the forbidden fruit is unintelligible to them. If you don’t know what death is, how can death be an effective deterrent? Also notice Genesis 3: 22ff. Human mortality is assumed here. Human kind must be stopped from eating from the tree of life and thus living forever.  The Biblical text does not assume that pre fall humanity never died.

Is the story about Original Sin? Of course. But remember “original”  doesn’t mean the first sin. When theologians talk about original sin they  mean the universality of sin. Original sin refers to the inescapable nature of sin. Genesis 3 has much to say about sin and how sin works in the world – it’s out there, it can be difficult to recognize, it can sound reasonable and sin has tragic, far reaching and unexpected consequences.

Is this story about the Fall?  Yes, the Fall as a description of  the human condition. Estranged from God. Deciding not to trust God but rather deciding to trust the things of the world.  It’s a story about the human inclination to idolatry, putting something (in this case the word of the serpent) ahead of God.

Genesis 3, like the first two chapters of Genesis is a text full of meaning. Christians and Jews have spent millenia pondering this text. We could spend weeks on Genesis chapter 3, it is that rich and complex.  I only focused on a small part of the storyhere- carefully and faithfully I hope.  

So that objection to evolution, that there originally was a perfect pre fall Eden free of death well, I have trouble finding that in Genesis.  Perhaps we can  give that up. In fact let’s give up trying to read Genesis 1-3 as science altogether. It simply doesn’t work. As I have said before and will probably say again, to change our interpretation of the text  is not to claim the text is wrong or untrustworthy or untrue. To change our interpretation of the text is to admit we are human and need to grow and develop and sometimes that means we need to rethink the way we interpret a part of the Bible.

I’d like to know, what do you think?

There are lots of “difficult” texts in the Bible. Some of them are there to make us uncomfortable. Some of them are there to challenge us. Others are more baffling. Take the story of the syrophoenician woman in Matthew and Mark.  You can read the Matthew’s story here.  Jesus appears in this story to be unusually harsh.  Jesus sometimes has harsh words for people but typically his harshest words are directed toward religious insiders- the first century CE equivalent of “good church folk”. Normally Jesus is pretty nice to folks outside religious and cultural boundaries.  But not here, at least initially.

Biblical commentators often end up putting themselves through some fairly strenuous exegetical gymnastics over this story because it seems so out of character for Jesus. Several years ago I read a book about humor in the Bible , (sorry I can’t remember the name or author) where the author suggested that in this story Jesus was speaking ironically or sarcastically. Perhaps he was making fun of  a  common saying of the time.  There is a simplicity to  this idea that is attractive. Try reading the story again with this in mind and see if it makes a difference for you.

The Bible doesn’t give us the reading cues we are used to. We don’t have phrases such as,  he sneared, they giggled, he smiled wryly, she lifted an eyebrow questioningly.  We have an interpretive dilemma.  How did Jesus or anyone else in the Bible say what they said?  Those reading cues matter.   The phrase, “That’s great.” can mean something is really wonderful or… not.

If you are of a certain age, you may “hear” a Cecil B. DeMile/ Charleton Heston sort of voice when you read the Bible. Or you may imagine , courtesy of a bad religious painting you saw somewhere,   a serious Jesus with a holy expression on his face  sternly saying “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” (Luke18:16ff)   But maybe Jesus was down on one knee,waving his arms, winking at the kids and laughing when he said that.

As you know, stories in the Bible began as part of an oral tradition. This means that people told the stories to each other. Sometimes when I’m reading something from the Old Testament I imagine being around a campfire, or at bedtime and hearing someone ask, “Tell me the story of…. Moses and Pharoah,  Joseph and his coat, Abraham and Isaac.” “ Tell about how our ancestors wondered in the wilderness.” ” Tell us the story of  the Manna.”

It is our family history, right?  The old family stories we tell each other passed on from generation to generation. Like every family’s stories, some are serious, some scary and some are funny. 

Taking the Bible seriously is not the same as reading it seriously. Humor can be an effective way to make one’s point. If you can lose the Charlton Heston voice in your head, the story is Jonah is quite funny.

So is the story of the call of Samuel.  God calls. Samuel thinks its Eli and runs to him, waking him up. Samuel wakes Eli up three times before Eli figures out what’s going on. If you have ever been awakened by a child several times in one night, you get the joke.

So I wonder, what stories do we misread or misunderstand because we don’t let the story be funny or ironic?

I’d like to know what do you think.

The binding of Isaac. The Akedah. The testing of Abraham. No matter what you call it, this story found in Genesis 22:1-19 is difficult and disturbing. It’s one of the Biblical stories that everyone “knows”, even if they have never read the Bible. You can read the story here. My purpose today isn’t to offer a complex and full discussion of the binding of Isaac. My purpose today is to think about what to “do” with such difficult stories.

No matter how many times I read and re read this story, it remains a difficult text for me.  The story itself is simply and sparingly told, but what the story has to tell us is complex. There is no simple lesson from this simply told tale. I have discussed it in various study group settings. I have read many Jewish and Christian commentaries on this text. I think I have a sufficiently complex understanding of this text. Yet every time I read this story, it’s emotional impact is like  reading it for the first time. I suspect this is the experience of many people with this text. We never become comfortable with this story.

That bothered me for a long time- the reality that I would never become comfortable with this story. I thought I should be able to, once I had studied it, read this story without being disturbed by it. But  it upsets me every time I read it. I simply don’t like this story. 

And that’s all right.

It’s all right to say I don’t like this story.

It’s all right for a Biblical text to be upsetting.

Sometimes Christians think that we need to like every story in Scripture. We also sometimes think that every Biblical text ought to be uplifting and edifying and inspiring- chock full of feel good timeless truths.

But that’s not what we have in the Bible. And I think it’s OK to say so.

What’s not OK is to ignore the text, or trivialize it, or sanitize it.  Not everything in the Bible is there to make us feel good, or happy or special. You may have heard the saying that the purpose of preaching is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Well, I think that holds true for the Bible also.

The binding of Isaac is surely a story to afflict the comfortable. It afflicts those of us who think we understand God. It afflicts those of us who have a comfortable faith. It afflicts those of us who think we already give God everything. It afflicts those of us who like our faith and “our” God tidy and proper.

The binding of Isaac, the testing of Abraham, this story  is a persistently difficult text, it raises uncomfortable questions, it confronts us every time we dare to read it. My hunch is that’s exactly what the story is supposed to do.

I’d like to know, what do you think? 

 *****

Two additional comments of a more practical nature concerning difficult texts.

You don’t have to wrestle with difficult texts, or any Bible story alone. We are fortunate today to have many good Bible commentaries available to us. They are written to help us, so take advantage of the wealth of information available. In addition, reading and discussing the Bible with a small group of people is helpful and important. Biblical interpretation has always been a group effort, please make the effort to find a group you can be part of.

Sometimes because of our particular personal situations, certain Bible stories just too difficult or painful to read.  There were several years I simply couldn’t read this story. In some situations, it is appropriate to leave a particular story unread.