Emmock's Blog

bible blog 647

emmock — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:24:22 +0000

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

Parish Priest caught out “making a retreat” on Costa Concordia

Genesis 17:15-27

15 God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.¹⁶I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.’¹⁷Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’¹⁸And Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in your sight!’¹⁹God said, ‘No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac.^* I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.²⁰As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.²¹But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year.’²²And when he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.

John 6:1-15

Feeding the Five Thousand

6After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.^* ²A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.³Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples.⁴Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.⁵When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’⁶He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.⁷Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages^* would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’⁸One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,⁹‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’¹⁰Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they^* sat down, about five thousand in all.¹¹Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.¹²When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’¹³So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.¹⁴When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’

15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

We’re presented with impossible things in thse stories: a aged woman with an aged husband is to conceive his child; and 5000 people are fed with five loaves and two fish. What is the storytellers’ point in recounting miracles, since after all, faith is not a matter of just believing anything we’re told? In both cases, the reader is invited to see that trust in One who is beyond all understanding, is fruitful here and now within history. Abraham and Sarah have shown this trust by leaving their own land on a journey to a new home. They have remained fruitful as a individuals and as a couple, and almost against their own wills are prepared to trust in the humanly laughable idea of having a child, who will be called “laughter” (Isaac). The miracle is an expression of God’s “beyondness” in their lives.

The same is true of the feeding of the 5000. The reader is warned that what Jesus will do is in some way a replacement for the Passover, the feast of liberation. Jesus trusts that the people will be nourished by what his disciples have been given by a child. The people are drawn to Jesus by their trust that he is their true king or shepherd. The insistence on the importance of grass is a hint that the 23rd Psalam is to be remembered. “The Lord is ny shepherd, I shall not want. he makes me lie down in green pastures….. he has prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies…” Through the leadership of Jesus and the trust of the crowd, God’s “beyondness” enters their lives and they are all fed. But they misplace their trust, thinking that Jesus is a Messiah to be installed by violence, instead of recognising God’s rule which cannot be co-opted for political programmes.

an ordinary miracle: blackbird at sunset

Of course in another sense these miracles are quite ordinary: giving birth and feeding people are common enough occurrences. The Bible encourages us to experience the miraculous in ordinary events; to know in our trust and in our doubting where the beyondness of God has been present to us. We can never prove such experiences to others nor should we use them for any worldly advantage: they are tokens of God’s companionship (*companion, from the Latin, literally, ”One who shares bread”).

bible blog 646

emmock — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:14:39 +0000

This blog provides a meditation on te Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

PRESIDENT EMBRACES SENATOR SHOT LAST YEAR

Genesis 17:1-17:14

17When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.²And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.’³Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him,⁴‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.⁵No longer shall your name be Abram,^* but your name shall be Abraham;^* for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.⁶I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.⁷I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring^* after you.⁸And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.’

9 God said to Abraham, ‘As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.¹⁰This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.¹¹You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.¹²Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.¹³Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant.¹⁴Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.’

God introduces himself to Abram as El Shaddai, an ancient name, and gives Abram (Exalted father) a new name Abraham (here, Father of a multitude). The author is emphasising the almost official courtesy of God’s approach as well as his power ion giving names. “Walk before me and be blameless” may mean that it’s OK for Abraham to be in God’s presence, or it may be a command to walk always in God’s presence and to avoid blameworthy actions. The Covenant has no “ethical” component, unlike the Mosaic covenant. Abraham and his descendants are to recognise that they belong to God; and the sign of their belonging will be the circumcision of males. We know this custom predates the period of Abraham and was used by many different peoples. Amongst Abraham’s people however it is a sign of God’s ownership of the people through ownership of the males and their organs of generation. In a sort of literal way, the future belongs to God.

The three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all recognise the Abrahamic covenant as part of their history and Abraham’s “walking before God” as an example fortheir lives. In all three faiths there are directions for walking faithfully which are the daily guidance for disciples. In all three faiths the sense of belonging to God as a people is fundamental. Exploring what we share and where we differ in our “walk before God” is essential work for us if we are to be peacemakers in a world where evil people from all three religions look to gain power by setting us against each other.

John 5:39-47

39 (Jesus said,) ‘You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.⁴⁰Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.⁴¹I do not accept glory from human beings.⁴²But I know that you do not have the love of God in you.⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him.⁴⁴How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope.⁴⁶If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.⁴⁷But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?

love of God's holiness

The scriptures only have value as witnesses to God, Father, Son and Spirit. For Christians the scriptures of the Old Tetstament must be interpreted in the light of the New, although it would be very difficult to undertsand the New without the Old. Jesus taught that scripture knowlege of itself could lead astay if it did not lead to a love of God. Such a love would have enabled Jesus contemporaries to understand him better, and it enables contemporary Christians to understand not only Abraham but also Moses and Mohammed. (Peace be upon them). Certainly this Gospel teaches that Jseus is the supreme revelation of the Father and those who through Jesus love God’s holiness will find that it gives them an understanding of all love of God and all holiness. We do not make Jesus greater by making Mohammed less. Jesus prophesies that those who come in the own name and for their own glory will get a better reception from humanity than those who are witnesses to the glory of God. His prophecy continues to be fulfilled.

bible blog 645

emmock — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:43:01 +0000

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

Egyptians celebrate anniversary of protest

Genesis 16:1-14

The Birth of Ishmael

16Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar,²and Sarai said to Abram, ‘You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.’ And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.³So, after Abram had lived for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.⁴He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.⁵Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!’⁶But Abram said to Sarai, ‘Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.’ Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her.

7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.⁸And he said, ‘Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She said, ‘I am running away from my mistress Sarai.’⁹The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your mistress, and submit to her.’¹⁰The angel of the Lord also said to her, ‘I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.’¹¹And the angel of the Lord said to her,
‘Now you have conceived and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael,^* for the Lord has given heed to your affliction.
¹² He shall be a wild ass of a man,
with his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him;
and he shall live at odds with all his kin.’
¹³So she named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’;^* for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?’^*¹⁴Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi;^* it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

the God who sees..

Sarai follows an ancient custom whereby the children of a slavegirl by her master became the children of her barren mistress. Clealy the custom had potential for causing troube, either by the master preferring the slavegirl or by the slavegirl despising her mistress or fighting with her over the baby. Doubtless Sarai is trying to fulfil God’s promise that Abraham will have countless descendents.

There is pain in this story, the pain of the barren wife (nobody then considered calling the man barren) and also the pain of the slave who is ill-treated by someone who holds life and death power over her. The bible is good at quietly noting the pain that results from human action and from God’s plans. Suffering’s an important aspect of being human: I acknowldge this when I read the story but reject it if I have migraine.

It’s also a story of God’s compassion for the harshly-treated slave and the revelation that her child too is part of a great plan, although not as favoured a part as Sarai’s child will be. Hagar accepts this promise and describes God as ” God who sees”(her)-not as tranlsated here, the God whom she sees-it’s a new discovery about God which reminds the reader that God heard the blood of Cain, saw the righteousness of Noah, and as the story nfolds, will hear the cry of Ishmael. This revelation is continued in the book of Exodus where crucially God sees and hears the afliction of his enslaved people. This passage shows that the author’s depiction of God is based on a profound understanding of his people’s history.

So God sees my migraine? Better than nothing, but until He feels it He won’t know what it’s like.

John 5:19-29

The Authority of the Son

19 Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.²⁰The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.²¹Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomsoever he wishes.²²The Father judges no one but has given all judgement to the Son,²³so that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. Anyone who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him.²⁴Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgement, but has passed from death to life. 5 ‘Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.²⁶For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself;²⁷and he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man.²⁸Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice²⁹and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

: not there yet..

This is a pssage of pure theology and I doubt if these are the words of Jesus but my doubt is based on a prejudice that the Jesus depicted in the other three Gospels could not have spoken as he speaks in John’s Gospel. Of course, the doubt could be of the authenticty of the other three gospels, or of my own inability to imagine a Jesus who spoke both ways. I know that, yet the doubt persists. I don’t magine we have the exact words of Jesus in many places in the other gospels but think they may have preserved his style of speaking more than John does. This passage is a little ironic. John has told the reader that no-one has seen God but the Son makes him known. Here Jesus seems to say that we can understand the Son from our prior knowldege of the Father. The Father gives life to the dead, so does the Son; the Father has life in himself, so does the Son. John constatntly emphasises “life” as the purpose of God’s sending the Son into the world. This “life” is the same as “eternal life” and “abundant life” because it is the very life of God. A share in God’s life is what the Son promises those who trust in him. Nor is this gift delayed. Those who trust Jesus already share in God and have passed from death to life. Well, maybe, I want to say. I don’t feel I’ve already done this, although I do trust Jesus. Why does John want me to think I have already arrived? I’ m happy to see my life as a process of being reborn, but there’s still plenty of the old me in the old world. John’s langauge offends my sense of pilgrimage: I’m on the way (I hope) but not at the destination.

log 644

emmock — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:10:11 +0000

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

WOMAN IN CHARGE OF PETROBRAS OIL IN BRAZIL

Graca -Foster in charge

Genesis 15:1-11,17-21

God’s Covenant with Abram

15After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’²But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’^*³And Abram said, ‘You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.’⁴But the word of the Lord came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.’⁵He brought him outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’⁶And he believed the Lord; and the Lord ^* reckoned it to him as righteousness.

7 Then he said to him, ‘I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.’⁸But he said, ‘O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?’⁹He said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.’¹⁰He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.¹¹And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire-pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,¹⁹the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,²⁰the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,²¹the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.’

Abram and the promise

The narrator tells us that God makes promises to Abram which seem preposterous: Abram is a aged childless nomad, yet is to be the father of a great people who will possess an extensive homeland. It seems unlikely, yet Abram trusts the God who makes the promise, a trust that even God reckons to his credit. In the immediate future Abram is re-assured by a manifestation of God’s presence which comes betweeen the broken pieces of sacrifice. Doubtless the form of the mainfestation has its own ancient meaning, but it has always reminded me of those lives, like Abraham’s, which seem to be torn asunder by sacrifice in the midst of which God’s presence is recognisable. What must it have been like for Florence Li Tim-Oi the first woman to be ordained an Anglican priest in 1944 to be told after the war that she could no longer exercise her ministry? Nevertheless she continued within the church and was able towards the end of her life to exercise her prieshood again in Canada. The Church remembers and honours her today. The pioneers of faith, whose trust in God goes beyond conventional prudence, are like the great explorers of the earth in opening up new territory for others.

John 5:1-18

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

5After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew^* Beth-zatha,^* which has five porticoes.³In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed.^*⁵One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’⁷The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’⁸Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’⁹At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath.¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’¹¹But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” ’¹²They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in^* the crowd that was there.¹⁴Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.¹⁶Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.¹⁷But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’¹⁸For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

impatience with superstition

John gives us a picture of a man in thrall to pious superstition: he is dis-abled and dependent on a predicted miracle. Jesus asks the crucial question, “Do you want to be well?” (or are you addicted to waiting on a miracle?). Then the man is faced, not with an answer to his petitions, but with a sharp command, “Take up your mat and walk!” God is not obeying him, he is obeying God. Something of Jesus’ impatience with the ministrations of popular religion comes through in this story. God’s word is new life while most people have been taught to pray for some addition to their old life. The same ruthlessness is seen in Jesus’ brusque reply to those who think God cares more about Sabbath obsaervance than a man’s health, “My Father is always working, and I’m working too.” It is of course completely untrue that in this saying Jesus puts himself on a level with the Father; rather he announces his complete obedience to the Father. New life is the whole person ready to serve God and the neighbour not a broken person clutching their need.

bible 643

emmock — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:45:18 +0000

^{This blog provides a meditation on the episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news}

EGYPT HOLDS ITS FIRST DEMOCRATIC PARLIAMENT

^{GENESIS 14: 11-24}

¹So the enemy took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way;¹²they also took Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, who lived in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. 13 Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks^* of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and of Aner; these were allies of Abram.¹⁴When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.¹⁵He divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and routed them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus.¹⁶Then he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his nephew Lot with his goods, and the women and the people

17 After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).¹⁸And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High.^*¹⁹He blessed him and said,
‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High,^* maker of heaven and earth;
²⁰ and blessed be God Most High,^* who has delivered your enemies into your hand!’
And Abram gave him one-tenth of everything.²¹Then the king of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give me the people, but take the goods for yourself.’²²But Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I have sworn to the Lord, God Most High,^* maker of heaven and earth,²³that I would not take a thread or a sandal-thong or anything that is yours, so that you might not say, “I have made Abram rich.”²⁴I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me—Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre. Let them take their share.’

Melchizedek from S. Vitale, Ravenna

There are many interesting events in this ancient story. Abram is here presented as a competent warrior, ready to rescue his nephew Lot and his fellow citizens of Sodom from their enemies. Even when he wins his battle and takes booty from the defeated army, he shares it with the King of Sodom and with his own allies. He wants it to be known that he was fighting for the life of his nephew and not for the pleasure of war or booty. This moderation is a sign of Abram’s wisdom and faith. Almost from nowhere Melchizedek the King who is a priest of the most high God comes and shares a sacred meal with Abram and gives him his blessing, indicating that God has blessed him with this victory. The story emphasises that even amongst the old clans of the land, Abraham, the progenitor of Israel, was honoured as a man of God, because of his wisdom and moderation.

John 4:43-54

46 Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum.⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.⁴⁸Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.’⁴⁹The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my little boy dies.’⁵⁰Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way.⁵¹As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive.⁵²So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’⁵³The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he himself believed, along with his whole household.⁵⁴Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

: human hands/ God’s hands

John and the other gospel writers think that God’s love was opened to people through Jesus’ ministry. There’s not much point in asking how much history lies behind the stories of healing, such as this one: they tell us simply that God’s love is made available to trusting people through Jesus’ ministry. Here the sign of the man’s total trust in Jesus is his readiness to return home without Jesus accompanying him in person. In a sense there is no miracle described. A child is ill; his parent goes to see Jesus; he comes back home; the child is well. The father ascribes the cure to Jesus. When people recover health through the modern medicine, we should equally acribe the cure to God’s love. The problem arises when the child is not healed. It is important to say that just as there were many children in Israel not healed by Jesus, so there are now, because God entrusts his healing love to humanity-the humanity of Jesus, the humanity of medical staff, the humanity of our own bodies. God will not alter our bodies by supernatural means. Sometimes cures are surprising-but they always come from the human body, human skill, human faith. But what about God’s love? Out of love, God permits his creation freedom, right down to behaviour of the cells in our bodies. Out of love for his creation he permits randomness, accident and dis-ease. This is difficult territory but we must not have a doctrine of healing which suggests that if you’re not healed you don’t have enough faith. My mother was a woman of extraordinary faith and goodness and she died from Alzheimer’s. At the same time we must be able to celebrate a cure as miraculous, that is, as “goodness beyond our expectations”, which is, I guess, as useful a definition of God as any. My readers will sense that I’m trying to keep a difficult balance on an issue where many come down on one side or another-atheists denying miracle, believers denying natural causation.

bible blog 642

emmock — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:29:09 +0000

As I can’t get either of my computers to make proper connections this morning, I’ll just sum up the issues of interpretation which my use of the book of Genesis has thrown up.

1. The book is an edited collection of stories arranged to show how the history of the universe leads into the history of Israel. Very ancient material is laid side by side with much more recent material, and sometimes the ragged edges show.

2. God is a character in the narrative. It is precisely the case that this “God” is invented by the authors. That’s not to say that the invention bears no relation to reality, but it should prohibit readers from thinking that this “God” is the same as theirs.

3. “The map is not the territory; the name is not the thing named.” These principles of thinking should be observed in any theology and are particularly appropriate to the sophisticated, ironical exploration of the human condition called “In the Beginning.” or “Genesis” (Hebrew:Bireshith) The stories invent and re-invent the character of God as they explore what it means to be human first of all, and then what it means to be Israel.

4. If all that seems a bit tricky, you could refllect that it’s exactly what most believers do in their heads all the time: try to understand the character and purposes of God from their own experience, guided by the old stories. In that process sometimes we may think of God as a tyrant, sometimes a s companion, some times as terrifying otherness. Normally we don’t stick at any one of these “masks” of God realising that any true God must be greater than our experience. That’s the kind of thing that’s happening in tne book of Genesis.

5. Children understand this very well. They accept a story as a story, knowing that these charcaters belong in the story and not outside it. They feel free however to use the characters to contruct their own additional stories in play and fantsay. They know that stories allow them to play with different undertsandings of the same issues.

bible blog 641

emmock — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:37:47 +0000

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

TURKS PROTEST IN FAVOUR OF MURDERED ARMENIAN JOURNALIST HRANT (We are all Hrant, we are all Armenians)

Genesis 11:31-12:8

31 Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there.³²The days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran.

The Call of Abram

12Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.²I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.³I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’^* 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.⁵Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan,⁶Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak^* of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.⁷Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, ‘To your offspring^* I will give this land.’ So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.⁸From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord.

a journey in faith

This story includes memory of the ancestors of Israel as nomads, which may explain their theological insight that God is not limited to set places, such as the great temples of kings, but travels with his people. This conviction runs through the whole bible. We see it for exmple in Jesus’ description of himself as the “way”. When we think of our human life as a journey, we can be open to discovering God as our travelling companion. The language of pilgrimage rests on the same conviction, with the additional faith that something special awaits us at the end of the road. In the context of the Genesis story, the calling of Abraham comes as the creative solution to God’s problem of how to deal with his rebellious creature, humanity. He has tried expulsion, cursing and flood, and these have not worked. Now he chooses persuasion. He persuades Abraham to journey to a new land to become a new people by whom all humanity will be blessed. The author of course is writing from the perspective of an Isarel settled in the land of promise, ruled by kings and already finding God’s expectations a bit heavy. The author insists that these expectations are embedded in the ancient history of his people and in fact gave birth to his people. Israel is not Israel if it is not the instrument of God’s blessing to humanity. Before this point in Genesis, God has been depicted as trying unsucessfully to stop the flow of human history as it rushes towards evil. Now in this event God commits himself to human history, understanding that He can’t work on human beings from the outside but must, in a much more intimate way, become their God. Abraham responds to God with a sober trust -he does what he’s told- which remains the Biblical ideal of faith. There is no spectacular vision or emotional conversion experience, just an old man with a lot to lose setting out on a risky adventure , believing it leads to blessing for himself and others.

in spirit and truth

John 4:16-26

16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’¹⁷The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”;¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’¹⁹The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet.²⁰Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you^* say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’²¹Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’²⁵The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’²⁶Jesus said to her, ‘I am he,^* the one who is speaking to you.’

When the conversation gets personal, the woman begins to talk religion and mentions the religious divisions between Jews and Samaritans. Jesus tells her to get real: God is not an item in the world who can be located in particular place. God is “Spirit”, that is life -that-is-not-material, and “truth”, that is, unveiled reality. God can only be worshipped by those who have stopped trying to confine God in religious categories and customs and are ready to meet God’s disturbing otherness with their own naked humanity. In this adventure we need to be guided by an even greater traveller than Abraham. Jesus says to the woman, ” I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” In their very different ways both Abraham and the Samaritan woman place their trust in something inexplicable and life-changing: Abraham in a journey that will change him; the Samaritan in a material man who claims to be the source of eternal truth. Both stories encourage the reader to meet the God who changes lives.

bible blog 640

emmock — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:35:08 +0000

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY INSISTS HUNGARY REPEAL UNJUST LAWS

Genesis 11:1-9

The Tower of Babel

11Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.²And as they migrated from the east,^* they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.³And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.⁴Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’⁵The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.⁶And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.⁷Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’⁸So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.⁹Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused^* the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

John 4:1-15

Jesus and the Woman of Samaria

4th century AD image

4Now when Jesus^* learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’—² although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized—³he left Judea and started back to Galilee.⁴But he had to go through Samaria.⁵So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’.⁸(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)^*¹⁰Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’¹¹The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’¹³Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,¹⁴but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’¹⁵The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

The Genesis passage explains the existence of different races of humanity and their different languages with a story about the dangerous arrogance of human beings who think that by cooperating on the construction of a skyscaper they can rule the world like gods. In this effort their “gathering” is depicted as a threat to the order of creation, an assertion of human power that imagines itslel divine. Perhaps the story was written at the time of great empires like that of Egypt and Babylon. God “scatters” humanity and makes its languages mutually incomprehensible as a way of limiting human evil. The history of worldly empires from Babylon to the USSR and USA shows the same arrogance and the same inevitable collapse.

John’s gospel has depicted Jesus as the Bridegroom of Israel, te Messiah, but here he acts the part of Bridegroom towards a non-Jew, a woman from Samaria. All Jewish stories about men and women meeting at wells are in some sense stories of courtship. Here a woman who has had many husbands (representing a people who’ve had many religious commitments) finds that Jesus is the true partner for her and her people. He woos her not with flattery but with truth-the difficult truth about her own life- but also with the truth which he draws from a far deeper souce than Jacob’s well (that is, deeper even than the Jewish religion.) This living water is God’s goodness bubbling up into human life. The reader should note that here Jesus begins to repair the racial and linguistic division of humanity. His “gathering” of people is not a power play but a patient personal communication of God’s goodness; a sharing of the divine life across racial and religious divisions. This story could be a guide to the Christian Church for its evangelical work today.

bible blog 639

emmock — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:49:37 +0000

This blog povides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

CANDIDATE ADMITS HE DOESN’T PAY MUCH TAX

Genesis 9:18-29

Noah and His Sons

18 The sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan.¹⁹These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was peopled.

20 Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard.²¹He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent.²²And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.²³Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.²⁴When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,²⁵he said,
‘Cursed be Canaan;    lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.’
²⁶He also said,
‘Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem;    and let Canaan be his slave.
²⁷ May God make space for^* Japheth,    and let him live in the tents of Shem;    and let Canaan be his slave.’

28 After the flood Noah lived for three hundred and fifty years.²⁹All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.

So after the rainbow and the new beginning for humanity, a swift return to old ways. It reminds me of some of my own New Year resolutions: the day of promise; the day of self-indulgence; the day of hangover. All very familiar. But at least I didn’t always take out my self-disgust on others, as Noah does here, taking advantage of Ham’s mistake to institute a piece of racism which will become habitual in Israel for centuries after: first Israel (and other Semites?); second Eurasians; third, Africans; and Canaanites nowhere. (after all you need some justification for stealing a people’s land.) Naturally “God’s” approval is sought for this arrangement. An important issue is the attitude of the author who makes no comment on the whole unsavoury episode. I like to think he’s telling the reader that the Flood has changed nothing: we’re still the same old humanity.

John 3:22-36

22 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized.²³John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there; and people kept coming and were being baptized—²⁴John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.

25 Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew.^*²⁶They came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.’²⁷John answered, ‘No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven.²⁸You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah,^* but I have been sent ahead of him.”²⁹He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled.³⁰He must increase, but I must decrease.’^*

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all.³²He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony.³³Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified^* this, that God is true.³⁴He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.³⁵The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands.³⁶Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

: St.Francis: one who comes from above

It’s clear that the first Christians had a continuing argument with disciples of John the Baptist, since all the Gospels are concerned to depict John as a forerunner, and only a forerunner, of Jesus Messiah: “He must increase, I must decrease” is the probably the view of the Gospel writers rather than the veiw of John. There may of course also be hsitorical facts in the gospel stories about John. Here John identifies Jesus as the bridegroom of Israel, the Messiah. We can see from the Gospels that Jesus himself was wary of this title, because although it conferred authority on him it also cast him as national deliverer. It was a title with baggage that he didn’t want. Later in Christian usage the title became little more that a meaningless honorific. Today we should perhaps consider whether our tradition binds us to seeing Jesus as the true Messiah of the Jewish people.

John’s teaching about the One who comes from heaven is an important statement of theology. Whatever “comes from” the earth, that is from this universe, is limited by its origin, and as Genesis tels us, subject to evil and death. Whatever “comes from” above is the truth. The one “who comes from above” has not floated down from the sky, nor (in this Gospel’s estimation) been born miraculously. He is the One who whose whole life is constituted by his relation to the source of eternal goodness, who is called The Father. This One is not merely obedient to God but is identified with God in such a way that He can be called God’s son. As such He is the first of those who accordng to John 1: 13 are born ”not of blood, nor of the will of a man, but of God.” Those who entrust their lives (believe in)to the Son “who comes from above ” can share this new birth.

The prevailing wisdom in western society is that there is nothing “beyond” the universe, except perhaps other universes. All values and beliefs, indeed perhaps also all facts, are invented by human beings. This assertion of the responsibility of human beings for their own knwledge has much to commend it, but if, as the Garden of Eden story and John’s Gospel suggest, it leads us to ignore what we are given, it can become a prison rather than a liberation. Those who “come from” the earth are limited to earthly understanding; those who “come from above” can draw on the source of all goodness.

bible blog 638

emmock — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:25:18 +0000

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

Political Amnesty signals new start in Syria? Mmnn….

Genesis 9:1-7

9God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. 3Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.

6 Whoever sheds the blood of a human,

by a human shall that person’s blood be shed;

for in his own image

God made humankind.

7And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.’

not God's first thought...

The eating of animals by human beings is part of “God’s second thoughts” after the flood. The author recognises the hunting of animals by humans as a concession by “God” to the dominance of humans over animals, In biblical terms, vegetarians revert to the law of Eden. Blood is understood as the life or soul of a living creature which must be treated with respect. This is also true of human blood which like Abel’s will cry out for vengeance if it is spilt. “God” abandons his careful treatment of Cain for a formula that will permit the very blood feud that treatment was devised to avoid. A different perspective is evident in the reminder that human beings are made in the image of God. Killing is an insult to the Creator. This perspective can obviously be used to forbid killing in vengeance or even in legal process.

All in all, this narrative shows “God” still struggling to contain the powers of his human creature. The new beginning lacks the freshness of Eden. The book of Genesis permits no idealisation of humanity.

Such a perspective helped launch St. Antony, whose feast day this is, on his invention of Christian monasticism, in 4^th century Egypt. He encouraged the kind of monastic community in which hermits lived within easy range of each other, remote from cities, to concentrate on prayer, meditation, scripture, manual labour and charity. He did however maintain contact with society and visited Alexandria o a number of occasions. His image is stern, but St Athanasius said of him, “Who ever met him grieving that did not go away rejoicing?”

John 3:16-21

16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’

...so loved the world...

Verses 19-21 express a truth which all good people will recognise. The light of goodness comes into the world. Some people welcome it, others prefer the darkness, because the light exposes their evil. Those who welcome the light are happy when it reveals that their goodness, like all goodness, comes from God. A follower of this author added in the 1^st Letter of John that good people also come to the light so that they may see their sins and confess them. These are profound truths that Christianity shares with all good people. Verses 17-18 on the other hand express a truth that belongs only to Christianity. God, the eternal truth and goodness has sent his only son into the world to express his love for it and to make real his desire that all should be rescued from evil and enter eternal life. The son’s “name”, that is his character, becomes a crisis point for human decision: those who love the light, however sinful they are will receive him; those who hate the light, however righteous they are, will reject him.

The darkness that is so evident in the book of Genesis is still present in the gospel but here God’s love for his world is unequivocally declared through the sending of his son into it. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never quenched it. For those of Christian faith the “name” or character of Jesus Christ is not only the way to that eternal goodness who is called the Father but also the unveiling of eternal truth and life in the world. The particularity of verses 16-18 and universality of verses 19-21 are connected by the character of Jesus Christ. Christianity is open to the world because Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love for it.