BibleWorm

This week we’re reading the story of David, Bathsheba, and Nathan as told in 2 Samuel 11:1-11, 14-18, 26-27; 12:1-10; and Psalm 51:1-12. David, once a man of the people, has become a self-satisfied king, feeling entitled to whatever he wants. This leads him first to taking Bathsheba by force and then murdering her husband Uriah to cover it up. We wrestle with what it is in David that makes him do such awful things, and whether he has any sense of shame remaining. We ponder the role of the prophet Nathan, who uses a seemingly unrelated story to get David to recognize the error of his ways and ultimately condemn himself. And we read Psalm 51, understood in the biblical text as David’s prayer to God following the Bathsheba encounter. We find ourselves not wanting to allow David to use this prayer, as awful as he has been. But ultimately we recognize that repentance and forgiveness is available to all—even to David, and to those we despise the most, and even to us ourselves.

This week, we're reading Joshua 24: 1-27 – a chapter that challenged us to think about how we tell our own story – our biblical story, our national story, our family story --  and what the impact of that telling can be. What do we highlight, what do we leave out, and why? How do we tell the story of our people and our beliefs in a way that another generation can claim it as their own? And once we know a certain story has been used to cause harm, how do we hold onto the best of it without glossing over that harm? Stories are powerful.

This week we’re reading the story of Israel receiving the Ten Commandments at Sinai in Exodus 19:1-8 and 20:1-21. We discover that these commandments, which have become a political lightning rod, in fact envision a radically countercultural world in which God refuses to be allied with any political agenda. Rather, God demands a radical resistance to the ways of Pharaoh and all human empires, casting an alternative vision of a community life based on rest, respect, and the well-being of all members of the community. We insist that these commandments cannot be flattened out onto a piece of paper but must be understood within the smoke and fire erupting from Sinai and the liberating power of God in Egypt. And we appreciate the response of the people, who  agree to obey the commandments before they even know what they are, so great is their desire to be God’s precious possession that they will do anything God asks.

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This week we read Exodus 14:5-14 and 19-29 -- the paradigmatic story of freedom, the crossing of the sea. We are right at the boundary of creation and uncreation. The flood is right there again, forming walls on either side of us. The angel who has been leading us is behind us now – for good reason – but it still means we just have to have faith the angel is still there. What does our partnership with God look like in moments like these? What is ours to do, and what must we leave to God?  How does our own steadfastness – the flipside of stubbornness – shape what’s possible?

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This week we’re reading the story of Joseph in Potiphar’s house, as told in Genesis 39:1-23. Joseph finds himself enslaved in Egypt in the household of an Egyptian official named Potiphar. While God prospers Potiphar, and all those around Joseph, Joseph’s own life seems to be on a downward trajectory, leading him first to be accused of sexual assault by Potiphar’s wife and then cast into jail by Potiphar himself. If this is what being prospered by God looks like, we wonder if it’s worth being prospered by God at all. At the same time, this text exposes much about the way the lives of vulnerable people are at risk due to the whims of powerful people, who feel entitled to their respect, their obedience, and even their bodies. While we can’t save Joseph from his situation, we recognize, perhaps we can intervene in the stories of the Josephs of the world today.  

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This week, we are reading one of our favorite Bible stories, and the source of some great power ballads in the Jewish world – Gen 12:1-9, the story of Avram being called to leave his land, his home, and go to the place God will show him.  Our eyes were drawn this year to the proverbial “division of responsibilities” God seems to have in mind for this adventure travel. What is God actually asking Avram to do, and when does Avram need to put aside all that striving energy and just let God do God’s thing? What if our whole job boils down to getting ourselves unstuck, and then trying to be a blessing in every situation where we find ourselves? 

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In this first episode of the new Narrative Lectionary year, we’re reading the story of God flooding the world as told in Genesis 6:5-22; 8:6-12; and 9:8-17. We struggle a bit with the fact that this year begins not with creation, as in other years, but with the destruction of creation. But as we read we realize that this story tells not only of destruction but also a movement within the very life of God, who goes from wanting to destroy imperfect humankind to wanting to be in relationship with us. We notice that God’s proclamation of this new covenant is expansive, including all humans and all animals in all generations of the earth, such that we can never encounter another creature, human or animal, that is not also in covenant relationship with God. What would happen to our lives, we wonder—both our prayer lives and our lives out in the world—if we could learn to think of others as belonging both to God and to ourselves?

This week we conclude our series on Revelation and Resistance with John’s vision of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:1-7, 22-27, and 22:1-5. The text presents a moving depiction of God come to earth, dwelling among the people and wiping every tear from their eyes. In a renewed world with no death or suffering, humanity thrives beside the river of living water, eating from the tree of life, relieved from pain and suffering and death. While John envisions this New Jerusalem fulfilled in the future, he speaks its vision to Christians enduring the trials of life in the Roman Empire, providing not only a source of hope but also a vision of what a life with God might look like. Similarly, we think this vision might be a source of sustenance for us, as well, helping us appreciate the beauty that is already in our midst and giving us the strength to resist the power of the Empire for yet another day.

This week we are reading Revelation chapter 7, a vision that unfolds in the midst of the unsealing of seals and undoing of worlds as we have known them. It’s a vision that seems anchored in the past and the future simultaneously, a vision that evoked for us Ezekiel and Isaiah and Genesis and Kohelet and Exodus and also a also future time when whatever suffering the faithful have endured, they can stand together in their multitudes and praise the one true Source. It’s an image that, at the very least, can make the work of our time less lonely. 

This week we’re continuing our series on Revelation and Resistance with the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2:1-7 and 3:1-22. We note that most of the churches receive both praise and admonition from Jesus, celebrating what they have done well but warning them against their shortcomings. But we also notice that in these letters appearances can be deceiving. Those churches that appear poor and powerless are said to be wealthy and powerful in the kingdom of God, while those that appear to be wealthy and successful make Jesus want to puke. While Jesus is addressing the churches of Asia minor, the repeated phrase, “let those who can hear listen to what the Spirit is saying” suggests that these letters are meant for our communities, too. What would Jesus want to celebrate about our communities, we wonder, and what how might he critique us? How do we appear from the Empire’s perspective, and what might look like in God’s eyes?