BibleWorm

In this replay of our 2020 Christmas eve special episode, BibleWorm reads Luke 2:1-20. We imagine ourselves with the shepherds in the field, taking in the mindblowing magnitude of their theophany in the field, and wondering who are the proverbial shepherds in our society today. We see not only the theological but the political revolution bubbling up in the story. And we wonder -- though the text is silent on this point -- was there a donkey in the manger? We are willing to bank our reputations on it. 

This week BibleWorm concludes our Advent series with the less famous version of the Christmas story as told in Matthew 1:18-25. This quieter version of the Christmas story focuses on Joseph, who marries his betrothed Mary despite her unplanned pregnancy, gives Jesus his name, and adopts Jesus into the family line of David, credentialing him as the Jewish messiah. Joseph’s role is mostly to keep his male ego out of the way, and he ultimately does so without hesitation. We also discuss the two names given to Jesus in this text and what they tell us about both Jesus and God. The name Jesus, or Joshua in Hebrew, indicates God’s power to save humankind from the powers of sin and death, while the name Emmanuel, or “God with us,” gestures to the intimate presence of that God here among us in quiet and unassuming ways. In this baby Jesus, God’s saving power is present among us. What a beautiful image.

On this special episode in our series about biblical women, BibleWorm discusses Bathsheba. We met her first in II Samuel 11, but she was more acted upon than an actor herself in that story. This week we meet her again in I Kings 1, when David has gone from a model of virility, power, and traditional (sometimes toxic) masculinity to a fairly pitiable state in his old age. At this awkward moment when David is still King but is losing control of both the kingdom and his own facilities, it is Bathsheba alone who knows how to take the wheel. Trust, intimacy, loyalty and power all look a little different in this story. Can you find them? 

This week BibleWorm continues on in the third week of our Advent series, reading Isaiah 42:1-9, one of the well-known Servant Songs of Isaiah. We talk about traditional interpretations of the servant, some which view the servant as the Messiah but others which view the servant as the people of Israel—or by extension, the people of faith. In typical BibleWorm fashion, we try to read it as both—a view of the Messiah we are waiting for and a model for how we should try to be in the meantime. In that light, we discuss Isaiah’s vision of the servant as one who brings justice to the nations, not through violent retribution but by showing gentleness and compassion to the most vulnerable. “I have called you for a good reason,” says God, “to open blind eyes and to lead the prisoners from prison.” That is what the servant is to do—and that is what you and I can do even here and now, as we wait for God to do a new thing.

This week BibleWorm reads Esther chapter 4, the story of a woman who didn’t know the power that she had … until suddenly she did. Her story makes us think of what it is to have a fate that is tied to the most vulnerable people – arguably a fate we all have. It made us wonder about the breadth of details in a person’s life story that prepare them in some way for the biggest challenges they will face. And it made us ask - what is possible once we put aside the primary goal of protecting ourselves?  

This week BibleWorm enters into the Christian season of Advent by reading from the prophet Habakkuk. We marvel at the way Habakkuk moves us from the articulation of profound suffering to the casting of a hopeful vision and then to expectant rejoicing in a restoration that has not yet come. We discuss the urgency of being honest about suffering and despair, not just in Habakkuk’s day but in ours as well. We think about the importance of articulating a vision that is so profound that it can inspire hope and yet so simple that it can be read by people on the run. And we ponder the beauty of a resilient hope that rejoices even in the midst of despair, believing that the world has already turned even though there is no evidence that anything has changed.

This week BibleWorm reads Isaiah 36:1-3, 13-20; 37:1-7; and then 2:1-4 - a set of texts that calls us to sit with questions about the power of rhetoric to confuse, mislead, and exhaust us in times of fear and conflict. How can we preserve our energy for the proverbial moment of birth, when the stakes could not be higher? What would the world be like if political struggle and violence could be taken off the table – what could we turn our attention to instead?

This week BibleWorm moves into the prophetic literature with Micah 1:1-5; 5:2-5a; and 6:6-8, one of the most famous passages in all of the Hebrew Bible. We talk about the prophet Micah, who prophesied to the Jerusalem elites reminding them that the economic and military decisions of the centralized authority have profound effects on people living far away from the centers of power. Micah envisions a new ruler for the community, reaching all the way back to Bethlehem, to the time before David was king, to call for a humble shepherd who will gently guide the people toward peace and prosperity rather than exploiting his own economic and military power. And we talk about Micah’s famous instruction to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, which calls us back to the Torah and to the concrete actions that make for beloved community, both then and now.

This week BibleWorm reads the story of the Elisha and Naaman in 2 Kings 5:1-15. The story focuses on the Aramean general Naaman, who is successful in battle but hindered by a case of leprosy that no one can cure. When an Israelite girl tells Naaman to visit the prophet Elisha in Israel, it sets in motion a drama animated by the peculiar expectations of people in power about how the world should work—proper chains of authority, proper expressions of hospitality…and proper rituals of healing. Naaman is offended when Elisha doesn’t come to the door to see him and even more upset that Elisha should tell him to bathe in the river Jordan. We talk about the ways our expectations of how things should be can hinder our ability to experience the miraculous, how people outside of positions of power are often the ones who can see most clearly, and the possibility that God’s healing power is already in the world, not requiring someone to mediated it with a wave of the hand but only someone who can recognize God’s work and point others in the right direction.

It's time for another special episode! Today we read the story of Rahav in Joshua 2 -- she is a harlot living in the walls of the city of Jericho who is at the very core of Israel's success as they move into the promised land. How are we to understand this character who has so little power in any official sense, but who seems to know more than anyone else among the people of Jericho or the people of Israel? How do we understand the faith, the moral compass, and the courage of this lifelong sex worker? Does she change over the course of this story - is this a paradigmatic conversion story, as most ancient interpreters read it? It will surprise you not at all to know that we think it's far more complicated than that.