BibleWorm

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.

This week BibleWorm reads 1 Kings 3:4-28, the story of a young King Solomon asking for wisdom – and getting it! He displays his wisdom in a story so famous that Seinfeld based an episode on it – the story of the baby who is claimed by two mothers. But it’s not just a puzzle to solve - this story arises out of genuine tragedy, and the stakes could not be higher. What kind of wisdom, exactly, does Solomon display? Is it focused on discerning what happened in the past, or is it a future looking wisdom, trying to put things on the best available course? Which mother do you as a reader imagine is telling the truth, and what from your own life experience makes you think so? And finally, let’s raise up the woman who stepped in to save the child’s life, even if it meant being separated from her own infant. She is the real hero.

This week BibleWorm reads the story of David and Bathsheba as told in 2 Samuel 11:1-5 and 26-27, 2 Samuel 12:1-9 and Psalm 51:1-9. We talk about the complacency of David, who stays at home at the time when kings go out to war, and the ways his loss of a sense of responsibility to the community leads him to violate Bathsheba, Uriah, and the will of God. We discuss the complexity of the biblical portrayal of David, who is a great biblical hero and yet a deeply flawed human being, and we wonder whether we have lost the capacity for recognizing such complexity today. And we give thanks for the compassion of God, who can forgive even so awful a thing as David has done…and yet we wish for more from David, who seemingly  makes no attempt to repair the human damage he has done. Forgiveness without reparation and reconciliation feels a little cheap to us, to be honest, and we wish to have seen more from David…and from God.

This week BibleWorm reads the story of Israel’s covenant renewal ceremony in Joshua 24:1-18. We wrestle with this difficult text, which comes at the conclusion of the conquest of the land, after the Israelites have annihilated the Canaanites from their midst. On the one hand, we talk about the problematics of having a conquest narrative at the core of the biblical tradition, and we wrestle with what such a text can justify—and has justified—throughout history. On the other hand, we acknowledge that the core of this text is about God’s providence—giving land and security to a people who had themselves been abused, enslaved, and murdered at the hands of the Egyptians for more than 400 years. In the end, we reflect on the importance of remembering our stories and of retelling them, acknowledging the painful realities of the past while claiming the promises of God for a better future

BibleWorm begins our special series on women in the biblical text with the story of Tamar in Genesis 38. We bristle immediately at the hypocrisy of the men in the story who only pretend to hold to the societal norms they impose on her, and in doing so leave Tamar stuck in a holding pattern after the death of her husband. We draw out the profoundly different experiences of the man and the woman who lose a spouse in this story, and think about the risk and lack of privacy that seems built into walking through the world with a body that can get pregnant. It is a story for our time indeed. But we would be remiss if we did not also raise up Tamar’s strategic thinking, profound loyalty, and courage.  

This week BibleWorm reads the story of God giving the 10 commandments to Israel as told in Exodus 19:1-8 and 20:1-21. We draw out the idea that God has been calling these people out of Egypt and through the wilderness in order to make them a treasured possession among all the peoples of the earth. We think about God giving the 10 commandments to the people—and to us—to show the importance of integrity and fidelity in relationships with God, with each other, and with ourselves. And we marvel at the nature of God—1,000 parts compassion and 4 parts judgment. That’s the recipe for a covenanted life with us humans, who try and fail and try again.

This week BibleWorm discusses one of the most well-known stories in the entire Bible: the miracle of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea as told in Exodus 14:5-14 and 21-29. We talk about Pharaoh’s relentless pursuit of economic profit through the use of military force, and how that singlemindedness leads to the downfall of empires, both in Pharaoh’s time and in our own. We admire the courage of the Israelites, who trust in the possibility of a better future, despite all the evidence, and find themselves birthed again through the waters of the sea. And we remember the Egyptian soldiers and their families, caught up in a struggle not of their own making and mourn the senseless loss of life, both then and now.

This week BibleWorm discusses the story of Joseph in the house of Potiphar in Genesis 39:1-23. We talk about the character of Joseph, an Israelite enslaved in the house of an Egyptian, and the profound vulnerability he experiences at the whims of others, no matter what decisions he makes. And we wrestle with the theology of God’s blessing in this text, since Joseph’s life seems to go from bad to worse even while the text tells us that God has blessed him. And at the same time we recognize the insistence of this text that it is God’s blessing that stays with Joseph in all circumstances. God is with Joseph—and with us—no matter what.

This week BibleWorm discusses God’s blessing of Abraham in Genesis 12:1-9. We talk about the way God appears to Abraham when he and his family seem to have gotten stuck in a city named for his dead brother Haran, encouraging Abraham to continue moving to his original goal, the land of Canaan. We think about God’s command to Abraham to “Go for yourself,” and we ponder the ways that following God’s calling can often be as much about finding ourselves as it is about reaching some external destination. And we talk about God’s declaration to Abraham that “All the peoples of the earth will be blessed in you,” and we wonder whether this might be a good benchmark of faithful living—is the world blessed by our presence or is it not?