BibleWorm

This week, we read Galatians chapter 1:13-17 and 2:11-21. It’s a challenging set of texts for an interfaith podcast, and a set of texts with a troubled history in the Jewish-Christian relationship. As we read, we wondered - what is the role of faith and of action in our relationship to God? When is the uniqueness of each person important, and when should we look past difference to similarity?

This week BibleWorm reads the story of the Council in Jerusalem in Acts 15:1-21 in which Peter, Paul, and Barnabas debate with the Jerusalem church over whether Gentiles must follow the rules of the Torah. We discuss the need for boundaries and commonly-held practices that bind a community together. We wonder at Peter’s insistence that God works outside those boundaries and wrestle with the balance of tradition and experience. And we recognize that, no matter what boundaries we set, we must always be prepared that God might be working something new among us as God did among the Christians of the early church.

This week BibleWorm reads Acts 8:26-39, a story of an Ethiopian Eunuch. We discuss the ways in which he would have been pressed to the margins of the Israelite temple community or other communities like it, and share the joy in his realization that there is nothing to prevent him from diving right square into this community of Jesus followers.  We see Phillip’s beautiful example of responsive, respectful sharing of the gospel. And we learn of a talented puppeteer from days past … we think you may know him.

This week we read the story of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, as told in Acts 6 and 7. We observe the struggles of the early Christian church as it grows from a small and homogenous movement to a large community of both Judean and Hellenistic disciples. We discuss the apostles’ neglect of the Greek-speaking widows and the community’s efforts to care for its own. And we discuss the trial and stoning of Stephen, part legal proceeding and part lynching, as he challenges the practice of establishment religion among the Jews of Jerusalem.

This week BibleWorm reads Luke chapter 24:13-35. We try to put down what we know as readers and step into the moment of this text -- the grief, the swirling confusion, the sadness of Jesus’s followers. We wonder why Jesus disappears just at the moment of recognition and begin to see a faith that will always be a little bit beyond what any individual can grasp hold of. We connect this unfolding, multi-part revelation with the revelation at the beginning of this gospel: many individuals get a piece of the puzzle, but in order to make anything of it, they have got to find one another, share what they’ve seen, and trust in other experiences, too.

This week BibleWorm reads the Easter story as told in Luke 24:1-12. We ponder the witness of the women, dismissed by the male apostles as an idle tale, and wonder whose testimonies we may dismiss today. We wrestle with the angels’ question, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” realizing that the Easter story itself would never have unfolded if the women had not gone to the grave to attend to the dead. And we grapple with the significance of remembrance in this resurrection story, which insists that we already have what we need to imagine a new future, even if we just can’t quite recognize it yet.

On this special Good Friday episode, BibleWorm discusses Luke’s telling of the crucifixion in chapter 23:32-49. We notice the haziness around the question of culpability for what has happened - what people or forces are responsible, and did they ever realize they had this power? We see a lot of compassion from Jesus even as he suffers. And we wonder whether the second criminal is really any more honorable than the first, or whether he’s just more savvy. More importantly, we wonder whether that matters to Jesus.

This week BibleWorm reads the story of Palm Sunday in Luke 19:29-44—except in this version there are no palms and no one shouts “Hosanna!” Can we even call it Palm Sunday?  We talk about Jesus orchestrating a donkey-jacking and the implicit claim that Jesus is lord of all. We comment on the tenderness of the people in the midst of a tragic story, as they lift Jesus up on a colt and spread their cloaks in front of him. And we wrestle with our addiction to systems of violence, which prevent us from living in peace if we cannot manage to see God in our midst.

This week, BibleWorm reads Luke 18:31- 19:10. We imagine the awkward silence after Jesus’s followers once again cannot grasp the increasingly detailed prediction of Jesus’s imminent suffering. We pause to think about the faith of the blind man who cries out to Jesus, and wonder about the life experiences that gave him the faith and courage to ask for what he needed. And we meet Zacchaeus - either a stigmatized fellow whose been ostracized from his community, or a sinner who sees the light only after his encounter with Jesus. Either way, you’ve got to appreciate someone who will scamper up a tree for his faith.

This week BibleWorm reads Luke 16:19-31, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We discuss the lavish lifestyle of the rich man, who uses his gated home as an excuse to avoid responsibility for the needy man outside his gate. And we talk about poor Lazarus, who suffers at the gate in life and yet would cross a great chasm to show the rich man compassion in death. And we wrestle with our own privilege, wondering what barriers we construct to separate ourselves from the very relationships that might transform us into better members of God’s community.