BibleWorm

In this episode from May 31, 2020, we return to our summer series on the Hebrew Festival Scrolls with a look at Ecclesiastes 1:1-3 and 8:16-9:10. We discuss Qohelet’s idea that everything is mere breath and ask what it means to live in a world where nothing adds up to much of anything. We talk about the inscrutability of God and why good people often suffer while the wicked get all the rewards. We ask whether it is possible to accomplish anything meaningful in life and, if not, how we might be better off to reorient our goals to enjoy the moments of each day, whether playing with a toddler or listening to the birds sing. Also, Amy asks what kind of person would use Ecclesiastes as a wedding text. Hint: It was not Amy.

On this last week of the narrative lectionary season, we read Acts 2:1-4 and Galatians 5:16-26. We appreciate the way that Paul draws out and builds upon imagery and tradition from the Hebrew Bible at this moment of new community formation -- the winds, the fire, the role of language, all on the Jewish holiday that marks the giving of Torah at Sinai. We continue to wrestle a bit with the balance in community life between having explicit shared norms and having a shared horizon that each person moves toward through their own individual discernment. And we hear the imperative, from both Hebrew Bible and New Testament, to lift our eyes from our own interests to something much bigger and greater. 

This week we continue our foray into Paul’s understanding of faith and Torah with Galatians 3:1-9 and 23-29. We discuss the relative roles of faith and practice in the drama of salvation and wonder whether finding God is like waiting at the bus stop hoping the God buss will roll by. We notice Paul’s appeal to the faith of Abraham and ask whether others can be faithful to God without knowing Jesus. And we wrestle with Paul’s idea that in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free. It’s a beautiful idea that comes dangerously close to erasing both cultural difference and systemic injustice. What do we do with that?

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.