Episodes
Sunday Oct 29, 2023
Episode 509 Elijah and the Prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:17-39)
Sunday Oct 29, 2023
Sunday Oct 29, 2023
This week BibleWorm reads the story of the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal as told in 1 Kings 18:17-39. We find Elijah demanding that the people make a choice between God and Baal, insisting that they cannot serve both. Elijah then engages in an elaborate contest with the prophets of Baal, calling down fire from heaven to demonstrate that the God of Israel is truly God. Only after seeing the fire do the people finally confess, “The Lord is God! The Lord is God!” We think of the ways that we, too, are called to make a choice between the God of the Bible and the gods of the dominant ideologies of militarism and consumer capitalism. But we must make the choice without the benefit of fire coming down from heaven. We are asked to make the choice on slimmer evidence, given in symbol and ritual and prayer. That must suffice for us to confess “The Lord is God! The Lord is God!”
Sunday Oct 22, 2023
Episode 508 The Division of the Kingdom (1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29)
Sunday Oct 22, 2023
Sunday Oct 22, 2023
This week BibleWorm reads I Kings 12:1-17 and 25-29. We are just a couple of generations after King David, and boy howdy, kingship in Israel is not going great. As David’s grandson Reheboam steps to the throne, we see parallels with the stories of Pharaoh in Egypt: a king who uses forced labor to control people, and who seeks power and dominance above all else, even when that is politically impractical. And then we meet Jeroboam, who seems to smartly identify a real vulnerability for his community, but then tries to patch it with a sort of quick fix borrowed from another religious culture - definitely a no-no. Both kings consult advisors, but neither consult God. This is pretty much exactly what the deuteronomistic history warned about.
Sunday Oct 15, 2023
Episode 507 Praising the Lord (2 Samuel 5:1-5, 6:1-15, and Psalm 150)
Sunday Oct 15, 2023
Sunday Oct 15, 2023
This week BibleWorm reads a selection of texts about David’s praise of God in 2 Samuel 5:1-5 and 6:1-15 as well as Psalm 150. We talk about what it means for everything that has breath to praise the Lord and ponder the unification of all creatures that is possible when we recognize the breath within us that wishes to return to God in praise. We also pay attention to the ways David approaches praise, sometimes as a genuine reverence for God but sometimes as an apparent manipulation that seeks to coopt God into his own political and military agenda. And we discuss the story of poor Uzza, who is struck dead for trying to steady the ark of the covenant, concluding that God does not need to be protected and will not tolerate being treated carelessly. When we come into God’s presence with praise, we do something that is dangerous and powerful, and that can bring us extraordinary blessing.
Sunday Oct 08, 2023
Episode 506 Where You Go I Will Go (Ruth 1:1-17 and 4:13-16)
Sunday Oct 08, 2023
Sunday Oct 08, 2023
This week BibleWorm reads Ruth 1:1-17 and 4:13-17 – just the opening and closing of a book that turns all kinds of social norms on their head. That famous line “your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God” – the one that so many people use today in weddings, is not from a wedding at all – but from the mouth of Ruth, who is refusing Naomi’s plea to go find herself a husband, and committing herself instead to her deceased husband’s mother. This text asks us – what, really, is family? And what is peoplehood? Following a theme we are seeing a lot this season, Ruth decides to just care for the life in front of her, whatever that may mean for her future. And this act, as it trickles through the generations, means very good things.
Sunday Oct 01, 2023
Episode 505 Listen, O Israel! (Deuteronomy 5:1-21& 6:4-9)
Sunday Oct 01, 2023
Sunday Oct 01, 2023
This week BibleWorm reads two of the foundational texts of the Hebrew Bible—the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:1-21 and the text known as the Shema in the Jewish tradition in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. We discuss the way that the Shema cuts across the cacophony of voices vying for our attention with a resounding “Listen, O Israel!,” calling us away from the voice of Pharaoh and focusing us on the one God who set us free from bondage in Egypt. We discuss the urgency of the Ten Commandments as the framework for an alternative way of life as God’s people, who love God with heart, mind, and soul and protect the integrity of the community. And we notice the repeated emphasis in this text on sharing the story across multiple generations, paying attention both to those who came before and those who will come after as we remind ourselves of what it means to truly be the people of God in the world.
Sunday Sep 24, 2023
Episode 504 Responding to the Call (Exodus 1:8-2:10 and 3:1-15)
Sunday Sep 24, 2023
Sunday Sep 24, 2023
This week BibleWorm reads Exodus 1:8-2:10 and 3:1-15, a text that seemed to ask us again and again – what is capturing your attention? We see just how little it takes for the situation to turn bad for the Israelites in Egypt. And in this newly roaring sea of people and power that are bent against them, we read stories of individual people who manage to incline their attention somewhere else – who manage to look at the one human being right in front of them and respond in that moment with care. Is it enough, to save that one life when it seems the world is on fire? We can’t be the judge of that. But we sure do get the sense that what they did was urgently important.
Sunday Sep 17, 2023
Episode 503 Jacob Wrestles with God (Genesis 32:9-13 & 22-30)
Sunday Sep 17, 2023
Sunday Sep 17, 2023
This week BibleWorm reads the story of Jacob’s midnight wrestle as told in Genesis 32:9-13 and 22-30. We talk about the way Jacob pauses to pray for God’s protection as he prepares to face his brother Esau, first reminding God of God’s past promises, and then asking for God to save him. We discuss the mysterious figure who appears to wrestle Jacob in the night, whom Jacob ultimately understands to have been God. We ponder what it means that Jacob wrestles this figure to a draw and wonder whether God, like the man, is challenged and even changed by wrestling with Jacob and with us. And we notice that Jacob emerges from his dark night of the soul not only with a new name and a new blessing, but also with a limp. We think about how often blessings seem to come with limps and the ways in which we, like Jacob, so often carry the marks of our struggles with us as we emerge into a new day.
Sunday Sep 10, 2023
Episode 502 Laughing at the Promise (Genesis 18:1-15 and 21:1-7)
Sunday Sep 10, 2023
Sunday Sep 10, 2023
This week BibleWorm reads Genesis 18:1-15 and Genesis 21:1-7 – texts that tell us of baby Isaac’s imminent, and then actual, arrival. When the three men come to Abraham and tell him that this baby will indeed be born to these two nonagenarians, Sarah famously laughs.
We wonder what is going through Sarah’s mind and heart at this moment, and what’s in there when she denies it, and again, when that moment of laughter becomes memorialized in the name of her beloved son. Sometimes the gravitas of trying to have a relationship with the Divine makes things a little serious. But this story made us wonder - what is the role of laughter and joyful surprise in our lives of faith?
Sunday Sep 03, 2023
Episode 501 Created for Relationship (Genesis 2:4b-25)
Sunday Sep 03, 2023
Sunday Sep 03, 2023
This week we begin the new season of the Narrative Lectionary with a look at the story of creation as told in Genesis 2:4b–25. We marvel at the description of an artisan God forming creation from the clay of the earth in an act of artistic improvisation. We reflect on the fundamentally relational nature of the created world in which humans are meant to be in deep relationship not only with God and each other but also with plants, animals, and the earth. And we wrestle with the concept of human partnership as a helper corresponding to us, one who stands in front of us as an equal and challenges us in healthy and productive ways.
Sunday Aug 13, 2023
Sunday Aug 13, 2023
This week we conclude our summer series on The Bible and Economic Justice with a text from John 12:1-8 – not such an obvious text for economic justice, but a really important and challenging one. How do we hold together Mary’s extravagance toward Jesus with our moral and practical obligation to use our resources to care for the poor? This text invites us to explore the human need to express a sense of awe and transcendence, and to ask – if we humans could stop amassing resources to ourselves, could we create this beautiful reality of abundance instead of scarcity, where we could give to God and give to each other?