non-metaphysical stephen

Back in August I wrote some observations and concerns about Ezra’s decree that the people of Israel put away their foreign wives.

Today, while working on a book review, I read an article about that same passage and how it relates to modern African-American readers. The article, “Reflections in an Interethnic/racial Era on Interethnic/racial Marriage in Ezra” by Cheryl B. Anderson, outlines the ways in which the text claims to be about religious purity but in fact promotes cultural divisions along racial, class and gender lines.

Anderson states that Ezra’s emphasis on genealogical purity is actually more severe than earlier Hebrew restrictions on group membership, since earlier texts focused on ritual and/or moral purity, both of which are more amenable than Ezra’s position towards the inclusion of non-Hebrews. Anderson also argues that the decree exacerbated class differences, many of which come to a crisis during the time of Nehemiah. Similarly, she notes the asymmetry of the divorce ban–it affects wives more than husbands; Anderson connects this problem with a more widespread use of “women as Other” throughout the scriptures.

It’s nice to see that I wasn’t off track in my concerns about the implications of the text.

At the same time, Anderson demonstrates the parallels between Ezra’s decree and the anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, many of which were defended by theological arguments that deflected attention from the racial, class and gender problems that accompanied them. Thus, she claims, black readers have good reason to identify more with the divorced wives than with Ezra and his followers. If this is so, then modern readings of the texts need to pay attention to these issues lest they reinscribe the problems we have tried so hard to overcome.

From Ezekiel 34 — a good lesson on what we should be doing as priests of the Lord Most High:

Thus says the Lord God:

“Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.”

May we be faithful to do all that God desires of us. Amen.

Daily Reading Bible (ESV Bible Online).

Ezekiel 16.49:

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

Pride, excess, prosperity, but no charity.

How many of us does that describe?

Thought from today’s Bible Reading:  When Isaiah said “Send me!”, did he know the message was going to be so dark?

From Isaiah 8.8-13:

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

And he said, “Go, and say to this people:

“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”

Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”

And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
and the Lord removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.

Wow — today’s reading from Nehemiah and Luke follows up on the issues I discussed in my “Jesus v? Ezra” post a few days back….

Nehemiah continues Ezra’s focus on ethnic purity:

On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people. And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing. As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.

This is a painful passage for those of us who seek to follow the Mosaic command to welcome the stranger. But in these verses, we are told… (more…)

From today’s reading:

Passage: nehemiah 5 ESV Bible Online.

When I read this passage, I thought of the way so many of us today are trapped and abused by our employers, our bankers, our credit card and insurance brokers:

I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “You are exacting interest, each from his brother.”

And I held a great assembly against them and said to them, “We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!”

They were silent and could not find a word to say. So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies? Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of interest. Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.”

It is not good that we should profit at the expense of others. May God show us how to prosper by treating one another fairly, with compassion and generosity, and may God use us to testify to the world of the ways of God. Amen.

There’s an odd juxtaposition of texts in my online daily Bible readings. Today’s reading includes Ezra 10, the passage in which the people of Israel, having been rebuked by Ezra, agree to put away their non-Hebrew wives.

Before I get to the second passage, let me make a few comments: (more…)

David’s relationship to Saul’s reign has always fascinated me. On the one hand, David refuses to kill Saul, on the grounds that Saul is still God’s anointed and therefore it is up to God to remove Saul from the throne. On the other hand, David spends a significant amount of time with Saul’s enemies, the Philistines. David is even willing to go to war with them against Saul; the only reason he doesn’t is because the Philistines do not trust him and send him away.

Still, if we think about what David’s actions must have looked like to those loyal to Saul (i.e., loyal to the government), he gave every appearance of being a traitor. I have to wonder how David’s actions would look to us today in the States–would David ever be accepted as a legitimate ruler given that he almost went to war against his own nation? Can you imagine anyone becoming President–a great President at that–after having joined up with our military enemies?

Interesting stuff. But today, as I read 1 Chronicles 12, I noticed something else. David was not alone! (more…)

Today’s scripture readings from the ESV Daily Reading Bible are an interesting juxtaposition. The Hebrew text describes Babylon’s conquest of Judah under Nebuchadnezzar, while the Christian text describes the promised fall of Babylon the Whore.

It’s interesting to see these two texts side-by-side since God used the Babylonians to punish the faithless people of Israel, only to punish them later for their own sins and then to allow the name of Babylon to be forever linked with the worst excesses of human depravity. (While researching my dissertation, I learned that the Babylonian exile was not the worst experience the Hebrews faced–they may have had even harsher lives under later rulers–yet Babylon remains the symbol of unrighteousness.) God may not be the God of the Babylonians, but they are certainly under God’s power. Yet how strange it is that God would choose a people like this–a people destined for their own judgment–to act as agents of spiritual justice. How easy it is to forget that the God of the universe has authority to raise up and utilize all nations–and not only the just ones!

The passage from Revelation is also interesting for its stress on economics as a temptation to sin. It’s not just the kings who mourn the fall of Babylon–it’s also the merchants and the seafarers who have made their riches off of selling luxury items. Consider the list of goods mentioned in the text:

…no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.

We get the picture of men and women who used material goods not for sustenance and/or for generosity and charity, but to make themselves wealthy–probably marketing to the extremely wealthy who can waste money on the most expensive, impressive, unnecessary goods.

I wonder how much John’s depiction of the economics of Babylon matches up with our modern culture. What sins do we accrue against ourselves through our economic values and policies. Are we as tied in to luxurious living as the Babylonians and the merchants and seafarers who lived off of them? Is our emphasis upon economic power an obstacle to our spiritual health? Are we bringing judgment upon ourselves by our posh lifestyles?

Today’s Hebrew reading in my daily devotional includes 2 Kings 3, which tells the account of the Moabite rebellion against King Jehoram of Israel. Like all the kings in the history of ancient history, Jehoram is displeasing to God, although he is not as bad as his father, Ahab–the scripture says that Jehoram pulled down the pillar his father had erected to Baal.

So it is not surprising that when the Moabites rebel (and we’re not told if this is a military attack or simply a refusal to continue paying the tribute of sheep and wool), Jehoram rushes off to battle without consulting God. And it is no surprise either that when things get rough, Jehoram quickly assumes that God is against them.

Which, in a way, God is. (more…)

More from Ellul on Ecclesiastes….

In his section on the Myth of Progress, Ellul remarks on Qohelet’s comment in 1.8:

All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.

Ellul discusses this in terms of humanity as both creative and receptive: We run out of words, yet we continue to consume images and sounds.

Is this not true? I feel this all the time — there is too much to learn, too much to view, too much to read, too much to learn. And yet I run out of things to say — I have nothing to add.

The scary thing is that even with the overabundance of things to see and hear, there’s nothing new. I need to pay more attention to this: all those shiny objects that catch my attention? There’s nothing new in them. They don’t enlighten me. They don’t add anything of value to my understanding of the world or to the way I live my life. They don’t make me a better person or offer me any wisdom. They simply amuse/delight/distract me.

Even in my studies, the trap is there:

“When Qohelet tries to study everything that is done, he concludes that this is an evil occupation under the sun. You cannot draw any conclusion or lesson for the future from what happened in the past, because you know only the outer shell of things: piecemeal testimonies that enable us to tell stories but not to know the truth.”

Again, is this not true? I read literature, but all I can get are stories. If anything, it’s more honest than trying to read history, for I’d still end up with only stories. The inner truth of history is unknowable–we get appearances and effects, but cannot perceive the reality beneath.

May God give us the grace to accept the limitations of our knowledge and to learn wisdom from the Spirit of Christ.

This morning I re-read some of Ellul’s study on Ecclesiastes, Reason for Being — the section where he discusses the issues surrounding the translation of the Hebrew word hebel as “vanity.” For Ellul, the term makes the most sense, as it captures the sense of uselessness that Qohelet is trying to describe. It’s not that the world is “nothing,” but that it doesn’t lead anywhere except for the grave — no matter what we do, how much work or success we achieve, we all end up in the grave and therefore our work is useless. What good does any of it do us?

I was struck in particular with a paragraph in which he discusses how “vanity” has the sense of “illusion” or “mirage,” which he connects with ostentation and with the way we present ourselves to others–and to ourselves:

May God in God’s lovingkindness show me who and what I truly am, so that I might meet the world with more humility and become more fruitful for the sake of God’s realm. Amen.

And then today I had this verse in my devotional reading:

Proverbs 17.5a:

Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker

May God grant that we be a people of compassion, of true charity, of Christlike humility, that we may live out God’s reign here in the midst of the nations.

In Christ,
Amen.

I’ve often wondered why it would be important that Jesus should come from the tribe of Judah rather than the priestly tribe of Levi or of any other tribe. But check out this passage–Jacob’s sons must convince him to allow them to take Benjamin with them to Egypt so that they might get more grain.

And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.”

Could this be what Jesus told God about us? He is the pledge of our safety, promising our Father/Mother to return us safely home.

How wonderful is that? Thanks be to Christ Jesus for his lovingkindness toward us! Amen!

Today’s Hebrew lectionary reading tells of Joseph’s success in dealing with the famine in Egypt, and several things interest me:

• Joseph’s plan to preserve Egypt’s food supply during the seven years of plenty would probably not go over very well today. He doesn’t allow the people of Egypt to use all of their resources, but demands that some be stored up every year for the future. And how many people today would believe Joseph that there were seven bad years coming? I cannot imagine our U.S. government trying to institute such a policy today, even though it was clearly the right thing to do (and God had ordained it). I know some will complain that our government does try to do this, but their complaint shows just how controversial God’s plan would be today. (Side note: I seem to recall reading that when the economy started going south a few years ago, only one state escaped a budget crisis; that state had the foresight to make a contingency plan.) I also wonder what our modern analogues to the famine are: the environment? the economy? What if we had been told after WW1 to prepare for a major depression? What if we had been told after WW2 to prepare for an environmental crisis? I’m realizing just how self-centered and in-the-moment we are as a culture. How do we as Christians convince people to change their ways? Even to give up what they see as their “rights” for the sake of the common good?
• I had forgotten that Joseph’s sons were born before the arrival of his Hebrew compatriots. But even more surprising to me today is to realize that he married the daughter of an Egyptian priest! I know that from a practical point of view, Joseph could not look for a Hebrew wife. Still, it is interesting that he married into a priestly family. Not only is there the question about religious syncretism (does Joseph raise them as Hebrews rather than as Egyptians? I suppose this became possible once his family moved there…), but there is also the surprising fact that two of tribes of Israel are part Egyptian!
  
• His second son’s name, Ephraim, is said to mean “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” I’ve been thinking a lot lately about maintaining our faith in times of difficulty (see my posts on the Wilderness) and how we need to trust that God can not only see us through these times, but also can use them for good. Ephraim’s name is a wonderful testimony to this fact: Even when our circumstances seem to be against us (Joseph was not in Egypt by choice, and he had to endure two years in prison before becoming Pharaoh’s adviser), God can still bless all that we do, even using us to benefit those around us, friends and enemies alike.
• God’s role in ordaining Egypt as a land of salvation during the time of famine. God truly is LORD over all the nations!
  

Some questions I had on reading today’s lectionary passages:

Genesis 16.15-17.2:

• And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
• When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty;walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.”

There’s a thirteen year gap between these two (consecutive) passages, and yet the scriptures pass over them completely. What especially strikes me is that God is not shown correcting Abram of his mistake during this time. Is it not a frightening thing to think that we might misunderstand God’s will and not be told our error for thirteen years?

Hebrews 10.8-9:

• When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second.

Throughout this section on the law, I was thinking of the Reconstruction and Theonomy movements. When the scriptures are so clear about the inefficacy of the Mosaic law and the superiority of the Gospel, why do Christians want to impose the law onto the nation?

John 5.34b:

• I say these things so that you may be saved.

There are a few places in John where Jesus implies that our salvation is prior to his death and resurrection and is instead found in his own words to us. Elsewhere he claims that the disciples are clean because of his words (John 15.3). What is the connection between his words, i.e., his teachings, and our salvation? Could we be ignoring a crucial aspect of our redemption by focusing so much on his Passion?

John 5. 45:

• Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

It’s interesting that Moses is the accuser here, since accusation is the name and function of Satan. If Moses does Satan’s job, what does that tell us about Satan?

In Genesis 14.14, we are told:

When Abram heard that his kinsman [Lot] had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

I immediately thought of the the “kinsman redeemer” role, as seen most famously in the book of Ruth. Although Abram is here not so much a redeemer as a rescuer (since he won back Lot in battle rather than with money), it seems to me that there is a connection between being a kinsman and a redeemer. It was natural for Abram to go to Lot’s rescue, both as his closest relative and for the sake of Abram’s deceased brother Haran, Lot’s father.

I wonder if this passage helps explain the importance of the Father metaphor in scripture. God calls himself our Father because he takes upon himself the role of our kinsman, our rescuer and our redeemer. The terms establishes not only an intimacy with us, but a responsibility for us and for our safety. The passage above makes me think of Christ, coming to earth to redeem his people, even descending into hell to rescue those who have gone before us.

God loves us not only as Creator, but as Father, with all the responsibilities that go with that title for raising us up, protecting and providing for us, and granting us our share of the inheritance. Thanks be to God!

Amen.

Another 2 month gap in the blog — sigh…. The best-laid schemes….

For the past few days, I’ve had a passage from the 23rd Psalm in my head: “I shall not want,” or as I have heard it elsewhere: “I shall lack nothing.” I assume it’s in my head because this semester I start my job search and my dissertation completion grant — eek! So it’s reassuring, during this time of radical uncertainty about my life, to be reminded of the LORD as my shepherd and provider. I shall lack nothing, because God leads me beside still waters and into green pastures. Even should death loom over me, I need not fear, for God is my protector and my comforter.

One of the corollaries to this verse has been a re-examination of what it means to know God as my shepherd. God does not merely provide and protect, but when I wander off, God comes after me and brings me home. This idea speaks to my own fear that I will fail to hear God’s voice regarding what I should do, where I should apply, which jobs to consider, etc. (”Fail to hear” naturally includes “not pay attention to because something else seems more interesting.”) I have to admit that my life so far has been sort of a zigzag and that I’m never quite sure if the zigzag was God’s route or my own; so I’m nervous about heading off in the wrong direction again. But the Psalm reminds me that the Shepherd will come for me to bring me back to safety and better pasture.

I will trust in this promise; I certainly don’t have the wisdom to make these choices on my own!

Things have been hectic lately, and I’ve been feeling very little motivation to deal with any of them: school, family, relationships, church. It’s not quite the blahs, since it’s so busy, but the end effect is the same–I don’t want to do anything.

The image I’ve had in my head is of drowning–not in the fighting for my life kind of way, but in the over my head kind of way, maybe more like the frog who calmly boils to death as the heat rises. I’m trying to keep my head above water, but part of me just wants to let it wash over me and take me with the current.

I am reminded of a story I heard once about a businessman who was stressed out until God reminded him that God had seen Christ Jesus through every thing He had to deal with, and surely would do the same for the businessman. If God has given himself for us so completely, if God has shown that he can see one man through an entire lifetime without sin, surely this same God can and will see us through all the details of our lives?

Isaiah 43.2:

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you.

I will not drown. Like the Hebrews leaving Egypt and like their descendants entering Canaan, I can walk into the water and not drown. Like Jonah in the ocean, I need not worry about the sea, for God is my promise, my hope, and my salvation. There is nothing in my life too big for God to handle or too small for God’s concern.

Thanks be to God.

I recently had a conversation with someone who explained that one of her concerns about the way some churches emphasize the death of Christ is that if God would do that to Jesus, who’s to say God wouldn’t do that to us as well?

My first response was to emphasize that in putting Jesus to death, God was allowing himself to be put to death (according to the orthodox understanding of who Jesus is). Jesus’ death is self-sacrifice, and it is self-sacrifice by God, who gives himself to us so completely that he allows us to kill him so that he might redeem us. This act is not cruelty, but immense, overpowering love–a love so strong that it conquers even our rejection of it.

As Ellul has said, we kill God whenever we refuse to accept him in the way he chooses to reveal himself to us. In this case, God chose to reveal himself as Love in the flesh. When we reject that Love (and we do, even though we claim that we all agree with love), we reject God and God truly becomes dead for us. Yet Love is stronger than our rejection, and cannot be completely conquered.

Because God offers himself, we need not fear that God will demand the same of us. For the teaching is that God did what we were (and are) unable to do ourselves. Jesus accomplished all that needed to be done, and we are safe from the wrath of God.

Thinking about it later, though, I recalled that frightening passage in Job 13: Though God slay me, yet will I trust Him. And I recalled that this life of ours isn’t really our life. It never has been, and it never will be. It is on loan to us for so brief a time. The reality is that we live and move and having our very being in God. It is his life that has been given to us. And it is his to recall to himself at the proper time.

What a difficult thing it is to trust God–to truly, fully and faithfully trust that God has our best interests at heart. To believe that all that happens to us works for good because God loves us. To be willing to walk through the water and through the fire if God calls, knowing that God’s we remain in God’s hands and will not be hurt. Even death itself cannot separate us from God’s love. Our death is precious in God’s sight, and to die in the service of our Lord is truly one of the most blessed deaths.

Should God slay us, will we still trust him?

(comments)

What are we that God takes notice of us? That God should take care of us?

Dust. We are as dust. To God, even the Earth is but a speck of dust in the universe. How is it that we, who are so small even on our own world, should find favor with a Creator who holds galaxies as rings on his fingers?

We have nothing to commend us to God except God’s own love and promises. We have no power except that which God gives to us. No strength except what God allows. No authority except what God grants.

The greatness of God is found in God’s attention to us, God’s creation of us, God’s love for us. We who are among the smallest creatures in the universe are near the pinnacle of creation, created in God’s own image. Our greatness lies in that image.

We are blessed by God beyond all reason, beyond all expectation or hope. But we have nothing to commend ourselves outside of God’s image.

Praises be to God, who sees us in our weakness and in our smallness and who still rejoices over us when we place our trust in him.

Amen, and amen.