Cow or Calf

Acts 7:1-8:1a

The Bible isn’t always a treasure house of great rhetoric. Sure, there’s the Beatitudes, but there’s also a bunch of speeches that the Bible just insists had a tremendous impact on the listeners, but they don’t read like much of anything in English translation.

The story of St. Stephen and his martyrdom revolves around a long speech he gives to the high priest who confronts him with accusations of blasphemy. What follows is a run-on thumbnail retelling of nearly the whole Old Testament, sort of like 10-minute Shakespeare, leading up to some key points where the people show themselves to be “a stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears…forever opposing the Holy Spirit.” The result of Stephen’s oratorical efforts? The crowd stones him. Generally considered a bad outcome from an attempt at persuasion. But I guess Socrates had the same problem.

A lot of Stephen’s speech recounts the history of the Jews: Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses bringing them out of Israel. All of this leads to exhibit A in the charge of stiff-neckedness, that whole golden calf thing.

Well, I’ve been thinking of the Golden Calf ever since my world was enriched recently by something I learned about in Iowa: The Butter Cow. Dear readers, I probably have no need to explain the Butter Cow to you, but in case there are some of you who suffer from the same level of ignorance in which I wallow, the Butter Cow is a feature of the Iowa State Fair. Since 1911, a sculptor has created a life-sized dairy cow out of layers of butter applied to wood, metal, and mesh frame. Carving the cow is the responsibility of a single artist who performs this feat each year until the time to retire and hand over the reins. This artist also carves another figure or maybe more—Elvis one year, Tiger Woods, the Last Supper, Brandon Routh as Superman (the actor is from Iowa). The State Fair is on only its 4^th butter sculptor.

The Butter Cow strikes me as one of those things everyone would have heard of, and my ignorance of it makes me question what cave I’ve been living in (I’ve been watching Letters from Iwo Jima on DVD this evening, so I’ve also got caves on the mind).

But here’s the question:

Charming Midwestern tradition?

Or rejection of the covenant with God?

Judas

Luke 21:37-22:13

“Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them. They were greatly pleased and agreed to give him money. So he consented and began to look for an opportunity to betray him to them when no crowd was present.”

Recently the National Geographjc Society released the Gospel of Judas, and Elaine Pagels and Karen King have published a book on it. The upshot is to reposition Judas as a figure who collaborated with Jesus to realize the prophecies. Jesus asked Judas to play his role leading to the Passion, and Judas did nothing but obey.

I find the interest in rehabilitating Judas quite strange. The Bible doesn’t need anything added to it, not the Gospel of Judas, not the Book of Mormon. It is what it is, and its rich content needs to be addressed. Once upon a time the content of the Bible was up for grabs, but that was a long time ago, and now part of being Christian is having this well-defined set of stories and poetry to work with as a holy text. The text is complicated and multifarious enough, it needs nothing else to give us plenty to do.

The Gospel of Judas offers an alternative way to understand Judas, and of course some people would say it says something about who he really was. I think we need to understand Judas within the narrative form that we encounter him. It’s like adding a sequel to Moby Dick for new insights on Ahab. You can do that, but then you’re dealing with a completely different book and narrative.

The point that Judas was necessary to realizing Jesus’ appointed role in the creation is plainly there in the Gospels. No need to add texts. The story of Judas brings us back to the question of the relationship of an all-powerful God to both evil and good. God needs Judas to betray to Jesus, and in fact appoints him to do this. Does this make Judas a good and faithful servant? What is evil, really? It is clearly something we encounter and experience as humans, but it’s not as clear what it looks like to a merciful God. And what is goodness? Again, it is something we experience when we receive a kindness or witness an act of grace. But in our prayers we acknowledge that it is only by the God’s grace that our good acts are in fact good in ultimate terms.

Do we live in Apocalytic times?

1 Samuel 4:1b-11
Acts 4:32-5:11
Luke 21:20-28

This a trifecta of violence and warfare. We start with the Israelites battling with the Philistines quite unsuccessfully, then have a couple dropping dead when Peter calls them out on cheating the collective, and Jesus in one of his apocalyptic moments.

The passage from Samuel tells the story of a battle in which the Israelites bring out the ark as their secret weapon, but the Philistines figure they just need to stand up and fight. Which they do, and they capture the ark of the covenant and kill Eli’s two sons Hophni and Phinehas. Of course their victory is short-lived—having the ark around creates all sorts of disease and death in their city. So they give the ark back after 7 months.

The story is really about Eli’s failure to protect things and letting his sons run amok. The Lord sets him back, as the Lord is wont to do.

In Acts, after again explanatory that the earliest church held everything in common (champions of collectivism might point to this as a prescription for Christian life, and as much as I’d like them to be true, it never seemed that way to me—it reads more like a practical solution developed at that time), the story describes how Ananias and Sapphira sell a piece of property but lie about the price so they can hold some back for themselves. Peter knows about it (God told him, or Peter checked comparables), confronts Ananias, points out that he has lied to God. Ananias points out that he has lied to God, and Ananias falls straight out and dies. 3 hours later his wife Sapphira shows up, Peter puts her through the same routine and she dies. Rough justice, if you assume Peter “zapped” them. Or an indicator of the terrible burden you take on by deceiving yourself into thinking you can deceive God.

Finally, Jesus prophesizes the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Coming. “These are the days of vengeance,,,Woe to those who are nursing infants in those days.” Earlier in the chapter he started this tale of end times: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” Earthquakes, famines, plagues, portents and signs from heaven.

As Jesus describes it, those end times are near. This generation, i.e., the one he’s talking to. But he obviously didn’t mean quite that, unless you look at the last 2,000 years of human history as an extended time of days of vengeance, with every successive outrage and holocaust part of the same. You can definitely make this case.

You can also make the case we’ve been given a pretty wonderful world to live in, and one in which we even see glimmers of humans getting their act together. We understand genocide is wrong (not clear anyone much in the 18th or 19th century saw anything wrong say in wiping out Native Americans so my ancestors could take over their land). We cure some diseases. Life spans lengthen (some places, some times, some groups). Women get treated more like full participants in human society. And so on.

We live in fairly apocalyptic times. I think the next 5 years are going to be telling. I think we’re going to get an idea of what global warming is going to do. It may be hard to get away from things like this passage in Luke. My little litany of positive advances may seem more and more ridiculous. There is some attraction in living in a world of imminent violence—defeat by the Philistines, getting struck dead, and those grand battles of ignorant armies on the darkling plain. It's all so dramatic.

Maybe there’s a couple of things to take from this. First, as the horrors and disasters of the world seem to crowd in, maybe words like Jesus’ account of the Second Coming in fact caution us against embracing the pessimism about the world that goes along with it. This Second Coming exists on some other plane, spiritual or metaphorical, and you can’t count on the end of things. No, you count on them continuing and behave accordingly. And the people of God will suffer setbacks, but you have to keep reading to the end.

I let these pasages lead to this question: do we live in Apocalyptic times? That leads to the idea that we always live under the shadow of the Apocalypse, each successive generation. It's there, a place we slip into during our lives, but one we have to pull ourselves out of as well. In Biblical and religious terms, it is by remembering the other parts of the book and the story. The Psalms of forgiveness and plentitude.

Council of the Holy Ones

Psalm 89:1-18
Psalm 97:1-12

From yesterday, Psalm 89

⁶For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD?

Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD,

⁷a God feared in the council of the holy ones,

great and awesome above all that are around him?

From today, Psalm 97

¹The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice;

let the many coastlands be glad!

²Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;

righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

³Fire goes before him,

and consumes his adversaries on every side.

⁴His lightnings light up the world;

the earth sees and trembles.

⁵The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,

before the Lord of all the earth.

⁶The heavens proclaim his righteousness;

and all the peoples behold his glory.

⁷All worshipers of images are put to shame,

those who make their boast in worthless idols;

all gods bow down before him.

OK, here’s a question or two: who are the “heavenly beings?” What about this council of the holy ones. Angels? I suppose. But really, Christianity doesn’t have a pantheon of deities. 3 in 1. That’s the deal. There are these messengers, but they don’t have a role in creating or ruling the world. What does this council rule on? Maybe they just hang out and nod their heads. More like a choir.

You also run across references like this one in Psalm 97. Gods bow down. Who are these Gods if there is one God? If other Gods are just delusions of those in darkness, then they aren’t out there bowing down before God. They don’t exist.

One fascinating thing about the Bible is watching God’s position consolidate. In the Old Testament there are hints that God has competitors. That there are other Gods floating around vying for human fealty. The Bible makes the case, through songs and stories, that God is greater than these. But not always that God is the only one. God is clearly the one creator, and it’s not clear what is the status of these others. In some cases you can assume they are presented as delusions of the local people. But at times actions and qualities are attributed to these other entities.

As the Bible progresses, and certainly by the time of the New Testament, the other gods fade away, and God has the stage alone. It is a question of accepting God or not. Little (maybe none) credence or attention is given to Zeus or Jupiter by Jesus and the Apostles. The battle is completely over the souls of people.

In an ecumenical world, where one honors the religious practices of other people, the question of multiple Gods comes back. The Middle Eastern religions are easy enough to resolve—Jehovah, God, Allah, all ways of engaging with the same singular creator God. But what about all those Hindu deities? Or the Goddess in Wicca. The traditional approach is to say only one way to salvation, believe in the triune God, or fall into damnation. But I know I don’t believe that. People of good conscience who are devotees of Siva or Ganesha, I don’t think they will suffer for it. I have to think that as Allah is a way of addressing the God revealed to the Jews, these other deities are ways of getting at the same thing that we pursue through devotion to Jesus. Christianity might be better or a more direct path, but a truly ecumenical view (not a hypocritical, fingers crossed behind the back ecumenicalism) says it’s OK, we’re pulling in the same direction.

If you go back to the Old Testament, where there are all those other gods, and it is clear they are entities beyond people’s creations, and God is the creator of all things, then God is their creator. They serve some purpose in God’s world. Maybe they are foils or tests. “Let’s see if they fall for this.” But maybe they are alternate methods.

Today is Solstice. In Wicca and many other religions, this is an important day. For people of European descent, most of our ancestors marked the points in the solar calendar. There is real benefit to celebrating Solstice and the other points. It makes you aware of the physical world, the interdependencies of people, animals, plants, and things. It demands humility. You’re just part of it. Don’t get too much in the way of attitudes. I’ve long felt that if we have to have a civic religion – we don’t, but some people are working on getting us one – we would be a lot better off promoting Wicca. It can focus people on good, concrete stuff. Dirt, plants, light, rain, heat. Christianity seems to lead people astray very easily. “I’ve got an idea—let’s have a Crusade.” That kind of thing. Of course the idea of putting religion (or set of practices if you will) in such a place of authority is radioactive to Wiccans. They would have no part in it. Good for them.

Final unrelated thought. The description of God in Psalm 97 sounds foreboding. Mountains melting, lightning, earthquakes. Why should Earth rejoice, the coastlands be glad. The bridge for me is in the middle: clouds and thick darkness are all around him. On the one hand that sounds like special effects from Raiders of the Lost Ark. But I think of the way clouds envelope the landscape in Seattle and Vancouver in the Fall and Winter. That’s lovely and calming for me. Somewhere there’s a bridge between the power to destroy and the power to sustain. The Psalms are poetry, and poetry works by jamming things together, forming more meaning by the associations of proximity, not necessarily relying on linear explanation.

Render

Luke 20:19-26
Psalm 102:1-28

The scribes and priests are still trying to trip Jesus up. The plan is to get him to spout treason against the Roman government, then hand him over (a scheme that eventually more or less works). In addition to solving the problem of their authority in the Jewish community, it gives them a chance to show the occupying power that yes, they do cooperate with the efforts to bring order to the streets.

"Teacher, we know that you are right in what you say and teach, and you show deference to no one, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, "Show me a denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?" They said, "The emperor’s." He said to them, "Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s."

They were expecting sedition from Jesus, but instead got accommodation. The line “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” becomes a template for Christian conformity. Obey society’s laws in your public affairs, obey the church’s teachings in private. It allows for a separation of religion and politics, each in control of its own space, cooperating vigorously to keep order all the way across the system. The business of religion in this case is not revolution. The best it can do is offer some comfort where the government seems to let people down, but it should do so without complaining.

Another interpretation of this would be that sending the denarius back to Caesar is done without enthusiasm. The Christian cooperates only as much as required. Stay under the radar, don’t give them an excuse to throw you in jail, and lead your radical life in the space left over as you stay within those lines. After all, this is one of Jesus’ clever parries with the Pharisees, designed to leave them with empty hands, the catch sliding out and straight back into the river.

But explain this to me. What exactly is Caesar’s, beyond this coin with his picture? Caesar did not create the world and the people and animals in it. If Caesar’s laws harm God’s children, is Caesar staying within the lines of his domain, or is he interfering with God’s? Jesus’ rhetorical ruse may be even more clever than it looks on the surface. One can give the coin to the Emperor, but in the end it doesn’t matter because it all comes back to God.

I then end up asking whether I wouldn’t rather maintain a bright line between the church and public policy, politics, all that. Human nature is such that you want your preachers (or elders, deacons, choir directors, etc.) in the game, but wish the other guys would stay out of it. I can’t stand it when Two River Baptist Church runs a crypto-Republican rally, but I’m very proud that Rev. Stacy Rector leads the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing. In the end I have to make an argument based on the substance of the activity, not the form. Some Christians are active in politics and public affairs in destructive and self-aggrandizing ways. I have to make that case. It’s harder than saying “preachers out.”

The evening Psalm 102 has one of my favorite images, the little owl in verses 6-7:

⁶I am like an owl of the wilderness,

like a little owl of the waste places.

⁷I lie awake;

I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.

⁸All day long my enemies taunt me;

those who deride me use my name for a curse.

⁹For I eat ashes like bread,

and mingle tears with my drink,

¹⁰because of your indignation and anger;

for you have lifted me up and thrown me aside.

This little guy might be the same kind of owl: Athene noctua, called the Little Owl, common in the Middle East.

Sister Jezebel

1 Kings 21:1-21a

If I had encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible, I would miss out on the pleasure of stumbling across the reference for some later cultural icon. At my current level of ignorance, I get the surprise of saying “oh that’s where this phrase or name comes from.” Sunday’s daily lectionary included most of the story of Ahab from 1^st Kings. Melville practically rewrote the Old Testament in Moby Dick. It’s not clearly there’s anything other than Biblical references in the novel.

To recap, Ahab was a king in Israel (when the kingship of Israel and Judah were split) who decided he wanted a vineyard owned by a guy named Naboth. He offers a sale or trade, but Naboth ain’t interested. Ahab pouts, so his wife Jezebel decides she’ll get him the vineyard – after all, he rules Israel, so why shouldn’t he have it. And she’s probably sick of seeing him mope around the house. If he won’t take care of the situation she’ll do it for him. So she writes letters in Ahab’s name sends them to “the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city.” As Ahab, she tells them to find some thugs to accuse Naboth of something, anything, then take him out and stone him to death. The elders and nobles do this, Naboth is stoned to death, Jezebel gets news of this and sends Ahab off to get his vineyard. But the Lord gets in touch with Elijah, tells him to tell Ahab “Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.” Furthermore, Elijah tells Ahab that he (it seems Elijah speaks of his power here) will “consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel.”

Here’s a story of greed driving someone to bring down their house, the obsession of Melville’s whaling captain. But let’s not forget Jezebel, who is the villain here, like Eve in the garden (or Lady MacBeth). It’s one of those evil women, women as temptress passages that make it difficult to reconcile Christianity with the kind of relations between sexes people of good faith want to have in this day and age. Social progress is real (to update and reverse the Louvin Brothers), and we can’t accept the casting of men and women suggested by this passage.

The lectionary demurely cuts off the passage here. The rest of the chapter doesn’t exactly help much (1 Kings 21:21b-29:

“and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin. Also concerning Jezebel the Lod said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.’ [Jezreel is where Naboth had his vineyard] Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat.’

(Indeed, there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord, urged on by his wife Jezebel. He acted most abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord drove out before the Israelites.)

When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth over his bare flesh; he fasted, lay in the sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: ‘Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster on his house.’”

First of all, the passage circles back to Jezebel and gives this bloody account of the end awaiting her. It’s pretty graphic, and makes it impossible to ignore the fact that the passage blames Jezebel. It’s no wonder the designers of the lectionary decided to cut off where they did. What preacher in his or her right mind wants to preach on the dogs eating Jezebel in Jezreel.

The next paragraph, in parentheses in the NRSV, at first seems to make the point again, although it puts Jezebel in a purely abetting role. Ahab sold himself. He acted abominably.

Why the Lectionary leaves out the last paragraph is harder to understand. In that, Ahab makes amends. He can’t get off the hook entirely—causing the death of another person for the reason of personal gain is clearly out of bounds. But even in the face of such an abomination, God finds room for mercy.

What are the options in interpretation here? One is to say women are a bad influence, better keep them under tight surveillance. That has certainly been the fashion in many times and places. The other is to argue that gender doesn’t matter, the point here is that someone wants something, and lets the people close to them engage in abominable behavior on their behalf. A view on the sad state of fallen humanity. But glossing over the gender misses the fact that this scenario comes up at least one other really significant time, and the roles are never reversed.

That leads to the next option, to say this reflects the social realities of the time. It’s about what a person does with their power, and what those close to power do to curry favor with power. In this society, that sort of public power was only held by men. When Hilary Clinton takes over the White House, Bill Clinton will play the Jezebel role.

I can’t quite get to any of these positions. I think you have to accept the sexism embedded in the book, in this book of ultimate importance. But there is clearly a need to move the faith to a position past that kind of sexism. I think it occurs through some sort of dialectic process in which the reality of such texts is acknowledged, but is met with an antithesis rooted in the contemporary experience of Christian communities of good faith that leads to a practice of Christianity that reflects the capacity of the human family to progress, even within the limits of historical time between Christ’s resurrection and return. We cannot make paradise no more than we can build a tower to heaven, but we can be better in our stewardship of creation and our acts of love to our neighbors (that would be everyone).

Add-on. In addition to what I picture when I hear the name Jezebel—Bette Davis, fere’s another image of Jezebel, by a late 19^th/early 20^th century painter named Byam Shaw. The picture here is of a vain woman, but you really don’t get that from the passage in Kings. Her motives are to snap her husband out of it—maybe as a matter of convenience, maybe a reflected sense of the household’s dignity, but she could just be trying to do her duty in misguided way. But these names have a capacity to take on a life of their own after they are lifted from the Bible.

Habits of Mind

2 Corinthians 11:16-21a
Luke 20:1-19

The New Testament is filled with people trying to get the best of each other in argument. Paul’s letters are filled with extended metaphors/arguments. In 2 Corinthians (this is from a few days ago, there is this long riff in which Paul casts himself as a fool and weak, and then argues from that position about the authority of his words:

I repeat, let no one think that I am a fool; but if you do, then accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. What I am saying in regard to this boastful confidence, I am saying not with the Lord's authority, but as a fool; since many boast according to human standards, I will also boast. For you gladly put up with fools, being wise yourselves! For you put up with it when someone makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or gives you a slap in the face. To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that!

Paul’s sentences twist and turn, and you have to slow down to see the point.

Jesus also engages in verbal sparring throughout. Sometimes it takes the form of quizzing the Apostles, or performing a miracle followed by instructions like “tell no one” or “let’s get out of here.” He also constantly argues with authorities (up to the very end in front of Herod):

One day, as he was teaching the people in the temple and telling the good news, the chief priests and the scribes came with the elders and said to him, "Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Who is it who gave you this authority?" He answered them, "I will also ask you a question, and you tell me: Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" They discussed it with one another, saying, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say, 'Why did you not believe him?' But if we say, 'Of human origin,' all the people will stone us; for they are convinced that John was a prophet." So they answered that they did not know where it came from. Then Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."

Here you can see the priests, scribes, and elders trying to catch him up, then Jesus parries the question with a question that puts them on the defensive. They perform an evasive manoeuvre, he responds in kind, ending in a draw, but in this chess game the priests lose from a draw. They had wanted to catch Jesus out, but ended up with nothing solid, and Jesus of course knew everything he needed to know about them.

And he follows with a parable, about a man with a vineyard leased to tenants who kills his slaves and son when they go to collect rent. “What will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” The priests realize this is a barely veiled reference to them.

With accounts like this at the heart of the faith, Scholasticism and its progeny is no surprise. The faith conditions habit of mind that will take pleasure in logic and argument. Obviously many people have argued that these habits of mind started with the characteristics of this religion, spread into other realms, and led to the predominance of the West for the last several centuries.

The West may be losing that power now – only a blind person would look around and say the West leads the world by direct control or by assimilating other peoples into Western cultural practices. To me, it is much more the case that other cultures have adopted what they like from the West and are working with it in distinctly different directions, whether it is the Chinese version of capitalism or the way radical Islamic movements use modern communications methods to promote their cause.

One possible factor in this weakening of the West’s strength is the fact that some parts of the West, notably the U.S., are leaving the West. And I’m not talking about immigrants. I’m talking about native born people who increasingly abandon the cultural traditions and notions of progress and reason in favor a deracinated post-modern Americanism that devalues the intellectual practices that have, for better or worse, marked the West. A big part of this, in the U.S., is traced to a church that turns its back on the value of reason and argument embedded in the primary stories and texts of the faith in favor of calls to emotion only and to the simplest possible reading of complicated texts. The personal experience of Jesus and the Bible reduced to slogans, with study of the text itself and theology something done as an afterthought, left to others, or even rejected. Much American Protestantism has long reflected a non-metropolitan distrust of academic learning. It’s a healthy antidote to taking it too seriously, but when it so dominates that all interest and respect for reason is lost, that’s a problem. It also violates the historical memory of our country’s development, in which even with the crudeness of the early white settlements, people carried books with them. The light of the culture went with the people.

I’m afraid George Bush sums it up pretty well. Went to Yale, but didn’t bother trying to learn anything there, because learning is for chumps. Knew everything he needed to know, with a notorious lack of curiosity, even about critical issues he faces as a leader. Religion can reinforce such proclivities, or it can counteract them.

More Poetry

Psalm 84:1-12
Song of Solomon 2:8-13, 4:1-11
Luke 19:41-48

Song of Solomon is a short book, so it will only knock around the lectionary for a few days. So enjoy it while we can. One thing to consider, how odd some of the images are. First, girl talks about boy:

The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away."

The images flow from sound – the voice of my beloved – no reason to say more – on to sight – “look,”here he is, compared to a deer. Then he’s hanging out, sort of a peeping Tom. That should be creepy, no? But with the mutual desire, it’s intense and passionate. However, don’t necessarily try this at home. Then the whole environment, the change of seasons, becomes the lover’s attributes, and we end this bit with scent. These lines are so large: 3 sensory realms, and an immense change of scale that locates the lover in the entire environment. This does start to sound like God, but it’s also undeniably the human realm. One true aspect of love is the way the beloved occupies an immense place in the lover’s inner life.

When boy talks about girl, more odd images come up.

How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them is bereaved. Your lips are like a crimson thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is like the tower of David, built in courses…

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride! how much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice! Your lips distil nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon.

My wife likes goats, but I’m not sure she wants to be compared to a flock of ‘em. Or have her teeth compared to shorn ewes – have you ever seen shorn sheep – they look kind of scrawny and uncomfortably naked.

Then he conflates bride and sister. From Peeping Tom to incest. It reminds me of that telephone ad: “Didn’t you think there was a connection…[no response]…Like brother and sister,… not that I would make out with my sister.” In the midst of passion transgression becomes attractive. I think that’s true to human life. Everything gets swept up in it. On this one, I’m not sure it tells you much about the relationship with the divine, other than to encourage you to let yourself go with these passions.

More great poetry in the morning Psalm. A lot of time the Psalms don’t read in a highly musical way – this is poetry in translation after all. But Psalm 84 practically scans. It’s not iambs, but it has more traces of line rhythm in English than many do. Earlier this year I adapted the Psalm for an anthem at church, and I didn’t change much to give it rhythmic pace.

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my King and my God.
Happy are those who live in your house,
ever singing your praise.

Finally, it’s not really poetry, but lovely lines from Jesus: “As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.’” The Bible contains many such lines that seem perfectly fitted to the situation today. You feel like these are your words to the U.S. Administration and their cheerleaders. And you feel Jesus does weep when he looks at what these people are doing. Not that it matters, but some of them profess to be followers of Jesus. Christians don’t have a higher duty to behave justly, with love and compassion. It’s incumbent on everyone to do so. But they do have a greater reason to listen to Christ’s words.

Permission from the Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon 1:1-3, 9-11, 15-16a; 2:1-3a

Ah, the Song of Solomon, a long love poem that somehow found its way into the Bible: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine, your annointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you... I compare you my love to a mare among Pharaoh's chariots. Your cheeks are comely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you ornaments of gold, studded with silver...Ah, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves. Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely."

Song of Solomon seems to beg for an explanation, which usually takes the form that it is a metaphor for Yahweh and Israel. But to me, that seems like a pretty willful reading in. You could as easily say this just wandered in here by mistake.

What if you take this more on face value. This is a love poem, filled with a strong sense of the erotic, of response to the physical qualities of the lovers: mouth, eyes, teeth, temples, skin. The poem keeps changing perspective, from the woman's to the man's perspective, back and forth. It is a poem of mutual desire.

So this poem of desire is in the Bible. Just there. You can put all sorts of extra levels of symbolic content on the words, but you have to let the poem be what it is. Accepting the words as they are, it seems to me that one has to conclude My conclusion is that this desire is part of the story of God and people. Love and desire between people is an aspect of what is holy in the world.

Accepting this poem into the Bible opens up the possibility that all sorts of sensory experience are to be valued as part of holiness in the world--without an obligation to translate them into codified theological messages. My wife in one of her posts pointed out the importance of attentitiveness to Eros, and the Song of Solomon is filled with that attention to detail. So that attentitiveness is holy too. And the intensity of the relationship, and its mutuality. The Song of Solomon puts it in the Bible, so you have to accept it as part of the Christian message.

You could treat the Song of Solomon as a side show, a short book in the Old Testament, and focus on all of the aspects of Paul and others that suggest self-denial in such things. But that gets close to the idea that Song of Solomon is a mistake, or that you have to strip away the words and replace them with correspondences to something that seems more like talk about God. But that's picking and choosing, no? If you're going to accept Song of Solomon as a legitimate part of the Bible, why not go whole hog. There is no reason not to treat the short book as a linchpin, the starting point for understanding the relationship between your physical experience and life and your spiritual life, and the way the two are interwoven, not separated.

Susan Sontag said "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art." Christianity is big on hermenuetics, of texts and even of the natural world and experience. I think Christianity can use an erotics of God's word and God's creation, powerfully tuning into the sensation of words, things, people, and experiences. The existence of the Song of Solomon suggests that is part of the deal.

Led to slaughter

Luke 19:11-27

This section contains Luke’s version of the parable of the talents. It’s messier than the version in Matthew 25, so it’s understandable that Matthew has the more well-known version. For instance, in Luke the ruler gives money to 10 slaves, but in the end he gets reports back from just 3. Not clear what happened to the other 7.

Luke also adds a twist. It turns out the people of the country hate the ruler and don’t want him to rule over them. So when he gets back, first he takes care of rewarding the servants who invested and chastises the one who wrapped up the money in cloth. The ones who invested get assigned to rule over 10 and 5 cities. The guy who buried the money has to give it to the one who made 10 pounds. “Them that’s got shall get.” But Luke’s version involves a bunch of bystanders, who exclaim “Lord he has ten pounds” when this decision comes down. A little Greek chorus that isn't exactly following what the protangonist is up to.

The ruler goes one step further in Luke, based on the different set up. “But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.” It’s one thing to waste the gift, another thing to actively resist the authority of the gift-giver. But the reaction. If the master was cruel in Matthew, Luke amps it up and makes him absolutely bloodthirsty.

This ruler, cruel, reaping what he did not sow, demanding and uncomforting, howling for the blood of his enemies, what an unattractive metaphor for God. Why would God allow himself to be described this way? God comes across like the terrifying deities of Tibetan Buddhism, gods as monsters. Of course, these deities symbolize a spiritual process of destroying the urges and desires of worldly life to achieve spiritual release. A ruthlessness on the plane of spiritual practice is required.

It’s not clear that the vengeful master plays the same metaphorical role at the Tibetan gods, although it is clear that the money stands in for spiritual gifts, God’s love and grace which people can take up as an opportunity to extend grace in the world or squander. Moving outside the parable’s metaphorical realm, into something like concrete life, the investment we are asked to make occurs significantly with our actions towards others. Actually, its not that different from a monetary investment, which occurs by letting someone else use the money.

In terms of the investment of some sort of spiritual gifts, it makes sense to strip God’s grace from the person who does nothing with it, and increase the endowment of a person who extends that grace throughout the human realm—although it’s not clear what that stripping away looks like. I’m not certain God can take away the portion of grace given. When grace is experienced, it has been experienced. He can refuse to renew it, and I guess that slide into a state of non-grace is a condemnation that makes sense in the parable’s terms.

Slaughtering the opponents is harder to reconcile in terms of God’s actions in our world. This application of the ultimate punishment to God’s enemies may just represent the severity of damnation. But it seems unduly bloodthirsty. The ruler wants to see it done, like it’s a kind of entertainment. The undercurrent of sadistic pleasure seems out of character for a God whom we believe would rue the fall of any person. This passage is filled with judgment, very little hint of mercy. God has many dimensions and moods, has all of them, and we have to accept this. You could say that an infinite being will not always be to our liking because He will encompass all facets of human personality. But that takes you down a slippery slope in which God is engaged in evil because it is part of that full range of experience.

This one line never quite resolves itself completely. Every time you think you've straightened out the interpretation, you run into a place where the line still sticks.

Excuse to talk about Gary Snyder

Deuteronomy 30:1-10
2 Corinthians 10:1-18

Here's one of those "oh-oh" passages, Deut. 30:8-9: "Then you shall again obey the LORD, observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and the LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors..." It's disappointing to see churches "sell" Christianity as a path to prosperity. Jesus really doesn't offer that--He was more into sell all your possessions and that camel through the eye of a needle business. Then you run across something like this and you say, OK they're looking at different parts. This really cries out for putting God's messages to the people in some sort of social and political context. The chosen people, who have been wandering through the desert, are coming in for their time of wealth, ease, and power in God's scheme.

But my favorite lines from today's lectionary was this from Corinthians:

"Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ."

The rhythms of these lines remind me of Gary Snyder's Smokey the Bear Sutra, and the metaphorical transferences to a realm of spiritual transformation. Here's a few lines:

• Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;
• His left paw in the Mudra of Comradely Display — indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;
• Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often destroys;
• Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the West, symbolic of the forces that guard the Wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the True Path of man on earth: all true paths lead through mountains—

I adore this poem, so I look for any excuse to talk about it. Probably stretching things to compare it to Paul's letter, and I'm not sure Gary Snyder would dig it.

Red Dragon

Revelation 12:1-12

“A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve starts. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another potent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.”

You know, when I said the Bible can be “oddly practical” yesterday, that’s because it also serves up stuff like this. However much effort you want to put into scrutinizing these texts and deciphering them (personally, I’d advise against it), there’s no denying what a spur to the imagination they have been. Where would Blake or Thomas Harris be, or Jan van Eyck (not this passage, but other parts of the book of Revelation)? These portentous, evocative, and elaborate images are part of the Western imaginative DNA. They are alluring, frightening, and beyond comprehension. They point to the possibility of seeing things not yet seen, and of undiscovered meaning, and that makes the world of things we make a richer place.

A 12th century manuscript from Northern Spain

Dürer woodcut from 1497-98

Blake watercolor from 1805

1981

Some say Elijah

Matthew 15:29-39
1 Kings 17:8-24
Luke 7:11-17

One of the basic structural characteristics of the Christian Bible is the way the Old and New Testament echo and reflect each other. Events in the Old Testament foreshadow the New Testament, or you could say the New Testament engages in a campaign to lay claim and transform the essential elements of the Old Testament – say covenants or commandments – turning Judaism into something different.

These three passages make it clear why people thought Jesus might be Elijah (Mark 8:27-28). In the verses from Kings, Elijah first invokes the power of the Lord to cause a widow’s store of oil and meal to be replenished so she could provide the prophet food and not starve herself and her son. Then the son gets ill and dies, and Elijah calls on the Lord to bring him back to life. Sounds a lot like Jesus’ miracles – in Matthew he performs a food miracle, the loaves and fishes, and in this passage from Luke he calls on the dead son of a widow to rise up from his funeral bier. Of course Elijah calls on the Lord, and Jesus acts on his own behalf. Similar, but transformed.

Money

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
2 Corinthians 9:1-15
Luke 18:15-30

Wanted to pick back up on the business about first fruits in Deuteronomy. Giving comes up again today in Paul’s letter and in this section of Luke (which covers “let the children come to me,” telling the rich man to sell everything, and the camel through the eye of the needle).

The Bible can be an oddly practical book. There’s a number of passages, OT and NT, that set up the basic economics of the church—giving to the church is a duty of the believer. Ideally one tenth of income, in essence before other costs and taxes. This is presented not simply as something that is practically useful, but also the source of spiritual benefits in itself: 2 Cor 9:7: “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” In the conversation with the rich man, Jesus keeps raising the stakes. Sell all you have. Leave your house, wife, family.

These points about giving form the core of many stewardship sermons, and it always sounds self-serving coming from the minister. God says pay me. I wonder if ministers could somehow be freed of the obligation to make these pitches, which cannot help but being in part about continuing their own income. If the people are giving because it’s good to give (and let go of attachment to possessions), and because God asks for it, this is an important message that can get obscured by the implicit secondary motives.

One line of thinking I went through on these passages was the impression that Christianity is more concerned than other religions with getting its economics in order, and goes further in embedding considerations for the church’s economics into the theology. As I think about it, I’m not sure that’s right. Direct gifts of money and purchases of food seem to be integral to Hindu devotional practice. Many of the passages on giving come up in the Old Testament, so it’s there for Judaism too. I know Islam requires the giving of alms—I don’t know if passages in the Koran specify the kind of support that should go to the imams and other religious officials. One of the distinguishing features of Wicca is that most of its practitioners stay away from payment for ritual. Of course Wicca is not trying to build a religion in terms of a hierarchy, bureaucracy, and facilities. So it needs less money.

The Bible is a little less clear on what the money needs to pay for. In the Old Testament, it’s clearly going to priests. In the New Testament, it seems to be more for the poor or for mutual support. Pretty early on it seems it was decided that the religion would have priests. I guess that’s a given, most religions are led by specialists. But the descriptions of the early church in Paul sound pretty communitarian. Was it necessarily so that Christianity would have professional spiritual leaders? Human nature is such that people will always emerge to claim that sort of role, but I believe that these forms have more rationale. They have to have a firmer rationale.

Again, the Bible and the religion are practical in certain regards. Spreading the good news was an imperative. Extension of the religion is aided by giving some people the job of building and maintaining organizations. Ministers are not solely responsible for extending the faith, but they do provide structure to the communities of faith and make sure the complicated theology doesn’t get completely screwy as it is passed from one person to the next. There is the idea of different gifts, and identifying a dedicated group of people to serve as ministers is consistent with the idea that some should be preaching the word.

Still, it’s not 100% obvious that having a gift for preaching the word means you should be paid for that. I think in some Mennonite communities the preachers are farmers like everyone else. But you get back to size and reach again. And to the idea that preaching requires great knowledge of the Word and of ancillary writings, all of which require dedicated education and intense ongoing reading and learning. More than an amateur can absorb and keep up with.

Milk and Honey

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

This section of Deuteronomy has a passage that often cited by Pat McGeachy, the former pastor at Downtown Presbyterian Church: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.” As I recall, his take was that we are all wandering people, homeless until God brings us in from the wilderness. Something like that.

The main thrust of this passage is the first fruits idea: God gave you this land, so you bring the first fruits of the harvest to the priests. “He brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” It reminds me of Pete Seeger's version of the Norwegian folk song Oleanna: “When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man. But the land was sweet and good, and I did what I could.” I’ve been traveling to Iowa lately, and am reminded of the fertility of the land in an area like that which is still cultivated intensely. Driving from Des Moines I could smell the dirt, along with the drafts of manure you get out there.

The phrase “flowing with milk and honey” is strange when you think about it. Honey maybe that’s something you can just walk into a land and find, but milk comes from tending a herd. You don’t walk up to wild goats and get milk from them. And people have been tending hives a long time. No, the riches of the land are opportunity for you to work.

There is another take on this. Deuteronomy 6:10-12 describes the Promised Land as a place the people will conquer and take over, not build up:

“When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant..”

Maybe the land flows with milk and honey because of the people who were there first. The movement into the Promised Land is obviously a story of conquest, not the pioneer myth – which is really a story of conquest, but we like to think of it as Norwegians showing up in unoccupied acreage divided up into sections and ready for planting. Of course the point is so basic. Everything comes from God, from the force way past you, which allows your work to pay off.

You do have to recognize that the Bible contains a series of displacements, where God chooses to push one people aside and move his chosen people in. Of course, sometimes the tide goes the other way. But I think it is worth remembering the people who were there before, who are often the unspoken reverse side of the triumphs in the Bible. They didn’t deserve what happened to them, any more than the people of Israel deserved God’s bounty. God’s choice, both sides.

Where to look

Luke 17:20-37
Deuteronomy 17:14-20

Yesterday's Gospel reading includes one of the great statements of collectivism in the Bible: "The Kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you." You could interpret this as simply 'there are some of you out there who have the Kingdom of God' but to me the much more appealing interpretation (and one I've heard from most of my preachers in sermons) is that the Kingdom resides in the spaces between people, in their relationships with one another. Its body is a social body. This passage is the strong case for churches, congregations, denominations, and for people committing themselves to each other over the long haul.

This passage, which says the Kingdom does not come with "things observed," without signs one can point to, it is followed by what? The rapture, of all things! Verses 22-37 start by picking up where these others left off, saying don't follow anyone who says "Look there" or Look here!" Then it runs through cases where some were saved, others destroyed: Noah and the Flood, Lot and Sodom. On the day the Son of Man is revealed, it will be like that. "I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left."

Jesus says there won't be signs, but is there anything that has inspired more sign-reading and Biblical divination than the Rapture? I know some people who have this humorous take that if the Rapture comes, no one will know because the people taken will be few and those will be people not much noticed, like homeless people. Waiting for Tim LaHaye to go missing is not a reliable sign.

The passage ends with the disciples asking where the people will be taken, and he answered "Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather." So a couple of ways to look at this. The rapture comes with death. Simple as that. Comes when it comes. Or: hasn't the Son of Man
been revealed, in Jesus Christ? So the rapture has come. It's here, among us, as is the Kingdom, Resurrection, grace, and all other good (and bad) things. Maybe the Rapture is more like rapture, that thing that happens to human beings from time to time, say when they listen to great music played, or spend time with their kids, or see their wife just as the light glints in her hair. Maybe there's more to that than we give it credit for. Maybe we shouldn't ask for so much more.

Final point: I think I have a different take on vultures than I am supposed to. I like the birds. To me they are resurrection machines, turning dead stuff back into life. They also have great social behaviors. They eat together, semi-cooperatively. Sometimes they will just hang out in large numbers, in trees or even in a pasture. I always think they enjoy soaring on updrafts the way they can. And as I understand it they are very doting parents (most birds are). So is it a bad thing to be where they gather?

Since this is about yesterday's reading, I'll do one thing from today. Deuteronomy is going through instructions to the people of Israel on how to govern themselves. It talks about how they can set a king over themselves, but he can't be a foreigner (the Brits would have failed that one), and it specifies that he will have a copy of the law written, and so on. Here's the part I enjoyed: "Even so, he (this non-foreign king) must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses..." Yes, I'd say that's a bad idea, appointing a king who is going to return the people to slavery so he can get a new horse. Why did it occur to Jehovah that he had to mention this? Had he had a bad experience with this situation before? It reminds me of a story my mother tells on me--when I was a kid, I stuck some beans up my nose and she had to take me to doctor (I think). She says "I never thought to tell him not to stick beans up his nose." I guess this is a story about how creative leaders can be in their stupidity. There's got to be an analogy to George Bush somewhere here, although I can't put my finger on it other than on general principles.

Against the franchise

Deuteronomy 12:1-12
2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1

Here are two extremely non-ecumenical passages. In the Old Testament one, God commands the Israelites to “demolish completely all the places where the nations who you are about to dispossess served their gods…Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred poles with fire, and hew down the idols of their gods, and thus blot out their name from their places.” Paul tells the Corinthians not to be “mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness.”

The first passage reminds me of the Taliban destroying the Buddhist shrine in Bamiyan. These monumental statues were carved into a sandstone cliff in the 6^th Century A.D. in March 2001. It was an outrageous act, and one of the things that made me shed no tears at seeing them expelled from power, not that more reason was needed than the government’s role in abetting the attacks of Sept. 11.

All religions claim an exclusive franchise, and most go through periods where their sense of priority becomes active hostility to the others, in its most extreme form inspiring violence. I’m afraid I can’t accept that. I do not want to dissociate from non-Christians. I don’t believe the prayers of others are not heard. I know so many people outside the church, and they give me so much. It’s beyond counting. And Christianity has a lot of work to do to get its house in order.

In my view, the proper approach to other religions (and non-religion, less bureaucratic or informal spiritual practice, diehard secularism, atheism) is to learn from them, and help them pursue grace on their terms. If Buddhists are trying to preserve statues, help them. Don’t be afraid to participate in non-Christian ceremonies. I had the great good fortune to attend the Maha Shivaratri observances this year at Sri Ganesha Temple. When the priest brought the oil lamp out of the shrine, I did not back away. He did not ask about my beliefs. I accepted the blessing—without understanding it I admit. I don’t think the Bible in any way condones this. I’ll chalk it up to historical growth of the church, differences in conditions that emerge as the church becomes powerful and dominant, not the small tribe of people trekking through the desert or meeting in the shadows of the Roman Empire. I acknowledge I could be on thin ice, but it’s the only way I can do this.

Surly Jesus

Luke 17:1-10

Much of the time in the Gospels, Jesus is not a very encouraging or pleasant fellow. Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew really got this quality. In it, Jesus is difficult and even petulant. And it’s not just when he’s tossing money-changers from the temple. Even after his great triumphs, his miracles, it seems like he often retreats, withdraws from people. This passage in Luke is just one of many where he doesn’t offer much consolation. The apostles say “increase our faith,” help us out here, and he just responds if you had one iota of faith you’d be a regular Luke Skywalker, moving stuff around by the Force. “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

In the final section offers no congratulations for faithfulness. "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"

Although it’s a bit harsh, this is a kind of grace you do encounter in everyday life. Someone helps you out, and they say, “I’m just doing my job,” and it’s not false modesty, but a true sense that the person is simply doing what they are supposed to do, that anything less would be unacceptable. In that person’s eyes, all they’ve done is avoided screwing up. Help you solve a computer problem, give you a tow when your car breaks down, get some documentation faxed where you need it. It is reassuring when you see that convergence between someone’s role and beneficent actions. Goodness done not for the sake of congratulation.

But the other thing about this passage is that it has one of those jarring references to slavery that come up from time to time. The concept today signifies to a situation that absolutely must be corrected. When the word appears, you want the condition of slavery to be the focus of the passage and its overthrow the intention. Not spoken of as a natural state of affairs. Of course, Jesus is speaking in Biblical times, but wasn’t slavery wrong then as it is now? Can we permit ourselves a historical moral relativism on this matter, any more than we can on rape or genocide? And Jesus kind of rubs it in—“worthless slaves.” He asks people to excoriate themselves.

I think if you give credence to these words, acknowledge the words chosen and what they mean, they are hard to swallow. Slavery may be only a metaphor for a condition of spiritual dependence, with no justification in the human world. Still, why is it not permissible for us hold each other as chattel, but OK for God to do so? Is it because no human is righteous enough to deserve that right, but if by chance someone were to reach that state it would be a different matter. While it is impossible for a human to overcome sin to the extent that this question would be in play, is the idea that God wants us to move towards the state of slaveholder?

Jesus’ life gives me a break from this line of inquiry. Jesus of course made no attempt to lord it over us. He rejected Satan’s urging to use the power he had. So I guess I’m OK, but I don’t think we can get too comfortable with these slave/slaveholder references. It is important to let them shock a bit.

Before time

Proverbs 8: 22-31
John 1:1-18

These are two passages that go to a time before creation, into a cosmic timelessness. The passage from Proverbs describes some being who is a witness to God’s creation.

^“The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world's first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

You have to dial back a couple of verses to identify the speaker: Wisdom. Not sure where that fits into our cosmology. Is this another word for the spirit or the child of God? Is it male or female? Maybe it’s Sophia.

These lines from John are one of the passages that flow most nicely in the Revised Standard Version, which tends to cut a little short of poetry. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Nice short phrases piling on top of each other. Sounds pretty good in German too: “Im Anfang war das Wort, und das Wort war bei Gott, und Gott war das Wort.” Listen to the subtle sense difference caused by the word order in the last clause: the Word was God, or God was the Word. It’s not an exactly equivalent substitution.

The next phrase takes it out of created time: “He was in the beginning with God.” The German is “Dasselbe war im Anfang bei Gott.” If I understand this correctly, dasselbe is a neutral word, something like “the same.” So this entity, the Word, both was God, and was there with God. Is the Word also Wisdom?

“All things came into being through him [dasselbe again in German], and without him [yes, dasselbe] not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

And then we are introduced to John the Baptist, who testifies to the light.

OK, so the Word, which like Wisdom exists with God before anything has been created, converts into Light over these few lines. It seems like we are very close to Gnosticism here, with divine Wisdom and divine Light leading us into the created world of historical time, or watching and witnessing.

These passages are a comfort to geeks. John is the great champion of the power of language to create the very world. The ultimate creative power of the divine word echoes in the efforts of writers and people who deal in words. And these lines in Proverbs describe Wisdom largely as an observer. The previous lines do identify Wisdom’s active roles in providing advice, guiding kings and rulers, serving as the source of wealth and honor, and Wisdom is the “master worker.” But part of Wisdom’s role is to watch, just watch. It seems like Merton had similar ideas about the role of the contemplative. Put them together (which isn’t exactly right, since this bit of John is in the daily lectionary and Proverbs is from the Sunday readings), and you’ve got a celebration of observing, thinking, and putting things into words.

A note: if I had proper qualifications to be doing what I’m doing here, I would be able to read Greek and could get to the bottom of things like the gender of the words in John. But I don’t and I can’t, so I do what I can. One thing is to triangulate from a couple of translations. But truth be told, I treat the German Bible as a sort of Ur text. Because its roots are with Luther himself, it feels closer to the founders of the faith. But even more so, because an important part of my identity as a Christian comes from a German-speaking family line, the German makes me feel like I am going back to some sort of personal source, but one that is also foreign and distant, that I have to struggle with to understand. The secret, but not too secret, language of faith-parents.

Live coals and glowing lights

Isaiah 6:1-8

Today is the Eve of Trinity Sunday, so there are extra readings, including this one from Isaiah. Trinity Sunday is one of the wonkier named Sundays, in that it commemorates a theological idea and not an event in the Bible or church history. I guess it’s there to remind us of this concept, which is not necessarily high on the minds of a practicing Christian and probably one that creates low level confusion. You have one God with three forms. The father, son, and spirit, the creator God, Christ the redeemer, and the Holy Spirit that sanctifies people and flows through and among them. It is most decidedly not a three God pantheon, but then there’s all this talk of God sending His Son, and that sounds like two beings.

The father-son-holy ghost formulation is of course gender specific language that is part of what makes it hard for people I care about to get interested in Christianity. The Presbyterian Church issued a study last year that argued for opening up the language we use for talking about the Trinity. Makes sense to me. Of course, this comes as the Presbyterian Church tries to not to talk about homosexuality, so this study came across in part as poking the more conservative folks without getting back into the debate on gays again. “Hey, you won’t let us ordain gay people, but we’re going to start referring to God as a girl.”

To me the gender issues in the Trinity aren’t that hard. God the Creator, this God is well past gender. Infinite and beyond human categories. We can talk about it as the Father, but I see no reason not to refer to the Mother also. The Bible refers to God as He, which is about what you would expect, but I don’t really see why we need to limit ourselves to those gender terms in our own talking about the Christian God. When God decided to become incarnate, God had to choose a gender form, so we ended up with male Jesus. Again, given historical context, it’s not surprising the choice was male. I’m not sure Jesus’ maleness matters that much. Jesus is an action, the action of divine incarnation, sacrifice, and human redemption. And then there’s the Holy Ghost, and I don’t think anyone worries about gender there.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I’m radically unqualified to get into this. What I needed to talk about was this wild stuff from Isaiah. The writer describes a dream (“In the year King Uzziah died”—don’t we all do stuff like that to remember the date for events as the years go by) in which he goes before the Lord in a kind of audience, but he is worried that he is unclean and should not be seeing the Lord. So one of the attendants takes care of things:

“Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said ‘Now this has touched your lips your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”

It’s a strong image, an angel touching Isaiah’s mouth with a red hot coal. And it reminded me of the imagery in a Björk song, “Crabcraft” on Vespertine:

“I have a recurrent dream
Every time I lose my voice.
I swallow little glowing lights
My mother and son baked for me.
During the nights
I do trapeze work
Until they lie in sky
Right above my bed.”

(Apologies on the words and line breaks. This is how I transcribed it from the recording.}

I think the similarity in images is pretty obvious, and both are accounts of dreams/visions. It made me think about what kind of text the Bible is if you see it as similar to a songwriter like Björk. Like a lot of great songwriters and poets, her words (and music and stage craft) depend on a strong intuitive drive that allows her to fetch unlikely images and ideas and put them together. Even when she doesn’t set up a lyric as a dream, it may have dream-like qualities—image condensation as well as surrealistic free association. You may try to puzzle out the meanings of these images, but ultimately there’s no definitive reading, lots of hermeneutic loose ends, and part of what you need to do is just take the image in and accept it, let it operate on your consciousness in unanticipated ways. Just accept the pleasure of the words and images.

With the vivid imagery in the Bible, there is more pressure to interpret it to within an inch of its life. The Bible is God speaking to us, so the assumption is that we must push ourselves to understand the message God is delivering in each passage, each sentence. But think about Björk. Why would God not also speak to us with the tools of poetry, through indirection and rich pools of meaning made possible by ambiguity.

I’m not trying to claim that one can find Christian themes in Björk. I don’t see that she is inclined that way or particularly needs it. What she offers is a different way to experience the rich and exceedingly complex text that is the essence of our religion. Rather than always try to explain the words, allow ourselves to let them linger in our mouths and exist as flavors and textures, and not always be in such a rush to find the message. Enjoy the oddness of the language where it occurs.