Psalm 78

O my people, give ear to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us.

We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the glorious deeds of the Lord to the coming generation; and his might and the wonders God has done…

Thus begins the marvelous Psalm 78 as the psalmist sings a history of God’s people in Israel.

“Teach your children…” Deuteronomy commands.

The poet reminds how crucial it is to share our faith with the next generations.

God established a decree in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel and commanded our ancestors to teach to their children: that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep God’s commandments.

Our failure as Church in America

In the United States, during the tumultuous 60’s, young people in our churches wondered what was going on in our world and how they should respond as people of faith.

Protests, marches, riots and assassinations challenged this nation to our core and young people looked to the church for guidance as they pondered what would be an appropriate faith response to war and injustice.

In many ways, in many churches, we failed them.

And we lost them.

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As you read about Elisha and Other Weird Stories of Scripture

bears_savaging_the_youths_from_a_french_manuscript-e1412387819329

I have a friend who just about lost faith in the Bible when he first heard the tale of Elisha being taunted by a gang of disrespectful boys.

“In the name of the Lord,” (2 Kings tells us) Elisha cursed them and two she-bears came from the forest and ate up those rude and foolish boys. The Sunday School teacher insisted this story was literally true and demonstrated God’s will.

“They should have watched their words and been kind, shouldn’t they?” a popular children’s Bible lesson plan states. “There were consequences for being disrespectful.”

My friend nearly lost his temper. Almost lost his faith. “I just don’t believe that,” he insisted back to his teacher.

What on earth is this weird story doing in our Holy Scriptures anyway!?

Weird stories of scripture

Here is just one of many examples why it’s important to understand the genres of Scripture, the different kinds of parables and fables and history-like stories that make up our Scriptures. This is one of the reasons I took on this read-and-blog-through-the-Bible project in the first place: to try to help us all make theological sense of the stories we find within The Story. (Yes, even the nonsensical ones!)

This friend’s confusion (and his teacher’s) reminds us why it’s critical to understand what kind of book the Bible is.

And what kind of book the Bible is not.

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Open Our Eyes, Lord

My favorite Elisha story comes from the Second Book of Kings in chapter 6. I think you will enjoy it too – especially when you are able to read the story with all its playful ironies as the author intended.

Fiery chariots

An enemy army ringed the hills above the town and Elisha’s servant must have frozen in his tracks when he looked up and saw the horses and chariots of the king of Aram in full battle gear.

Elisha’s calm assurances sounded odd. Maybe even naive.

Do not be afraid; there are more with us than there are with them.

2 Kings 6

That’s the naive part; the poor servant could clearly see they were badly outnumbered. “Seeing is believing,” right? What else is there to see other than what we can see with our own eyes?!

Then the prophet prayed God would open the eyes of the servant. Yes, there was obviously this one reality, but Elisha could see beyond into another, different but very real reality.

ElijahAndTheChairotOfFire

“So the LORD opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw.

The mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

“God opened his eyes and he saw.” I love that.

Even as he prayed for a fresh vision for the servant, Elisha asked that the enemy soldiers would become sightless and helpless. So those who thought they could see were blinded and those who yearned to see beyond this physical reality were enlightened.

Sometimes “believing is seeing”

This story of Elisha teaches us that this kind of real vision is not at all naive; it is a gift from God.

Antionette Tuff, a woman who sees

On August 20, 2013 Antoinette Tuff faced a would-be shooter at an elementary school outside of Atlanta. She faced him and she calmly talked him down.

Here was a young man (like too many of our young men) with a history of some mental illness and various run-ins with the law. Here was a young man who felt displaced and disrespected.

And on this particular day, he was particularly hopeless.

When he found a way into the school with an assault rifle, Antoinette working in the front office, met him and realized the seriousness of the situation. But instead of panic (even though her knees must have been knocking) she chose courage.

Instead of blind fear, she saw an alternative reality. She chose to believe “there are more with us than there are with them.”

Antoinette engaged the young man, treated him respectfully, got him to talk and stood right there with a gun in the room, listening and gently sharing for 24 minutes while the 911 operator listened in.

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Antoinette is a kind and sympathetic woman. When she looked at this angry young man in this very scary situation, she saw something most people would not/could not see: she saw him as a lost and hurting – although beloved child of God.

Because she saw his hurt and fear, she was able to offer him compassion and love – something he had seen very little of in his troubled life.

How can such grace happen?

How on earth could she manage such grace in such a fearful and dangerous situation?

How can a simple elementary school bookkeeper find the courage and the wisdom to sit alone in a room with a desperate person wielding an assault weapon?

She says she prayed.
  • But I think her prayers weren’t only for herself and her own safety.
  • Maybe not even just for the students and teachers in that school who were in danger.
  • Antoinette was praying for this young man!
  • She was praying that his eyes would be opened and his heart would be able to see hope.
When grace comes from brokenness.

Antoinette has brokenness in her own life and so, while they sat together, she told him her own story; she told him about the troubles that had caused her to be suicidal in a time of hopelessness.

But in the telling of her story – while she spoke of heartache, and pain – she also told him about the hope she had found.

Learning how to see

My guess is that she was able to be this kind of courageous, hopeful person herself because – in the hard times of her own life and in the resources of her faith – she has figured out how to see God’s presence even in the most terrible of circumstances.

By God’s grace, Antoinette developed a kind of “double vision:” she could see the dangers right in front of her while at the same time she was able to see hope.

  • Antoinette has eyes wide open to the reality of the pain that others suffer;
  • eyes opened to her own call and responsibility to share in that pain and to walk with this young man in his suffering;
  • eyes open to the ever surprising presence and work of God – a savior who is always moving for wholeness in this fragmented world.
Hopeful vision is an orientation, not an imagination.

This vision is not GPS – global positioning system; rather this way of seeing is more an “EPS” – God’s Eternal Positioning System.

It is this orientation in living that can position us within the solid, absolutely real reality of the Eternal One even when everything around us is fluid, fearful and fleeting.

But how …

But how do we mortals learn how to see our lives and the lives of others from the perspective of the Eternal?

When we are oriented with God’s EPS then we can become open to God’s presence. We can open our minds to God’s work in the world and open our hearts to the presence of God in the lives of others.

It is this orientation that allows God to open our eyes …

  • to new visions of reality
  • to new possibilities
  • to new opportunities.

In my experience, when we open ourselves up to God, then that which God may open up to us is often beyond our imagining and beyond our greatest expectations.

As the lovely little hymn sings: “Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus.”

I believe we CAN see Jesus in the flesh in the life of people like Antoinette Tuff.
  • So may we enflesh the love, welcome and hope of Jesus the Christ.
  • May people who are looking for Jesus find him right here, right now in us – alive and well as one little part of the body of Christ.
  • And may we see the face of Christ in everyone we meet.

Living in The Story readings for Week 34

2 Kings 1-16

2 Chronicles 24-28

Psalm 33

Psalm 78

Psalm 79

John 14-16

Titus

[Note the similarity in the description of fiery chariots in this Elisha tale and the story of Elijah’s ascent into heaven told in 2 Kings 1. Fire is almost always a symbol for things holy within Scripture.]

See here the remarkable story of Antoinette Tuff  in this NPR story

Psalm 53

As we’ve been considering the Wisdom Tradition of Israel, we pondered Psalm 111:

Week 31’s Living in The Story blog reminds us that the biblical understanding of one who is “wise” refers to one who is open to teaching and willing to learn; willing to grow.

The blog also reminds us that it is ultimate foolishness to live as if WE are the measure and the standard of truth (the foolishness of auto-nomy!)

It is only God who is the source of wisdom and thus submitting ourselves to God’s Way is the way of wisdom.

But there is another way: the way of fools.

Our psalm for this week, Psalm 53 describes this hopeless spiral:

Fools say in their hearts: “There is no God.”

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As you read about Elijah

There is a bright Elijah thread that weaves throughout the Bible.

The book of Sirach names him as one of God’s greatest proclaimers and prophets.

Then Elijah arose, a prophet like fire, and his word burned like a torch.

He brought a famine upon them, and by his zeal he made them few in number.

By the word of the Lord he shut up the heavens, and also three times brought down fire.

How glorious you were, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds!

Whose glory is equal to yours?

Sirach 48

It is the Old Testament book of Kings that continues Israel’s story of the lineage of David and Solomon.

By Elijah’s time, Israel’s story had become a sad history of rebellion and civil war. David’s united kingdom had fractured into two separate nations: the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.

In 1 Kings 16, the storyteller of the northern kingdom says this:

Now Ahab son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. And Ahab did evil in the sight of the LORD more than all who were before him.

Ahab was breaking bad and his queen Jezebel may have been even worse. Elijah was the prophet God sent to stand against them and challenge their wickedness. It was a thankless dangerous job and King Ahab disdained Elijah as the “troubler of Israel.”

Usually Elijah’s courage was remarkable.
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What Are You Doing Here?

I don’t know about you, but conflict and confrontation wear me out.

I can’t imagine how it is to be William Barber. I watch his Moral Mondays Movement and his Poor People’s Campaign. I admire his stinging critique of the policies that privilege the privileged and compromise the most vulnerable among us.

I wonder how Rev. Barber finds the courage to keep on keeping on.

I can’t imagine how it was to be Martin Luther King Jr.

How did he find the stamina to continue his work when the vast power of the status quo resisted everything he did, opposed everything he stood for, despised everything he was?

I can’t imagine how it was to be the ancient prophet, Elijah.

Day in and day out, Elijah brazenly confronted powerful and dangerous people because of their abuse and misuse of authority. Elijah went up against some of the worst offenders of human rights and common decency in ancient Israel.

Elijah knew well the personality disorders of unfaithful unscrupulous leaders.

As do we.

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As you read about Solomon

It is a sad irony that the kingdom King David built was so short lived.

David’s heir, Solomon, followed his father’s path of aggressive kingdom-building but then Solomon’s own son saw the kingdom rent by civil war.

The expansive land and legacy of David and Solomon dwindled into the small nation of Judah.

A look at Solomon is a look at the temptation to foolishness even in the wisest among us.

One of the most famous stories about the newly crowned king is the story of God’s gift of great wisdom.

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Psalm 1

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on God’s law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does he prospers.

The wicked are not so but are like chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Psalm 1

When our children were young, my husband created a lively tune for Psalm 1 so we could all memorize it. They are in their 40’s now and still can sing this RSV version of the anchor psalm of the psalter.

The anchor psalm

I call it the ‘anchor psalm’ because the editors of Israel’s hymnal organized the 150 psalms quite meticulously into five books, each with their own internal theology.

The creators of Israel’s hymnbook understood that Psalm 1 sets the tone not only for Book I but also for the entire collection of poems that sing the life of Israel.

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The Women Who Anointed Jesus

I title this “the women” (plural) because of the four ways the four gospels tell the story of Jesus’ anointing. Let’s look at all four stories.

The gospel of John

In this week’s readings, Living in The Story focuses on John’s way of telling the story in chapter 12:

  • The woman is Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus
  • The anointing oil is pure nard, “a costly perfume”
  • Mary anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair, a provocatively intimate act
  • The anointing triggered Judas and propelled the narrative towards his act of betrayal
  • In John’s narrative, the story is placed just after John relates the death of Lazarus in chapter 11. He includes Jesus’ encounter with this same Mary and the strong confession of resurrection faith by her sister Martha.
  • The story is set just before Jesus’ passion and so John’s Jesus says explicitly that the anointing has to do with “the day of his burial.”
  • The story continues with this odd bit of information:

…the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

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Psalm 111

All the psalms are considered to be part of Israel’s Wisdom Tradition, but Psalm 111 is one that sings specifically and eloquently that:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

  • Fearing the Lord.
  • Marveling at the Mystery.
  • Surrendering to the Inscrutable.

“The fear of the Lord” is submission and alligience and obedience. But this kind of “fear” also suggests an appropriate heart-thumping, knee-knocking, spine-tingling response.

The fear of the Lord comes from faith that trembles at the majesty and marvels at the mystery.

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