bibleworkbench - forward movement

BibleWorkbench EXPLORING OUR STORY THROUGH SACRED STORIES

Volume 21, Issue 4 Day of Pentecost – Proper 12 June 8 – July 27, 2014

D. Andrew Kille ~ Editor

BibleWorkbench – Volume 21

Publisher: The Educational Center Founding Editor: William L. Dols Editor: D. Andrew Kille

Associate Editors: Kathie Collins William L. Dols Beth Harrison

Contributors: Kathie Collins William L. Dols Terry Dowdy Beth Harrison

Tiffany Houck-Loomis Jennifer Woods Parker Ron Pelt D. Andrew Kille

Al Ledford Bill Lindeman

Founding Advisory Committee: Marcus J. Borg Frederick H. Borsch Thomas H. Groome William R. Herzog, II

Earl K. Holt III Andrew W. McThenia, Jr. Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore Josephine Newman

Nancy Qualls-Corbett Robert E. Reber John A. Sanford Walter Wink

BibleWorkbench © (ISSN: 1071-3611) is published six times annually by The Educational Center, a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization. All contributions are tax deductible.

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All Rights Reserved. All materials, other than those materials for which

permission has been granted or requested, are the property of The

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Address all correspondence regarding editorial matters and subscriptions to:

Melissa Thomas Managing Editor, Publications The Educational Center 1801 E. 5th Street, Suite 210 Charlotte, North Carolina, 28204

Tel: 704.375.1161 Fax: 704.375-1171 [email protected] www.educatonalcenter.org

Table of Contents

Page I. Benchmarks ~ A Letter from the Editor : D. Andrew Kille

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II. III.

In the Circle Exploring the Pattern: Themes and Motifs; Reading Between the Lines; Parallel Readings; Critical Background Contributors To This Issue: William L. Dols, Beth Harrison, Cathy Hasty, D. Andrew Kille, Al Ledford, and Ron Pelt

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June 8, 2014 ~ Numbers 11: 24-30 ~ Day of Pentecost 5

June 15, 2014 ~ Genesis 1: 1-2: 4a ~ Trinity Sunday 13

June 22, 2014 ~ Matthew 10: 24-39 ~ Proper 7 23

June 29, 2014 ~ Matthew 10: 40-42 ~ Proper 8 33

July 6, 2014 ~ Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67 ~ Proper 9

41

July 13, 2014 ~ Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23 ~ Proper 10

51

July 20, 2014 ~ Genesis 28: 10-19a ~ Proper 11

July 27, 2014 ~ Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52 ~ Proper 12

59 67

IV. Gleanings: Notes from Here and There

76

V VI.

Bibliography & Credits Associate Editors, Contributors and The Educational Center Staff

79 81

You will find complete source information for this issue listed in the Bibliography & Credits. For additional sources of previous issues and recommended reading, visit our website: www.educationalcenter.org

Wherever you see this symbol in this issue, you can find the resource and read the complete article or excerpted piece, by visiting our website: www.educationalcenter.org. Links for each issue are listed at the bottom of the home page under “BibleWorkbench Links.”

Lectionary Selections for Year A ~ 2013-2014

Volume 21.1 Date Selection Dec 1 Isaiah 2: 1-5 Dec 8 Matthew 3: 1-12 Dec 15 Matthew 11: 2-11 Dec 22 Isaiah 7: 10-16 Dec 29 Matthew 2: (1-12), 13-23 Jan 5 John 1: [1-9] 10-18 Jan 12 Matthew 3: 13-17 Jan 19 John 1: 29-42 Jan 26 Isaiah 9: 1-4 Volume 21.2 Date Selection Feb 2 Michah 6: 1-8 Feb 9 Matthew 5: 13-20 Feb 16 Matthew 5: 21-37 Feb 23 Matthew 5: 38-48 Mar 2 Exodus 24: 12-18 Mar 9 Matthew 4: 1-11 Mar 16 Genesis 12: 1-4a Mar 23 Exodus 17: 1-7 Mar 30 1 Samuel 16: 1-13 Volume 21.3 Date Selection Apr 6 John 11: 1-45 Apr 13 Matthew 27: 11-54 Apr 20 Matthew 28: 1-10 Apr 27 John 20: 19-31 May 4 Luke 24: 13-35 May 11 John 10: 1-10 May 18 John 14: 1-14 May 25 Acts 17: 22-31 Jun 1 John 17: 1-11

Volume 21.4 Date Selection Jun 8 Numbers 11: 24-30 Jun 15 Genesis 1:1-2: 4a Jun 22 Matthew 10: 24-39 Jun 29 Matthew 10: 40-42 Jul 6 Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67 Jul 13 Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23 Jul 20 Genesis 28: 10-19a Jul 27 Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52 Volume 21.5 Date Selection Aug 3 Genesis 32: 22-31 Aug 10 Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 Aug 17 Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28 Aug 24 Exodus 1: 8-2: 10 Aug 31 Matthew 16: 21-28 Sep 7 Matthew 18: 15-20 Sep 14 Exodus 14: 19-31 Sep 21 Matthew 20:1-16 Volume 21.6 Date Selection Sep 28 Matthew 21: 23-32 Oct 5 Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Oct 12 Matthew 22: 1-14 Oct 19 Matthew 22: 15-22 Oct 26 Deuteronomy 34: 1-12 Nov 2 Matthew 23: 1-12 Nov 9 Joshua 24: 1-3a, 14-25 Nov 16 Matthew 25: 14-30 Nov 23 Matthew 25: 31-46

Note: All Bible passages are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Oxford University Press, copyright © 1989, unless otherwise indicated. Pentecost selections from Hebrew Scripture are those linked to the Gospel for that Sunday, not the semi-continuous selections available in the Revised Common Lectionary .

Benchmarks June 8 – July 27, 2014

BibleWorkbench Issue 21.4

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BENCHMARKS

As I write these notes, we are preparing for our annual Writers and Editors meeting in Charlotte. This is the one time of the year that we bring all of our contributors together at the Educational Center to review how we’re doing, sharpen our skills at crafting Sunday designs, and pondering what we might do to continue to improve BibleWorkbench. And, not incidentally, to share in some deep and powerful BibleWorkbench sessions, working with the materials in a way that deepens as our own engagement with the text deepens. I wish that all of you, our subscribers and participants, could have the opportunity to meet the people who make each issue of BibleWorkbench possible. Their dedication and hard work shows week after week. The reading for Proper 12 (July 27) includes a line in which Matthew’s Jesus praises the one who brings forth both old and new treasures from the storehouse. We have been blessed this year with long-time writers like Bill Dols, Beth Harrison and Terry Dowdy, though we bade farewell to Terry as he moved on to other challenges. We have also bid adieu to Cathy Hasty, but will soon welcome back Kathie Collins, who has been on leave to finish her doctoral dissertation. I always appreciate the steadiness of Bill Lindeman and Al Ledford, who

often step forward to fill a gap here and there. Among the new “treasures” this year are Ron Pelt, whose contributions you have been enjoying for a while, and two new writers who will join us in issues 5 and 6 of Volume 21—Jennifer Parker and Tiffany Houck-Loomis, about whom you will be hearing more. My continuing thanks to these “old” and “new” treasures. And of course, none of this would do any good if it were not for our stalwart support team at The Educational Center in Charlotte. Melissa Thomas makes sure that all the pieces that go to make up BibleWorkbench are gathered together, oversees the myriad tasks of checking copyrights, doing layout, proofreading, and keeping the editor (me) on track. Melissa is often the calm place in the midst of the storm. Also in the Charlotte office (when she’s not out “in the field,” meeting with existing BibleWorkbench groups or potential newcomers) is Becky Rizzo. She searches out and develops the support necessary to keep The Educational Center operating and producing our excellent resources: BibleWorkbench and TeenText. We literally could not do it without them. This is going to begin sounding like the thank-yous at the Academy Awards; no sooner do you recognize someone for their contribution, you realize you have neglected another, and another. To all of you—members of the Educational Center Board, contributors, BibleWorkbench group leaders, friends, supporters, and the deep spirit that moves in, among, and beyond us all—we offer our deepest gratitude.

*** In the last issue, I commented on the various plans that are available to guide people through reading the Bible in one year. One person quoted in a Christianity Today article, Whitney Kuniholm of Scripture Union USA,

Benchmarks

2 The Educational Center, 1801 East 5th Street, Suite 210, Charlotte, NC 28204 ~ 704.375.1161 ~ www.educationalcenter.org

suggested that the quantity of scripture read mattered less than its application in one’s life. As it happens, Mr. Kuniholm has addressed that very problem in his book The Essential Bible Guide, described as “100 readings through the world’s most important book.” I understand what he’s trying to do; there certainly is some value to breaking the whole of the Bible down into more manageable bits. And the minute you start to do that, it raises some interesting questions. What makes a passage of the Bible “essential”? Who gets to choose, and why? It’s fascinating to see Kuniholm’s list of readings (50 from the Old Testament, 50 from the New—hmmm, already his chosen format is shaping his choices). 22 of the readings come from Genesis and Exodus (but not from Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy); the historical books from Joshua to 2 Kings get another 18. The prophets get only 5, and are represented only by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel (and the lion’s den), Jonah (and the big fish), and Malachi (Malachi?). In the New Testament, a full 11 of the readings come from the single book of Acts, and 5 more from Revelations. Of the gospels, 7 readings come from Luke, 6 from John, 5 from Luke, and poor Mark gets only 1(the exorcism of the demoniac). What parts of the Bible would be “essential” for you? What criteria would you use to select them? What would you be sure to leave out?

*** The story from Genesis of the servant who searches for a wife for Isaac is the text for Proper 9 (July 6). That the servant finds Rebeccah because she offers to water his camels is central to the story. Recently, a bit of fuss broke out when two Israeli archaeologists announced that radiocarbon dating of camel bones indicated that camels were not introduced to the area until some 500 years after the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Does that somehow “discredit” the Bible? Not at all, said one of the researchers. It only means that the stories about the Patriarchs were written long after the events may or may not

have taken place. The writers were writing what they knew and “There were no archaeologists back then to tell the author that camels were not around."

*** In this issue…I had occasion recently to look at an early issue of what was then The Bible Workbench (1.5 from 1994). I was not surprised to find that some of the issues that Bill Dols was dealing with in that first year are the same that come up today. “In the Circle” in this issue is a repeat of Bill’s response to a question about art and movement exercises in BibleWorkbench sessions, and is as valid today as it was twenty years ago. “Gleanings” offers some thoughts about dimensions of belief from an address that Robert Frost gave at his Alma Mater Amherst in 1930. “Now I think,” he writes, that “the self-belief, the love-belief, and the art-belief, are all closely related to the God-belief, that the belief in God is a relationship you enter into with Him to bring about the future.” The second reading comes from Anthony Le Donne’s Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? I discovered it recently in a pile where I had set it aside to read later. I had thought it would be an argument against Historical Jesus studies, but was fascinated to discover that “how can we know it” is a more central question for the author. Just what are we doing when we do history? I hope this brief selection will whet your appetite for reading the whole book. Finally, we include a brief section from Lee MacDonald’s Formation of the Bible: The Story of the Church's Canon. Lee was my pastor some years ago while I was working on my doctorate, and was the one who first introduced me to the Jesus Seminar. He wrote a more academic book on how the Christian canon (the collection of accepted books making up the Bible) was formed, and this new volume is a much more accessible telling of the same story. The brief section lays out a bit of the history of how the canon came to be “closed.” Still, McDonald

Benchmarks June 8 – July 27, 2014


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argues that should not keep us from learning from other texts as well. We not only welcome, but look forward to your input. Let us know how we’re doing or send your suggestions for how we can improve. The e-mail addresses of each contributor can be found after each week’s study, and I’m always glad to hear from you at [email protected]. Drop by our

website at www.educationalcenter.org, or find our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BibleWorkbench. Grace and peace,

A weekend seminar at the Four Springs retreat center in Middletown, California, some thirty years ago introduced the Rev. D. Andrew (Andy) Kille to a new and transformational engagement with the Gospels. From that weekend, the path took him to the Graduate Theological Union, where he earned an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in psychology and the Bible, and eventually to BibleWorkbench. He was named to follow Founding Editor Bill Dols in 2008. Ordained in the American Baptist tradition, Andy has been a pastor, teacher, facilitator, and spiritual director. He has worked collaboratively in both ecumenical and interfaith contexts, and currently serves as Chair of the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council (SiVIC). Andy is author of Psychological Biblical Criticism, and co-editor of Psychological Insight into the Bible and A Cry Instead of Justice. He lives in San Jose, California, with his wife Pamela, a clinical psychologist.

In the Circle


Observations on the BibleWorkbench method by leaders and groups—how we do it, why we do it, and what happens in our circles.

Art and Movement

You ask about moving people into the art and movement. You write: "It needs a very special facilitator to get people through the drawing and posturing exercises without their feeling inane. Still, if a group can be dragged through them, they will learn from each other's responses."

After a number of years of doing this work, I still get a knot in my stomach every time I arrive at this moment in the session. Invariably, I ask myself if there is really enough time to do it! I never think it is going to work. It always does.

A few suggestions:

• The less preparation and fewer instructions the better. • Assuring people that they need not be anxious makes them more anxious. • Give the instructions, then turn away or close your eyes, and do it yourself; do not look around

to see if they are doing it. • When doing art use as wide a variety of materials as possible and allow the participants to

choose what they want to use. I have a large box I simply put in the middle of the floor filled with construction paper, crayons, chalk, several different kinds of clay, scissors, tissue paper, glue of various colors, glitter, pipe cleaners, scotch tape, masking tape, and feathers.

• Be careful about playing music while this is going on since it will always set a tone and influence how people do the story in art and thus within themselves.

• Rather than "draw" I talk about "expressing ourselves in form and color." • After saying that we are going to do it in silence, I let the small talk and giggling go on,

confident that after a few moments as the experience begins to happen the silence comes.

It does take "a very special kind of facilitator," the kind who is willing to take the risk of sounding foolish and being thought inane; one who owns up to how hard it is for the teacher as well as the student to play; one who trusts the story and is brave enough to awaken it in a new and deeper way. (Bible Workbench 1.5, 1994)

BibleWorkbench Guidelines

• Focus on the text. • "I statements" are encouraged. • Pauses between responses are important. • The goal is not consensus, agreement, or a right answer. • There is no expectation that you explain, justify, or defend anything you say. • Silence is part of the process. • You can change your mind as often as you like. • Honestly try the nonverbal exercises. • What is said in the Bible Workbench group stays in the group.

Proper 7 June 22, 2014


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PROPER 7 ~ Matthew 10: 24-39 ~June 22, 2014

Page

1. Matthew 10: 24-39 2. Exploring the Pattern: Themes and Motifs 3. Reading Between the Lines 4. Parallel Readings

From: Jesus: The Human Face of God My Father’s Wedding, 1924 My Bright Abyss Invisibly Wounded

C.G. Jung Letters Volume 2

5. Critical Background From: Jesus’ Answer to God

24 25 26 27 30

Lectionary Readings ~ Year A Revised Common Lectionary

First Reading Psalm

Second Reading Gospel

Genesis 21: 8-21 Psalm 86: 1-10, 16-17 Romans 6: 1b-11 Matthew 10: 24-39


Proper 7 June 22, 2014

Matthew 10: 24-39 "A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! "So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that 5 will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. 10 "Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.” Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law 15 against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Exploring the Pattern June 22, 2014


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EXPLORING THE PATTERN: Themes and Motifs

1. The New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament translates Jesus’ words about taking up a cross: and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. The Greek words referring to the cross one is to take up or not are stauros autou. It is interesting that other translations render the phrase as: Revised Standard Version: take his cross and follow me Jerusalem Bible: take his cross and follow me New International Version: take up his cross and follow me King James Version: taketh not his cross and follow me Living Bible: refuse to take up your cross and follow me The question is about whose cross Jesus is telling his disciples to take up as they follow him. The focus is on how the adjective is translated – as referring to Jesus’ cross, or to a cross belonging to each individual disciple, or some other cross. As you pose this question and answer it for yourself, do you hear Jesus telling you to pick up Jesus’ cross or your own? But also in question is: what might Jesus mean by picking up his cross? or - what is the cross that belongs to you that you are to pick up? In your own words: and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me:

and whoever does not take up his/your cross and follow me is not worthy of me:

What is the difference? What difference does it make? What is a cross? What is your cross? What does your cross look or feel like? How do you pick it up or put it down? How do you carry it or not carry it? What difference does it make during your day if you are carrying your cross or not carrying it? What is the result of either choice? Robert Bly writes a poem about his father’s wedding. Read it below. He suggests that when one does not limp their limp that someone else must do so. What is the result of you not carrying your cross? Who carries it if you choose to not to?

Reading Between the Lines Matthew 10: 24-39


2. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. The paradoxical statement appears in both Matthew and Luke.

Luke: Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. (17:33)

What is the life that people like us seek to find? What does such “life” include? What does it promise them? What do they suppose it will do for them?

How do people you know go about finding their life? Where do they go to look for it? What do they do or stop doing in order to achieve it? What do they spend to buy it?

What do you know about how finding life or trying to secure it leads to losing it? Where do you see this happening around you? What do you observe about people finding or gaining life and in the process losing it?

How do people you know lose their life? What do they lose? How do they lose it?

What do you know about people finding life through losing it? How is this possible?

Stand up and close your eyes. Be still. With eyes closed posture yourself as one who is trying to find something. Reach, bend and search around you to discover and gain what you seek. Make sounds of searching and seeking, foraging and hunting. Then be still. Feel what you have been doing. Now take a posture of losing. With eyes closed let your body express the losing and loss of something important. Drop, misplace, and find it impossible to locate what you are losing or have lost. Make sounds of missing and suddenly being without.

Down through the years, what is the life you have been trying to find? What is the life you have worked hard to gain? How have you searched for such life in relationships and in solitude, work and play, diligence and devotion? Where did you look? What were you willing to pay?

What do you know from your experience of while having found life, having then lost it? What has been your experience of losing life? How or what did you lose? What is the life that once within grasp was lost to you?

What do you know of having found life by losing it? How is it possible that it was in the losing that you found? The cost of not having lost might have been what for you?

READING BETWEEN THE LINES

So have no fear of them… The setting in Matthew’s gospel for these words is Jesus’ “pep talk” before sending out his disciples to proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons (Matthew 10:7-8). Although presented as Jesus’ encouragement to his twelve disciples, these words seem to me to be addressed even more to Matthew’s own community.

Parallel Readings June 22, 2014


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What do they seem to fear? What are the threats that face them? What conflicts might they already have experienced within their own community? What comfort might they receive from these words? And what about us today hearing these words? Whom do you fear? Why? What conflicts or ruptures or broken relationships do you experience as you make your way through life? Do these words help? Or not? Or both?

- Andy Kille ([email protected]) Take a piece of paper and draw a rough cross on it. What polarities or oppositions or conflicts or choices seem most present in your life right now? Take the horizontal arms of your cross and name each end to represent one such tension. What would your life look like if you could carry those conflicts? What would it look like if you were to avoid or refuse to carry these conflicts? How might we shift them onto someone or something else? What favorite forms of avoidance do we use in shouldering others’ issues and not our own? On the upper vertical arm of your “cross,” try to identify what the cost of carrying these conflicts might be for you; on the lower vertical arm, ask yourself what the promise might be of carrying these conflicts. How might we better shoulder our own inner conflicts? Even daily?

- Beth Harrison ([email protected])

PARALLEL READINGS From Jesus: The Human Face of God by Jay Parini I often recall the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and minister who was executed by the Nazis in a concentration camp at Flossenburg on April 9, 1945, only a few weeks before its liberation by the Allies. Bonhoeffer stood up boldly to Hitler, and his anti-Nazi activities led to his arrest by the Gestapo. During his imprisonment in Berlin's Tegel Military Prison for a year and a half, Bonhoeffer offered comfort and inspiration to his fellow prisoners, and even his Nazi jailors admired his courage and compassion, the example he set for others in a dire situation. He imitated Jesus there, making use of his example, allowing it to define his own life and actions. Bonhoeffer reflected passionately on the meaning of his life, writing in his diary only a few months before his death: "It all depends on whether or not the fragment of our life reveals

the plan and material of the whole. There are fragments which are only good to be thrown away, and others which are important for centuries to come because their fulfillment can only be a divine work. They are fragments of necessity. If our life, however remotely, reflects such a fragment. . . we shall not have to bewail our fragmentary life, but, on the contrary, rejoice in it." In The Cost of Discipleship, a bracing theological work, Bonhoeffer meditates at book-length on what it means to take up the cross: "Discipleship means adherence to Christ, and, because Christ is the object of that adherence, it must take the form of discipleship. An abstract Christology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or on the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous, and in fact they positively exclude any idea of discipleship

Parallel Readings Matthew 10: 24-39


whatever, and are essentially inimical to the whole conception of following Christ." So it won't do simply to follow a doctrinal system, marking off the things one has to believe in order to be "saved." To follow the Way of Jesus, one has to walk in a certain direction, experiencing the difficulties as well as the illimitable freedom of that choice. "Happy are the simple followers of Jesus Christ who have been overcome by his grace," writes

Bonhoeffer. "Happy are they who, knowing that grace, can live in the world without being of it, who, by following Jesus Christ, are so assured of their heavenly citizenship that they are truly free to live their lives in this world.” Bonhoeffer's statement makes one question the idea of dogma, the notion that one should adhere to strict rules and prescribed statements in order to pursue the Christian way.

From “My Father’s Wedding 1924” by Robert Bly in The Man in the Black Coat Turns

[…] But I grew up without dogs' teeth, showed a whole body, left only clear tracks in sand. I learned to walk swiftly, easily, no trace of a limp. I even leaped a little. Guess where my defect is! Then what? If a man, cautious hides his limp, somebody has to limp it. Things do it; the surroundings limp. House walls get scars, the car breaks down; matter, in drudgery, takes it up. On my father's wedding day, no one was there to hold him. Noble loneliness held him. Since he never asked for pity his friends thought he was whole. Walking alone, he could carry it. […]

From My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman The great battle that Augustine faces is with his own physical desires. His total commitment to God is simultaneous with a sharp renunciation of lust (or, more accurately, an acceptance of the grace that enables his will toward God to vanquish his will for physical pleasure). But what in the world can this mean for a modern person with some notion of biology, or just a sense that God is not some puritanical schoolmarm? Was Augustine, then, who was one of the greatest thinkers of the Western world, simply blinkered in this sense, a little simplistic? It seems a lot easier to posit a

concrete thing between ourselves and God, a specific and potentially eradicable sin, than to live in the mental storm of modern faith, in which faith itself is always the issue. Renouncing sex may not be easier than renouncing disbelief, but at least you can understand it; it is a problem you can, so to speak, grapple with. Trying to take hold of disbelief is like fighting your own shadow. Or is it? Here's a quote from Augustine, describing the extended and anguishing time when the call of God and his own lust were at war within him:

Parallel Readings June 22, 2014


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But I was immobilized—less by another's static imposition than by my own static will. For the enemy had in thrall my power to choose, which he had used to make a chain for binding me. From bad choices an urge arises; and the urge, yielded to, becomes a compulsion; and the compulsion, unresisted, becomes a slavery—each link in this process connected with the others, which is why I call it a chain—and that chain had a tyrannical grip around me. The new will I felt stirring in me, a will to "give you free worship" and enjoy what I yearned for, my God, my only reliable happiness, could not break away from the will made strong by long dominance. Two wills were mine, old and new, of the flesh, of the spirit, each

warring on the other, and between their dissonances was my soul disintegrating.

The object of idolatry is not really the point here. It is the war of wills that any genuine spiritual experience—and you will know such an experience is genuine by the extent to which it demands uncomfortable change—sets off inside the heart and mind of the one who has it. Every man has a man within him who must die. For Augustine that man was the one whose spiritual being was occluded his physical being. For me—and I suspect for many modern believers, or would-be believers—the problem is not physical, but nevertheless more palpable than we allow ourselves to admit, the tension within us that seems so urgently and singularly “modern" is in fact the oldest sin in the Book: intellectual pride.

From “Invisibly Wounded” in The Week, November 22, 2013 Two years. He is 28 now, is out of the Army, and has gained back some weight. When he left the war as the great Sgt. Schumann, he was verging on gaunt. Twenty-five pounds later, he is once again solid, at least physically. Mentally, though, it is still the day he headed home. Emory, shot in the head, is still draped across his back, and the blood flowing out of Emory's head is still rivering into his mouth. Doster, whom he might have loved the most, is being shredded again and again by a roadside bomb on a mission Adam was supposed to have been on, too, and after Doster is declared dead another soldier is saying to him, "None of this s--- would have happened if you were there." It was said as a soldier's compliment — Adam had the sharpest eyes, Adam always found the hidden bombs, everyone relied on Adam — but that wasn't how he heard it then or hears it now. It might as well have been shrapnel, the

way those words cut him apart. It was his fault. It is his fault. The guilt runs so deep it defines him now. He's always been such a good guy, people say of Adam. He's the one people are drawn to, who they root for, smart, decent, honorable, good instincts, that one. And now? "I feel completely broken," Adam says. "He's still a good guy" is what Saskia [his wife] says. "He's just a broken good guy." It's not as if he caused this. He didn't. It's not as if he doesn't want to get better. He does. On other days, though, it seems more like an epitaph, and not only for Adam. All the soldiers he went to war with — the 30 in his platoon, the 120 in his company, the 800 in his battalion — came home broken in various degrees, even the ones who are fine. "I don't think anyone came back from that deployment without some kind of demons they needed to work out," one of those soldiers who was with Adam says.

Critical Background Matthew 10: 24-39


From C.G. Jung Letters (Volume 2) edited by Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffe Christ forces man into the impossible conflict. He took himself with exemplary seriousness and lived his life to the bitter end regardless of human convention and in opposition to his own lawful tradition as the worst heretic in the eyes of the Jews and a madman in the eyes of his family. But we? We imitate Christ and hope he will deliver us from our own fate. Like little lambs we follow the shepherd, naturally to good pastures. No talk at all of uniting our Above and Below! On the contrary, Christ and his cross deliver us from our conflict, which we simply leave alone. We are Pharisees, faithful to law and tradition, we flee heresy and are mindful only of the imitatio Christi but not of our own reality which is laid upon us, the union of opposites in ourselves, preferring to believe that Christ has already achieved this for us. Instead of bearing our own cross, ourselves, we load Christ with our unresolved conflicts We place ourselves under his cross, but by golIy not under our own. Anyone who does this is a heretic, self-redeemer, “psychoanalyst" and God knows what. The cross of Christ was borne by himself and was his. To put oneself under somebody else's cross, which has already been carried by him, is certainly easier than to carry your own cross amid the mockery and contempt of the world. That way you remain nicely ensconced in tradition and are praised as devout. This is well-organized Pharisaism and highly un-Christian. Whoever imitates Christ and has the cheek to want to take Christ's cross on himself when he can't even carry his own has in my view not yet learnt the ABC of the Christian message.

Have your congregation understood that they must close their ears to the traditional teachings and go through the darknesses of their own souls and set aside everything in order to become that which every individual bears in himself as his individual task and that no one can take this burden from him? We continually pray that "this cup may pass from us" and not harm us. Even Christ did so, but without success. Yet we use Christ to secure this success for ourselves. For all these reasons theology wants to know nothing of psychology, because through it we could discover our own cross. But we only want to talk of Christ's cross, and how splendidly his crucifixion has smoothed the way for us and solved our conflicts. We might also discover, among other things, that in every feature Christ's life is a prototype of individuation and hence cannot be imitated: one can only live one’s own life totally in the same way with all the consequences this entails. This is hard and must therefore be prevented. How this is done is shown among other things by the following example. A devout professor of theology (i.e., a lamb of Christ) once publicly rebuked me for having said "in flagrant contradiction to the word of the Lord" that it is unethical to "remain" a child. The "Christian" ought to remain sitting on his father's knee and leave the odious task of individuation to dear little Jesus. Thus naively, but with unconscious design, the meaning of the gospel is subverted, and instead of catechizing ourselves on the meaning of Christ's life we prefer, in ostensible agreement with the word of the Lord, to remain infantile and not responsible for ourselves.

CRITICAL BACKGROUND

From Jesus’ Answer to God by Elizabeth Boyden Howes Jesus called his disciples together and said, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."

Luke adds, "take up his cross daily." The Greek meaning of "deny himself' is not to deny to himself, the basis of most ascetic practices, but

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to deny himself in the sense of egocentric self, that self that wants to have things its own way, to be lord of the universe.

This is the first time "cross" is used by Jesus as a symbol. It comes at about the halfway point of the story, shortly before he moves toward Jerusalem. He did not say, "take up my cross;" he said, "take up one's own cross." What could be the meaning of taking up one's own cross daily? The cross represents an intersection of opposites, any number of opposites. To take up the cross may be to shoulder responsibility for the integration of our own opposites. […] Jesus continued with what A.E. Housman, the poet, has said is the most profound statement ever uttered, the paradox of losing life to save it. Why did these words follow the dialogue of ultimate conviction and precede the so-called transfiguration experience? Whether this was the actual sequence or whether it was the editors' choice, it is highly dramatic that the paradox statement is placed between these events. There are several reports of this saying. Which is most apt to be the original? The simplest form is the one in Document P, Luke, which says, "Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." The Matthew account in Document P has "for my sake." The more complicated and questionable form in Mark includes the phrase, "for my sake and the Gospel's;" Matthew and Luke have just "for my sake." My choice is to take the account in Document P as the simplest, possibly most authentic form. The assumption is that "for my sake" and "for my sake and the Gospel's" would both be reflections of early Christian thought. Much clarity can be gained if we take this statement and divide it into two halves, and for each half ask what is the motive? the process to be followed? and the outcome to be achieved? Let us subject the first half of the paradox—“whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it”—to this kind of analysis. In the words of the text, the outcome is losing life and the process,

or the way leading to that, is seeking to gain life. The implicit motive would be to gain life, or the desire for life. Thus, if that is the motive, the way of seeking to gain is a negative one which leads not to finding life but to losing it. In the second half of the paradox—“whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it”—the outcome is preserving life and the process is losing life. The implicit motive here is the desire for life. Thus, the second half of the paradox describes the method or process for achieving the outcome of Life. The distinction between motive and process is seldom made, but it seems absolutely crucial to the whole thought of Jesus. The words are simple; the meaning the most profound possible. Examine the first half of this statement. One wants life. What might be other words for that? Fulfillment; capacity to grow; spontaneity; courage; ability to suffer and to have joy, to love in the richest sense, to respond creatively in all situations, to be authentic, to have integrity. And what is the wrong way to go about this so that life is lost as an outcome? The wrong way is to seek to gain by holding on, to protect, to predetermine one's responses, to try to control and to manipulate, to exert power over. It is little wonder that such an attitude is totally self-defeating, yet it is the principle on which the world acts and on which the structures of society are built. This seeking to gain constitutes the problem of "structural evil," a term Walter Wink uses in his seminars to describe what happens when collective groups organize into idolatrous power structures which seek their own good at the expense of the good of the whole. The second half of the paradox completely reverses the process in the first half. With the same motivation or yearning for Life, the process is one of losing one's life, which paradoxically leads to preserving it. What does it mean to lose one's life, to let down the protective walls around the psyche, or soul? It is an individual, voluntary act whereby one gives

Critical Background Matthew 10: 24-39


over the mastery of his or her life to Something greater within and without. There is a striking assumption here, different from earlier statements on the way, that that Something must lie within the psyche. Here is one of the first statements of a divine Immanence, of Divinity within, of Something wanting to live in the human but needing the human to break the barriers and defenses of egocentricity that have grown around it. The sacrifice of these boundaries allows something new to be born. This can be understood as the Self or imago dei which expresses God in the psyche. The Greek meanings for these words provide further insight. The word for "life" in all cases is psyche; the word for "shall lose it" as outcome in the first half is the same word as "shall lose his life" as process in the second

half, and is the same word Matthew uses when describing how the broad way leads to "destruction." This lends a very potent meaning to "lose" in the two halves of the paradox. Finally, the word in the first half for "seeking to gain his life" has the connotation in Greek of "building a hedge about" and is totally opposite to the meaning of "seeking to preserve it," the outcome in the second half, of bringing forth a living reality. These words, then, suggest a powerful contrast. There is a way of self-protection which hedges in the vital spark of being within by defenses, evasions, and excuses. This leads to futility. The second way of being willing to let these defenses fall, to open oneself to vulnerability, to penetration into Substance, is to discover the living Spirit within wanting birth and rebirth.

Contributed by Bill Dols; address comments and responses to [email protected].

Proper 11 July 20, 2014


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PROPER 11 ~ Genesis 28: 10-19a ~ July 20, 2014

Page

1. Genesis 28: 10-19a 2. Exploring the Pattern: Themes and Motifs 3. Reading Between the Lines 4. Parallel Readings

From: Between Walls Acquainted with the Night The Testing Tree Peculiar Treasures Learning to Dance

5. Critical Background From: Genesis

60 61 62 63 65

Lectionary Readings ~ Year A Revised Common Lectionary

First Reading Psalm

Second Reading Gospel

Genesis 28: 10-19a Psalm 139: 1-12, 23-24 Romans 8: 12-25 Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43


Proper 11 July 20, 2014 Genesis 28: 10-19a Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the LORD stood beside him and said, "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you 5 lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." Then Jacob woke from his sleep and 10 said, "Surely the LORD is in this place—and I did not know it!" And he was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz 15 at the first.

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EXPLORING THE PATTERN: Themes and Motifs

1. Jacob, who has earned the ire of his brother Esau – having deceived their almost blind father Isaac by stealing the blessing of the eldest son – has been warned by his mother Rebecca to flee to the land of her brother Laban. Take time to read the story in Genesis 27:1 - 28:9. In today’s text Jacob is somewhere between home where his brother Esau swears to kill him as soon as his father dies and the land of Haran where his uncle Laban lives. As a lonely fugitive he comes to “a certain place” and stays there for the night.

From reading the story, what words describe for you Isaac:

Rebecca:

Esau:

Jacob:

What do you imagine Jacob may be feeling? Thinking? He might say what to himself about his father Isaac:

his mother Rebecca:

his brother Esau:

his uncle Laban:

As the sun sets, Jacob does what? Why might he take a stone to put under his head as a pillow? As he drifts off to sleep, he might be wondering about what? He dreams about what? Awaking fearful, how does he interpret his dream? Leaving this certain place on the way to Haran, he knows what that he did not know before?

2. As you look about your world, where do you see evidence of:

an aging and blind Isaac who is easily deceived, no longer able to see what is going on around him and whose mercy is being wielded by others?

an Esau more interested in his personal comforts and whims than being true to his inheritance and his responsibilities as an eldest son?

a Rebecca who favoring one son over the other is ready to cheat and trick her husband and her other son?

a Jacob who is easy prey to the ambitions of his mother who leads him into deception, misleads her husband and then maneuvers his escape?

Reading Between the Lines Genesis 28: 10-19a


Where in your world is such a plot of deception, flight, and revelation happening? 3. What do you know of ever coming to a certain place in your life - a dark and unfamiliar place between an occasion of your unfaithfulness, cheating, and deception and a place of hiding and refuge? On that journey between betrayal of a spouse or friend, colleague or stranger and your hideout and sanctuary, what do you know of a lonely time when you had a stone as your pillow and dreamt of the presence of one who rather than abandon or punish you, was ready to see you through? What did you learn that night on the road – or months of dark and uncomfortable places in between – that you could have learned in no other way? Take a walk and ponder the Jacob story. Wonder how it continues to reflect some of who you are, where you have been, and what you still know of a certain in between place where you are alone and afraid. Pick up a stone. Carry the stone home and tonight place it under your pillow. Recall where you have been and where you are headed in your life. Dream.

READING BETWEEN THE LINES

The linguist Deborah Tannen once observed that man (or “the masculine”) engage the world “as an individual in a hierarchical social order in which he [is] either one-up or one-down….Life, then, is a contest, a struggle to preserve independence and avoid failure”. A woman, she says, (or “the feminine”) engages the world “as an individual in a network of connections….[Women] try to protect themselves from others’ attempts to push them away. Life, then, is a community, a struggle to preserve intimacy and avoid isolation.” (p. 25, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation). This dream of Jacob’s engages both ways of being in the world. The ladder brings angels from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth. And the Lord stands beside Jacob and says to him, “I am the LORD…Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” What has been going on in Jacob’s life that brings him to this moment, this dream? Who’s up? Who’s down? Where has he been? Where is he going? What does he learn when he’s asleep? When is he going to wake up? Think about the dream that is your life. What do you know of this up and down? What do you know of the one who stands beside you? When have you come awake and seen that you didn’t know something important about where you are? When have you seen that God was in the place you now stand? How is this dream your dream?

- Beth Harrison ([email protected]) This dream of Jacob has been memorialized in the old gospel song “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” Although the song focuses on the movement upward (“every round goes higher, higher”), in Jacob’s dream the angels are ascending and descending, and, furthermore, the Lord does not come down from above, but is suddenly standing beside him. What does this suggest about the connection between “above” and “below”? Furthermore, the writer describes Jacob’s camp as being at a certain place, translating the Hebrew which specifies “the” place (not just “a” place), while giving no name or identification of where it might be other than in the “nowhere” between Beer-sheva (which he is fleeing) and Haran (his intended

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destination). What might make this place of encounter “a certain place”? What distinguishes it? What do you know of an experience or encounter in your own life that has turned a “nowhere” into a “somewhere”?

- Andy Kille ([email protected])

PARALLEL READINGS “Between Walls” by William Carlos Williams from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939

the back wings of the

hospital where nothing

will grow lie cinders

in which shine the broken

pieces of a green bottle

“Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost from Complete Poems of Robert Frost I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.

From “The Testing Tree” by Stanley Kunitz from The Collected Poems

In a murderous time the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking.

It is necessary to go through the dark and deeper dark and not to turn.

From Peculiar Treasures by Frederick Buechner Jacob The Book of Genesis makes no attempt to conceal the fact that Jacob was, among other things, a crook. What's more, you get the

feeling that whoever wrote up his seamy adventures got a real kick out of them. Twice he cheated his lame-brained brother Esau out of what was coming to him. At least

Parallel Readings Genesis 28: 10-19a


once he took advantage of his old father, Isaac's blindness, and played him for a sucker. He out-did his double-crossing father-in-law Laban by conning him out of most of his livestock, and later on, when Laban was looking the other way, by sneaking off with not only both the man's daughters but just about everything else that wasn't nailed down including his household gods. Jacob was never satisfied. He wanted the moon, and if he'd ever managed to bilk Heaven out of that, he would have been back the next morning for the stars to go with it. But then one day he learned a marvelous lesson in a marvelous and unexpected way. It happened just after he'd ripped Esau off for the second time and was making his getaway into the hill country to the north. When sunset came and nobody seemed to be after him, he decided that it was safe to camp out for the night, and having left in too much of a hurry to take his bedroll with him, tucked a stone under his head for a pillow and prepared to go to sleep. You might think that what happened next was that he lay there all night bug-eyed as a result of his guilty conscience or if he did finally manage to drop off, that he was tormented by conscience-stricken dreams, but neither of these was the case. Instead he dropped off like a baby in a cradle and dreamed the kind of dreams you would have thought were reserved for the high saints. He dreamed that there was a ladder reaching up to heaven and that there were angels moving up and down it with golden sandals and rainbow-colored wings and that standing

somewhere above it was God himself. And the words God spoke in the dream were not the chewing-out you might have expected but something altogether different. God told him that the land he was lying on was to belong to him and his descendants and that someday his descendants would become a great nation and a great blessing to all the other nations on earth. And as if that wasn't enough, he then added a personal P.S. by saying, "Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go." It wasn't Holy Hell that God gave him, in other words, but Holy Heaven, not to mention the marvelous lesson thrown in for good measure. The lesson was, needless to say, that even for a dyed-in-the-wool, double-barreled con artist like Jacob there are a few things in this world you can't get but can only be given, and one of these things is love in general, and another is the love of God in particular. Jacob didn't have to climb his ladder to bilk Heaven of the moon and the stars, even if that had been possible, because the moon and the stars looked like jelly-beans compared to what God and the angels were using the ladder to hand down to him for free. Another part of the lesson was that, luckily for Jacob, God doesn't love people because of who they are but because of who he is. It's on the house is one way of saying it and it’s by grace is another, just as it was by grace that it was Jacob of all people who became not only the father of the twelve tribes of Israel but the many times great grandfather of Jesus of Nazareth, and just as it was by grace that Jesus of Nazareth was born into this world at all.

From Learning to Dance by Michael Mayne Many years ago, when I worked at the BBC, I invited the playwright Dennis Potter to give a talk on Radio 4 in Lent. He spoke of the darkness of illness, and he asked, 'What, if anything, lies on the other side of the dark?' His answer had to do with giving attention to the present moment: even in pain, and lying awake

in the small hours, to focus on what was happening to him and in him and around him, so that 'the actual sting of the moment became a point of such unexpected clarity that I could see it… as a widening chink of light through which I could look'.

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I understood then that God is not a palliative or a super-pill but…someone present in the quick of one's own being…in the fibre and pulse of the world, and in the minute-by-minute drama of an ever-continuing, ever-poised, ever-accessible creation...I understood…that the world is being made right in front of us…and in living out our lives we give back piece by piece what has been given us to work and wrestle with. We share our own lives and find our own humanity in the long passage from innocence through the darkness of mortal distress…and apparent absurdity into the light that we know

is there if we have the patience and the courage to be still, to concentrate - to be alert. 'I am glad that I was here', said the Quaker, George Fox, at the end of his life. 'Now I am clear, I am full clear. . . All is well.' All is well. Not by facile optimism, not in bunkered evasions, but in the richest and most active dimension of our humanity. It is the illumination we must and will ever seek on the other side of the dark. The circle of the dance of faith goes wider than we think.

CRITICAL BACKGROUND

From Genesis by Walter Brueggemann

The Journey The framework of the journey (vv. 10-11) is not very important except that the event happens "between places" where nothing is expected. It happens between safe, identifiable places. Here everything is risky. It is enough in this memory that a "non-place" is transformed by the coming of God into a crucial place. The transformation takes place during sleep, when Jacob has lost control of his destiny. He will not resist this Other One in the night. And in the process, this "non-person" (i.e., exiled, threatened) is transformed by the coming of God to a person crucial for the promise.

The Coming of God In such encounters as this one (vv. 12-15), there are often two elements, the visual and the auditory. While the former may fascinate us, the point of exposition must be the speech. It is the speech of God which changes things. Other gods may appear. This one makes self-binding promises.

1. Our interpretation must not linger too long on the visual elements (v. 12). Three phenomena are noted, each of which can be pursued for its "religious" dimension.

a. The meeting happens in a dream. The wakeful world of Jacob was a world of fear, terror, loneliness (and, we may imagine, unresolved guilt). Those were parameters of his existence. The dream permits the entry of an alternative into his life. The dream is not a morbid review of a shameful past. It is rather the presentation of an alternative future with God. The gospel moves to Jacob in a time when his guard is down. The dream permits news. It is here, as elsewhere in Genesis (cf. 31:10-11, 7 24; 37:5-10), a means by which the purpose of God has its say in the life of this family. b. The news is that there is traffic between heaven and earth. The object described is probably a ramp rather than the conventional "ladder." It refers to something like the Mesopotamian ziggurat, a land mass formed as a temple through which earth touches heaven. Such a ramp as a religious figure reflects the imperial religion of the culture. But now it has become a visual vehicle for a gospel assertion. Earth is not left to its

Critical Background Genesis 28: 10-19a


own resources and heaven is not a remote self-contained realm for the gods. Heaven has to do with earth. And earth finally may count on the resources of heaven. Paul Minear (To Heal and to Reveal, 1976, Chap. 2) has explored "heaven" as a metaphor by which the Bible refers to the reality of promise related to the purposes of God. That is the substance of the vision. It shatters the presumed world of Jacob. He had assumed he traveled alone with his only purpose being survival. It was not hard then to conclude that divine reality was irrelevant. Now it is asserted that earth is a place of possibility because it has not been and will not be cut off from the sustaining role of God. In this image are the seeds of incarnational faith, of the power of God being embodied in a historical man. Thus our text points to the statement of Jesus (John 1:51). c. The figure of the ramp is enlivened with the presence of angels. These are not, of course, winged creatures, but royal messengers of God who act to do his bidding. As indicated in the promise (vv. 13-15), the message they bear is that the promissory Kingdom of God is now at work. The old kingdom of fear and terror is being overcome. God comes where he is not anticipated. That, after all, is the real issue of this text: Is there a coming of God who transforms human reality? These together —dream, ramp, angels—answer "yes." These visible features introduce a new reality into the life of Jacob. While interpreters have often paid excessive attention to these elements in verse 12, they are preparatory. The center of the text is the speech of God. The visual elements are the vessels in which the treasure of promise is given.

2. The narrative moves to the real agenda of the speech of the Lord (vv. 13-15). It is not an angel who speaks (v. 13), or even "God." It is the LORD. The Lord's speech is a promise. The phenomena of divine appearance are vehicles for a promise. The story expresses God's intrusion into human reality which redefines everything. Jacob came to this deserted place, fleeing for his life, undoubtedly without promise. He departs from this encounter changed by the only thing that can change, a word which makes available an alternative future.

a. The promise at the heart of this text and of all the patriarchal stories is the now "standard" promise (vv. 13-14) set in stylized language. It affirms the promise of land for Israel and the promise of well-being for others by Israel. The promise of land is the same which had concerned Abraham and Isaac (12:1, 7; 13:15; 26:3-4). It is the promise which had been surreptitiously given Jacob in the oracle of 25:23, only now it is clear and unambiguous. The promise for the well-being of others (cf. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4) again protects the narrative from self-interest. It expresses the counter-theme, urging the promise-receiver Jacob out beyond his own narrow interests. b. But the promise speech extends beyond the standard promise to the fathers. Verses 13-14 appear to be predictable and conventional in the patriarchal narrative. But verse 15 is a promise addressed peculiarly to Jacob. It is a promise not needed by those like Isaac who live their lives without conflict. But Jacob faces special dangers. This promise is God's attentive response to his circumstance of danger. The "behold" of verse 15 breaks new ground—pay attention!

Contributed by Bill Dols; address comments and responses to [email protected].

Gleanings


GLEANINGS: Notes from Here and There From “Education by Poetry” by Robert Frost in Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly XX

I want to add one thing more that the experience of poetry is to anyone who comes close to poetry. There are two ways of coming close to poetry. One is by writing poetry. And some people think I want people to write poetry, but I don’t; that is, I don’t necessarily. I only want people to write poetry If they want to write poetry. I have never encouraged anybody to write poetry that did not want to write it, and I have not always encouraged those who did want to write it. That ought to be one’s own funeral. It is a hard, hard life, is they say. (I have just been to a city in the West, a city full of poets, a city they have made safe for poets. The whole city is so lovely that you do not have to write it up to make it poetry; it is ready-made for you. But, I don’t know—the poetry written in that city might not seem like poetry if read outside the city. It would be like the jokes made when you were drunk; you have to get drunk again to appreciate them.) But as I say, there is another way to come close to poetry, fortunately, and that is in the reading of it, not as linguistics, not as history, not as anything but poetry. It is one of the hard things for a teacher to know how close a man has come in reading poetry. How do I know whether a man has come close to Keats in reading Keats? It is hard for me to know. I have lived with some boys a whole year over some of the poets and have not felt sure whether they have come near what it was all about. One remark sometimes told me. One remark was their mark for the year; had to be—it was all I got that told me what I wanted to know. And that is enough, if it was the right remark, if it came close enough. I think a man might make twenty fool remarks if he made one good one some time in the year. His mark would depend on that good remark. The closeness—everything depends on the closeness with which you come, and you ought to be marked for the closeness, for nothing else. And that will have to be estimated by chance remarks, not by question and answer. It is only by accident that you know some day how near a person has come.

The person who gets close enough to poetry, he is going to know more about the word belief than anybody else knows, even in religion nowadays. There are two or three places where we know belief outside of religion. One of them is at the age of fifteen to twenty, in our self-belief. A young man knows more about himself than he is able to prove to anyone. He has no knowledge that anybody else will accept as knowledge. In his foreknowledge he has something that is going to believe itself into fulfillment, into acceptance. There is another belief like that, the belief in someone else, a relationship of two that is going to be believed into fulfillment. That is what we are talking about in our novels, the belief of love. And the disillusionment that the novels are full of is simply the disillusionment from disappointment in that belief. That belief can fail, of course. Then there is a literary belief. Every time a poem is written, every time a short story is written, it is written not by cunning, but by belief. The beauty, the something, the little charm of the thing to be, is more felt than known. There is a common jest, one that always annoys me, on the writers, that they write the last end first, and then work up to it; that they lay a train toward one sentence that they think is pretty nice and have all fixed up to set like a trap to close with. No, it should not be that way at all. No one who has ever come close to the arts has failed to see the difference between things written that way, with cunning and device, and the kind that are believed into existence, that begin in something more felt than known. This you call realize quite as well—not quite as well, perhaps, but nearly as well—in reading as you can in writing. I would undertake to separate short stories on that principle; stories that have been believed into existence and stories that have been cunningly devised. And I could separate the poems still more easily. Now I think—I happen to think—that those three beliefs that I speak of, the self-belief, the love-belief, and the art-belief, are all closely

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related to the God-belief, that the belief in God is a relationship you enter into with Him to bring about the future.[…] There are four beliefs that I know more about from having lived with poetry. One is the personal belief, which is a knowledge that you don’t want to tell other people about because you cannot prove that you know. You are saying nothing about it till you see. The love belief, just the same, has that same shyness. It knows it cannot tell; only the outcome can tell. And the national belief we enter into socially with each other, all together, party of the first part, party of the second part, we enter into that to bring the future of the country. We cannot tell

some people what it is we believe, partly, because they are too stupid to understand and partly because we are too proudly vague to explain. And anyway it has got to be fulfilled, and we are not talking until we know more, until we have something to show. And then the literary one in every work of art, not of cunning and craft, mind you, but of real art; that believing the thing into existence, saying as you go more than you even hoped you were going to be able to say, and coming with surprise to an end that you foreknew only with some sort of emotion. And then finally the relationship we enter into with God to believe the future in—to believe the hereafter in.

From Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? by Anthony Le Donne Jesus was a prophetic voice for religious reform and political restoration in a time when the common sentiment was for violent uprising. Like Moses, Jesus aimed to liberate his people from oppression. But unlike Moses, Jesus' fight wasn't with the "Evil Emperor" but with the hand that moved the political puppets. Though some thought he was insane, Jesus was convinced that he was establishing God's heavenly kingdom on earth by defeating the spiritual armies of Satan. In this way, his voice was his best weapon against oppression. The power of Jesus' words got him noticed, attracted crowds, created controversy, and got him killed. Even his most embarrassing words were remembered. Jesus made his chief historical impact by the power of his words. With this in mind, we must conclude that the initial force of his words set memory trajectories in motion. We must conclude that the initial perceptions of Jesus by his contemporaries were shaped by what was most memorable about him. Furthermore, there must have been some continuity between his historical impact and how this impact was remembered. Given what we now know of perception, we should expect that Jesus' impact was bent by narrative refraction from the very beginning. Jesus was raised in a culture that acted out their cultural stories. Jesus himself told these stories, interpreted these stories, and mimicked these

stories. It stands to reason that Jesus was perceived through the lenses of narrative memory and that memories of him were bent further in this direction. Subtle refractions of the stories about Jesus occurred with every retelling. Each retelling was a magnifying lens that further bent the story. Each retelling represented a new interpretation of these memories conforming to each new external context. This is how historical memory functions. We can analyze these memories with confidence because memory is refracted through lenses that follow certain patterns. Sometimes these memories are bent in dramatically different directions. This dual effect suggests a common sphere of historical memory that can be plausibly charted. This is the task of the historian within a postmodern paradigm. The historian's job is to tell the stories of memory in a way that most plausibly accounts for the available mnemonic evidence. With this in mind, the historical Jesus is not veiled by the interpretations of him. He is most available for analysis when these interpretations are most pronounced. Therefore, the historical Jesus is clearly seen through the lenses of editorial agenda, theological reflection, and intentional counter-memory. I perceive a new beginning of historical Jesus research, one that does not lament that the ancient past is unknowable. I suggest a new

Gleanings


beginning that is rooted in the notion that the interpretation of memory refraction is the historian's best way forward. The seeds of this new beginning have already been planted by

better works than this. I only hope that this book focuses good light on fertile soil.

From Formation of the Bible: The Story of the Church's Canon by Lee Martin McDonald

Some Important Preliminary Observations As we begin our story of how the Bible came to be, we should be aware that even though the church inherited from the synagogue the notion of sacred scripture, it did not inherit the notion of a fixed collection of sacred scriptures. Also, its notion of Scripture was heavily influenced by its Christology, that is, much of early Christian use of the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) focused on their Christological fulfillment in Jesus. How Jesus, the Christ, fulfilled the Scriptures is at the heart of an early Christian understanding of Scripture. The actual fixing of the biblical canon, that is, the selection of books that would eventually be included in the Christian Bible and the exclusion of all others, emerged centuries after the church began, and the final product, especially where the New Testament is concerned, has a Christ-centered focus. The church was born as a sect of Judaism in the first century and that context included the recognition of a large collection of Jewish sacred Scriptures that the early Christians used and often cited in their preaching and teaching. The books that the early Christians most often appealed to included many, though not all, of the books that now comprise the Old Testament. Some of the books they cited most frequently were Deuteronomy, the Psalms, and Isaiah. These were the same books most cited by their fellow contemporary Jews, but some Christians also cited other books that were not eventually placed in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament Scriptures of the church, as in the citation of I Enoch 1 :9 in Jude 14. When the church began, the early Christians not only believed that they had inherited the Jewish scriptural traditions, they also saw themselves as living in the age of the Holy Spirit in which the living Word of God regularly addressed the people of God through a new generation of prophets. The earliest Christians believed that the prophetic voice was very much alive through the power of the Holy

Spirit in their midst (see Acts 2:17-21; 1Cor12:10, 28; 13:2, 8; 14:6, 29-33 ). Centuries later, especially during the time of the Reformation but also before then, many teachers in the church assumed in practice (not in theory) that the Holy Spirit no longer spoke a new word to the people of God. For them, the Holy Spirit now spoke only through the churches' closed or fixed collection of sacred Scriptures. Given the criteria that were used to establish the current Bible, it is difficult to imagine how any new writings could be accepted, but again, that would depend greatly on the value and wisdom that one places on the decisions of ancient Christianity . The view that the Bible is closed and no more books can be added to it has prevailed especially in Protestant theology since the Reformation and earlier in Catholic and Orthodox Christian theology, but on what grounds were Christians able to argue that inspired prophecy had ceased? How did some Christians come to believe that the Spirit of God somehow stopped speaking in the churches with inspired utterances when the last apostle died? The early church did not teach that view, of course, but by the fourth century it was commonly assumed that inspired writings were no longer being produced. The original apostles had all died along with those who were the eyewitnesses to the life and ministry of Jesus. With the emergence of the view that inspired writings had ceased, Christians continued to develop a variety of hermeneutics, or interpretive steps—many of which were "inspired" by interpretive examples found in the New Testament Scriptures—intended to aid their churches in applying the biblical message to the ever-new situations that they faced. While the church honored subsequent writings that were important to the advancement of the Christian cause, these were not placed in the church's Bible.

Bibliography & Credits June 8 – July 27, 2014


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The following is a list of resources which are reprinted in this issue. A more complete listing of recent works of general interest for biblical studies, sources published in previous issues of BibleWorkbench, or books that relate to the BibleWorkbench method can be found at our website: www.educationalcenter.org.

Adler, Gehard and Aniela Jaffe. C.G. Jung Letters (Volume 2). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975, pp. 76-77.

Armstrong, Karen. In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis. NY: Ballentine/Random House, 1996, pp. 14-17.

Atwood, Margaret. MaddAddam: Book 3 of the MaddAddam Trilogy. New York: Random House, 2013, p. 56.

Barenblat, Rachel. “Departure (Chayyei Sarah)” from The Velveteen Rabbi Blog. http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2009/11/this-weeks-portion-departure.html

Bly, Robert. “My Father’s Wedding 1924” in The Man in the Black Coat Turns. New York: Penguin Books, 1983, p. 49.

Branard, Lynne. The Art of Arranging Flowers.

Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination. Fortress Press, 2001, pp. 2-3.

. Genesis. Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982, pp. 242-245.

Buechner, Frederick. The Magnificent Defeat. New York: Harper One, 1985.

Buechner, Katherine. Peculiar Treasures. New York: Harper & Row, 1979, pp. 56-58.

Carroll, Michael. The Mindful Leader. Boston: Trumpeter Books, 2010, pp. 33-34.

Carter, Warren. Matthew and the Margins: A Socio-Political and Religious Reading. London: T & T Clark International, 2000, pp. 245-6.

Crossan, John Dominic. The Power of Parable. New York: HarperCollins, 2012, pp. 134-136.

. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1994, pp. 64-66.

Eliade, Mircea. “Enuma Elish” in Gods, Goddesses, and Myths of Creation: A Source Book of the History of Religions. New York: Harper and Row, 1967, pp.97-98, 102-103, 106.

. “Rig Veda, X 129.” Gods, Goddesses, and Myths of Creation. New York: Harper and Row, 1967, p. 110.

. “Winnebago Indian Creation Story.” Recorded by Paul Radin, in Thirty-seventh Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology (1923) from Gods, Goddesses, and Myths of Creation (New York: Harper and Row, 1967, pp. 83-84.

Eisley, Loren. The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature. pp. 63, 69-70.

Wherever you see this symbol in this issue, you can find the resource and read the complete article or excerpted piece, by visiting “BibleWorkbench Links” on our website’s home page.

Bibliography & Credits


Frost, Robert. “Acquainted with the Night” from The Complete Poems of Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963, p. 324.

. “Education by Poetry” by Robert Frost in Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly XX.

Harrison, Jim. “Alien.” Good Poems, American Places. Edited by Garrison Keillor, NY: Penguin Books, 2011, p. 358.

Hills, Jodi. I am Amazed. Minneapolis, MN: Waldman House Press, 2002, pp. 1-46.

Howes, Elizabeth Boyden. Jesus’ Answer to God. San Francisco: The Guild for Psychological Studies, 1984, pp. 127-130.

Knight, Douglas A. and Amy-Jill Levine. The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us. New York: HarperCollins (Kindle Edition), 2011, locations 1310-1342.

Koester, Helmut. “The Parables of Jesus” at Bible History Daily. www.biblicalarchaeology.org

Kunitz, Stanley. “The Testing Tree” from The Collected Poems. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2000, p. 183.

Lazarus, Emma. “The New Colossus.” 1883.

Le Donne, Anthony. Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2011, pp. 133-134.

Mayne, Michael. Learning to Dance. London, UK: Darton, Longman and Todd, LTD, 2001, pp. 224-225.

. The Enduring Melody. London, UK: Darton, Longman and Todd, LTD, 2006, p. 96.

McDonald, Lee Martin. Formation of the Bible: The Story of the Church's Canon. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2012, pp. 28-29.

Parini, Jay. Jesus: The Human Face of God. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Amazon Publishing), 2013, pp. xi-xii WORDS 441, p. xv-xvi.

Singh, Sundar, S. “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.”

Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Matthew: A Storyteller’s Commentary Year A. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2007, p. 161-162.

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Ivy Books, 1989, pp. 43-45.

The Week. “Invisibly Wounded.” New York: The New York Times News Service, November 22, 2013, p. 36.

Williams, Carlos William. “Between Walls” from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939. New Directions Publishing Company, 1988.

Wiman, Christian. My Bright Abyss. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013, pp. 130-132. WORDS: 474, p. 90.

Yeats, William Butler. “The Circus Animals’ Desertion” from The Poems of W. B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, c1983, pp. 347-348.

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