Hack Theology

She Started It

2011-11-10T07:20:00.000-08:00

When arbitrating fights between myself and my brother, my mother frequently heard the accusation, "She/he started it!" Her response was always the same. "I don't care who started it, I want you to stop it!"

The Biblical story in Genesis 16 gives us an interesting perspective on the "who started it" question: the which came first, the offense or the victimization, the chicken or the egg? We're shown a domestic disturbance in the privacy of the home of Abram and Sarai. Sarai, unable to bear children, offers Abram a surrogate in her Egyptian slave-girl, Hagar. When Hagar successfully conceives a son, friction grows between Hagar and Sarai. Hagar shows contempt, Sarai responds with abuse.

On the small scale, Abram hears the accusations and mutual blame between the women. On the grander scale the Hebrew people record an incidence of abuse, the abuse of an Egyptian slave, generations prior to their own enslavement by the Egyptian people.

I'm fascinated by the honesty of this passage. Even the patriarchs and matriarchs had their Jerry Springer moments, their family drama. More startling, here is an admission, an open sharing of the fact that when the roles are reversed, the Hebrew people and the Egyptian people make equally brutal slavemasters of one another. Perhaps I am overstating it, comparing one family's squabble to the enslavement of a nation. But I believe the story is included for that very reason.

Many modern people find these ancient stories unworthy of the Christian tradition: too brutal, too violent. But they are part of the family tree, part of our family history, and I believe we would benefit from owning them. These ancient people passed along the stories of their faith and their bravery. But they also passed along the stories of their faults and their failures. I admire them for the fullness of their tale.

Hagar's son,Ishmael, became the father of nations, nations that continue to fight and war with the children of Sarai. Perhaps we should remember as we call out our blame and accusations that we are just as capable of base behavior and inhumanity as our distant cousins. Instead of wreaking revenge, perhaps we should look inside, at our own history and our own violence, our own envy and brutality. Instead of casting blame on the other, perhaps we should take the first step to stop the cycle, to initiate the unprecedented behavior of peace.

Beyond Imagination

2011-01-18T17:38:00.000-08:00

Genesis 15. Abram cries out to God in despair of descendants. All that he has gained, all that he has built, and no heir, not even one. Instead, Eliezer of Damascus, no relative, not even a local boy, is set to inherit at the time of Abram's death. In a society that seeks eternal life not through heaven but through grandchildren, Abram despairs a fate worse than death.

God replies with ridiculous promises. No heir? Your heirs will number more than the stars in the sky. Abram, bless him, believes God despite the wild exaggeration of the promise. At least he maybe believes the part about the stars. There are still questions. "How will I know that the real estate part will work out?"

God's response is a ritual, very ancient, very profound. A covenant of great bloody drama of the sort usually reserved for covenants between kings and nations. The reference books tell us that ancient rulers would make covenant this way. Modern folk prefer a pen and paper, or perhaps a computerized contract, but cutting animals in half and passing between them certainly creates a certain memorable and messy flair.

After all, you can write down a grocery list as easily as a covenant. The important covenants need a little extra fanfare.

The text spirals into the future after the covenant ceremony. God almost mocks Abram's despair over his heir. "You think you're hopeless? Your descendants will give new definition to hopeless. They will live in slavery for four centuries. If that doesn't kill hope dead, I don't know what else could."

Why should a childless old man be able to imagine grandchildren numbered like the stars of the sky (prior to the modern phenomenon of light pollution that reduces visible stars to single digit numbers). Why should people in slavery for year after year and century after century believe that one day they will be free?

Why did Martin Luther King, Jr. believe his dream? It was beyond belief in his time. In an era of separate bathrooms, separate sections of bus seating, separate water fountains, separate schools--a time of lynchings and fire hoses and dogs and guns--why could MLK talk about us living in peace and prosperity together?

Martin was one of the stars in the sky over Abram's head, a descendant of faith, a descendant of Abram's story and his promise.

Genesis 15, like so many passages of the Bible, spirals the time zones of the story together, so that one person's despair is linked to the despair of thousands. More importantly, the time spirals so that one person's hope represents the hope of us all.

Part of the wondrous crazy of religious thought is the challenge to look beyond the evidence at hand, to hope for things not only to get a little better, but to go through utter transformation.

This week another black man spoke to a hurting nation, offering words of comfort and words of challenge. He encouraged us to put aside the vitriol that divides us and to work together for a better future. From his role as President he again picked up the ancient tradition of believing in a future not indicated by present evidence.

How can we believe in a future at all?

Even in the midst of the darkest hours, a light passes between the broken pieces of our lives. The covenant lives. The stars shine. There is hope.

Abraham ... "On How to Deal with Loot."

2010-06-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

If you were indeed making a movie about the rescue of Lot, there would be a whole bunch of action and old fashioned fighting. BAM! POW! WHAM! Abraham pursued the kings who had nabbed nephew Lot with three hundred and eighteen fighting men. Such a specific number...always an evocative question when the Bible, so big on symbolic numbers, names a particular figure.

I've got no clue on this one. 318. Any guesses?

But still, big action scene. Three hundred and eighteen caped crusaders, fighting four kings and their fighting dudes, winning the battle and freeing Lot. And Lot's stuff. And apparently, other people's stuff as well.

Two things then happen at the end of chapter 14...two things that probably wouldn't make good action movie, but that I find very significant.

First, the king of Salem, a dude named Melchizedek, demonstrates that he is priest as well as king. He blesses Abraham, and he breaks out the bread and wine in the earliest recorded celebration of communion. Before you chide me for calling it communion yea these thousand and more years before Jesus invents the tradition, remember that Melchizedek gets an honorable mention in the New Testament in Hebrews 7, where Christ is described as a priest in the order of Melchizedek. Mel's name even means "king of righteousness" and Salem means "peace" or "wholeness."

So perhaps he is a symbolic figure.

But the interesting piece to me comes when Abraham offers Mel a tithe...one tenth of, well, "everything." Mel gives Abraham a blessing, and Abraham offers him a tenth of his loot.

It would appear that it is Abe's own personal loot he is tithing, because Abraham flat refuses a share in the loot from the adventure. The king of Sodom, another king entirely, offers Abraham a share of the loot they've captured--and Abraham refuses. He accepts reimbursement for expenses incurred and nothing more.

The Bible is a wacky book, no doubt, but this is one of the wackier spots. What kind of person takes a pass on perfectly good loot? A nutcase who is already trying to GIVE AWAY one tenth of what he's got?

For Abraham, there are things more important than continuing to accumulate. He's already successful. After all, the 318 action figures were from his own household. But he knows when to tithe to a righteous priest, and he knows that accepting loot is sometimes too pricey in relational cost.

What do we do when the loot is fresh before us? Do we know when to walk away?

Rescue Me

2009-04-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we live as community, especially in terms of economics. Issues of taxes, healthcare, education and the role of government in business have been plastered all over the headlines, day after day.

I'm reminded of the time I lived in a retirement community, and people would occasionally say to me, "I shouldn't have to pay taxes to run the schools. I don't have any children in school."

I would begin to think of how these current school children were the ones who would soon be supplying our food, our medical care, selling us cars, running our water treatment plants, fixing our electrical infrastructure. I wanted them smart and educated.

I'm also a big believer in health insurance. The money of the many pays for the tremendously expensive needs of the few. Then those people, having been saved sometimes from death and certainly many times from financial disaster, turn around and help us in other ways. I think of the countless people who have profoundly touched my life after surviving major surgery or receiving medicines for chronic illness.

In chapter 14 of Genesis there is a delightfully violent little story about Abram's nephew, Lot, getting captured in a local war. Nine kings of small kingdoms began to skirmish, four kings against five, in rebellion and counterstrike, battling from the hill country to the desert. In the midst of it Lot, seemingly minding his own business, gets carried off, along with all his possessions.

(There is a graphic little piece in 14:10 where the marching into battle turns into fleeing for life, and in the midst of the fleeing, a bunch of people fall into tar pits. It is this kind of detail that certain people enjoy...if you don't believe me, look to Hollywood. People have not changed much in many thousand years. Running, terrified people falling in tar pits makes for "good" film.)

Anyway, Abram, hanging out under the trees of Mamre, hears of his nephew's capture. He could have just stayed under the trees, but he forms a rescue party. During the night he divides his trained men for attack and routs the enemy. Great word, rout.

He gets back all the men, women, loot and possessions of Lot and his company.

There is something very Star Trek about going back for the captured friend. I have watched episode after episode across the years in which the crew members leave their own relative safety to risk their lives to go bring another crew member home.

Most of the time in real life this happens in quiet ways behind the scenes, and no one ever knows the cost. Every day I visit hospice patients and I see the ways in which the family and friends who care for them sacrifice their time, their energy, their sleep, their sanity and sometimes their own health to give needed care for the sick and dying member of their community.

If you look down the street in your suburban neighborhood, in all likelyhood one of those houses has this drama playing out even now. You would never know it from the curb.

We sacrifice and risk for members of our family, for members of our crew. Sometimes in very hands on ways, sometimes in the flow of money to taxes and insurance premiums. But in each case, we are living out the model of Abram. How can one sit in comfortable shade when another is in mortal danger?

Staying Alive

2008-03-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

In Genesis 12, Abram and Sarai and their traveling band flee starvation during a famine by heading towards Egypt...a story that will repeat on a grand scale later on, eventually leading to the whole Moses phenomenon. Here in chapter 12, we run into another repeating story, the "if they know you are my wife they will kill me to get to you, so just pretend you're my sister, okay?" story. A story important enough to tell over again with other characters in a few chapters, but odd enough that most preachers don't use it as a Sunday morning text.

What to do with this subterfuge and handing over to haremdom? (Not to mention the uncomfortable detail that Sarai doesn't have to entirely lie when she says she is Abram's sister...they hadn't yet discovered the genetic woes of inbreeding.)

Perhaps it is as basic as taking the story at face value. Abram says it plainly. "I know you are beautiful woman, and when the Egyptians see you, they will kill me. Say you are my sister, that it may go better for me, and that my life will be spared on your account."

This was no trip down the interstate to Disney World. Travel was risk.

For perspective, here is an excerpt from Volume 1, Number 2 of the National Geographic Magazine, published in 1889. In this excerpt, the President of the National Geographic Society, Gardiner G. Hubbard, writes about Europeans exploring Africa.

"...travelers in ever-increasing numbers have entered Africa on every side. Some who have entered...have been lost in its wilds and two or three years after have emerged on the opposite coast; others have passed from the coast, and have never been heard from...."
"Stanley started from Zanzibar on his search for Livingstone with two white men, but returned alone. Cameron set out by the same path with two companions, but upon reaching the lake region, he was alone..."
"Probably every second man, stricken down by fever or accident, has left his bones to bleach along the road."

When God said, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you," it was no simple journey.

Lives were constantly at stake.

Sarai was very beautiful. And for her sake, Pharoah dealt well with Abram.

One less set of bones bleaching along the roadside.

Haran Haran

2008-03-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

Late in Genesis 11, after a bunch of begatting and geneaology, we meet Terah. Terah was the father of three sons: (1) Abram, who will later become Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, (2) Nahor, who was named after his granddaddy, and (3) Haran.

Today, let us ponder number three son, Haran. Haran was the father of Lot. Lot will become famous for traveling with his uncle Abraham and for living in Somom and Gommorrah, for losing his wife to saltdom, for sleeping with his daughters and becoming the ancestor of enemy nations. Many cool things.

Haran becomes famous for nothing, which is to say, not famous at all. But here at the end of chapter 11, his name pops up with odd regularity. Haran is the son of Terah. Haran is the name of Nahor's (number two son) father-in-law. Haran is the name of the town where papa Terah dies. For a small number of verses, everything comes up Haran. Haran Haran Haran.

I'm struck by the pain in verse 11:28. "Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans." Maybe it is because I've seen too often the pain of parents outliving their children. Maybe it is because he died before they ever left to see the world. But it strikes me as so deeply sad.

Perhaps when they did travel, they named the place they first settled after this lost son and brother and father. They took his memory with them. The place became Haran.

The invisible character, the memory that makes the journey. The grief between the lines.

Haran, Haran, Haran. Someone remembered him.

The Bible Baby Name Book

2008-01-21T17:57:00.000-08:00

Genesis 10

Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras.
Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah.
Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim.
Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan.
Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteca.
Sheba and Dedan.
Nimrod!
Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim and Caphtorim.
Sidon, Heth and a bunch of ___ites.
Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud and Aram.
Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash.
Shelah.
Eber.
Peleg, Joktan.
Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah and Jobab.

In conclusion, I plan to write a musical comedy about Noah's grandsons, the sons of Japheth, because they have simply the best names in the bunch:
Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras.
The brothers Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash come in a close second.

Speaking in Tongues and Bio-diversity

2007-11-18T15:14:00.000-08:00

Read Genesis 11 and this will make more sense.

I have always loved the multitasking of the Biblical writers. They tell rich stories that make a whole variety of important points, while sneaking in some general mocking of their enemies. Christians, morally above this sort of behavior, like to pretend the mocking is not there, and skip right to the moral of the story. Actually, modern Christianity works a whole lot better if you don't actually read the original stories and just summarize the nice points. More on this later, when we discuss "getting back to the family values of the Bible." Oy.

Anyway...the story of the tower of Babel is a VERY thinly disguised thumbing of the nose at the Babylonians, who take our heroes into exile hundreds of years later in the story. Which makes it a bit of an anachronism, unless you stop to think that the exile was the impetus for writing all these stories down in the first place. The religious tradition and the culture of the exiles was threatened, so they had to be more intentional about passing their tradition and stories along to the next generation.

So...

Babel=Babylon....

Tower of Babel=Babylonian ziggurat tower.

Hmmmmmm. Draw your own conclusions.

But aside from that...you have a story of people banding together in a common effort to prove the greatness of human accomplishment. When we work together with our technology and effort, we can climb to the very heavens! Who needs God?

When the movie "Titanic" came out in the late nineties, it became the Babel movie for me. People, proud of their scientific and engineering prowess, build the humongous and "unsinkable" ship that sinks on its maiden voyage.

Perhaps it is the same people who decorate their children's rooms with Noah's ark who can watch "Titanic" and see only romance and ignore all the drowning. Regardless, it all goes down to a lack of humility ending in disaster.

But lately, I've begun to think there is more to it than just pride.

This summer, having read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," I am struck more by the similarities between Babel and our food industries. Our great industrial and scientific minds are decreasing the diversity of our food supply. They are engineering the genetics of the plants that we eat, so that we are increasingly dependent on a few companies and their particular seeds. To really think this through, you need to read Kingsolver's book. Don't worry, it is very funny and delightful to read. That helps with the disturbing parts about the narrowing of our biodiversity.

So here's my thought. I have come to believe, partly with Kingsolver's help, that the different languages given to the people at Babel are NOT A PUNISHMENT. Rather, I believe that God digs diversity, and wants us to dig it too.

Look at the plants. God invents hundreds of types of potatos. Hundreds. If you grow hundreds of varieties, letting them mingle happily together, then when blight comes, some 'taters will be resistant to the blight.

Or look at it in the realm of economics, as an argument against monopolies. In fields where you've got lots of competition and lots of different think tanks, people come up with more innovations. Perhaps it was back when I was being brainwashed in high school in my "Americanism vs. Communism" class...but I remember learning at some point that American computer science had progressed more quickly than that in the Soviet Union, because of the competition in the free market.

Anyway, don't sue me because I'm tap dancing in so very many fields where I have only enough knowledge to be dangerous. But think about it. What if the languages are not a punishment? What if they are a return to God's joyful plan for humanity?

Diversity = good.
Babylonian-there-is-no-proper-way-to-think-except-the-way-the-empire-tells-you = bad.

Power to the hack theologians everywhere!

Begat

2007-05-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

Genesis suffers more than most Biblical books from a bad case of the genealogies. You'll be cruising along fairly nicely with the narrative, only to bog down in a list of alien names strung together like popcorn on a Christmas tree.

There are occasional little unexplained snippets of stories...Jubal the musician...Tubal-cain the metalworker...Lamech the killer in self-defense...Enoch who walked with God...Nimrod the potentate and mighty hunter. But mostly just names, one after another, in father to son succession.

While I don't tend to linger too long in the genealogies and generally skim right over them, I'm glad they are there. They serve to remind us that these are not independent or isolated tales, but are instead all part of the BIG PICTURE. By tracing all of humanity to Noah and Mrs. Noah, or farther back to Adam and Eve, we're reminded that at the family reunion, we're all part of the same clan. Even the people we love to hate are tied into the same genealogical web.

All the great enemies of the Old Testament show up in these early chapters of Genesis. The Canaanites (9:22), the Philistines (10:14) and a whole mess of other folks with funny names and a violent place to hold in the story ahead.

The ancient people who told these stories understood something basic: no matter how reprehensible your enemy might be, in the long run, they are no more than distant cousins. Sometimes the family connection is even closer than that.

We go about our business of oppression and warfare by dehumanizing our enemies. What would it mean to adopt them back into the family tree...to look into their faces and trace the family resemblances...to look into their hearts and see parts of ourselves?

God's Time Management -- Sabbath

2007-04-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

And on the seventh day, God threw a monkey wrench in the whole business and took a day off. Most of the time, we consider ourselves and our ongoing activity more crucial than the creator of the universe. If we stop moving, life as we know it will explode into mess of thermonuclear proportions.

Back in the days that I taught senior high school students in Sunday School, they calmly discussed everything from sex to the nature of the trinity without ever breaking a sweat. But upon the casual mention of the sabbath, they grew red faced and threw up exasperated hands. "Who has time to take a day off? Do you have any idea what our lives are like?"

Oddly enough, this part of the creation story made it into the famous TEN COMMANDMENTS. Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy. Right there in the midst of not murdering and not sleeping with other people's spouses and not worshipping other gods.

Pastors break this commandment regularly. Work on Sunday leading worship. Then work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And then it is Sunday again.

Who has time for a day off?

Today, after a mad rush all week at work, and after a delightfully insanely company filled Easter weekend last week...today I attempted a day of rest. I drove myself a little nuts looking for the right book to read, the right project to start, the right subject to study, the right way to rest. It is only now, as darkness falls, that I'm beginning to realize that somewhere in the midst of my rest day anxiety, I actually began to let my soul catch up with my body.

There is a combination of ingredients...rest and worship...that must be mixed together to keep the commandment in full. Rest without worship tends to head us into the shallow waters of self absorption and silly pursuits. Worship without rest tends to make us cranky and unbearable, incapable of loving deeply.

With the high school students, so sure that sabbath was an impossible ideal, I encouraged them to take tiny sabbaths in the midst of their rush. If not a day, then a few hours. If not a few hours, then a few minutes. Starting small...just to pause in the midst of the chaotic rush to breath, to think, to gell.

This week, I'd consistently gotten myself whipped into a frenzy trying to get to everything that needed doing. Several times I found myself forced to stop...once or twice in traffic...once waiting for another person. I found the small pellet of common sense that rattles in the centrifuge of my mania...and relaxed in the peace of the moment. When the pace picked back up, I was a little more ready to run, less anxious, more focused. More centered on the who and why of my existence.

Remember the sabbath. Keep it. Let it keep you.

God's Time Management -- Celebration

2007-03-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

I took an extra long weekend this week, leaving my day job for a while to catch up on other portions of my life. On Friday, feeling slightly winded by my journeys of the day, I stopped to count the number of completed errands...ten...and then looked at the long remaining list of jobs and tasks. The list seemed heavy in my hand, weighted by places to go, things to do, people to see.

We always face the temptation to ignore our accomplishments and to focus all of our attention on the things that lie yet before us, but the Time Management system advocated in Genesis chapter one advises us otherwise. God first breaks the act of creation up into more manageable pieces, and then pauses after each managed piece to say "hey, that's pretty good."

Whether we have cooked a meal, worked a day at our job, cleaned a bathroom, or weeded a flower bed, we're invited to pause, to contemplate the before and after of this simple moment in our lives and celebrate its basic goodness.

I spent most of Saturday in the garden, hoeing weeds, framing raised beds, spreading mulch. Last night I was too pooped to take it in, but today, instead of tearing back into the pile of mulch in the driveway, I walked around the garden and examined yesterday's work.

Not only does this pause for celebration break up the endless desperate hurtle into the future, it also renews and reaffirms. When I pick the pitchfork and four pronged hoe back up tomorrow, it will be with energy renewed by my pleasure at the work already accomplished.

Pause every little bit. Look back with affirmation.

I've accomplished something here. Something pretty good.

God's Time Management -- Seven Days

2007-02-24T15:51:00.000-08:00

Why create the universe in seven days?

First, let me be clear that I think the seven days are symbolic, metaphorical truth -- not history or science. People of faith who insist that the creation story of Genesis One is a descriptive account of how it really happened find themselves doing odd gymnasics to make scientific findings fit with their absolute conviction of the literal seven day creation.

My personal favorite: "God put the dinosaur bones in the earth to test our faith." Right.

Instead, I believe in a much more complex God...a God who dances at the subatomic level, who continues to create through the ever evolving cosmos, who loves the wonders of scientific and mathematical truth. Religion explores the question of who while science explores the question of how.

That said, why seven days? Seven is a symbolic number, from the beginning to the end of the Bible...showing up again in the book of Revelation. Seven represents wholeness, completion. Ancient people grooved on symbolic numbers. (More on that later, when we explore the number forty....)

Beyond that, I think the seven days are meant to be instructive: God modeling through good example how to undertake a humongous project of intimidating scale.

When the project seems too much to do...break it into managable pieces. No one said you had to create the whole universe in one sitting. Start with something easy, like light. Do a little bit every day until you look back and realize the whole project is done.

One of the formative stories of my life: the boy sent by his uncle to clear a field by hand. Every day he goes to the field, becomes exhausted by the immensity of the job, curls up and goes to sleep. Finally, after several days, the uncle comes to check his progress, wakes him up and tells him, "If you had cleared a spot the size of the ground you slept upon each day, you would be almost done by now."

This story, and the story of the creation of the universe, have helped me march through life, one step at a time. Most of the time, remembering these tales, I've been able to stay focused on the job at hand without becoming too overwhelmed by all that needs doing.

It has made all the difference.

Mad about Monotheism

2007-02-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

Being the hack theologian that I am, I have no intention of proceeding in logical order. So now, four blogs in, I'm going back to the first verses and first chapters, putting "In the Beginning" somewhere in the early middle.

I love the first chapter of Genesis, the great liturgy of creation, light and shape and living things springing into being through the means of poetry. I grow quickly weary and frustrated with modern people trying to read their literalistic, historical, scientific biases into this magnificent material. What arrogance to think that the ancient people sat around their campfires saying, "Now, we've got to get this creation stuff 100% scientifically and historically accurate, because thousands of years from now, that's how people will define truth." Bah, humbug on that.

Ironically, like us, the ancients had little care for folks outside their time and philosophical frame of reference. They had their hands full with the conflicting thoughts and philosophies of their own day and time.

The creation story is radical liturature, not because stands up against modern scientific thought, but because it stands bravely up against the religious thought of its own time.

To read this poem of God speaking stars and sky and sun and moon and waters and living creatures and humans all into being...that's cheeky stuff in a world where people generally only gave their gods domain over small neighborhoods of influence.

The creation poetry of Genesis 1:16 thumbs its nose at the Egyptian sun god. The lines about creation of earth and plants and creatures stick out a proverbial tongue at the fertility gods of the early middle east. One God. One God creating, one God over all.

Even the ancient people portrayed in the writings of the Bible don't quite buy it. They themselves are more comfortable with the traditional understanding of a whole vast company of gods, battling for influence, skirmishing for power. Monotheism doesn't catch on in a big way within the Jewish community until much later in history and much later in the Bible.

We're still not terribly good monotheists. We worship our little imaginary god who lives locked in the church, coming for visiting hours once or twice a week and then locking the little dude (or dudette) back up. We worship the god of the national religion, the god of material wealth, the god of comfort, the god of security, and the god of pleasure. We give them each a portion of our time and energy, hoping that they will give back to us generously in return. If anything, the god locked in the church building is one of the lower deities on our list.

What would it mean to really focus...to see all of our lives and all of our purpose and all of creation as cut of one great cloth? What would it mean to hear the poetry of one God who speaks us into being and carries us through all of each day?

What would it mean to become monotheistic?

Full Frontal Nudity and Ethnic Cleansing

2007-02-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

Back in the days when I was a camp counselor at a church related summer camp, we used to sing an impressively annoying song about Noah and the ark. The song had many more verses than seemed reasonable. After proceding for much too long, it came crashing to an end with God sending out the sun to dry up the landy landy and everything being fine and dandy dandy.

I would never have wished for more verses, but I have come to believe that by ending the story at the first sign of a rainbow, we miss the whole point.

I was an adult before I learned what happened after the flood waters receded and the rainbow faded from the sky: Noah, weary of all the death and destruction, weary of living with his family at close quarters, weary of cleaning up after pairs of every animal imaginable, made a plan. He couldn't just wander down to the corner liquor store. It took him months, yea verily even years, but he had a plan.

He planted a vineyard...nurtured the grapevines...tended them....pruned them....harvested the grapes....fermented them....and after long anticipation, he tied one on. Saint Noah, the most righteous man on the planet, the only one worth saving, got stinking drunk.

Then, soused on his homemade wine, he took off his clothes and lay naked in his tent.

Biblical scholars don't make too terribly much of this. They focus on the reactions of Noah's sons and his subsequent blessings and curses. Commentaries blather on about the beginnings of conflicts between nations. Americans spent an embarrassing few decades using this story to defend the institution of slavery, since there is a handy piece about slavery in the curse on Noah's son who snickered when he found dad naked.

I think they've all missed (or at least underplayed) the point...and it is a really humongous point....the most important lesson we can glean from the flood story.

Think about it. God, in the story, finds people too evil and violent to keep around, so God washes all the bad people away and keeps the good ones. When the flood waters recede and the ark lands, God sets the rainbow in the sky...WHY? As a reminder to God to NOT try this again. WHY? BECAUSE IT DIDN'T WORK.

When Noah and his family, the righteous ones, get off the ark, God makes this observation on the new and improved human race: "the inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood." God promises never again to wash away the bad people from the planet BECAUSE WE ARE ALL BAD PEOPLE.

Don't get me wrong...I know lots of swell folks. I'm pretty cool, myself.

But if you take the very best of us, wash away the rest, you still end up right back where you started.

In the story of Adam and Eve, the point where they realize their brokenness is described in the following way: "Their eyes were opened, and they realized that they were naked."

Noah, the chosen one, is right back at the exit ramp from the garden of Eden. Naked.

What would it mean for us to really understand the Noah story? To once and for all realize that you can't sort the good people from the bad, that you can't solve the problems of the world by getting rid of "THOSE PEOPLE."

Instead, the battles between US and THEM continue all over the globe. Good guys and bad guys. Insiders and outsiders. If only we could just wash those other people away, all would be well with the world.

And we would wake up the next morning and find ourselves NAKED.

Filtered Water

2007-02-12T16:34:00.000-08:00

Living in the Southeastern United States renders it almost impossible to read the Bible and actually see the words on the page. The "Bible belt" culture seeps into our imaginations, adding layers of interpretation to the text long before we open the book.

We picture Adam and Eve eating an apple in the garden of Eden, and the fact that there is not (and has never been) an apple in the story seems incomprehensible. Relatively few people can tell you the name of the tree that stood in the center of the garden...the forbidden fruit.

In case this comes as a surprise, and you don't have Genesis 2 & 3 handy...forbidden fruit comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Not as simple as an apple, and a lot more specific in its meaning.

As often as we add images and ideas into the text, we also screen things out. We become so familiar with the names and vague outlines of the stories that we lose the truly important details. Sometimes we filter out the vast majority of the story line.

Many of us learned our Bible as children, with stories cleaned up and sanitized to the rated G version of the story. We learned the basics at age 6 or 7 and never went back for more.

Case in point: Noah and the ark.

I am consistently stunned by the use of Noah and the ark in decorating baby nurseries. People make ark lamps and ark wall hangings and ark bookends and ark toys and ark Christmas tree decorations. We surround our infants and toddlers with images from the most horrific story in the Bible.

If you read the story of the flood in Genesis 6-8, you'll notice a disturbing detail. Aside from a small handful of people and a few animals, EVERYBODY DIES. All the people outside Noah's immediate family and all the animals except a select handful DROWN.

The story depicts the most comprehensively destructive natural disaster imaginable. Far worse than the southeast asian tsunami. Far worse than the devastation of hurricane Katrina.

But why concentrate on that little detail when you can focus your artistic efforts on the cute boat and sweet little animals? What child doesn't like boats and animals?

We've become so overly familiar with the idea of the ark that we've lost the underlying story.

Next time we see a toy ark, or a baby blanket covered in animals walking two by two, here are some things to ponder....

* How do we teach our children about the role of evil in human life and civilization?

* How do we take responsibility for the harm we daily cause ourselves, each other and the whole natural order?

* How can we read the story of Noah without tearing our clothes and crying out in horror?

* What kind of God sends forth the flood?

* If we were in the story, would we be on the boat, or part of the multitude in the waters?

* What manner of people are we, that we can read this story, la la la, and completely ignore all the death and suffering?

* Who is drowning right in front of us today while we play with our toy boats and line up our toy animals, two by two?

Will It Float?

2007-02-09T12:43:00.000-08:00

When I stay up late, I like to watch David Letterman play "Will It Float?"

The first time I caught the sketch, the item in question was a jug of milk. Will a jug of milk float in a great big tub o' water?

While the object of the day changes, the basic format stays the same: lots of debate, followed by the official guesses, then, with much pomp, drama and some strange fireworks on the side, the item in question is placed into the big ol' tub o' water.

I don't remember if a gallon of milk floats.

But how thrilling the question...

This week I made an interesting discovery. David Letterman did not invent "Will it Float?"

Nay, it came from Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers changed into his sweater and tennis shoes many years ago, invited his young viewers to join him at his turquoise blue bathtub, took a bucket of bath toys and looked into the camera...and asked the immortal question. "Will it float?"

Plastic blocks and boat floated. The toy rocking chair sat on the bottom of the pretty blue tub.

But even Mr. Rogers, back in the 1970's, was not the original "Will it Float?" guru.

Thousands of years ago, the oldest man ever to grace the planet...the one and only, original, "will it float" guy.

Methuselah was 187 years old when he became the father of Lamech. When Lamech was 182, he had a son named Noah. When Noah was six hundred years old, he ducked into an ark full of stinky animals to escape flood waters covering the face of the earth.

187 + 182 + 600 = 969

Genesis 5 tells us that Methuselah died at age 969, which by my math...drumroll, please...was the year of the big flood.

Methuselah did not float.

I've never found a commentary or a biblical footnote about the death of Methuselah, but the math is right there in the text for anyone to see.

Was Noah's great grandpa evil like everyone else? Did God smite him off the face of the earth?

Was he basically a good fellow, and God rewarded him by saving him from all those months trapped with family members and animal poop in a confined space?

Why hide this little detail in the story?

One of the things I truly love about the Bible...there are always layers upon layers of weird details...layers upon layers of opportunity for discussion, for interpretation, for debate....

Layers upon layers of hack theology just waiting to happen.