Staying Alive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.