The Word: Shapes – Day 35
Seven Wonders of the Word
“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” – 2 Timothy 3:16
I like books. It’s not that I am a voracious reader, I am not, but I do like books, I like the idea of books, the feel, the look, and yes even the smell. It is nearly impossible for me to get rid of book once it has been given to me or purchased. This can be problematic.
I am related to and know many retired pastors who at some point have shared parts of their libraries with me once retired. So, I have shelves full of books, and yes, boxes of books that will remain there for a while because, well I have only so much shelf space. I have another issue. I only have so much time to read and most often what I read is either to address an current issue, need or concern, and I have another pile that I read for pleasure. So this means that there are many books that look good on the shelf that I have never cracked open. Many of these books are classics, the knowledge and concepts they contain could be interesting, and even helpful if I ever got around to reading them.
I also have a whole bunch of Bible’s. Last time I took a count I have well over two-dozen. These, well most of them, ok some of them get a little more usage. My two primary Bibles are my floppy NRSV Bible I received from my internship congregation and a NIV I received from my Dad on my ordination.
The difference between the rest of the books on my shelf and these Bibles is summed up in the passage from 2 Timothy. While the rest of my books might be good for one thing or another, scripture is the guide, the context in which all else is contained. This doesn’t mean that the Bible directly addresses every issue, concern or topic that will arise in life, even a life of faith. The key even in the tough passages is that scripture is inspired by God, and its purpose is for our good, so that we might have life.
Well its Holy Week, and I am at maximum distraction getting things ready for worship, and all that follows, so this is all I got today! Keep me in your prayers and may your Holy Week be blessed as well!
Act of God
When I was a youth, I remember stumbling upon the phrase “act of god.” I believe it was in lower case and I think it was in some document, insurance papers or a newspaper story I had read, I don’t remember which. But what I do remember was that it caused me to think. I asked my Dad what it meant and he gave me the common understanding of the phrase. It has little or nothing to do with ascribing the random acts of nature to a god, or to God. Essentially it is a way of describing and event that has no direct human cause. It comes in handy if you are in the insurance business as it gives you and escape clause for what seems to be the random events of life that no actuary could ever calculate. Here is a little Wiki blurb if your interested.
This came to mind as I was preparing to teach my confirmation class. We are going through the Bible this year and we are now covering the period of the Kings and Prophets. In the preparation materials I came across this statement. “In a prescientific era, every turn of fate, every natural event, was seen as coming from God’s hand and intention. This is not how we interpret our world. We know about the moral indifference of natural disaster, for example. It is not divine punishment for the sins of the people. We understand that history unfolds as a collision of circumstance and human power.” So God is not responsible for “acts of god?”
Ok, I understand the broader implication here, and don’t entirely disagree, but something sticks in my craw. Back in my seminary
days, pre-pastor hood, we had long lingering conversations about listening for the small still voice of God. We would sit around in class or the caf with a cup of coffee and ponder how God is at work in so many ways so many small ways in peoples lives often in hushed tones of awe. We talked about how God is a creating God who is still at work in our world everyday, but often the emphasis would be on the individual, the small the personal.
Now I don’t disagree with any of what I have just written.
But I don’t wonder if we haven’t sold God short on things.
From our modern theological understandings God can and still does miracles, God and still “does.” But big scale things, things that happen that upset our sensationalists, well those, those we can not jibe with Jesus supposedly and thus they come under the “act of god” clause. But the very base of the Christian faith stands firmly on a a pretty big event, something that flies in the face of any possible insurance policy, and that would be the resurrection. That is an act of God and God wants us to know that it was His doing.
In our modern world is it so very hard to understand that God is still at work on the small and personal scale as well as on the epic scale of all creation. We might not always see why things happen, we may call things that occur great tragedies and those things happen everyday, is it so hard to understand that in the midst of all this God who is the Alpha and Omega the beginning and end of all things, maybe active to achieve His will which very well maybe beyond our scope of understanding?
When it comes to the stories of the Old Testament that can seem so punitive and manipulative from our vantage point is it so hard to see through the eyes of Christ that God really does know what God is doing? Later these same confirmation materials state: “Yet the confession of these stories is that God is deeply invested in God’s people. What happens in our national life together, how we manage our relationships with each other, both personal and civic, makes a difference to God. We are called to faithfulness, to focus our perspective, energy, and time on God’s will and way.”
I have no beef with that statement, but I think it draws God up short. God is not only invested in God’s people, but all of creation is His and there we have to trust in his promises to us, for us. We may not have any control over “acts of god” but we do have the promise that in the midst of life’s storms, and tragedies we have a Savoir.
My last thought is if we are going to stick God with all the bad stuff are we equally willing to give God credit for all the wonderful unexplained things that happen too?
Slogging through the rules
You want details… I’ll give you details!
Our 90 day Bible journey in these last few days has taken us through the interesting and sometimes puzzling territory of Leviticus, and Numbers… ahhh…what a joy! If you are a details person, one who is a stickler for the rules, you may well love this stuff.
Me, not so much.
My wife said something like, after reading this stuff I have never been so glad Jesus came!
I agree, but there is still so much to glean from these books even in the midst of the repetition and often odd (to us) rituals and practices there in.
One of the things that really dawned on me was the repeating of the need to take a Sabbath. 
Over and over again the idea of Sabbath rest was highlighted. What I also find interesting is that this rest isn’t so much about God as it is about us. Today we don’t have near so many rules, I am glad I didn’t have to have blood splashed all over me at my ordination, nor was there slaughtering of any kind come to think of it! But the need for Sabbath is still real and quite frankly we stink at it. Maybe we can still learn much from these early rule books of the bible.
Getting into Numbers I am struck with just how big this people was, Over six hundred thousand, and I am pretty sure they were just counting the guys here. So this wandering people of God in the wilderness was the size of Milwaukee! Gives you a unique perspective on what was going on, it was a huge deal, and with a size like this come rules so that this newly formed people, for that is in fact what they were, could live together.
At the root, this still is all about relationships. Relationships between God and His people, between neighbors, and on and on… you get the point.
There is much more detail that I could go into here, but if you are reading along, you know, if not, open up your Bible and dive in!
Even though…
Today we finished up Genesis in our 90 day program. The last 10 chapters moved pretty fast for me and that was good. The promo literature said “read the Bible in 90 days in as little as 30 minutes a day” I haven’t come close to 30 minutes for the readings we have, at least not yet!
As I stated before Genesis is foundational, it is the footings that so much of the rest of scripture rest on and that foundation is God’s faithfulness and steadfast love for his creation which includes you and me.
Today we find Joseph as the great muckity muck over all of Egypt and as he interpreted Pharaoh’s dream there were seven good years of plenty and now the lean years have come upon the land. The famine has reached as far as the Canaan and word has reached them that there is grain to buy in Egypt. So Israel sends his sons, with the exception of Benjamin to Egypt to get some grain. Once there despite the years and experiences Joseph has gone through he spots his brothers in the crowds coming to buy grain.
Can you imagine how he must have felt, or at least could have felt. Here are these brothers who beat him up, sold him into slavery where he was then thrown into jail for years, here they stand now before him, begging to buy grain. Oh the revenge factor here is huge! HUGE! How would have you responded, how do you respond when someone who has done you wrong in the past now comes to you in a position of relative powerlessness? Talk about temptation, but it seems Joseph has a bigger idea, he has family, love and hope on his mind and so puts together an elaborate ruse to see how is brothers will behave.
Long story short the brothers do the right thing, and the whole family is reunited in the land of Goshen… yes if you ever had ever heard that expression of surprise on TV or from a Grand parent, “Land o Goshen” this is where it comes from.
Any way forgiveness seems to reign supreme. Joseph sets up his family on good land they continue to be blessed in all ways a grow in this foreign land. Toward the end of the story after Israel (Jacob) dies he is taken up to be buried in the promised land. Then the brothers begin to worry. Now that Dad isn’t around what will Joseph do, we treated him pretty poorly back in the day, and now that Dad isn’t here to keep the peace, and harmony in the family (like he ever really did that) what will Joseph do?
What comes next is one of my favorite lines in scripture. His brothers are so worried they actually bring it up to him. How many times in life do we needlessly worry about what others might do simply because we do not talk to them about it? But they do and Joseph responds in Genesis 50:20: “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doin
g today” Whoa… what profound faith, what deep forgiveness. This doesn’t mean Joseph didn’t remember or learn from what happened to him, he dealt pretty shrewdly with his brothers when they first came to him, but there was forgiveness and life emerged from this forgiveness. This little family that began with Abraham, Sarah and Isaac was nearly the size of a small nation all ready. The experiences of Joseph’s life had been hard, and his forgiveness was expensive as it aways is, but Joseph was faithful and God continued to be good on his promises even in Egypt!
It seems to me that Joseph had long ago forgiven them, but the brothers had never quite gotten around to accepting that forgiveness. Here is the other kicker for us, how often do we struggle with accepting forgiveness and moving on? Forgiveness is about life, it is about living the promises that God’s love is for us freeing us to forgiven and love others… wow what a great story!
In the “Big Inning”
Well I have been quite neglectful of this blog in recent weeks. But I have a new passion to fill some space. If you are reading this perhaps you already know this, this summer many at my congregation are joining me in the 90 day Bible reading challenge. Yup… you got it… we are going to read the whole Bible this summer cover to cover…
I hope you can join us!
In the Beginning
Ok, we are off… For the last two days we have tackled Genesis up to the 28th Chapter. I can’t tell you how many times I have read these passages… and how many times I haven’t read parts of them. Yes there are long stretches of names that seem odd to us, but in those names there is story, connection and at their core, relationship. When I teach the Bible no matter the age group I emphasize the fact that Genesis is foundational. To stretch the building terminology further… they are the footings, the bedrock of faith and the story of God’s amazing grace and love for us.
In my experience there is no such thing as a perfect relationship, good ones, yes, perfect… no.
So goes Genesis. Once humanity is on the scene it doesn’t take long for the perfect relationship between God and Adam and Eve to go south. I love it when Adam confronted by his sin immediately points his finger at Eve, and she in turn the serpent. If you have ever caught children misbehaving in anyway this is nearly always their immediate response. If you have ever read a newspaper or watched TV it is also the immediate response of nearly everyone when something goes bad.
It’s classic.
What isn’t so classic, at least in our modern world is how the story unfolds later in Genesis. There is much that seems foreign, odd, and often down right disgusting. Abram married his half sister…ewwww…. but, I imagine if Abram was confronted with much of what happens in the world today he most likely would be equally grossed out. What I see etched out early on in these stories, are the themes of a people who are not perfect, these are not the Sunday School stories, these are stories of real people, warts and all. What also is fleshed out is the story of God who works with imperfection to bring about the perfection of his love for all of creation. The stories will just keep getting better as we continue in Genesis!
I can’t promise that I will post after each days reading, I am going to try, but… hey after all it is summer!
I would love to hear your impressions, ideas, questions or concerns. Just make a comment in the box below and the process expands beyond my pontifications, and that gets back to the core of relationship again, the relationship between you and me, God and his Word!
