Adam and Eve. Joseph and Mary. Two sets of parents, each with a son threatened.
Threatened for the same reasons: jealousy, fear, anger. For the same reason: because human beings began to think they could get along without God. Disobedience spiraled into violence, threats, and even murder. Cain kills in a jealous rage; his descendant kills for cold, calculated revenge. "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?" the psalmist asked. He could have been thinking about Cain and Abel, about Lamech, about Herod threatening Jesus. He could have even been thinking about tyranny in Egypt, corruption closer to home, even our own private plotting and planning. Rachel weeps for her children in every place and every time.
The distance from "It was good" to "Why are you angry?" seems immense, but it's spanned by one willful act. The chain of events between God's careful creation of human beings and Cain's impulsive destruction of his brother is unfathomable, but set in motion by one human choice that marginalizes the Creator and compromises forever his creation.
Well, not forever, of course. Into this world of violence and murder came another man-child from the Lord. He would barely elude those who would kill him as a baby. He would walk purposefully into their hands a few decades later. He came to remind us of who we really are. He came to deliver us from a world of seventy-seven fold vengeance.
May we prepare the way for him: in our world, in our own hearts and minds.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
Day 1
I've always loved the creation accounts. They're full of vivid imagery and powerful language.
Many Bible scholars suspect that the creation accounts in Genesis were intended to argue for one Creator God against the pagan world view of the ancient Near East. I think you can surely read them this way, but to see them strictly in those terms is to miss out on some important truths about God and about human beings.
In chapter one, God speaks to create. But when it comes to people, he slows down. He "creates...in his own image." He "formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." I love the old poem by James Weldon Johnson that describes God's creation of human beings:
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;
I never really paid attention to this before, but Genesis 2:5 says that Eden wasn't part of God's creation of trees and bushes and plants. The text says that God planted a garden "when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up." God plants Eden specifically to provide a hospitable place for Adam to live. "The LORD God planted a garden" - imagine God rolling up his sleeves, getting his hands dirty, carefully digging in the soft, new dirt and planting the bushes and trees that will sustain this new creature, this man!
And when he notices the man's alone-ness he fashions a custom-made helper from the man's body, and the man calls her "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." When each gender can harbor such deep-rooted hostilities against the other, this is a powerful theological statement about who were are and what we share as God's creation.
All those verbs: "created," "formed," "breathed," "planted." God the surgeon takes one of Adam's ribs and "close(s) up the place with flesh." He "made" the woman and "brought" her to the man - who recognized her immediately. All those verbs leave us breathless. God, who spoke and the universe came into existence, creates human beings with such care and labor.
We must matter a great deal to him, don't you think? We're not, as the ancient Near East creation myths said, made to be servants of petulant, petty, angry tyrant gods. We're made to live in the world God has given us in his love and grace as caretakers of his creation.
Centuries later, God's work in the world revolves around another man and another woman - Joseph and Mary. And God's work in bringing about the birth of Jesus is summed up in the Hebrew phrase "Immanuel": "God with us."
Just like he's always been, ever since he formed us and provided for us and obsessed over our happiness, all those countless millennia ago.
Many Bible scholars suspect that the creation accounts in Genesis were intended to argue for one Creator God against the pagan world view of the ancient Near East. I think you can surely read them this way, but to see them strictly in those terms is to miss out on some important truths about God and about human beings.
In chapter one, God speaks to create. But when it comes to people, he slows down. He "creates...in his own image." He "formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." I love the old poem by James Weldon Johnson that describes God's creation of human beings:
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;
I never really paid attention to this before, but Genesis 2:5 says that Eden wasn't part of God's creation of trees and bushes and plants. The text says that God planted a garden "when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up." God plants Eden specifically to provide a hospitable place for Adam to live. "The LORD God planted a garden" - imagine God rolling up his sleeves, getting his hands dirty, carefully digging in the soft, new dirt and planting the bushes and trees that will sustain this new creature, this man!
And when he notices the man's alone-ness he fashions a custom-made helper from the man's body, and the man calls her "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." When each gender can harbor such deep-rooted hostilities against the other, this is a powerful theological statement about who were are and what we share as God's creation.
All those verbs: "created," "formed," "breathed," "planted." God the surgeon takes one of Adam's ribs and "close(s) up the place with flesh." He "made" the woman and "brought" her to the man - who recognized her immediately. All those verbs leave us breathless. God, who spoke and the universe came into existence, creates human beings with such care and labor.
We must matter a great deal to him, don't you think? We're not, as the ancient Near East creation myths said, made to be servants of petulant, petty, angry tyrant gods. We're made to live in the world God has given us in his love and grace as caretakers of his creation.
Centuries later, God's work in the world revolves around another man and another woman - Joseph and Mary. And God's work in bringing about the birth of Jesus is summed up in the Hebrew phrase "Immanuel": "God with us."
Just like he's always been, ever since he formed us and provided for us and obsessed over our happiness, all those countless millennia ago.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Welcome
Welcome to my new blog, Lectio Divina!
"Lectio Divina" is a Latin term that means, literally, "Divine Reading." So this blog could be called Divine Reading. But that wouldn't sound nearly so cool, would it?
Anyway, Lectio Divina is the ancient practice of reading Scripture prayerfully and meditatively. My intention is to regularly blog my responses to daily readings as I read through the Bible this year. (Well, from February this year to February next year. What can I say? I got a late start....)
Since I believe the Bible is intended to be read in community, I hope to involve many partners in this blog. I'll be using the One-Year Bible reading plan from youversion.com - I hope you'll read along with me and use the comments section of the blog to share your own thoughts, reflections, prayers, etc. on the readings.
Isaiah 55 says "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it ithout watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." God's word is powerful and productive, and because it is I dare to hope - expect - that reading it with friends will make a difference in our lives. I look forward to hearing from you, and reading with you.
"Lectio Divina" is a Latin term that means, literally, "Divine Reading." So this blog could be called Divine Reading. But that wouldn't sound nearly so cool, would it?
Anyway, Lectio Divina is the ancient practice of reading Scripture prayerfully and meditatively. My intention is to regularly blog my responses to daily readings as I read through the Bible this year. (Well, from February this year to February next year. What can I say? I got a late start....)
Since I believe the Bible is intended to be read in community, I hope to involve many partners in this blog. I'll be using the One-Year Bible reading plan from youversion.com - I hope you'll read along with me and use the comments section of the blog to share your own thoughts, reflections, prayers, etc. on the readings.
Isaiah 55 says "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it ithout watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." God's word is powerful and productive, and because it is I dare to hope - expect - that reading it with friends will make a difference in our lives. I look forward to hearing from you, and reading with you.
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