In this chapter, I get all confused again, all caught up in a flurry of names I don't know. This list of Esau's descendants must be here for a reason, because the writers recognized them as such, but I don't make any sense out of it. The only name I know here is Amalek, whose tribe the Amalekites would be an important enemy of the Hebrews later. The important points I glean here, out of all of this nonsense, come from the hints of actual narrative between the names. First of all, Esau himself is the ancestor of many many tribes, part of Abraham's promise to make his descendents great in number. He, like Lot, makes two conscious choices that leave him outside the line of the Promise. First, in choosing where to relocate, he leaves the land promised to his family and settles in the mountains south of Canaan and to the southeast (East in Genesis is generally a move away from God), and second, he intertwines his family with the various other native tribes of the area, all pagan, including the Hivites/Horites and the Ishmaelites.
The next chapter brings things back to familiar ground for me...I was in a high school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, playing Leah, so I know all about the "tale of a dreamer like you", but the story yields so many parallels with the Gospel narrative I know so well. Joseph is well known as a type of Jesus, so it should be fun finding these parallels as I go. First off, Joseph speaks plainly about his promised authority, even when he knew the feelings it would inspire, and the source of the authority is hard for others to see or accept as credible. Jacob the Father mantles him in a robe of royal/priestly authority, which Biblical translators have a hard time translating but is much more than merely a "coat of many colors" or a "long tunic" as my totally flat and here-inadequate NAB translates it. According to Agape Bible Study, the word used for Joseph's amazing garment is one only used later in David's era to describe something a priest wore, and another place to describe the garments the royal princesses wore. This isn't just a snazzy piece of clothing. Jacob makes his son palpably more powerful by giving him this.
"Joseph's coat annoyed his brothers," who of course represent the universal sinner status of every member of the new Israel, the Church. The brothers seem to be in agreement that the little snot needs to be silenced, and permanently. Reuben does a tremendously ambiguous thing by toning down the violent sentiment and proposing a solution that should keep their own malformed consciences from bothering them. He does not, as the eldest brother and the presumed leader, use his clout to suggest anything other than Joseph's death, but instead proposes a more extended, painful death in the desert that conveniently would not be directly their fault. The Jewish leaders, representing the "firstborn of the nations", when faced with a Jesus who annoyed them by claiming a mysterious authority they didn't understand, did the same. They left it to the Romans to slowly, painfully kill Jesus. The brothers even feast while condemning him to starvation in their cruelty.
The brothers (Jews) were not only bothered by Joseph's claims of authority (Jesus') but also because he told Dad bad things about them. Joseph, like Jesus, knew their sin and became their judge, exposing their faults when they would have preferred to hide. Joseph refused to be silent when he saw error and sin in their ways.
Here, at last, we see some of the reason Judah alone out of all his brothers became the bearer of the chosen line. Judah, for all his faults, is unwilling to commit fratricide even indirectly and instead convinces the group to sell Joseph. Jesus too would later be sold out for the price of a slave. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi had each laid down their rights as firstborn via the usurping-Dad's-authority and Shechem Massacre incidents, so Judah was next in line, the one his brothers would respect. Judah's the new power in town and, while less cruel, is still willing to defend this against Joseph's claims and make money off of him at the same time. The tribes of Israel later would divide along these two lines, with the Northern tribes headed by Joseph's son Ephraim's tribe opposed by the Southern tribes, headed by the tribe of Judah. In the end, God's assessment of the two would place righteous authority in Judea, and the other tribes would be lost.
Jacob is one last time tricked by his sons in a viciously ironic twist on his own deception of Isaac. His sons don't even have the guts to take the tunic to Jacob themselves, letting a servant do their dirty work. Reuben selfishly worries about his own fate in the face of this act, but isn't able to mourn his brother properly. Jacob himself is tremendously grieved and never plans to recover from his loss. Joseph's life is safe in Egypt, like baby Jesus, but he has still been sold out by his brothers.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Genesis 34-35: The Apples Fall Far, Far, From The Tree
In these chapters, it becomes clear that one cannot inherit a relationship with God. The fact of Jacob's profound personal experience with God in the previous chapters does not arise from the fact that his father and grandfather had personal experiences with Him. He doesn't become godly because of Isaac, and he doesn't become a perfect father because of it either. Being in God's friendship does not guarantee perfect peace and harmony in life, and in fact often means otherwise. Jacob looks on his sons here in these chapters, mystified by their inability to receive the knowledge and understanding he struggled for. He receives yet again the fruits of his living, of his earlier deceit, as he settles down in the very place his grandfather did upon coming to this land, Shechem.
While there, his daughter Dinah begins to make friends in the area, pagan friends, friends outside her Tribe. Her father has been led safely to this new home but has not, incidentally, done what he promised to God in return for this, and he doesn't really know the people of the area very well. Dinah is allowed to go visit her girlfriends in the area alone, unprotected. It isn't one hundred percent clear here, but she probably already knew the young man Shechem and his father Hamor, and may have actually liked him romantically. Either way, the two had premarital sex (consensual or not), and after this, Shechem tried to sweet talk Dinah. It works whether this was reassuring her after a rape, or whether it was reassuring her of his love and desire to marry her after a consensual tryst. From what I'm told, a common reason women accuse men falsely of rape is the case of a consensual encounter the woman does not wish to admit. It could have been that Dinah got scared of her father's anger and threw out an impulsive false accusation. The words here, "saw", "took", are words reminiscent of previous instances of boldly succumbing to a tempting forbidden fruit, fitting in any of these scenarios.
No matter what the reality of the situation, the reaction to it by Jacob is quickly overtaken by the tidal wave of his sons' opinion. Jacob is reluctant to react, possibly because he knew of feelings she had for Shechem and that this was likely consensual, but he is clear in his opposition to Dinah's union with a local pagan. He waits to discuss things with his sons, not providing leadership but allowing them to take over. Their sense of macho honor demands that they react strongly to this. Hamor and Shechem are relatively honorable men, in their way, and Shechem speaks up for himself, neither blindly subordinate to, nor dominating his father. Jacob's sons have a lot of Dad's craftiness in them, and they plainly take total advantage of Hamor, Shechem, and the entire male population of the town. These brothers take justice into their own hands, not caring that the Just God is the one with the right to judge, and in their "justice, they looted and made themselves more wealthy. Where is their father, who had such a profound experience of mercy and reliance and trust in God? They didn't really bother with what he thought. Shameful, shameful, shameful.
In the wake of all this, Jacob is reminded of his promise to build a house for God at Bethel. The faithful man that he is, he does so, taking even earrings from his family as sacrificial donations to make it even better. He finds protection from the wrath of the surrounding area and peace because he is doing God's will. He continues in his task, even though Deborah, his mother's servant and nurse, probably even more of a mother to Jacob than Rebekah was, passes away and is greatly mourned. Jacob didn't get to see his real mother when she died...so now this surrogate mother also dies, giving Jacob a chance to mourn both. He then recalls God's re-naming him and the encounters he has had with God before. He calls to mind the blessing he was given, an echo of every promise and basic command God has given to mankind before him: Be fruitful and multiply (Adam and Eve), Kings and nations will come from you (Abraham), and this land is yours (Abraham and Isaac). In going back to Bethel and fulfilling his promise, Jacob gets a retrospective of his life, all he has been promised, and all that has been fulfilled in his sight.
On the way to Bethlehem, symbolically fitting as the birthplace of David and Jesus, Rachel bears one more son in a terrible terrible pain, eventually succumbing. Even the hopeful encouragement by the midwife that this is another son is no longer enough for her. It seems to me that the old, son-obsessed Rachel has come to understand, possibly at Bethel watching her husband's example, that there is nothing on earth that could satisfy that longing she has. She spent her entire life trying to bear sons to fill a hole in her soul, much as others make lots of money, buy lots of stuff, take drugs, drink, take risks, etc. She looks at her life as she is dying and understands that God is what fulfills, and that those sons she deemed so precious are what is about to kill her. She is saddened by how cheap and counterfeit it all seems, so she names her son Ben-Oni, son of pain and affliction. Jacob, whose God has begun to fill that longing, changes the name to Benjamin, my right-hand son, good omened son. A son born in affliction and pain will become vitally important Jacob. Jesus later would be a man of suffering, a Ben-Oni, who used that suffering to redeem us and then rise again, becoming a Benjamin, a Son at the right hand of his Father, vitally important to Him.
Jacob gets one last kick-while-down from these sons who do not respect him or care much for him. Like Ham before him, the firstborn Reuben is a loser who believes in his own power above that of his father. Reuben sleeps with Bilhah, who is a surrogate Rachel (as her maid and the one whose children technically belonged to Rachel). He usurps Dad's power by taking his concubine, and makes a stab at his mother's rival and Dad's favorite, now dead and defenseless. Not much is said about this immediately, but Reuben has kept alive the tradition of disappointing and conniving firstborn sons. Jacob at this point is distracted by the need to bury Isaac, but he does not forget what Reuben did to him.
Like Abraham, Jacob has made the conquering tour of Canaan. He goes to Shechem, Bethel, and then Hebron, in the very south, just as Abraham did. He travels over the land promised to him, even though he doesn't own much more of it yet. He and Esau are reunited and also reconciled with their father's memory. The father that divided them by favoritism reunites them at his death.
While there, his daughter Dinah begins to make friends in the area, pagan friends, friends outside her Tribe. Her father has been led safely to this new home but has not, incidentally, done what he promised to God in return for this, and he doesn't really know the people of the area very well. Dinah is allowed to go visit her girlfriends in the area alone, unprotected. It isn't one hundred percent clear here, but she probably already knew the young man Shechem and his father Hamor, and may have actually liked him romantically. Either way, the two had premarital sex (consensual or not), and after this, Shechem tried to sweet talk Dinah. It works whether this was reassuring her after a rape, or whether it was reassuring her of his love and desire to marry her after a consensual tryst. From what I'm told, a common reason women accuse men falsely of rape is the case of a consensual encounter the woman does not wish to admit. It could have been that Dinah got scared of her father's anger and threw out an impulsive false accusation. The words here, "saw", "took", are words reminiscent of previous instances of boldly succumbing to a tempting forbidden fruit, fitting in any of these scenarios.
No matter what the reality of the situation, the reaction to it by Jacob is quickly overtaken by the tidal wave of his sons' opinion. Jacob is reluctant to react, possibly because he knew of feelings she had for Shechem and that this was likely consensual, but he is clear in his opposition to Dinah's union with a local pagan. He waits to discuss things with his sons, not providing leadership but allowing them to take over. Their sense of macho honor demands that they react strongly to this. Hamor and Shechem are relatively honorable men, in their way, and Shechem speaks up for himself, neither blindly subordinate to, nor dominating his father. Jacob's sons have a lot of Dad's craftiness in them, and they plainly take total advantage of Hamor, Shechem, and the entire male population of the town. These brothers take justice into their own hands, not caring that the Just God is the one with the right to judge, and in their "justice, they looted and made themselves more wealthy. Where is their father, who had such a profound experience of mercy and reliance and trust in God? They didn't really bother with what he thought. Shameful, shameful, shameful.
In the wake of all this, Jacob is reminded of his promise to build a house for God at Bethel. The faithful man that he is, he does so, taking even earrings from his family as sacrificial donations to make it even better. He finds protection from the wrath of the surrounding area and peace because he is doing God's will. He continues in his task, even though Deborah, his mother's servant and nurse, probably even more of a mother to Jacob than Rebekah was, passes away and is greatly mourned. Jacob didn't get to see his real mother when she died...so now this surrogate mother also dies, giving Jacob a chance to mourn both. He then recalls God's re-naming him and the encounters he has had with God before. He calls to mind the blessing he was given, an echo of every promise and basic command God has given to mankind before him: Be fruitful and multiply (Adam and Eve), Kings and nations will come from you (Abraham), and this land is yours (Abraham and Isaac). In going back to Bethel and fulfilling his promise, Jacob gets a retrospective of his life, all he has been promised, and all that has been fulfilled in his sight.
On the way to Bethlehem, symbolically fitting as the birthplace of David and Jesus, Rachel bears one more son in a terrible terrible pain, eventually succumbing. Even the hopeful encouragement by the midwife that this is another son is no longer enough for her. It seems to me that the old, son-obsessed Rachel has come to understand, possibly at Bethel watching her husband's example, that there is nothing on earth that could satisfy that longing she has. She spent her entire life trying to bear sons to fill a hole in her soul, much as others make lots of money, buy lots of stuff, take drugs, drink, take risks, etc. She looks at her life as she is dying and understands that God is what fulfills, and that those sons she deemed so precious are what is about to kill her. She is saddened by how cheap and counterfeit it all seems, so she names her son Ben-Oni, son of pain and affliction. Jacob, whose God has begun to fill that longing, changes the name to Benjamin, my right-hand son, good omened son. A son born in affliction and pain will become vitally important Jacob. Jesus later would be a man of suffering, a Ben-Oni, who used that suffering to redeem us and then rise again, becoming a Benjamin, a Son at the right hand of his Father, vitally important to Him.
Jacob gets one last kick-while-down from these sons who do not respect him or care much for him. Like Ham before him, the firstborn Reuben is a loser who believes in his own power above that of his father. Reuben sleeps with Bilhah, who is a surrogate Rachel (as her maid and the one whose children technically belonged to Rachel). He usurps Dad's power by taking his concubine, and makes a stab at his mother's rival and Dad's favorite, now dead and defenseless. Not much is said about this immediately, but Reuben has kept alive the tradition of disappointing and conniving firstborn sons. Jacob at this point is distracted by the need to bury Isaac, but he does not forget what Reuben did to him.
Like Abraham, Jacob has made the conquering tour of Canaan. He goes to Shechem, Bethel, and then Hebron, in the very south, just as Abraham did. He travels over the land promised to him, even though he doesn't own much more of it yet. He and Esau are reunited and also reconciled with their father's memory. The father that divided them by favoritism reunites them at his death.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Genesis 32-33: Jacob's Exodus
As we start today, Jacob is about to leave a place where he was practically a slave for years, turning his back on the past, but is about to enter a place where his brother's wrath may destroy him. Laban kisses his daughters and grandchildren, who are his legacy, and much of his wealth goodbye, ruined by his attempts to ignore God and deal unfairly with Jacob. He has come to accept this and peacefully made an agreement with Jacob, but it still must have hurt him.
Along the way back to Canaan, Jacob runs into angels much in the same manner as he did at Bethel on the way out of Canaan. These angels seem to be there to remind Jacob that he is doing the right thing, that he is stepping into the land promised to him, the land blessed by God. He has been away far too long. Bethel, the House of God, is very near this place, Mahanaim, Two Camps. God, the spiritual, the divine, is encamped right with Jacob, the earthly, the human. The two meet at this place.
Jacob is clearly growing in his faith...the prayer he prays is such a poignant one, appropriate for any time we face something that scares us. Like we ought to do in the face of danger, Jacob takes the practical active steps he knows to do to prepare, dividing what's important to him ("diversifying his portfolio", if you will) into two groups and offering propitiatory presents to Esau, and then when he has reached the end of all he can do, he prays. First, he calls to mind the legacy of faith in his forefathers and by extension calls to mind God's mighty and wonderful deeds done for Abraham and Isaac. He brings specifically to mind then the call he has received to leave Laban and the promised help from God that should follow now that he is obeying. God has been good in the past, has delivered amazing blessings in the present, and will continue to protect in the future. Jacob lays all this at God's feet and in faith asks for the promise of protection to be fulfilled. He didn't stop after the division of his assets or the peace offerings, believing that they would keep him safe, but continued on to place himself in God's hands in prayer.
That night, starting from this basis of increased trust and faith, Jacob meets the divine one last time. The first time, he envisioned a ladder with angels climbing up and down...envisioned what it was like to have an actual relationship, a back-and-forth, give-and-take, with the God of the universe, and he wanted in. The second time, he gets even closer, describing the existence of a place where God and Man camp together...not a God you have to climb to see, but a God who lives with you. Jacob is strengthened by this idea and wants to live where the divine dwells. Now, there comes the final picture to complete Jacob's relationship with his God. Here, in this scary moment, something supernatural (an angel? God himself?) comes and wrestles with him. Jacob comes to understand that his life is about grappling with the mystery and trying to lay hold of a God who is so close as to be touched, smelled, and tested. He wants blessings, good things to come his way as a result of being in relationship with God, but this does not come easily. Being so close to God as to see Him and talk to Him leaves us both keenly aware of our disabilities compared to Him and unbelievably blessed as a result. Jacob is crippled by the angel physically in a way that reminds him that God is in control of his life. His transition from entering the House of God, to encamping alongside Him, to seeing His Face is complete. Like Abraham before him, Jacob is renamed to more clearly coincide with his new mission in life. He is no longer the Underminer, the Supplanter, the one who contends with his brother...he is now the one who contends with the mystery of God. No longer fisherman but fisher of men.
He receives the fruits of this new improved relationship with God almost immediately. The one who undermined his brother, now that he has a new mission, is capable of making peace with Esau. At first, he, as I, doesn't quite believe what an amazing thing has happened. He approaches Esau still on the defensive, putting his most valuable stuff (Rachel and Joseph) behind the less important stuff, but when the time comes, Esau ignores all of it. He runs up to his humble brother and greets him with the kind of warmth with which you greet the brother you have missed for so long. He comments on how abundant the blessings Jacob/Israel has received are, but refuses to accept a peace offering. None is needed. Jacob thanks God for this and gives Esau a gift anyway...more of an offering of thanks to the God Jacob sees in Esau than a peace offering to his human brother, so Esau accepts this on God's behalf. The two walk back to Canaan, with Jacob walking slowly without an escort of Esau's men, ostensibly because he has a lot of slow children and such to keep his pace down. They needed a rest, and Jacob himself needed to stay out of anyone's debt, no longer bound to anyone in that way.
Finally, Jacob reaches the border of the promised land and stops there, at a place he names Shelter, Sukkoth, in order to remind him of the shelter God has given him from what could have been a very painful situation. When he crosses the river into Canaan, he buys some land near Shechem, near where his ancestors are buried, thus increasing the amount of Canaanite foothold his family possesses.
Along the way back to Canaan, Jacob runs into angels much in the same manner as he did at Bethel on the way out of Canaan. These angels seem to be there to remind Jacob that he is doing the right thing, that he is stepping into the land promised to him, the land blessed by God. He has been away far too long. Bethel, the House of God, is very near this place, Mahanaim, Two Camps. God, the spiritual, the divine, is encamped right with Jacob, the earthly, the human. The two meet at this place.
Jacob is clearly growing in his faith...the prayer he prays is such a poignant one, appropriate for any time we face something that scares us. Like we ought to do in the face of danger, Jacob takes the practical active steps he knows to do to prepare, dividing what's important to him ("diversifying his portfolio", if you will) into two groups and offering propitiatory presents to Esau, and then when he has reached the end of all he can do, he prays. First, he calls to mind the legacy of faith in his forefathers and by extension calls to mind God's mighty and wonderful deeds done for Abraham and Isaac. He brings specifically to mind then the call he has received to leave Laban and the promised help from God that should follow now that he is obeying. God has been good in the past, has delivered amazing blessings in the present, and will continue to protect in the future. Jacob lays all this at God's feet and in faith asks for the promise of protection to be fulfilled. He didn't stop after the division of his assets or the peace offerings, believing that they would keep him safe, but continued on to place himself in God's hands in prayer.
That night, starting from this basis of increased trust and faith, Jacob meets the divine one last time. The first time, he envisioned a ladder with angels climbing up and down...envisioned what it was like to have an actual relationship, a back-and-forth, give-and-take, with the God of the universe, and he wanted in. The second time, he gets even closer, describing the existence of a place where God and Man camp together...not a God you have to climb to see, but a God who lives with you. Jacob is strengthened by this idea and wants to live where the divine dwells. Now, there comes the final picture to complete Jacob's relationship with his God. Here, in this scary moment, something supernatural (an angel? God himself?) comes and wrestles with him. Jacob comes to understand that his life is about grappling with the mystery and trying to lay hold of a God who is so close as to be touched, smelled, and tested. He wants blessings, good things to come his way as a result of being in relationship with God, but this does not come easily. Being so close to God as to see Him and talk to Him leaves us both keenly aware of our disabilities compared to Him and unbelievably blessed as a result. Jacob is crippled by the angel physically in a way that reminds him that God is in control of his life. His transition from entering the House of God, to encamping alongside Him, to seeing His Face is complete. Like Abraham before him, Jacob is renamed to more clearly coincide with his new mission in life. He is no longer the Underminer, the Supplanter, the one who contends with his brother...he is now the one who contends with the mystery of God. No longer fisherman but fisher of men.
He receives the fruits of this new improved relationship with God almost immediately. The one who undermined his brother, now that he has a new mission, is capable of making peace with Esau. At first, he, as I, doesn't quite believe what an amazing thing has happened. He approaches Esau still on the defensive, putting his most valuable stuff (Rachel and Joseph) behind the less important stuff, but when the time comes, Esau ignores all of it. He runs up to his humble brother and greets him with the kind of warmth with which you greet the brother you have missed for so long. He comments on how abundant the blessings Jacob/Israel has received are, but refuses to accept a peace offering. None is needed. Jacob thanks God for this and gives Esau a gift anyway...more of an offering of thanks to the God Jacob sees in Esau than a peace offering to his human brother, so Esau accepts this on God's behalf. The two walk back to Canaan, with Jacob walking slowly without an escort of Esau's men, ostensibly because he has a lot of slow children and such to keep his pace down. They needed a rest, and Jacob himself needed to stay out of anyone's debt, no longer bound to anyone in that way.
Finally, Jacob reaches the border of the promised land and stops there, at a place he names Shelter, Sukkoth, in order to remind him of the shelter God has given him from what could have been a very painful situation. When he crosses the river into Canaan, he buys some land near Shechem, near where his ancestors are buried, thus increasing the amount of Canaanite foothold his family possesses.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Genesis 31: A Declaration of Independence
Jacob here sounds like a man pushed to the brink. He might be killed by Esau if he goes home, but suddenly in light of his indentured-servant status and utter contempt from his father-in-law, it doesn't matter as much.
I love the scene here where Jacob makes an impassioned persuasive speech explaining to his wives why they need to leave. Laban, says he, has changed his attitude regarding him, has cheated him on his due numerous times. He isn't trustworthy anymore. Above all, Jacob says, the Lord is telling him to get out, and the Lord's advice has always been to his benefit. Jacob for once isn't making a decision like this on his own terms. He has looked for guidance in prayer and God has spoken to him, clearly identified as "the one you met at Bethel". Like in the reading from Acts today (12:24-13:5), good things happen when, in the face of a difficult decision, the Holy Spirit is allowed to lead and guide what we do. Jacob is the first man I've seen in the Bible try to convince his wives of anything, rather than exerting dominance over them. In calling Rachel and Leah to him, he called the first "family meeting" in the Bible.
Rachel and Leah, in one voice, agree that their father is a greedy, selfish man who even spent the money they were supposed to have as a dowry, and that leaving is the best idea. Rachel here does something I don't quite get. She steals her dad's "household gods", his idols, his teraphim. It kind of makes sense that she, in her zeal for her newfound relationship with the Lord, would try to get rid of the symbol of her father's idolatry. It also makes some sense that she might not have been so entirely convinced of God and His Promises, and thus wanted to take with her some little token of her pagan side...a part of her she hasn't entirely let go yet. It could just be that the teraphim were materially valuable, that they were made of gold or silver or something, and she wanted to take them to make up for the dowry Dad squandered. She could have viewed them as helping her father, as they were believed to bring prosperity, and thus took them in revenge. This action clearly represents something about where Rachel is in her faith walk, but what part of the faith walk that is, isn't clear.
No matter what her motivation, her stealing, just like Jacob's final deceptive sneaking out of Haran, is wrong. Both acts are based in the self, in the desire to make choices on one's own understanding.
Laban, when he catches up with them, definitely hasn't changed much. Without the warning of God holding him back, there might have been violence and bloodshed. When Laban says that he only wanted to give his daughters and grandchildren a going-away party and to see them off properly, you can almost hear him lying through his teeth. He is an abuser whose prey has escaped and he'll say anything to have it returned. He blusters threats about how much harm he'd do them if only he could. He speaks of his daughters and grandchildren and Jacob in terms that call to mind slaves...indentured servants...property, not beloved family. He then tops this little tantrum by asking why Jacob took his teraphim, as though even the gods were his to control via these idols. He acts like Jacob took them to pray to them himself, like Jacob is jealous of him for having them. They were valuable property and as such would have been passed down to the key heir, so Rachel in taking them seemed also to be identifying her family with Jacob as the key heir to Laban's property.
Jacob responds the way any relatively honest man should...with openness. He knows he has nothing to hide. He offers to use his own authority to help the cause...to help punish whoever took them. When nothing is found, Jacob gives the best closing argument speech I've ever read, a ringing indictment of Laban's injustice and an account of Jacob's utterly honest dealings with him every step of the way. He stands up and defends his honor without stepping on Laban's, and in the end the two hammer out a just agreement and swear to it by their respective deities. Laban warns Jacob one last time that he needs to be just to his wives and not take any random women as further wives...finally switching his language from referring to them as his daughters (property)... and then their deal is made. This covenant oath between them is sealed, much as the covenants between God and man, via a sacrifice and a shared meal.
I totally admire the chutzpah of Rachel, who presumably wasn't actually lying when she said she was menstruating and couldn't get up off the camel. She was off in her own tent, after all, away from Leah and the other concubines. If she wasn't lying, she was sitting there bleeding all over the precious, sacred idols. Making them impure. A total "flipping the bird" at her father's pagan beliefs, and a more clear indication of how she was beginning to feel about them and about the One True God. Rock on, sister.
I love the scene here where Jacob makes an impassioned persuasive speech explaining to his wives why they need to leave. Laban, says he, has changed his attitude regarding him, has cheated him on his due numerous times. He isn't trustworthy anymore. Above all, Jacob says, the Lord is telling him to get out, and the Lord's advice has always been to his benefit. Jacob for once isn't making a decision like this on his own terms. He has looked for guidance in prayer and God has spoken to him, clearly identified as "the one you met at Bethel". Like in the reading from Acts today (12:24-13:5), good things happen when, in the face of a difficult decision, the Holy Spirit is allowed to lead and guide what we do. Jacob is the first man I've seen in the Bible try to convince his wives of anything, rather than exerting dominance over them. In calling Rachel and Leah to him, he called the first "family meeting" in the Bible.
Rachel and Leah, in one voice, agree that their father is a greedy, selfish man who even spent the money they were supposed to have as a dowry, and that leaving is the best idea. Rachel here does something I don't quite get. She steals her dad's "household gods", his idols, his teraphim. It kind of makes sense that she, in her zeal for her newfound relationship with the Lord, would try to get rid of the symbol of her father's idolatry. It also makes some sense that she might not have been so entirely convinced of God and His Promises, and thus wanted to take with her some little token of her pagan side...a part of her she hasn't entirely let go yet. It could just be that the teraphim were materially valuable, that they were made of gold or silver or something, and she wanted to take them to make up for the dowry Dad squandered. She could have viewed them as helping her father, as they were believed to bring prosperity, and thus took them in revenge. This action clearly represents something about where Rachel is in her faith walk, but what part of the faith walk that is, isn't clear.
No matter what her motivation, her stealing, just like Jacob's final deceptive sneaking out of Haran, is wrong. Both acts are based in the self, in the desire to make choices on one's own understanding.
Laban, when he catches up with them, definitely hasn't changed much. Without the warning of God holding him back, there might have been violence and bloodshed. When Laban says that he only wanted to give his daughters and grandchildren a going-away party and to see them off properly, you can almost hear him lying through his teeth. He is an abuser whose prey has escaped and he'll say anything to have it returned. He blusters threats about how much harm he'd do them if only he could. He speaks of his daughters and grandchildren and Jacob in terms that call to mind slaves...indentured servants...property, not beloved family. He then tops this little tantrum by asking why Jacob took his teraphim, as though even the gods were his to control via these idols. He acts like Jacob took them to pray to them himself, like Jacob is jealous of him for having them. They were valuable property and as such would have been passed down to the key heir, so Rachel in taking them seemed also to be identifying her family with Jacob as the key heir to Laban's property.
Jacob responds the way any relatively honest man should...with openness. He knows he has nothing to hide. He offers to use his own authority to help the cause...to help punish whoever took them. When nothing is found, Jacob gives the best closing argument speech I've ever read, a ringing indictment of Laban's injustice and an account of Jacob's utterly honest dealings with him every step of the way. He stands up and defends his honor without stepping on Laban's, and in the end the two hammer out a just agreement and swear to it by their respective deities. Laban warns Jacob one last time that he needs to be just to his wives and not take any random women as further wives...finally switching his language from referring to them as his daughters (property)... and then their deal is made. This covenant oath between them is sealed, much as the covenants between God and man, via a sacrifice and a shared meal.
I totally admire the chutzpah of Rachel, who presumably wasn't actually lying when she said she was menstruating and couldn't get up off the camel. She was off in her own tent, after all, away from Leah and the other concubines. If she wasn't lying, she was sitting there bleeding all over the precious, sacred idols. Making them impure. A total "flipping the bird" at her father's pagan beliefs, and a more clear indication of how she was beginning to feel about them and about the One True God. Rock on, sister.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Genesis 30: The Great Childbearing Race
The son-bearing contest and flock-increasing contest described in this chapter are perfect examples of people attempting to take control of their own lives while simultaneously trying to build a relationship with God. It doesn't work...something has to give.
Rachel here is beginning to grow desperate to bear a child. She's the wife Jacob wanted, mostly for her physical attractiveness, but it is Leah he married first and she is the one who has been wronged by Jacob's preference for her sister. Rachel doesn't seem to believe that God has anything to do with this, but that Jacob does, so she angrily demands that he give her a son or she will die (kill herself out of shame and desperation, perhaps?) . Jacob will lose the woman he's so attracted to if she doesn't bear a son. She hasn't been promised one by God the way Sarah was, but she is driven to envious distraction at the fact that Leah has several. In order to take control of the situation, both Leah and Rachel bring surrogates loyal to their cause, their maids, into the contest with disappointing results much the same way Sarah did.
Leah and Rachel name their children spiteful, gleefully smug names that reflect their attitudes at the births of the boys, with the exception of one...Judah. Judah is named when his mother has begun to believe that God has blessed her with these sons, not as prizes in a contest, but as gifts from Him. She says "Finally, this time, I'll praise God." and names him Judah, "praise the Lord" Even though Rachel's son Joseph would grow up to become a good, Godly man and a force in the history of the patriarchs, it was Judah whose tribe would be blessed with the world's redeemer. Joseph himself is named in both relief and somewhat selfish demand, "may god add more!" His mother is happy to have him but is hungry for more.
Rachel and Leah are both worthy of respect as the two mothers of the tribes of Israel, the ones who made Jacob's promised nation a reality, but between the two, Leah is the only one who has that momentary spark of understanding in the midst of the Sons Contest. Rachel continues to sulk, growing more and more bitter. If only she could understand that both of the sisters would bear important sons in Joseph and Judah, and that the fates of the two boys would depend on each other. God uses both Joseph (whose sons Ephraim and Manasseh would found the dominant tribes of the Northern Kingdom, the Lost Tribes) and Judah (who would band together with Benjamin to form Judea) together to advance His people...but in the end, Judah, the praising one, would be the road that leads to the Savior.
Jacob's sins and (not quite sinful) mistakes, his deceitfulness, his steadfast insistence on marrying Rachel the Hottie in addition to Leah instead of forgetting about her, and his willingness to be bought, are not enough to stop God or His plans. Like a river that flows around a rock in its way, God makes his plans happen in and through the bad choices his Chosen make. He receives the fruits of every bad choice he makes, with wives who fight and compete bitterly the same way he fought and competed bitterly with Esau, a father-in-law and wives who consider him a hireling to be bought for a pretty woman or a bunch of mandrakes the same way he bought his brother's birthright for some stew, and a father-in-law and sons who trick him the same way he tricked Isaac.
I'm amazed at God's ability to work through all our choices, even trickery, to give us what He promises. Jacob's deft zig-zagging with the sheep and goats makes him very materially wealthy despite all of Laban's attempts to...forgive me...screw him. Laban knows that he might try to breed the rarer colored animals to make more for himself, so Laban takes them away. Jacob then tries a little lucky trick to get the normal colored animals to produce the rarer colors anyway. Laban tries to take some of the rarer colored animals anyway despite the earlier agreement and Jacob gives him some, but only the weaklings. In the end, his wiliness has made him a really really rich man. Is this God's doing? Maybe. Will Jacob reap what he has sown with his trickery? If there is sinfulness in it, yes, absolutely.
Rachel here is beginning to grow desperate to bear a child. She's the wife Jacob wanted, mostly for her physical attractiveness, but it is Leah he married first and she is the one who has been wronged by Jacob's preference for her sister. Rachel doesn't seem to believe that God has anything to do with this, but that Jacob does, so she angrily demands that he give her a son or she will die (kill herself out of shame and desperation, perhaps?) . Jacob will lose the woman he's so attracted to if she doesn't bear a son. She hasn't been promised one by God the way Sarah was, but she is driven to envious distraction at the fact that Leah has several. In order to take control of the situation, both Leah and Rachel bring surrogates loyal to their cause, their maids, into the contest with disappointing results much the same way Sarah did.
Leah and Rachel name their children spiteful, gleefully smug names that reflect their attitudes at the births of the boys, with the exception of one...Judah. Judah is named when his mother has begun to believe that God has blessed her with these sons, not as prizes in a contest, but as gifts from Him. She says "Finally, this time, I'll praise God." and names him Judah, "praise the Lord" Even though Rachel's son Joseph would grow up to become a good, Godly man and a force in the history of the patriarchs, it was Judah whose tribe would be blessed with the world's redeemer. Joseph himself is named in both relief and somewhat selfish demand, "may god add more!" His mother is happy to have him but is hungry for more.
Rachel and Leah are both worthy of respect as the two mothers of the tribes of Israel, the ones who made Jacob's promised nation a reality, but between the two, Leah is the only one who has that momentary spark of understanding in the midst of the Sons Contest. Rachel continues to sulk, growing more and more bitter. If only she could understand that both of the sisters would bear important sons in Joseph and Judah, and that the fates of the two boys would depend on each other. God uses both Joseph (whose sons Ephraim and Manasseh would found the dominant tribes of the Northern Kingdom, the Lost Tribes) and Judah (who would band together with Benjamin to form Judea) together to advance His people...but in the end, Judah, the praising one, would be the road that leads to the Savior.
Jacob's sins and (not quite sinful) mistakes, his deceitfulness, his steadfast insistence on marrying Rachel the Hottie in addition to Leah instead of forgetting about her, and his willingness to be bought, are not enough to stop God or His plans. Like a river that flows around a rock in its way, God makes his plans happen in and through the bad choices his Chosen make. He receives the fruits of every bad choice he makes, with wives who fight and compete bitterly the same way he fought and competed bitterly with Esau, a father-in-law and wives who consider him a hireling to be bought for a pretty woman or a bunch of mandrakes the same way he bought his brother's birthright for some stew, and a father-in-law and sons who trick him the same way he tricked Isaac.
I'm amazed at God's ability to work through all our choices, even trickery, to give us what He promises. Jacob's deft zig-zagging with the sheep and goats makes him very materially wealthy despite all of Laban's attempts to...forgive me...screw him. Laban knows that he might try to breed the rarer colored animals to make more for himself, so Laban takes them away. Jacob then tries a little lucky trick to get the normal colored animals to produce the rarer colors anyway. Laban tries to take some of the rarer colored animals anyway despite the earlier agreement and Jacob gives him some, but only the weaklings. In the end, his wiliness has made him a really really rich man. Is this God's doing? Maybe. Will Jacob reap what he has sown with his trickery? If there is sinfulness in it, yes, absolutely.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Genesis 28-29: Jacob Follows in Isaac's Footsteps
I think the thing that bothers me most in these two chapters is that, for all his blessedness and bearing of the flame of righteousness and all that, Isaac is a pretty lackluster father. The two chapters here considered show over and over again the fruits of Isaac's failure to live up to his potential as a father and as a leader. This all starts, of course, with Jacob and Esau's choice of wives.
When it was time for Isaac to marry, Abraham commissioned the Servant (essentially the Holy Spirit Himself) to go out and find a bride, and he found Rebekah. There was love at first sight, and Rebekah continually acted decisively and prudently to bring about the Lord's promises. Jacob, on the other hand, is sent himself, blessed but also running from Esau. Isaac tells him not to marry a Canaanite woman, but apparently Esau wasn't given even this much instruction when he went out dating. Esau, on realizing that this was bad, tries to make it better by marrying an Ishmaelite woman, but that's not really much better, and it's clearly a "closing the door after the horses have escaped" solution. Isaac, though trying to do the right thing, is all too human, and the results are clear.
Jacob's attempts at a love-match, choosing a wife for himself on his own terms, results in several years of wasted time for him and a marriage based in deception with no basis in love. I see this happen so often these days. If Jacob were alive today, I'm sure he'd look to divorce Leah and marry his true love Rachel, putting the whole thing down as a "lesson learned the hard way" and a cause for some cynicism about love. Rachel is his love at first sight, which in the Bible seems to indicate a match made by Heaven, but his human failings lead to wasted time, strife in his family, and a dubious polygamy.
Another failing of Isaac is his seeming failure to properly introduce his sons to his God. Jacob, in the guise of Esau, referred to God as Isaac's God, not his own. In the desert on the way to Paddan-Aram, Jacob meets God himself, almost as though he didn't know Him before and wasn't taught about His promises. Perhaps the real lesson here is that being introduced to God and faith in your family isn't enough...you must learn about Him and become His child yourself. Jacob needed to see a set of ziggurat stairs leading to heaven with angels walking up and down to understand that God is always at work in our world and that He is intimately connected to it. But even after this, Jacob's faith isn't woven into the fabric of his being yet. He is still considering it, trying it on for size. If God helps him, he'll believe.
Jacob here is a lot like me, a lot like many cradle Catholics. Having been raised with the Faith, baptized before we knew it, entered communion when we were young, we find still that faith is a journey. We consider and reconsider whether Christ is who He said He was. We put him to the test sometimes, finding ourselves in a place where we need reassurance of blessings to believe. We don't have the zeal of converts, but find that we envy them. If only we could have stumbled onto this truth later, how much more convinced and convicted we'd be! Jacob was maturing in a faith that he was always around but was brand new to him at the same time. It isn't clear how good a "living Gospel" his parents were for him, but even if Isaac and Rebekah were perfect examples of godly living, Jacob had to claim it for his own.
When it was time for Isaac to marry, Abraham commissioned the Servant (essentially the Holy Spirit Himself) to go out and find a bride, and he found Rebekah. There was love at first sight, and Rebekah continually acted decisively and prudently to bring about the Lord's promises. Jacob, on the other hand, is sent himself, blessed but also running from Esau. Isaac tells him not to marry a Canaanite woman, but apparently Esau wasn't given even this much instruction when he went out dating. Esau, on realizing that this was bad, tries to make it better by marrying an Ishmaelite woman, but that's not really much better, and it's clearly a "closing the door after the horses have escaped" solution. Isaac, though trying to do the right thing, is all too human, and the results are clear.
Jacob's attempts at a love-match, choosing a wife for himself on his own terms, results in several years of wasted time for him and a marriage based in deception with no basis in love. I see this happen so often these days. If Jacob were alive today, I'm sure he'd look to divorce Leah and marry his true love Rachel, putting the whole thing down as a "lesson learned the hard way" and a cause for some cynicism about love. Rachel is his love at first sight, which in the Bible seems to indicate a match made by Heaven, but his human failings lead to wasted time, strife in his family, and a dubious polygamy.
Another failing of Isaac is his seeming failure to properly introduce his sons to his God. Jacob, in the guise of Esau, referred to God as Isaac's God, not his own. In the desert on the way to Paddan-Aram, Jacob meets God himself, almost as though he didn't know Him before and wasn't taught about His promises. Perhaps the real lesson here is that being introduced to God and faith in your family isn't enough...you must learn about Him and become His child yourself. Jacob needed to see a set of ziggurat stairs leading to heaven with angels walking up and down to understand that God is always at work in our world and that He is intimately connected to it. But even after this, Jacob's faith isn't woven into the fabric of his being yet. He is still considering it, trying it on for size. If God helps him, he'll believe.
Jacob here is a lot like me, a lot like many cradle Catholics. Having been raised with the Faith, baptized before we knew it, entered communion when we were young, we find still that faith is a journey. We consider and reconsider whether Christ is who He said He was. We put him to the test sometimes, finding ourselves in a place where we need reassurance of blessings to believe. We don't have the zeal of converts, but find that we envy them. If only we could have stumbled onto this truth later, how much more convinced and convicted we'd be! Jacob was maturing in a faith that he was always around but was brand new to him at the same time. It isn't clear how good a "living Gospel" his parents were for him, but even if Isaac and Rebekah were perfect examples of godly living, Jacob had to claim it for his own.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Genesis 27: Spinning Trickery into Blessing, Straw into Gold
This story is such a great story because it is so human. The heroes and the villains each have admirable and blameworthy qualities, and the actions they take are so morally ambiguous, but God takes this muddled, ambiguous scene and transforms it into a key part of His plan.
Isaac, a good man who built on the legacy he was handed down from Abraham, extending the blessings of God even farther, is now old and blind, reduced to a weak and dependent position. He has been spiritually blinded by his preference for Esau, whose heart appears unworthy in God's sight, even though he is strong, a good provider, and generally pretty obedient. Unlike Abraham, when Isaac's firstborn son is shown to be unworthy of the birthright and blessing, Isaac does not willingly agree. He tries to settle the blessing on Esau anyway, resulting in trickery, a loss of trust, and a rupture in his family. Jacob and Rebekah's deception would not have been necessary if Isaac had submitted. Also, his stomach...his human, worldly instincts and desires...get in the way of his making the right choice. Jacob-as-Esau secures Dad's favor by bringing him a bowl of tasty stew, satisfying his base desires as the real Esau does. Even when Isaac blesses Jacob, he blesses him in a way that leaves Esau (intended to be Jacob) out in the cold entirely, instead of leaving room for both his sons in his affection. This too would result in serious division between the two.
Rebekah, the trusting and decisive woman who followed where God led, does what she feels she must do to ensure that God's promise to her, Jacob's precedence, comes to fruition, and takes a huge risk for God's promises' sake. She chooses the right in supporting Jacob and believing that God's promises will come, much as Sarah did by believing that Abraham would indeed have a son. Like Sarah, however, she is too limited to see what God is doing, and thinks she needs to "help him along". God wants Jacob to win the birthright and blessing away from Esau, and it seems clear that deception is the way that will occur. God, however, does not help those who help themselves, and her actions, though they pay off, also lead to a horrible rift in the family. She would never see Jacob again.
Esau is an obedient son and cares quite a lot for his aging, weak father. He goes out right away when asked, hunting for meat his father so badly wanted. He's already been hurt by his brother before but he remains steadfast in love for his family, particularly his father. On the other hand, when Jacob impersonates him, Jacob refers to the Lord as Isaac's God, not his. Esau is detached from Yhwh, seeing nothing wrong with Dad's faith and religious ritual but choosing not to embrace it as his own. Some Catholic and other Christian scholars have suggested that Esau and Jacob are like the modern Jewish and Christian people...that Esau, while not a bad guy and certainly not evil, chooses not to embrace God for who He really is and what He really says about himself, and thus chooses to forfeit the birthright of blessings that he originally had. Jacob, through fidelity and a close relationship with God, becomes worthy of having the birthright handed off to him. The Jews, the "firstborn sons" of God, are destined for blessings unless through pride and lack of faith, they relinquish them to Christians who have inherited them through Christ.
Jacob, the trickster and usurper, in reality has chosen to take a real risk on behalf of God's promises to him, as has his mother. He ends up abundantly blessed, but he also ends up being tricked himself several times in life, cut off from his family for much of his life, and a fugitive for a while. This seems to be a real theme through the Bible so far... things people do are rarely purely good or purely evil, and God takes messy, muddled human actions and blesses people for what they do right and also allows them to reap the consequences of what they do wrong. Those who live in close relationship with God don't always trust Him and this leads to drama and pain. God is a just God, and He knows our hearts and our true intentions. He wants to use this family to bless the world, and He will guide them through all kinds of craziness to get to His ends.
Isaac, a good man who built on the legacy he was handed down from Abraham, extending the blessings of God even farther, is now old and blind, reduced to a weak and dependent position. He has been spiritually blinded by his preference for Esau, whose heart appears unworthy in God's sight, even though he is strong, a good provider, and generally pretty obedient. Unlike Abraham, when Isaac's firstborn son is shown to be unworthy of the birthright and blessing, Isaac does not willingly agree. He tries to settle the blessing on Esau anyway, resulting in trickery, a loss of trust, and a rupture in his family. Jacob and Rebekah's deception would not have been necessary if Isaac had submitted. Also, his stomach...his human, worldly instincts and desires...get in the way of his making the right choice. Jacob-as-Esau secures Dad's favor by bringing him a bowl of tasty stew, satisfying his base desires as the real Esau does. Even when Isaac blesses Jacob, he blesses him in a way that leaves Esau (intended to be Jacob) out in the cold entirely, instead of leaving room for both his sons in his affection. This too would result in serious division between the two.
Rebekah, the trusting and decisive woman who followed where God led, does what she feels she must do to ensure that God's promise to her, Jacob's precedence, comes to fruition, and takes a huge risk for God's promises' sake. She chooses the right in supporting Jacob and believing that God's promises will come, much as Sarah did by believing that Abraham would indeed have a son. Like Sarah, however, she is too limited to see what God is doing, and thinks she needs to "help him along". God wants Jacob to win the birthright and blessing away from Esau, and it seems clear that deception is the way that will occur. God, however, does not help those who help themselves, and her actions, though they pay off, also lead to a horrible rift in the family. She would never see Jacob again.
Esau is an obedient son and cares quite a lot for his aging, weak father. He goes out right away when asked, hunting for meat his father so badly wanted. He's already been hurt by his brother before but he remains steadfast in love for his family, particularly his father. On the other hand, when Jacob impersonates him, Jacob refers to the Lord as Isaac's God, not his. Esau is detached from Yhwh, seeing nothing wrong with Dad's faith and religious ritual but choosing not to embrace it as his own. Some Catholic and other Christian scholars have suggested that Esau and Jacob are like the modern Jewish and Christian people...that Esau, while not a bad guy and certainly not evil, chooses not to embrace God for who He really is and what He really says about himself, and thus chooses to forfeit the birthright of blessings that he originally had. Jacob, through fidelity and a close relationship with God, becomes worthy of having the birthright handed off to him. The Jews, the "firstborn sons" of God, are destined for blessings unless through pride and lack of faith, they relinquish them to Christians who have inherited them through Christ.
Jacob, the trickster and usurper, in reality has chosen to take a real risk on behalf of God's promises to him, as has his mother. He ends up abundantly blessed, but he also ends up being tricked himself several times in life, cut off from his family for much of his life, and a fugitive for a while. This seems to be a real theme through the Bible so far... things people do are rarely purely good or purely evil, and God takes messy, muddled human actions and blesses people for what they do right and also allows them to reap the consequences of what they do wrong. Those who live in close relationship with God don't always trust Him and this leads to drama and pain. God is a just God, and He knows our hearts and our true intentions. He wants to use this family to bless the world, and He will guide them through all kinds of craziness to get to His ends.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Genesis 25-26: Digging Up the Wells of Blessing
I was totally unaware that Abraham had more sons by another concubine after Sarah's death. Clearly this, among other things, illustrates that not all "sons of Abraham" were members of the righteous line, not all Jews at the time of Christ (who considered themselves sons of Abraham) are destined to be saved. These sons represent tribes of the Arabian desert, including the Midianites, who would later prove so helpful and welcoming to another "son of Abraham", Moses. When Jesus came and extended the New Covenant to all the peoples of the world who believe, no longer just to a chosen, righteous lineage/tribe/kingdom, these other sons of Abraham were gathered back into the fold. He also treats them fairly, leaving them a fair inheritance, even though the bulk of the inherited blessings would go to Isaac.
The places where Abraham is buried and where Isaac goes to live after Abraham's death are full of symbolism and seem to be representative of their lives. Abraham is buried in the cave at Machpelah, in his first legal foothold in the promised land. He faces Mamre, where he met God and where he found out that Isaac would be born. In death, he continues to look God in the face and watch over the place where God's promises were so beautiful to him and Sarah. Isaac goes to live at the Well of God Seeing us (Beer-lahai-roi) where Hagar saw the angel and inherits the holy ground she stood on carrying Ishmael. Her son, while a son of Abraham and therefore blessed by this, is not the one to fulfill God's promises. Abraham and Sarah spend eternity looking on the place they were promised so much, and the son of those promises lives on to inherit even the legacy of Hagar's encounter with Deity.
Ishmael's inheritance seems to be permanently stuck between two statuses. As child of Abraham, his family becomes great and inhabit a lot of land, but as Hagar's child, his descendents are wild and fight amongst themselves often. They live between Egypt, the place of worldly plenty but spiritual emptiness, and Canaan, the land of spiritual promise. Again, I cannot help but think of the legacy of those who claim Ishmael as a founding ancestor. They are permanently stuck between bearing a great light as spiritual sons of Abraham and degenerating into infighting, living between the promise of great spiritual truth and violence because of the lack of full truth.
Once again, the suffering of barrenness, felt by many women today, is used by God to bring about amazing things. Rebekah finds out that she, as so many women before her in this story the Bible, is going to bear two distinct sons with two very different legacies, and that the blessings the two receive will be based on their relationship with God, not any chance circumstances like birth order. God wants to drive home the point over and over again that these children are special, longed for for so long, and that He has granted them as a gift, in His own timing and for His own reasons.
The Bible pauses here to describe in many parallel ways and with many symbols just who these two men are, Esau and Jacob. They both have faults and they both have virtues, but the Lord who looks into the heart knew who these men really were, and blessed Jacob as his favored one because of that. Esau and Jacob are born, and Esau is red (fiery-tempered), hairy (unclean and uncivilized). Jacob, on the other hand, is grasping at his heel, trying to either hold his brother back from being the first born, or trying to rely on Esau to get him out. Esau is a hunter, his brother a shepherd. The two descriptions can lead to both vices and virtues. Esau is rough around the edges and could be seen as brutish, violent, and concerned with base things, but likely could be admired as a plainspoken, straightforward man, hardworking, and a good provider. Jacob is smoother, cleaner, a "prettyboy" with a natural pastoral leadership quality, a man of peaceful pursuits and friendly, congenial demeanor. He could also easily become a deceptively smooth talker, a politician-type who says what you want to hear and then backstabs you.
In the story told about them, we see both sides of both of them. Esau is tired and hungry after providing for the family, but he is also genuinely over-concerned with his stomach, just getting what he needs, to the point where he trades away blessings to get some stew. He doesn't think that what God has provided for him, in the form of a birthright inheritance, is as valuable as his own need to eat something right now. He is one in a long line of people who lose what is important by ravenous gluttony... Adam's gluttony for knowledge led to eating the fruit, Noah's gluttony for wine made him vulnerable to Ham's sin against him and unable to stop it. Jacob is a trickster in his method of exploiting his brother's weak moment, but he has his priorities in order. He wants blessings and a relationship with God so much that he takes charge when he can. He doesn't force the birthright away from Esau by violence, doesn't kill him or usurp his power, just bargains for it. In the end, both men are a balance of darkness and light, but Jacob's heart is found more favorable when God examines him.
Isaac wandering toward Egypt (again!) in an attempt to avoid famine and to protect his worldly wealth and power and again runs into a King Abimelech. He repeats his father's mistake of claiming that his wife was his sister, with some similarity in the results. The first time Abraham did this, in Egypt, he was far far away from his Promised Land, far out of touch with God, and he got pretty deep into his sin before being rescued from it by God. The second time, he was closer to the promised Land and while Sarah was still taken into the harem, the consequences were less dire and the breach between Abraham and Abimelech was less severe. In this third case, Isaac is less far from the Promised Land, Abimelech notices Isaac's lie before he goes forward and acts on it, and Rebekah is never taken into his harem. In justice, Abimelech here is not required to make restitution for a sin he hasn't committed, unlike Pharaoh and Abimelech previously, and Isaac earns envy for his subsequent prosperity instead of it being seen as just compensation. He's blessed for what he does right, and cursed with other people's envy for what he does wrong here. Not all foreigners in the Bible are bad, bad people, and not all are even less good than the lineage of the patriarchs, but the lineage of the patriarchs is in unique relationship with God and has been chosen to bring salvation to the other nations.
Isaac brings back the wells, bringing back the flow of God's blessings and restoring his loving relationship with God. In doing so, he puts himself back into practical opposition to the people of the area, who start to fight with him over the rights to the water. The great blessing of salvation would belong to Isaac's descendant Jesus, who would restore the real "living water" of Baptism and send the Holy Spirit on his followers to do their work. The other local people could only draw on the benefits...their true ownership belonged to Isaac, just as was true with Abraham the last time the wells were open. Isaac finally comes to the Well of the Seven/the Oath (Beersheba) and again makes a covenant with the local people in the same way God has made a covenant with his family, and God's promises and Isaac's to Abimelech strengthen and echo Abraham's. He even is able to go a step farther, bring a new well and new blessings of his own to add.
The scene closes with Esau further demonstrating how far he is going to wander from the loving relationship God wants with him. Isaac and Rebekah have each chosen a son as their favored one, a division that is going to only sow misery in the family. Esau, by marrying not just one but two foreign pagan women, adds more to the drama in the family and makes God's plan for these people harder to smoothly bring about. God transforms the trickery and divisiveness in this family into a tool for His glory, but imagine what it would have been like without this! Isaac, in favoring Esau, is showing a very human tendency to see worldly marks of goodness and success. Rebekah, in favoring Jacob, is showing a very human and womanly tendency to favor a son that causes you less pain and strife, whose looks and smooth words are soothing rather than irritating. Neither sees as God sees.
The places where Abraham is buried and where Isaac goes to live after Abraham's death are full of symbolism and seem to be representative of their lives. Abraham is buried in the cave at Machpelah, in his first legal foothold in the promised land. He faces Mamre, where he met God and where he found out that Isaac would be born. In death, he continues to look God in the face and watch over the place where God's promises were so beautiful to him and Sarah. Isaac goes to live at the Well of God Seeing us (Beer-lahai-roi) where Hagar saw the angel and inherits the holy ground she stood on carrying Ishmael. Her son, while a son of Abraham and therefore blessed by this, is not the one to fulfill God's promises. Abraham and Sarah spend eternity looking on the place they were promised so much, and the son of those promises lives on to inherit even the legacy of Hagar's encounter with Deity.
Ishmael's inheritance seems to be permanently stuck between two statuses. As child of Abraham, his family becomes great and inhabit a lot of land, but as Hagar's child, his descendents are wild and fight amongst themselves often. They live between Egypt, the place of worldly plenty but spiritual emptiness, and Canaan, the land of spiritual promise. Again, I cannot help but think of the legacy of those who claim Ishmael as a founding ancestor. They are permanently stuck between bearing a great light as spiritual sons of Abraham and degenerating into infighting, living between the promise of great spiritual truth and violence because of the lack of full truth.
Once again, the suffering of barrenness, felt by many women today, is used by God to bring about amazing things. Rebekah finds out that she, as so many women before her in this story the Bible, is going to bear two distinct sons with two very different legacies, and that the blessings the two receive will be based on their relationship with God, not any chance circumstances like birth order. God wants to drive home the point over and over again that these children are special, longed for for so long, and that He has granted them as a gift, in His own timing and for His own reasons.
The Bible pauses here to describe in many parallel ways and with many symbols just who these two men are, Esau and Jacob. They both have faults and they both have virtues, but the Lord who looks into the heart knew who these men really were, and blessed Jacob as his favored one because of that. Esau and Jacob are born, and Esau is red (fiery-tempered), hairy (unclean and uncivilized). Jacob, on the other hand, is grasping at his heel, trying to either hold his brother back from being the first born, or trying to rely on Esau to get him out. Esau is a hunter, his brother a shepherd. The two descriptions can lead to both vices and virtues. Esau is rough around the edges and could be seen as brutish, violent, and concerned with base things, but likely could be admired as a plainspoken, straightforward man, hardworking, and a good provider. Jacob is smoother, cleaner, a "prettyboy" with a natural pastoral leadership quality, a man of peaceful pursuits and friendly, congenial demeanor. He could also easily become a deceptively smooth talker, a politician-type who says what you want to hear and then backstabs you.
In the story told about them, we see both sides of both of them. Esau is tired and hungry after providing for the family, but he is also genuinely over-concerned with his stomach, just getting what he needs, to the point where he trades away blessings to get some stew. He doesn't think that what God has provided for him, in the form of a birthright inheritance, is as valuable as his own need to eat something right now. He is one in a long line of people who lose what is important by ravenous gluttony... Adam's gluttony for knowledge led to eating the fruit, Noah's gluttony for wine made him vulnerable to Ham's sin against him and unable to stop it. Jacob is a trickster in his method of exploiting his brother's weak moment, but he has his priorities in order. He wants blessings and a relationship with God so much that he takes charge when he can. He doesn't force the birthright away from Esau by violence, doesn't kill him or usurp his power, just bargains for it. In the end, both men are a balance of darkness and light, but Jacob's heart is found more favorable when God examines him.
Isaac wandering toward Egypt (again!) in an attempt to avoid famine and to protect his worldly wealth and power and again runs into a King Abimelech. He repeats his father's mistake of claiming that his wife was his sister, with some similarity in the results. The first time Abraham did this, in Egypt, he was far far away from his Promised Land, far out of touch with God, and he got pretty deep into his sin before being rescued from it by God. The second time, he was closer to the promised Land and while Sarah was still taken into the harem, the consequences were less dire and the breach between Abraham and Abimelech was less severe. In this third case, Isaac is less far from the Promised Land, Abimelech notices Isaac's lie before he goes forward and acts on it, and Rebekah is never taken into his harem. In justice, Abimelech here is not required to make restitution for a sin he hasn't committed, unlike Pharaoh and Abimelech previously, and Isaac earns envy for his subsequent prosperity instead of it being seen as just compensation. He's blessed for what he does right, and cursed with other people's envy for what he does wrong here. Not all foreigners in the Bible are bad, bad people, and not all are even less good than the lineage of the patriarchs, but the lineage of the patriarchs is in unique relationship with God and has been chosen to bring salvation to the other nations.
Isaac brings back the wells, bringing back the flow of God's blessings and restoring his loving relationship with God. In doing so, he puts himself back into practical opposition to the people of the area, who start to fight with him over the rights to the water. The great blessing of salvation would belong to Isaac's descendant Jesus, who would restore the real "living water" of Baptism and send the Holy Spirit on his followers to do their work. The other local people could only draw on the benefits...their true ownership belonged to Isaac, just as was true with Abraham the last time the wells were open. Isaac finally comes to the Well of the Seven/the Oath (Beersheba) and again makes a covenant with the local people in the same way God has made a covenant with his family, and God's promises and Isaac's to Abimelech strengthen and echo Abraham's. He even is able to go a step farther, bring a new well and new blessings of his own to add.
The scene closes with Esau further demonstrating how far he is going to wander from the loving relationship God wants with him. Isaac and Rebekah have each chosen a son as their favored one, a division that is going to only sow misery in the family. Esau, by marrying not just one but two foreign pagan women, adds more to the drama in the family and makes God's plan for these people harder to smoothly bring about. God transforms the trickery and divisiveness in this family into a tool for His glory, but imagine what it would have been like without this! Isaac, in favoring Esau, is showing a very human tendency to see worldly marks of goodness and success. Rebekah, in favoring Jacob, is showing a very human and womanly tendency to favor a son that causes you less pain and strife, whose looks and smooth words are soothing rather than irritating. Neither sees as God sees.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Genesis 24: My Bride, My Bride, I've Come to Claim My Bride
Even the beginning of this chapter is reassuring - "Abraham had now reached a ripe old age and the Lord had blessed him in every way." When Abraham trusted in God and did things His way, blessings of every sort were poured out. Isaac, as the heir to these blessings, needs to have a wife, and she must be found and wed in a way that is different than the neighbors, in a way suitable to the Lord and his promises about Isaac. He needs to find a woman of the righteous lineage of Shem, not a local woman, and he needs to bring her to the Promised Land. Neither location nor family can be sacrificed here because each represents a promise God made.
The servant goes babe-shopping at the local well around water-retrieving time. If he were a 21st century guy, he might have been looking for her in the supermarket in a "trendy" neighborhood where there are a lot of young professional women, or on a dating website. He prays about his mission, much as we all should pray for future spouses if we don't have one yet, asking God to indicate a good woman for him. He agrees upon a sign he'll use to indicate that this woman is worth looking into...generosity to a stranger (camels need a lot of water!). We need to pray while we discern a vocation, while we discern who our future spouse might be, and ask God what qualities the person ought to have that indicates their suitability.
When Rebekah is found to be just the kind of generous, kind spirit the servant is looking for, he offers her presents of gold jewelry and makes plans to spend time at her home to make the offer of marriage. He gets right to work and is seemingly so overjoyed at having found just the right woman that he insists on proposing as soon as he gets to her house. There is no get-to-know-you meal, no settling in. Now! She agrees to this crazy proposition of running off to Canaan to the home of a relative who left the area twenty five years before on some whim to become the wife of a son she has never seen. Her whole family agrees because they see that God is at work here, even if they don't worship Him, and they are happy to be part of what He wants. Rebekah's family asks for a little time to get her ready to go, but the servant is so insistent on getting Abraham's and God's will done that he rushes her out the door. "Do you wish to go with this man?" her family asked her, and in faith and generosity she said "I do." Rebekah herself came from a wealthy family and brought servants with her, even though she had to go away so quickly. This is a woman who makes decisions and never looks back from them, and she is prepared for God to change her life at a moment's notice.
The servant doesn't have a name...the one who makes all this happen is unnoticed and unknown. God Himself, it seems, was really the one who took charge here. You can see it too in that beautiful moment where their eyes meet, where they notice each other and begin to fall in love.
The servant goes babe-shopping at the local well around water-retrieving time. If he were a 21st century guy, he might have been looking for her in the supermarket in a "trendy" neighborhood where there are a lot of young professional women, or on a dating website. He prays about his mission, much as we all should pray for future spouses if we don't have one yet, asking God to indicate a good woman for him. He agrees upon a sign he'll use to indicate that this woman is worth looking into...generosity to a stranger (camels need a lot of water!). We need to pray while we discern a vocation, while we discern who our future spouse might be, and ask God what qualities the person ought to have that indicates their suitability.
When Rebekah is found to be just the kind of generous, kind spirit the servant is looking for, he offers her presents of gold jewelry and makes plans to spend time at her home to make the offer of marriage. He gets right to work and is seemingly so overjoyed at having found just the right woman that he insists on proposing as soon as he gets to her house. There is no get-to-know-you meal, no settling in. Now! She agrees to this crazy proposition of running off to Canaan to the home of a relative who left the area twenty five years before on some whim to become the wife of a son she has never seen. Her whole family agrees because they see that God is at work here, even if they don't worship Him, and they are happy to be part of what He wants. Rebekah's family asks for a little time to get her ready to go, but the servant is so insistent on getting Abraham's and God's will done that he rushes her out the door. "Do you wish to go with this man?" her family asked her, and in faith and generosity she said "I do." Rebekah herself came from a wealthy family and brought servants with her, even though she had to go away so quickly. This is a woman who makes decisions and never looks back from them, and she is prepared for God to change her life at a moment's notice.
The servant doesn't have a name...the one who makes all this happen is unnoticed and unknown. God Himself, it seems, was really the one who took charge here. You can see it too in that beautiful moment where their eyes meet, where they notice each other and begin to fall in love.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Genesis 22-23: The Torch About to be Passed
The story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac is familiar to me, but I'm only beginning to plumb its depths. What a test this was of Abraham and Isaac's character, faithfulness, and love. Both of them knew that El-shaddai was not a god who demanded sacrifice of human beings, and both of them knew the promises that were to be fulfilled in Isaac. Each step they took toward Moriah (note here - Calvary is one of the hills of Moriah. Spooky, no?) required even more trust than the step before.
Many people focus so hard on the asking for sacrifice that they forget to read on...this is a God who returns the sacrifice! God appears to demand a sacrifice, then He uses the process to transform the entire idea of sacrifice...after which he returns that which was sacrificed in a new, blessed state. Jesus, like Isaac, was offered in sacrifice on the Cross, but by his Resurrection, he returned himself to our midst, and then returned himself to God in the Ascension, both times in a glorified state. The Eucharist bread and wine we offer are taken to his altar in heaven and return as the very Body and Blood, soul and divinity of Christ. Whatever he asks of us, he will give back in even better condition. "What kind of cruel God would ask for Isaac to be sacrificed? What kind of cruel God would sacrifice his son?" The kind who returns and glorifies the sacrifice, who doesn't keep it for his own. That's the kind of God I worship.
Isaac, like Jesus, willingly walks to the hill, carrying the wood on his own back. Isaac is thought to have been a young adult at this point, even perhaps roughly the same age as Jesus. In stopping to think about the sacrificial sheep, he seems to almost believe that it will be his own sacrifice. Abraham's answer indicates trust either way, that he will move forward whether God provides a sheep or whether the necessary sacrifice is already there. Isaac, "He laughs", is a type of the man who would make the whole world laugh either in joy or disbelief and derision when He laid out God's plan for the world.
I've never seen God swear before, but here he indeed swears an oath, on His own Name. He makes a third covenant with Abraham, completing the process of making his promises into real covenants. He would father a great nation, in him and them the world would find blessing, and the land He promises will be the homeland of this nation. These promises would be the root of how Jesus understood himself and his people.
Rebekah's pedigree, presented here, foreshadows the woman who will carry Abraham and Isaac's promises forward. She is presented as being consummately qualified for this, being of a righteous lineage, Shem's family, and a member of a community that would later be known as Arameans. She is the daughter of a wife (not a concubine), just like Isaac, and in many ways parallels him. I almost get the sense that she is born for this and is being unconsciously groomed for it, almost in the way Mary would later be. Interestingly, I begin to get a sense that wherever patriarchs aren't actively punished for having plural wives (this isn't explicitly forbidden yet, as the Law of Moses hasn't been given to the people), the flame of righteousness is carried via the offspring of the first wife, implicitly indicating that concubines and plural wives are not practices of which the Lord wholeheartedly approves. As much as Jacob loves Rachel and her son Joseph, it is Judah, Leah's child, who will become the ancestor of the Messiah. Ephraim, Joseph's line, will become the leader and shining light of the ten tribes of Israel that get lost and scattered.
With Sarah's death, Abraham seems to recognize that his own future is short and that he must lay down groundwork for those promises to continue to bloom and be fulfilled. He buys the very first portion of the Promised Land, the "down payment on the promise" to ensure that he and Sarah would sanctify and claim the land from the very beginning by being buried there. The Hittites of the area try to twist this and screw him in a couple of different ways. First, by trying to give him the land as a gift, making him debtor to them. Then, when he insists on buying only the cave, they insist that he buy the entire land plot, thereby making a man who held himself apart, obligation-free, a landowner who is now subject to certain obligations and responsibilities among them. He may have even become the vassal of their king via this route. Finally, they charge him what a footnote in my NAB describes as an exorbitant amount...I suppose figuring that if they were unable to make this rich chieftain their subordinate in any other way, at least they could shake him down a little. Abraham finally succeeds, winning himself a free and clear foothold for eternity in the land promised to him.
Many people focus so hard on the asking for sacrifice that they forget to read on...this is a God who returns the sacrifice! God appears to demand a sacrifice, then He uses the process to transform the entire idea of sacrifice...after which he returns that which was sacrificed in a new, blessed state. Jesus, like Isaac, was offered in sacrifice on the Cross, but by his Resurrection, he returned himself to our midst, and then returned himself to God in the Ascension, both times in a glorified state. The Eucharist bread and wine we offer are taken to his altar in heaven and return as the very Body and Blood, soul and divinity of Christ. Whatever he asks of us, he will give back in even better condition. "What kind of cruel God would ask for Isaac to be sacrificed? What kind of cruel God would sacrifice his son?" The kind who returns and glorifies the sacrifice, who doesn't keep it for his own. That's the kind of God I worship.
Isaac, like Jesus, willingly walks to the hill, carrying the wood on his own back. Isaac is thought to have been a young adult at this point, even perhaps roughly the same age as Jesus. In stopping to think about the sacrificial sheep, he seems to almost believe that it will be his own sacrifice. Abraham's answer indicates trust either way, that he will move forward whether God provides a sheep or whether the necessary sacrifice is already there. Isaac, "He laughs", is a type of the man who would make the whole world laugh either in joy or disbelief and derision when He laid out God's plan for the world.
I've never seen God swear before, but here he indeed swears an oath, on His own Name. He makes a third covenant with Abraham, completing the process of making his promises into real covenants. He would father a great nation, in him and them the world would find blessing, and the land He promises will be the homeland of this nation. These promises would be the root of how Jesus understood himself and his people.
Rebekah's pedigree, presented here, foreshadows the woman who will carry Abraham and Isaac's promises forward. She is presented as being consummately qualified for this, being of a righteous lineage, Shem's family, and a member of a community that would later be known as Arameans. She is the daughter of a wife (not a concubine), just like Isaac, and in many ways parallels him. I almost get the sense that she is born for this and is being unconsciously groomed for it, almost in the way Mary would later be. Interestingly, I begin to get a sense that wherever patriarchs aren't actively punished for having plural wives (this isn't explicitly forbidden yet, as the Law of Moses hasn't been given to the people), the flame of righteousness is carried via the offspring of the first wife, implicitly indicating that concubines and plural wives are not practices of which the Lord wholeheartedly approves. As much as Jacob loves Rachel and her son Joseph, it is Judah, Leah's child, who will become the ancestor of the Messiah. Ephraim, Joseph's line, will become the leader and shining light of the ten tribes of Israel that get lost and scattered.
With Sarah's death, Abraham seems to recognize that his own future is short and that he must lay down groundwork for those promises to continue to bloom and be fulfilled. He buys the very first portion of the Promised Land, the "down payment on the promise" to ensure that he and Sarah would sanctify and claim the land from the very beginning by being buried there. The Hittites of the area try to twist this and screw him in a couple of different ways. First, by trying to give him the land as a gift, making him debtor to them. Then, when he insists on buying only the cave, they insist that he buy the entire land plot, thereby making a man who held himself apart, obligation-free, a landowner who is now subject to certain obligations and responsibilities among them. He may have even become the vassal of their king via this route. Finally, they charge him what a footnote in my NAB describes as an exorbitant amount...I suppose figuring that if they were unable to make this rich chieftain their subordinate in any other way, at least they could shake him down a little. Abraham finally succeeds, winning himself a free and clear foothold for eternity in the land promised to him.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Genesis 21: The Promised Child Arrives
After a couple chapters of build-up, various people's laughter (in joy or in derision) at God's plan, and various and sundry reassurances on God's part that this child is special, Isaac (he laughs) has arrived. God did for Sarah just as he said...just as He did for Mary just as He said. Both these children were led up to and pointed to by history. Sarah is amazed at God's faithfulness to a promise, just as we all ought to be. He does what He says he will do. She breastfeeds him personally, and cares for him as a special boy.
When Isaac is weaned, it is clear that Ishmael (now roughly 16-18) does not agree with the assessment that Isaac is the Promised Child. He does...well, something...with his little half-brother that angers Sarah greatly. What this is seems kind of unclear. He was not, obviously, just "playing" with Isaac as my NAB so mildly puts it. Some folks read the Hebrew to indicate that he was trying to molest Isaac, or was picking on him, or was playing very roughly and violently with him. No matter what, he was not treating his little brother with respect and affection, but was making some kind of move as his enemy or rival. Sarah's defense of Isaac stemmed from her newfound understanding of the legacy due to her son, God's intentions for him, and not from the jealousy and pettiness that got Hagar and Ishmael thrown out before. Justice is on Sarah's side this time, and God makes this clear. He will treat any son of Abraham with fairness and justice, but Sarah is right to assert her son's primacy here.
God does indeed keep his promises yet again. Ishmael and Hagar are preserved in difficult circumstances in the desert, and he does go on to found a great nation of people. Like many self-reliant sinners in the Bible, he becomes a hunter, an archer. Instead of taking stewardship over creation, he takes dominance. He does not lead with a crook or coax out of the ground with water, he uses cunning and violence to feed himself and dominate his world. Not all who are born of righteous families and grow up with this as an advantage end up righteous themselves.
Speaking of meriting righteousness and not inheriting it, the king Abimelech whom we met before is now back, looking to make a covenant with Abraham in much the same way Abraham met one with God. He is respectful, making conciliatory gestures, despite the fact that he came with a military commander in case things with Abraham didn't go well. The grace and magnanimity Abraham has learned from God now shines through him and he agrees to make a covenant (with the number seven all over it) with Abimelech. The place itself is called Beersheba, Well of the Seven/Well of the Oath.
When Isaac is weaned, it is clear that Ishmael (now roughly 16-18) does not agree with the assessment that Isaac is the Promised Child. He does...well, something...with his little half-brother that angers Sarah greatly. What this is seems kind of unclear. He was not, obviously, just "playing" with Isaac as my NAB so mildly puts it. Some folks read the Hebrew to indicate that he was trying to molest Isaac, or was picking on him, or was playing very roughly and violently with him. No matter what, he was not treating his little brother with respect and affection, but was making some kind of move as his enemy or rival. Sarah's defense of Isaac stemmed from her newfound understanding of the legacy due to her son, God's intentions for him, and not from the jealousy and pettiness that got Hagar and Ishmael thrown out before. Justice is on Sarah's side this time, and God makes this clear. He will treat any son of Abraham with fairness and justice, but Sarah is right to assert her son's primacy here.
God does indeed keep his promises yet again. Ishmael and Hagar are preserved in difficult circumstances in the desert, and he does go on to found a great nation of people. Like many self-reliant sinners in the Bible, he becomes a hunter, an archer. Instead of taking stewardship over creation, he takes dominance. He does not lead with a crook or coax out of the ground with water, he uses cunning and violence to feed himself and dominate his world. Not all who are born of righteous families and grow up with this as an advantage end up righteous themselves.
Speaking of meriting righteousness and not inheriting it, the king Abimelech whom we met before is now back, looking to make a covenant with Abraham in much the same way Abraham met one with God. He is respectful, making conciliatory gestures, despite the fact that he came with a military commander in case things with Abraham didn't go well. The grace and magnanimity Abraham has learned from God now shines through him and he agrees to make a covenant (with the number seven all over it) with Abimelech. The place itself is called Beersheba, Well of the Seven/Well of the Oath.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Genesis 20: No, Really, She's My Sister
Abraham and Sarah are still nomads, still on both a physical and spiritual journey. They leave the Promised Land yet again in order to care for their flocks and provide them with good pasture. Yet, their movement into the Negev (what is now) Desert and toward Egypt implies yet again a movement away from closeness with God and His promises. Despite being a generally upright man, Abraham still does not quite understand what it means to trust God with his safety and his advancement. We've definitely heard this story before.
The couple is wary when they encounter the local king, Abimelech (My father is king), thinking that he may harm them in some way. Again, Abraham deceives the king into thinking that Sarah is available for marriage, and again, she is chosen for the king's harem (wow, what a babe, even at 89 years old!) . The difference here is that Pharaoh, when being admonished that Sarah is taken, remains angry at the trickery and casts them out. Abimelech, on the other hand, takes it to God and pleads innocence. God, knowing his heart, agrees and points out that He does not want Abimelech to sin. Now the choice is in the king's hands...if he returns Sarah, this will be a powerful witness of his desire to be righteous and Abraham and his family, the righteous line, will intercede for him. If he chooses to ignore this, then the sin must merit a just punishment. Abimelech chooses to do right and confronts Abraham about what he has done, teaching Abraham anew that his trust needs to be in the Lord. Abraham feels so silly and embarrassed, I'm sure, when confronted by the king and admitting that he believed this man would not treat him with honor.
An interesting aspect of this scene is how Abraham "mans up" here where he himself, as well as his ancestors, never could before. Abraham not only admits the deception to everyone, including himself, exposing his own self-deception, but takes responsibility from his wife. He admits that he considered this to be a "white lie", in that it was kind of true, and that he had personally asked his wife to do this for him as an "act of love." Adam never admitted this, Noah never had the stones to admit his own faults in this way. Abraham proves that, sinner though he may be, he is capable of responding to his "falls" in the most righteous and godly of ways through his close relationship to the Lord. Sarah, for the moment, still seems to be journeying toward this point, lagging behind Abraham, but she still merits the honor of personally being the mother of the family line that leads to Jesus.
Lot, when faced with a warning of what is to come due to his sin, had to be literally dragged out of it. He wanted to live in his sin, despite being so close to the model of righteousness. Abimelech, on the other had, chooses voluntarily to leave his sin and grows closer to God and to his model righteous man and intercessor, Abraham. The son-in-law forfeits his rights and blessings, while the stranger draws them near. God likes this dynamic, apparently...his Word abounds with implications that those who have a "right" to draw blessings, those who by nature ought to be considered first (first born sons vs. younger ones, relatives vs. strangers, Israelites vs. Gentiles) can so easily forfeit their birthright by not meriting it. God does not look at any characteristics of a person other than his heart. In the end, the Chosen People end up having no boundaries...anyone who merits it can be adopted and chosen by Him. This is how it was set up before the Fall, and God spent the rest of history leading us back there. He chose a family...the family of Seth and Noah...then he chose a tribe...the Hebrews...then he chose a kingdom...Judea/Israel...then he sent Jesus to offer membership in the Chosen to all humanity.
The couple is wary when they encounter the local king, Abimelech (My father is king), thinking that he may harm them in some way. Again, Abraham deceives the king into thinking that Sarah is available for marriage, and again, she is chosen for the king's harem (wow, what a babe, even at 89 years old!) . The difference here is that Pharaoh, when being admonished that Sarah is taken, remains angry at the trickery and casts them out. Abimelech, on the other hand, takes it to God and pleads innocence. God, knowing his heart, agrees and points out that He does not want Abimelech to sin. Now the choice is in the king's hands...if he returns Sarah, this will be a powerful witness of his desire to be righteous and Abraham and his family, the righteous line, will intercede for him. If he chooses to ignore this, then the sin must merit a just punishment. Abimelech chooses to do right and confronts Abraham about what he has done, teaching Abraham anew that his trust needs to be in the Lord. Abraham feels so silly and embarrassed, I'm sure, when confronted by the king and admitting that he believed this man would not treat him with honor.
An interesting aspect of this scene is how Abraham "mans up" here where he himself, as well as his ancestors, never could before. Abraham not only admits the deception to everyone, including himself, exposing his own self-deception, but takes responsibility from his wife. He admits that he considered this to be a "white lie", in that it was kind of true, and that he had personally asked his wife to do this for him as an "act of love." Adam never admitted this, Noah never had the stones to admit his own faults in this way. Abraham proves that, sinner though he may be, he is capable of responding to his "falls" in the most righteous and godly of ways through his close relationship to the Lord. Sarah, for the moment, still seems to be journeying toward this point, lagging behind Abraham, but she still merits the honor of personally being the mother of the family line that leads to Jesus.
Lot, when faced with a warning of what is to come due to his sin, had to be literally dragged out of it. He wanted to live in his sin, despite being so close to the model of righteousness. Abimelech, on the other had, chooses voluntarily to leave his sin and grows closer to God and to his model righteous man and intercessor, Abraham. The son-in-law forfeits his rights and blessings, while the stranger draws them near. God likes this dynamic, apparently...his Word abounds with implications that those who have a "right" to draw blessings, those who by nature ought to be considered first (first born sons vs. younger ones, relatives vs. strangers, Israelites vs. Gentiles) can so easily forfeit their birthright by not meriting it. God does not look at any characteristics of a person other than his heart. In the end, the Chosen People end up having no boundaries...anyone who merits it can be adopted and chosen by Him. This is how it was set up before the Fall, and God spent the rest of history leading us back there. He chose a family...the family of Seth and Noah...then he chose a tribe...the Hebrews...then he chose a kingdom...Judea/Israel...then he sent Jesus to offer membership in the Chosen to all humanity.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Genesis 19: Entertaining Angels Badly
As chapter 19 opens, I note a very very specific parallel with Abraham's encounter with the Angel Posse last chapter. Lot and the city of Sodom do not recognize the angels as such the way Abraham did, and the Lord himself does not appear. As I said yesterday, how people treat the angels here is representative of how people treat the Blessed Sacrament, God Himself. Lot, sitting in a public part of town with other prominent local men, does get up to greet the angels and offer them hospitality, but as normal, human guests. He's insistent, turning them aside from their mission, but then in a hurry, offering them unleavened bread (all he could whip up in as little hassle as possible). He does what he has to to offer these people acceptable deference, but he doesn't want to put himself out for it.
The town of Sodom's crime is shameful then, no matter what is foremost among them. It does seem clear that homosexual gang rape is the literal meaning of the text, and this is one of the texts we hold up to indicate the sinfulness of homosexual acts. These people were so deranged that the entire town comes to take part in this horrible act against what appeared to be a couple of random guys who just showed up in town. Sexual sin often gets out of hand as pleasure chases pleasure, and it always uses people as objects. The fact that everyone in town came to take part echoes Abraham's pleading on her behalf, hoping for mercy if even ten good men can be found there. Clearly not a single one can be found at all. Lot's made himself comfortable among these people, and it shows.
Lot tries to be "one of the bros" while simultaneously gamely attempting to stop the anger of the crowd from building. He, horribly, prioritizes hospitality toward strangers over his own daughters, indicating that the local culture had begun to determine his ideas of virtue and what is important. The crowd betrays him further, indicating that no matter how "in" he thinks he is, and no matter how he tries to fit with them, they will never fully accept him. It doesn't even matter that his kinsman Abraham freed them from the Mesopotamian kings. His relativism and affable attempts to accomodate them will never make him accepted. This striving sounds suspiciously like my life in high school and college, and probably would ring a bell with a lot of people. We have to understand that real virtues are absolutes, and that belonging to God is far far more fulfilling than lowering ourselves, blending ourselves in with a crowd that will never fully accept us.
Despite all his mistakes, Lot must in the end do something right that God can see, and must fundamentally want to be righteous. He is warned of the impending doom and told to get out. He doesn't quite believe this, and his sons in law (probably Sodomites) scoffed at the idea, but he is eventually dragged out by the hand. He is called to a new and righteous life, and the people who are holding him back are slowly stripped away. He is asked not to reconsider his old life, not to watch it burn, but his wife cannot seem to help it. His daughters are stripped away by a more glaring return to sin. As a result of a desperate and gross union with their father, two more enemies of the Hebrew people come to be, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Lot's journey out of Sodom is so like our journey out of sin...we want so badly to go back to it sometimes, or at least the excitement of living near it. We return to it out of sentimentality and out of desperation. We laugh at the thought of any sort of impending doom and thus sometimes refuse to make the trip. Those that persevere past all of these things come back to grace, back to God's friendship. God pleads with us to escape to the hills and so often we swear that we will die if we do. The more we try to isolate ourselves and make things harder for ourselves by trying to be righteous in the middle of sin, the more likely we are to fall into these traps.
The town of Sodom's crime is shameful then, no matter what is foremost among them. It does seem clear that homosexual gang rape is the literal meaning of the text, and this is one of the texts we hold up to indicate the sinfulness of homosexual acts. These people were so deranged that the entire town comes to take part in this horrible act against what appeared to be a couple of random guys who just showed up in town. Sexual sin often gets out of hand as pleasure chases pleasure, and it always uses people as objects. The fact that everyone in town came to take part echoes Abraham's pleading on her behalf, hoping for mercy if even ten good men can be found there. Clearly not a single one can be found at all. Lot's made himself comfortable among these people, and it shows.
Lot tries to be "one of the bros" while simultaneously gamely attempting to stop the anger of the crowd from building. He, horribly, prioritizes hospitality toward strangers over his own daughters, indicating that the local culture had begun to determine his ideas of virtue and what is important. The crowd betrays him further, indicating that no matter how "in" he thinks he is, and no matter how he tries to fit with them, they will never fully accept him. It doesn't even matter that his kinsman Abraham freed them from the Mesopotamian kings. His relativism and affable attempts to accomodate them will never make him accepted. This striving sounds suspiciously like my life in high school and college, and probably would ring a bell with a lot of people. We have to understand that real virtues are absolutes, and that belonging to God is far far more fulfilling than lowering ourselves, blending ourselves in with a crowd that will never fully accept us.
Despite all his mistakes, Lot must in the end do something right that God can see, and must fundamentally want to be righteous. He is warned of the impending doom and told to get out. He doesn't quite believe this, and his sons in law (probably Sodomites) scoffed at the idea, but he is eventually dragged out by the hand. He is called to a new and righteous life, and the people who are holding him back are slowly stripped away. He is asked not to reconsider his old life, not to watch it burn, but his wife cannot seem to help it. His daughters are stripped away by a more glaring return to sin. As a result of a desperate and gross union with their father, two more enemies of the Hebrew people come to be, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Lot's journey out of Sodom is so like our journey out of sin...we want so badly to go back to it sometimes, or at least the excitement of living near it. We return to it out of sentimentality and out of desperation. We laugh at the thought of any sort of impending doom and thus sometimes refuse to make the trip. Those that persevere past all of these things come back to grace, back to God's friendship. God pleads with us to escape to the hills and so often we swear that we will die if we do. The more we try to isolate ourselves and make things harder for ourselves by trying to be righteous in the middle of sin, the more likely we are to fall into these traps.
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