The depiction in this chapter of God just cruisin' on up to Abraham's tent with a couple of his "entourage", his "posse" of angels, strikes me as so personal, such a testament to how Abraham lived his life. Through the entire Bible before this, there have been people who "walked with God", like Adam and Noah, and many who called on His name but there have been none whose personal experience with God showing up at their door was described in such intimate detail. There is a question posed to each other all the time by Christians: What would you do if Jesus came here right now? As a Catholic Christian I understand the amazing reality of Jesus indeed being here right now, body, blood, soul, and divinity, in the Eucharist. This chapter with Abraham's response to God walking up to his tent illustrates how all of us think we would act in such a situation, because we know we should, and how we ought to approach the Blessed Sacrament in reality.
First, Abraham greets God and the Posse properly, with reverence and respect, bowing low, because he recognizes them. Abraham didn't have to be told, didn't have to have some kind of sign before his eyes were opened that God was there. We don't need miracles or change in accidents/appearance to know that God is in the consecrated bread and wine. So often we fail to acknowledge Him properly when we realize the tabernacle is around. I too am guilty of dipping a little genuflection on the way in to choir rehearsal before Mass in my haste to be about my business. Abraham demands that they not go anywhere until he has had a chance to treat them properly, as though God and his Angels were the busy ones with many important matters to deal with and no time to sit and be cared for, which only makes sense. I should be overjoyed that the God of the Heavens and the Earth, the Sustainer and Creator of all things, takes not just a moment to stop and grace me with His presence in the Eucharist, but stays with me eternally. He who has so little time (if He were subject to time) or attention (if he could be said to have limited attention) to spare for me, spends it all on me. He will never "go on about his business," but stays in every cell, in every particle of me.
Abraham hastens to make God and the Posse comfortable, offering food in almost every major variety (dairy, bread, meat), and in amazing abundance. My sources (in this case Agape Bible Study) indicate that a seah of flour was a good couple of gallons of flour. Six gallons of flour made into pita-ish bread would be an insane amount of bread for three normal human visitors. Abraham's desire to give and give to the Lord whatever He might want and whatever might serve Him just floors me. I'm so often lacking in generosity with God, giving him my extra, my odds and ends. I give of my time, but not necessarily my attention, and I give of my money if I have any on me. I give of my material goods, but only what I don't care about. Approaching him even with these lowliest of gifts makes me feel better, but His Word totally challenges me to rise above that. What more can I give the God of the Blessed Sacrament? I was more generous with my time for prayer during Lent, but now I've got new responsibilities. I was generous with my material goods during Lent, but now I need to actually mail those mittens I knitted for Afghans for Afghans. I'm nominated for parish council, but now if elected I need to see it through and really give of my opinions, talents, and attention.
Abraham laughing at God's plan had such a different flavor than Sarah's laughter. As I mentioned before, Abraham laughing had an overtone of joy at the absurdly wonderful plans of God. Sarah, on the other hand, laughs in disbelief, so convinced is she that it is not her who will bear Abraham the promised son. The Almighty points out to Abraham what is in Sarah's heart of hearts, that she believes Abraham to be the source of her problem bearing a child. "My husband is so old, am I still to have sexual pleasure?" I might be able to bear a child, says she, if that old man could get it up once in a while! *giggle giggle snort*. This covering up of her own failings is compounded by her attempt, like a six year old, to hide her snide, under-her-breath comment and lie to the Lord's face. Like an exasperated parent, God corrects her. "I didn't laugh!" "Yes, you did." Don't you realize who I AM by now? The promised child, like the later Promised One, is heralded by the phrase "For nothing is impossible for God."
It surprises me that God seemingly reflects here on how He plans to involve Abraham in His great work of saving mankind. The Bible often shows God asking rhetorical questions, perhaps seeming as if He has not yet made His mind up about something, yet also explaining in a more elegant fashion God's plans. He reiterates the covenant He made with Abraham and considers that this covenant places man in a unique position of involvement with the work of God. He does not wish to hide his plans from Abraham, but instead wants to involve him intimately in them. Despite Sarah's occasional imperfection in righteousness, she will still be the mother of a great nation. She and nobody else, and no earthly circumstance will stand in the way of that. The same is true of Abraham.
In His discussion with Abraham about the fate of Sodom, God seems to be purposely involving Abraham in the plan. He wants Abraham to know who He is and what His nature is, and sometimes for human beings that involves questioning Him. He had planned earlier to never again destroy the innocent for the guilty after the Flood, and God's interactions with Abraham about Sodom make this ever clearer to him. He wants Abraham to understand what it really means when He says that he will never again destroy the innocent for the guilt of the wicked. Fifty out of thousands? Ten out of thousands? Yes, says God, even that little drop of righteousness in a bucket of evil is enough to stay My hand. Abraham walks away from this lesson with a real glimpse of what God would do through His Son Jesus.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Genesis 16-17: More Covenants Divine
I'm struck very much so far in my reading of the Bible by how often people totally misunderstand what God's plan for them is, how often they reason that "God helps those that help themselves" and see to putting into motion God's promises in their own way. Abram has done this at least twice so far, and both scenes involve the matriarch Sarai. Despite how she can be depicted in these scenes, I actually really like Sarai/Sarah. She laughs in disbelief often when I might have but she submits and believes anyway. She is sometimes so sure of God's promises that she imagines she must take action to help them come to pass. God promised that you would be a great nation? Well then, he'll have to begin with a baby right? And since I clearly can't have any, I bet He means for this to happen via someone else, but no matter what, we'll get it done!
Sarai's maid Hagar seems to have stuck around from their previous foray into Egypt, a kind of reminder almost of the last time Abram and Sarai tried to keep their little tribe going and Sarai ended up in Pharaoh's harem. That time, God's promise that he would make Abram's name great seemed to be in danger, but their attempts to do this their own way ended in tragedy for everyone. Now, they have their own plans on how to make of Abram "a great nation", sadly involving bigamy with a foreign, pagan woman, and we all know how well that went. Egypt in Genesis seems to symbolize a land that tempts the faithful with a way to "do it their own way", to become self-made men, only to end up enslaving them to sin. Sounds a little like the "land of promise" I live in. I wonder how Joseph's story of elevation to prominence in Egypt will fit into this? I feel like that story redeems the reputation of the country while at the same time condemning the Hebrews to the fulfillment of the prophecy of physical slavery. Eventually, after the Exodus, Jesus will go there with the Holy Family as a place of refuge.
I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to be in Sarai's position. Hagar knows that in the world's eyes she has gained status purely by being pregnant with that precious, precious child. Sarai knows God and knows the kind of extravagant promises he has made to Abram and herself due to their faith, and this gives her an assurance of her status that the world doesn't know. Could Hagar's child really be the one to fulfill those promises for them? God couldn't possibly do it any other way, right? Finally she begins to get angry, thinking that all this pain and suffering came from Abram's need to have children to "father a great nation". He gets the rewards, and she gets all the backtalk and disrespect. She knew enough and had enough faith to expect justice from God, but wasn't sure about getting it from Abram, so she appealed to both. Like previous men and women in the Bible who have tried to achieve God's ends by their own means, Sarai took what she wanted and then blamed others when the plan backfires.
When sins are committed, even against unbelievers or evildoers, God's justice includes them. Hagar received justice for Sarai's lashing out in the form of a promise of greatness for her son's descendents, even though she was also commanded in justice to return to her rightful place as Sarai's slave. The fair and just thing was done on both sides, a win-win, but justice may not always look good to either party. Ishmael (God hears) was born after a vision of El-Roi (The God who Sees), seeming to indicate that Hagar understands the watchfulness and vigilance of God for people, the God who swoops down to bring justice. Her son's legacy would not be that of the faithful follower of God, but instead was predicted to be changeable, rebellious, and tough. The angel makes it clear that God has other plans for this child who was conceived to bring his promise to bear. It is important that his mother recognize her subordinate status to the matriarch Sarai, the one whose child would become the head of the line leading to Jesus and the salvation of the world, but when she does, it brings blessings to her. I wonder how Arab Muslims look at this passage, given their claimed lineage from Ishmael? I can see how this would prove to be an inspiring tale for them and could be seen in a good light, but it seems so clear that Ishmael is the offspring of an attempt to force God's promises to come true in a certain way.
Once again, a promise misunderstood is a covenant made. Abram's misunderstanding of the promise that he will father a great nation seems to lead directly to God's upgrading this to a covenant, a giving of Himself and a taking of Abram and his tribe to Himself in return. His timing is perfect...an already old man at Ishmael's birth, Abram is made to wait another thirteen years until he is ninety nine for God to do this. Now there is no chance of him expecting a child's arrival to make sense. This time, the covenant won't be written in creation, in a day or in the sky...but it will be written onto man, marking him out by a change in the flesh as belonging to the Lord's tribe. As Christians, we do not circumcise and name, as a sign of this old covenant and membership in the tribe of Abraham, but we do baptize and name, a sign of a new covenant that marks us out bodily for membership in the global family, tribe, kingdom of Jesus Christ. Eight days...the seven (perfect number) and one more beyond it...the number of redemption. As a sign of giving Himself to us, God gives himself a title, El-Shaddai (God, the almighty). Not quite a name, but close enough. He also gives titles/new names to Abram(great father) and Sarai (my princess)... makes them Abraham (father of a multitude) and Sarah (the princess).
Abraham clearly misunderstands some of God's intentions, and He is thus painfully clear at this point. If Sarah is going to have the honor of bearing a son that will carry this covenant forward, then Abraham and Sarah's former reasoning that Ishmael's drama-inducing birth was the fulfillment of the promise is laughably wrong. Abraham laughs to think he got it so very very wrong. Sarah's title as mother of the tribe has been usurped...and yet at the same time thinking of her as being able to take on that role via true, physical pregnancy and birth at her age seems absurd to him. Genius, Lord...says he...pure genius. Who'da thunk it. I've done that before. I've shaken my head and laughed in joy when God's plan for me, absurd as it so recently seemed to think it, becomes clear. The son that will bear their legacy is to be named Isaac, "laughing" in honor of the wonderful, joyous absurdity that is God's plan for us.
Abraham's fear that God's plan will not include Ishmael, given that Ishmael exists because of this attempt to take matters into human hands, is speedily dealt with as well. Ishmael exists, says God, because I wanted him to be and I care for him...but he isn't who I mean when I say you will have a great nation to descend from you.
Abraham's fear for Ishmael echoes in many human hearts. Women who are pregnant but abused (or men who are abused along with their children), women who become pregnant from rape, women pregnant out of wedlock. All of them wonder if God wants their children to be. All of them fear that, because of the way they were conceived or the situation they are born into, God is going to ignore these children or mark them out as lesser. There is a fear that, if blessings are due to the child born into "normal, godly" circumstances, then those blessings must come from depriving the children not born that way somehow. God has abundant blessings and mercy for every child, and He wants them to exist. They aren't an affront to Him. Ishmael is circumcised into the tribe along with everyone else.
God does have a problem with primogeniture, it seems, when the oldest son is unworthy, turns away from righteousness. Humans see status markers like "being born first", God looks on the heart. Shem, being righteous, is allowed to defend his leadership position as the first born, but Cain, Reuben, and Ishmael are displaced from God's favor by younger brothers because those younger brothers do what is right. They call on God's name in humility and defend his justice.
Sarai's maid Hagar seems to have stuck around from their previous foray into Egypt, a kind of reminder almost of the last time Abram and Sarai tried to keep their little tribe going and Sarai ended up in Pharaoh's harem. That time, God's promise that he would make Abram's name great seemed to be in danger, but their attempts to do this their own way ended in tragedy for everyone. Now, they have their own plans on how to make of Abram "a great nation", sadly involving bigamy with a foreign, pagan woman, and we all know how well that went. Egypt in Genesis seems to symbolize a land that tempts the faithful with a way to "do it their own way", to become self-made men, only to end up enslaving them to sin. Sounds a little like the "land of promise" I live in. I wonder how Joseph's story of elevation to prominence in Egypt will fit into this? I feel like that story redeems the reputation of the country while at the same time condemning the Hebrews to the fulfillment of the prophecy of physical slavery. Eventually, after the Exodus, Jesus will go there with the Holy Family as a place of refuge.
I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to be in Sarai's position. Hagar knows that in the world's eyes she has gained status purely by being pregnant with that precious, precious child. Sarai knows God and knows the kind of extravagant promises he has made to Abram and herself due to their faith, and this gives her an assurance of her status that the world doesn't know. Could Hagar's child really be the one to fulfill those promises for them? God couldn't possibly do it any other way, right? Finally she begins to get angry, thinking that all this pain and suffering came from Abram's need to have children to "father a great nation". He gets the rewards, and she gets all the backtalk and disrespect. She knew enough and had enough faith to expect justice from God, but wasn't sure about getting it from Abram, so she appealed to both. Like previous men and women in the Bible who have tried to achieve God's ends by their own means, Sarai took what she wanted and then blamed others when the plan backfires.
When sins are committed, even against unbelievers or evildoers, God's justice includes them. Hagar received justice for Sarai's lashing out in the form of a promise of greatness for her son's descendents, even though she was also commanded in justice to return to her rightful place as Sarai's slave. The fair and just thing was done on both sides, a win-win, but justice may not always look good to either party. Ishmael (God hears) was born after a vision of El-Roi (The God who Sees), seeming to indicate that Hagar understands the watchfulness and vigilance of God for people, the God who swoops down to bring justice. Her son's legacy would not be that of the faithful follower of God, but instead was predicted to be changeable, rebellious, and tough. The angel makes it clear that God has other plans for this child who was conceived to bring his promise to bear. It is important that his mother recognize her subordinate status to the matriarch Sarai, the one whose child would become the head of the line leading to Jesus and the salvation of the world, but when she does, it brings blessings to her. I wonder how Arab Muslims look at this passage, given their claimed lineage from Ishmael? I can see how this would prove to be an inspiring tale for them and could be seen in a good light, but it seems so clear that Ishmael is the offspring of an attempt to force God's promises to come true in a certain way.
Once again, a promise misunderstood is a covenant made. Abram's misunderstanding of the promise that he will father a great nation seems to lead directly to God's upgrading this to a covenant, a giving of Himself and a taking of Abram and his tribe to Himself in return. His timing is perfect...an already old man at Ishmael's birth, Abram is made to wait another thirteen years until he is ninety nine for God to do this. Now there is no chance of him expecting a child's arrival to make sense. This time, the covenant won't be written in creation, in a day or in the sky...but it will be written onto man, marking him out by a change in the flesh as belonging to the Lord's tribe. As Christians, we do not circumcise and name, as a sign of this old covenant and membership in the tribe of Abraham, but we do baptize and name, a sign of a new covenant that marks us out bodily for membership in the global family, tribe, kingdom of Jesus Christ. Eight days...the seven (perfect number) and one more beyond it...the number of redemption. As a sign of giving Himself to us, God gives himself a title, El-Shaddai (God, the almighty). Not quite a name, but close enough. He also gives titles/new names to Abram(great father) and Sarai (my princess)... makes them Abraham (father of a multitude) and Sarah (the princess).
Abraham clearly misunderstands some of God's intentions, and He is thus painfully clear at this point. If Sarah is going to have the honor of bearing a son that will carry this covenant forward, then Abraham and Sarah's former reasoning that Ishmael's drama-inducing birth was the fulfillment of the promise is laughably wrong. Abraham laughs to think he got it so very very wrong. Sarah's title as mother of the tribe has been usurped...and yet at the same time thinking of her as being able to take on that role via true, physical pregnancy and birth at her age seems absurd to him. Genius, Lord...says he...pure genius. Who'da thunk it. I've done that before. I've shaken my head and laughed in joy when God's plan for me, absurd as it so recently seemed to think it, becomes clear. The son that will bear their legacy is to be named Isaac, "laughing" in honor of the wonderful, joyous absurdity that is God's plan for us.
Abraham's fear that God's plan will not include Ishmael, given that Ishmael exists because of this attempt to take matters into human hands, is speedily dealt with as well. Ishmael exists, says God, because I wanted him to be and I care for him...but he isn't who I mean when I say you will have a great nation to descend from you.
Abraham's fear for Ishmael echoes in many human hearts. Women who are pregnant but abused (or men who are abused along with their children), women who become pregnant from rape, women pregnant out of wedlock. All of them wonder if God wants their children to be. All of them fear that, because of the way they were conceived or the situation they are born into, God is going to ignore these children or mark them out as lesser. There is a fear that, if blessings are due to the child born into "normal, godly" circumstances, then those blessings must come from depriving the children not born that way somehow. God has abundant blessings and mercy for every child, and He wants them to exist. They aren't an affront to Him. Ishmael is circumcised into the tribe along with everyone else.
God does have a problem with primogeniture, it seems, when the oldest son is unworthy, turns away from righteousness. Humans see status markers like "being born first", God looks on the heart. Shem, being righteous, is allowed to defend his leadership position as the first born, but Cain, Reuben, and Ishmael are displaced from God's favor by younger brothers because those younger brothers do what is right. They call on God's name in humility and defend his justice.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Genesis 14-15: Melchizedek, The King of Righteousness
Wow, just...wow. My mind is a little bit of a blur with all the place names, nation names, victories and defeats here in Chapter 14, but I think I've got it all sorted. I needed, I admit, a lot of help on this one from Agape Bible Study, from Scott Hahn in his "Genesis to Jesus: A Journey Through The Bible" online study, and from Haydock's commentary, but now it overall makes sense. And God is following the action the whole time.
The scene of the rebellion and war, coming shortly on the heels of Lot's defection and attempts to mingle with the Canaanites, really gives the sense that the family, tribe, or nation one comes from is no longer a perfect indication of one's stance toward God. Also, a lot of prophecies made about Noah's sons are beginning to come to pass already. The various city-states of the land of Canaan rebel against their presumed overlords, the kings of the Great Civilization of the day, Sumeria, Elam (in Iran), both children of Ham, and the other Goyim, children of Japheth. This Evil Empire swoops down and conquers them in a battle in a valley now filled with salt water, the Dead Sea. We know the names and places of everything mostly as an effort to say "This is about real people in real places!" Suddenly, God's prophecy from Noah regarding Canaan being a slave to his brothers, the other descendents of Ham, starts to make perfect sense. Controlling the area makes perfect worldly sense as a way for these kings of Mesopotamia to enlarge their territory and the route from Egypt.
Lot's punishment for leaving God's providence behind and trusting himself to make his own success is swift. The conquering army takes him and all the worldly success and material possessions he's ever had, sweeping over him unexpectedly. That's happened to me too, as I'm sure it has happened to others. Trusting in the Lord can seem so difficult sometimes, but it reaps such rewards. What happens here reminds me of why I must be "storing up treasures in heaven" because who knows what might take away what I think I built for myself. Luckily for Lot, Abram defends his Promised Land and gets Lot back by sweeping away the Mesopotamian overlords with the help of Canaanites, branches of a wicked tree who somehow individually were far far more faithful than Lot, from a righteous tree.
The next part is one of the most Catholic parts of Genesis. Melchizedek, the King of Righteousness, king of Salem (Peace) ,who is also the priest of God, brings out bread and wine and blesses it, and accepts a tithe in return. He is traditionally believed to actually be Shem, Noah's son. Yes, he lived that long. Do the math. Anyway, in addition, he prefigures a whole lot of people in the covenants to come. First, King David, in that David was a priest-king "in the order of Melchizedek" (Ps. 110). Of course, King David himself was a type of, a prefigurement of his descendent Jesus Christ, who took bread and wine and blessed it, making it contain his body, blood, soul, and divinity. Shem being still alive to personally hand this on to Abram like a baton in a relay is just amazing. The generations of people and the stretch of time between these two men melts away as the flame of God's worship and sacrifice to him gets handed on one good man to the next. God will keep it alive, no matter how long He waits or no matter what miracles he must perform. Abram received priesthood and the baton of God's service directly from Shem, just like Fr. Mike at my parish received his priesthood from a bishop who received his bishopric from another bishop before him back to the Apostles, who got it from Jesus.
As a result of this new mission and blessing he gets from Melchizedek, Abram is empowered to be generous to those he fought with. His Canaanite friends are blessed through him, receiving booty, all kinds of riches. He himself recognizes now that these things are meaningless next to God's blessings. He was patient in waiting for God to make his name great.
Next thing you know, however, God's promise to make his name great begins to seem like it will never come true. Fine, says Abram, I can be generous with money and things, even turn down worldly titles and fame. But how great can a name be that ends with me? At this point, God does a rare and wonderful thing. He takes the sum of Abram's life so far and looks on his loyalty, his repentance when he does wrong, and his willingness to do anything for God. On doing so, he "credits this to him as righteousness" and makes a brand new covenant with Abram. God agrees to make out of a childless old man, who figured he'd have to leave his stuff to a servant, a huge, expansive tribe. No longer is God merely wedded to His Bride, his Church, no longer is He merely the head of his Household the Church, he is now the chief of his Chosen Tribe. God promised to make of him a great nation, and with the sacrifice of the animals here, this promise becomes a covenant, a sacred oath. God will do it. He will take the Chosen Tribe out of the slavery they will get themselves into, even after four hundred years. It won't go smoothly, but Abram's descendents will be a great nation. And we are. We Christians, our older brothers and sisters in faith the Rabbinic Jews...even our Muslim brothers and sisters in faith.
The scene of the rebellion and war, coming shortly on the heels of Lot's defection and attempts to mingle with the Canaanites, really gives the sense that the family, tribe, or nation one comes from is no longer a perfect indication of one's stance toward God. Also, a lot of prophecies made about Noah's sons are beginning to come to pass already. The various city-states of the land of Canaan rebel against their presumed overlords, the kings of the Great Civilization of the day, Sumeria, Elam (in Iran), both children of Ham, and the other Goyim, children of Japheth. This Evil Empire swoops down and conquers them in a battle in a valley now filled with salt water, the Dead Sea. We know the names and places of everything mostly as an effort to say "This is about real people in real places!" Suddenly, God's prophecy from Noah regarding Canaan being a slave to his brothers, the other descendents of Ham, starts to make perfect sense. Controlling the area makes perfect worldly sense as a way for these kings of Mesopotamia to enlarge their territory and the route from Egypt.
Lot's punishment for leaving God's providence behind and trusting himself to make his own success is swift. The conquering army takes him and all the worldly success and material possessions he's ever had, sweeping over him unexpectedly. That's happened to me too, as I'm sure it has happened to others. Trusting in the Lord can seem so difficult sometimes, but it reaps such rewards. What happens here reminds me of why I must be "storing up treasures in heaven" because who knows what might take away what I think I built for myself. Luckily for Lot, Abram defends his Promised Land and gets Lot back by sweeping away the Mesopotamian overlords with the help of Canaanites, branches of a wicked tree who somehow individually were far far more faithful than Lot, from a righteous tree.
The next part is one of the most Catholic parts of Genesis. Melchizedek, the King of Righteousness, king of Salem (Peace) ,who is also the priest of God, brings out bread and wine and blesses it, and accepts a tithe in return. He is traditionally believed to actually be Shem, Noah's son. Yes, he lived that long. Do the math. Anyway, in addition, he prefigures a whole lot of people in the covenants to come. First, King David, in that David was a priest-king "in the order of Melchizedek" (Ps. 110). Of course, King David himself was a type of, a prefigurement of his descendent Jesus Christ, who took bread and wine and blessed it, making it contain his body, blood, soul, and divinity. Shem being still alive to personally hand this on to Abram like a baton in a relay is just amazing. The generations of people and the stretch of time between these two men melts away as the flame of God's worship and sacrifice to him gets handed on one good man to the next. God will keep it alive, no matter how long He waits or no matter what miracles he must perform. Abram received priesthood and the baton of God's service directly from Shem, just like Fr. Mike at my parish received his priesthood from a bishop who received his bishopric from another bishop before him back to the Apostles, who got it from Jesus.
As a result of this new mission and blessing he gets from Melchizedek, Abram is empowered to be generous to those he fought with. His Canaanite friends are blessed through him, receiving booty, all kinds of riches. He himself recognizes now that these things are meaningless next to God's blessings. He was patient in waiting for God to make his name great.
Next thing you know, however, God's promise to make his name great begins to seem like it will never come true. Fine, says Abram, I can be generous with money and things, even turn down worldly titles and fame. But how great can a name be that ends with me? At this point, God does a rare and wonderful thing. He takes the sum of Abram's life so far and looks on his loyalty, his repentance when he does wrong, and his willingness to do anything for God. On doing so, he "credits this to him as righteousness" and makes a brand new covenant with Abram. God agrees to make out of a childless old man, who figured he'd have to leave his stuff to a servant, a huge, expansive tribe. No longer is God merely wedded to His Bride, his Church, no longer is He merely the head of his Household the Church, he is now the chief of his Chosen Tribe. God promised to make of him a great nation, and with the sacrifice of the animals here, this promise becomes a covenant, a sacred oath. God will do it. He will take the Chosen Tribe out of the slavery they will get themselves into, even after four hundred years. It won't go smoothly, but Abram's descendents will be a great nation. And we are. We Christians, our older brothers and sisters in faith the Rabbinic Jews...even our Muslim brothers and sisters in faith.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Genesis 12-13: And He Built an Altar to the Lord
It pretty much was a given that at some point I would get behind on my strict "daily reading and posting" policy. Just Easter...just the resurrection of my Lord and Savior from the grave. No big deal. This past week was full of beauty and grace, but was also full of two, two and a half hour long services for the Triduum, and then this whole thing had to be celebrated. You know, with family and all that :). Well, back to business.
Abram. Now the Bible scales down from a focus on all humankind and our covenants with God, down to the scale of a single human family, a single human tribe. After the Tower of Babel, our human unity was destroyed (later to be brought back together), and not all of us wanted to be "God's chosen." We were a single family under Adam and Eve, then split into a "good branch" and an "evil branch". After Noah and the Re-Creation, we did the very same thing. This time, however, God's new covenant with us affected His response...He foiled the plans of the wicked without destroying the innocent. After that, we were suddenly broken up into tribes, nations that speak various languages and have differing cultures. One of them would come to shine out as a beacon of hope for us, one tribe among many as Noah's family was one family unit among many.
Abram's family had left Sin City (Ur) and had settled down to live somewhere else, but God had even bigger plans in mind. The men of the Tower of Babel tried to build cities, ziggurats, civilization on their own terms, in their own name (shem). But God made promises to Abram indicating that He is the source of greatness, of Name, of blessing. If Abram will follow Him into uncertain territory, that obedience will make blessings follow. Abram can do nothing alone that will make him great, but God will do that for him if he steps out of his comfort zone in faith and obedience. God hasn't covenanted with Abram yet, seems to be waiting for Abram's faithfulness, but the hint of that is there in these promises.
God seems to lead Abram, Sarai, Lot, their stuff, and their various hangers-on quite a long way, and Abram is faithful to him the whole time. Every time they stop, it seems, Abram is building another "altar to the Lord" and calling His Name. Abram's willingness to built altars to God and not monuments to himself, call on the Lord's name and not exalt his own is what makes him special and worthy of monuments and exaltation. The last shall be first. He who humbles himself will be exalted.
Of course, Abram's not totally a stand-up guy, it seems. He does tell at the very least a "half-truth", a "white lie" in order to protect his wife. Sarai was at the very least related to Abram, and given that you could call just about any relative "brother" or "sister" in that language and culture, it might not have been a lie at all. No matter what, doing this was not his finest moment. He wasn't quite at the point of full trust in God to keep His promises and preserve his life and his stuff.
There was a famine and Abram did what he needed to do, leaving the Promised Land of Canaan for Egypt (sounds like a theme that will be repeated...) in order to do the responsible thing and keep his little tribe going. Their little fib appears to work...Abram gets rich off of Sarai's place in the Pharaoh's harem, and Abram's name really does become "great" in the way the world thinks about it. Then God begins to set things straight with a some unnamed plagues (second verse will be the same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse...), and suddenly the ephemeral nature of worldly glory and riches becomes all too clear to everyone. Got it, people? God hands out the real gifts, the real glory that lasts. Anything can destroy what you think you've built, but if God says He will make your name great, He will do so in a way that is impossible for us to imagine.
Thus, Abram makes an Exodus from Egypt, retraces his steps back to where he praised God before in Bethel and picks himself up after his mistake. The saints, according to the song, are just the sinners that fall down and get up. As he is doing so, Lot who has been with him the whole way so far refuses to "get back up" after their fall. He doesn't really learn anything from the episode in Egypt and doesn't recognize the hand of God in making people and places great or low. His hangers-on start having arguments with Abram's hangers-on and Abram realizes he needs to cut this guy loose. He responds in generosity, telling Lot he can have the land he wants. Lot chooses what sounds like paradise (actually described as being like the Garden, or Egypt which was really a very sweet place to live then) but it isn't Canaan. It isn't the Promised Land. He chooses what glitters, not the gold. He chooses to associate himself with Sodom, another Sin City, and gets right back into the thick of it, rejoining the everlasting climb up the ladder of worldly success.
For his generosity and faithfulness, God promises that the true treasure will be Abram's. He may think he just gave up his best hope, but the land and reward that God offers is a diamond in the rough. God rewards us with what truly matters. The "prosperity gospel" isn't truth...God rewards those faithful to Him, but not always with material riches or success, or even health. We aren't supposed to take the lack of these things as an indication of God's disfavor. He gives us what He knows to be the right thing for us. And Abram does what he knows how to do to claim the promise for himself - he builds yet another altar. The overall lesson for the day seems to be "when in doubt, build an altar." Worshipping God is always a good idea.
Abram. Now the Bible scales down from a focus on all humankind and our covenants with God, down to the scale of a single human family, a single human tribe. After the Tower of Babel, our human unity was destroyed (later to be brought back together), and not all of us wanted to be "God's chosen." We were a single family under Adam and Eve, then split into a "good branch" and an "evil branch". After Noah and the Re-Creation, we did the very same thing. This time, however, God's new covenant with us affected His response...He foiled the plans of the wicked without destroying the innocent. After that, we were suddenly broken up into tribes, nations that speak various languages and have differing cultures. One of them would come to shine out as a beacon of hope for us, one tribe among many as Noah's family was one family unit among many.
Abram's family had left Sin City (Ur) and had settled down to live somewhere else, but God had even bigger plans in mind. The men of the Tower of Babel tried to build cities, ziggurats, civilization on their own terms, in their own name (shem). But God made promises to Abram indicating that He is the source of greatness, of Name, of blessing. If Abram will follow Him into uncertain territory, that obedience will make blessings follow. Abram can do nothing alone that will make him great, but God will do that for him if he steps out of his comfort zone in faith and obedience. God hasn't covenanted with Abram yet, seems to be waiting for Abram's faithfulness, but the hint of that is there in these promises.
God seems to lead Abram, Sarai, Lot, their stuff, and their various hangers-on quite a long way, and Abram is faithful to him the whole time. Every time they stop, it seems, Abram is building another "altar to the Lord" and calling His Name. Abram's willingness to built altars to God and not monuments to himself, call on the Lord's name and not exalt his own is what makes him special and worthy of monuments and exaltation. The last shall be first. He who humbles himself will be exalted.
Of course, Abram's not totally a stand-up guy, it seems. He does tell at the very least a "half-truth", a "white lie" in order to protect his wife. Sarai was at the very least related to Abram, and given that you could call just about any relative "brother" or "sister" in that language and culture, it might not have been a lie at all. No matter what, doing this was not his finest moment. He wasn't quite at the point of full trust in God to keep His promises and preserve his life and his stuff.
There was a famine and Abram did what he needed to do, leaving the Promised Land of Canaan for Egypt (sounds like a theme that will be repeated...) in order to do the responsible thing and keep his little tribe going. Their little fib appears to work...Abram gets rich off of Sarai's place in the Pharaoh's harem, and Abram's name really does become "great" in the way the world thinks about it. Then God begins to set things straight with a some unnamed plagues (second verse will be the same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse...), and suddenly the ephemeral nature of worldly glory and riches becomes all too clear to everyone. Got it, people? God hands out the real gifts, the real glory that lasts. Anything can destroy what you think you've built, but if God says He will make your name great, He will do so in a way that is impossible for us to imagine.
Thus, Abram makes an Exodus from Egypt, retraces his steps back to where he praised God before in Bethel and picks himself up after his mistake. The saints, according to the song, are just the sinners that fall down and get up. As he is doing so, Lot who has been with him the whole way so far refuses to "get back up" after their fall. He doesn't really learn anything from the episode in Egypt and doesn't recognize the hand of God in making people and places great or low. His hangers-on start having arguments with Abram's hangers-on and Abram realizes he needs to cut this guy loose. He responds in generosity, telling Lot he can have the land he wants. Lot chooses what sounds like paradise (actually described as being like the Garden, or Egypt which was really a very sweet place to live then) but it isn't Canaan. It isn't the Promised Land. He chooses what glitters, not the gold. He chooses to associate himself with Sodom, another Sin City, and gets right back into the thick of it, rejoining the everlasting climb up the ladder of worldly success.
For his generosity and faithfulness, God promises that the true treasure will be Abram's. He may think he just gave up his best hope, but the land and reward that God offers is a diamond in the rough. God rewards us with what truly matters. The "prosperity gospel" isn't truth...God rewards those faithful to Him, but not always with material riches or success, or even health. We aren't supposed to take the lack of these things as an indication of God's disfavor. He gives us what He knows to be the right thing for us. And Abram does what he knows how to do to claim the promise for himself - he builds yet another altar. The overall lesson for the day seems to be "when in doubt, build an altar." Worshipping God is always a good idea.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Genesis 10 and 11 - Brave New World
Genesis 10 is a pretty expansive, world encompassing chapter, and Genesis 11 will bring it back down into focus - on one man, Abram. After the Re-Creation post-Flood, and the sorting of the world into descendents of evil (Ham) and descendents of good (Shem, and in a more minor way Japheth) once again, we see how from these people the ancient Hebrews organized their world and the peoples they knew. Some were at least potentially good, some were known to be evils and enemies of the people of good, but all came from the same source...Noah.
The list starts with the people "way out there" on the fringes of the world. They had some hope of being converted to calling on God's name, but they were all far away. The descendents of Japheth represent, according to notes in my Bible (the NAB), peoples that were on the fringes of the known world to the ancient Hebrews. Madai represents the Medes, predecessors of the Persians from Iran, and Javan represents the Greeks. His children include the Rhodanim, the people of the island of Rhodes (probably essentially all the Greek islanders), Elishah and the Kittim, representing the people of Cyprus, and Tarshish, a city of ancient Turkey and the home city of Paul, representing the Ionian Turkish Greek people. Gomer and Magog represent people way up north around the Black Sea, including the Scythians. Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras represent areas of northern and northeastern Turkey, Armenia, and the Caucasus. These were all people way out there, people who were generally Gentiles. The interesting thing is, these very people, like Paul, the son of Tarshish in Cilicia, were later to hear Jesus' message and be some of the most fervent converts. These people were why Japheth is considered to be eventually on Shem's side, "mixed among his tents".
Ham's descendents were more southwest, and represented many of the enemies and "outsiders" for the ancient Hebrews. Cush was in Nubia, in the Sudan type area along the southern Red Sea. Mizraim represents the Egyptians, and may be another name for Menes, the legendary first king of Egypt. And we all know where Canaan is...but his nation doesn't settle where the others do, in northern Africa and Arabia. They steal Palestine from Shem's people. Put is farther out in Africa, where Libya is today. Sheba, the ancestor of the nation that sent her Queen to see Solomon, is somewhere near Yemen in Arabia, and most of the other peoples listed as children of Cush live in Arabia, along the Red Sea. This family also creates the Philistines, another great enemy of the Israelites. So far, this family, rooted in evil, sends out a lot of very evil and oppressive branches, but they are also very impressive when looked at as part of world history.
I love the Bible's many layers...you can understand it in so many ways. In terms of actual literal world history, it does a great job of showing the scope of how people went from hunting and gathering to farmers and milk-and-wool animal tenders, then began animal husbandry in earnest. It indicates how a small band of humans spread out and formed tribes all over the known world. Above all this, we get to read all this in terms of how God saw it and the covenants he made with humanity. As He watches the descendents of Noah spread out in the world, He watches their hearts.
When Nimrod, the "mighty hunter", comes to be, God watches his power grow with building arrogance and self-reliance until he establishes the oldest actual empires/civilizations that we in modern days have come to know. We know it because the people of his empire invented writing. His empire starts in Shinar (Sumeria), then comes to include Accad (Akkadians) , Babylon, and then Assyria, with its great capital of Nineveh. This empire, no matter what it is called, is always both the cradle of Abram and the major threatening shadow over his people. Nimrod builds up his own glory and the cities of his people will represent for the rest of time man's desire to make himself awesome and glorious and thumb his nose at God.
People again wandered east, farther away from the entrance to Eden and God's presence and favor. They picked a place in Shinar, in the very earliest place of empire and civilization and decide to build a tower, a ziggurat probably with a temple to a deity on top, tall so everyone could see how incredibly great the people were who built it. Instead of seeking Him out on "the holy mountain" where he is, they wanted to create an artificial "holy mountain" to find a God they themselves made. They did so to make a name, a "Shem" for themselves. They wanted to make their culture and empire a direct rival to the one God wanted, with Him at it's head. God wanted all the world to be a family with him at the head, but instead of calling His name, they began to praise each other by name.
I think the Tower of Babel story is a really good explanation for why humanity has so many languages, but I still don't quite fully understand God's wisdom in foiling the plan this way. He wants us to be a family, but our single language, our unity of purpose, was being turned to bad use. We figured that, in our united strength, we could equal God. Of course this isn't true, and our gift of being a global family was going to destroy us. Thus, like when other good gifts go bad (sex and relationships of intimacy, authority of all kinds), they are turned into a shadow of what once was. God didn't "destroy" a good gift he had given us with one language, global unity...he watched as it fell apart in our hands.
Symbolically enough, Shem's family too is divided between good and bad, and the Tower of Babel story stands between the sons of Joktan and Peleg (division). Like the previous list of the people from Adam to Noah, the line of goodness from Noah to Abraham is detailed. We see their ages get less and less, though Shem himself is still presumably around to see the day his family left civilization and pagan idolatry, and their names become more Sumerian. Then, one day, this one family, this one blessed family "wakes up" and plucks itself out of Ur, a Chaldean city where their artificial gods and goddesses were worshipped on ziggurats like Babel. They leave it behind, leave behind all the "comforts" and "excitement" of the city, all dreams of worldly success, to follow God and remain faithful to the covenant He made.
The list starts with the people "way out there" on the fringes of the world. They had some hope of being converted to calling on God's name, but they were all far away. The descendents of Japheth represent, according to notes in my Bible (the NAB), peoples that were on the fringes of the known world to the ancient Hebrews. Madai represents the Medes, predecessors of the Persians from Iran, and Javan represents the Greeks. His children include the Rhodanim, the people of the island of Rhodes (probably essentially all the Greek islanders), Elishah and the Kittim, representing the people of Cyprus, and Tarshish, a city of ancient Turkey and the home city of Paul, representing the Ionian Turkish Greek people. Gomer and Magog represent people way up north around the Black Sea, including the Scythians. Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras represent areas of northern and northeastern Turkey, Armenia, and the Caucasus. These were all people way out there, people who were generally Gentiles. The interesting thing is, these very people, like Paul, the son of Tarshish in Cilicia, were later to hear Jesus' message and be some of the most fervent converts. These people were why Japheth is considered to be eventually on Shem's side, "mixed among his tents".
Ham's descendents were more southwest, and represented many of the enemies and "outsiders" for the ancient Hebrews. Cush was in Nubia, in the Sudan type area along the southern Red Sea. Mizraim represents the Egyptians, and may be another name for Menes, the legendary first king of Egypt. And we all know where Canaan is...but his nation doesn't settle where the others do, in northern Africa and Arabia. They steal Palestine from Shem's people. Put is farther out in Africa, where Libya is today. Sheba, the ancestor of the nation that sent her Queen to see Solomon, is somewhere near Yemen in Arabia, and most of the other peoples listed as children of Cush live in Arabia, along the Red Sea. This family also creates the Philistines, another great enemy of the Israelites. So far, this family, rooted in evil, sends out a lot of very evil and oppressive branches, but they are also very impressive when looked at as part of world history.
I love the Bible's many layers...you can understand it in so many ways. In terms of actual literal world history, it does a great job of showing the scope of how people went from hunting and gathering to farmers and milk-and-wool animal tenders, then began animal husbandry in earnest. It indicates how a small band of humans spread out and formed tribes all over the known world. Above all this, we get to read all this in terms of how God saw it and the covenants he made with humanity. As He watches the descendents of Noah spread out in the world, He watches their hearts.
When Nimrod, the "mighty hunter", comes to be, God watches his power grow with building arrogance and self-reliance until he establishes the oldest actual empires/civilizations that we in modern days have come to know. We know it because the people of his empire invented writing. His empire starts in Shinar (Sumeria), then comes to include Accad (Akkadians) , Babylon, and then Assyria, with its great capital of Nineveh. This empire, no matter what it is called, is always both the cradle of Abram and the major threatening shadow over his people. Nimrod builds up his own glory and the cities of his people will represent for the rest of time man's desire to make himself awesome and glorious and thumb his nose at God.
People again wandered east, farther away from the entrance to Eden and God's presence and favor. They picked a place in Shinar, in the very earliest place of empire and civilization and decide to build a tower, a ziggurat probably with a temple to a deity on top, tall so everyone could see how incredibly great the people were who built it. Instead of seeking Him out on "the holy mountain" where he is, they wanted to create an artificial "holy mountain" to find a God they themselves made. They did so to make a name, a "Shem" for themselves. They wanted to make their culture and empire a direct rival to the one God wanted, with Him at it's head. God wanted all the world to be a family with him at the head, but instead of calling His name, they began to praise each other by name.
I think the Tower of Babel story is a really good explanation for why humanity has so many languages, but I still don't quite fully understand God's wisdom in foiling the plan this way. He wants us to be a family, but our single language, our unity of purpose, was being turned to bad use. We figured that, in our united strength, we could equal God. Of course this isn't true, and our gift of being a global family was going to destroy us. Thus, like when other good gifts go bad (sex and relationships of intimacy, authority of all kinds), they are turned into a shadow of what once was. God didn't "destroy" a good gift he had given us with one language, global unity...he watched as it fell apart in our hands.
Symbolically enough, Shem's family too is divided between good and bad, and the Tower of Babel story stands between the sons of Joktan and Peleg (division). Like the previous list of the people from Adam to Noah, the line of goodness from Noah to Abraham is detailed. We see their ages get less and less, though Shem himself is still presumably around to see the day his family left civilization and pagan idolatry, and their names become more Sumerian. Then, one day, this one family, this one blessed family "wakes up" and plucks itself out of Ur, a Chaldean city where their artificial gods and goddesses were worshipped on ziggurats like Babel. They leave it behind, leave behind all the "comforts" and "excitement" of the city, all dreams of worldly success, to follow God and remain faithful to the covenant He made.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Genesis 8 and 9: A New Fall
The story of Noah's life after the flood is just jam-packed with words and phrases that are eerily reminiscent of the creation story. A wind (of the Spirit) blows over the waters from the abyss and calls forth land. We "rewind" the flood with a backward sequence of days (150 -> 40 ->7 ->7) as things return to normal. Noah's choice of a raven is rather weird as a bird to send first, as it is a bird that eats meat, specifically carrion, and wouldn't give him any information, just wanders the earth looking for meat. Ravens have always struck me as kind of devilish birds, with their scavenger ways and creepy caws. I wonder if the writers of the Bible felt the same. But the dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, was a good sounding tool for him to understand God's timing and will as the waters receded.
Noah sacrifices some of his hard work in the form of animals he maintained, and the goodness of this act is described as smelling wonderful to God. The simple goodness of this act is met by promises to never punish the innocent world, animals and plants that do nothing but reflect God's glory, for the sins of mankind who is dominant over them. I'm not sure why seasons are seemingly brought about here, but it seems like God is offering a physical, natural reminder that no human being is totally without darkness or totally without light, completely hot or completely cold. The cycle of years and months will include all of these. God will send rain as a more obvious sign of His caring for and tending to nature, where previously He just did so. It seems to imply that before this, plants and animals were cared for without visible signs of their maintenance, like rain and such.
Nature is here given into man's dominion in a more obvious way than in the previous covenant. We're allowed to eat animals now, and they know now that we are dominant over them and may eat them, so they will acknowledge our authority and be afraid. But now we are called to be even more respectful and just in our authority. We're called to respect the blood, the essential life-force, the "divine spark" in every animate creature, especially ourselves. Even our unborn!!!! How clear does the handwriting on the wall need to be? This respect and justice in our dominion again comes from the fact that we are made in the image of God. We need to treat all creation the way He does.
Like the other covenants, there is a sign to remind us of this one. The "bow in the clouds" - the rainbow. The rainbow often comes at the end of the rain, when the sun shines again. Hope and promise are obvious here - the rain when it comes will end. Innocent creatures will not be destroyed on account of guilty ones ever again. Amazing, isn't it. When we hear of some natural disaster as being "God's retribution" on people, it makes you stop and consider...God promised never to destroy the innocent with the guilty. His world sometimes works that way, that natural disasters take lives of humans and animals, but it is never in retribution for the works of the guilty. God promised that, and He always keeps His end of the bargain.
Here too, the good man falls and has a son that lets him down, renewing in humanity that spark of sin. Noah brings a very good thing to earth, wine, but lets it destroy him. He gets drunk and something sexual happens to him as a result that keeps sin alive and well in the world via his son Ham. What exactly happened? It could be just what is described...that he, in a drunken state, is naked in his tent and his son Ham goes in for a quick peek at Dad's junk, to compare sizes or something, to obtain some kind of hold over Noah. I've also heard that "to uncover your father's nakedness" in other places in the Bible means "to steal Dad's wife " - to commit incest with Mom. It almost makes sense to me... perhaps an alcoholic Noah allowed Ham to control more and more of the family's power and authority until one day he made the ultimate power play to take control of the family, sleeping with his mother. Thus, his more dutiful and righteous oldest son Shem (the Name) and his relatively moral baby son Japheth were squeezed out of the importance Noah meant them to have.
When Noah gets sober (either from alcoholism or from one single episode of drunkenness), he realizes that what he did left the door wide open for his incestuous or otherwise power-grabbing son to do what he did. And thus he sets the descendents of this foul branch, Canaan, in direct opposition to the Shemites, the Israelites, and their relatively supportive brethren the Japhethites. The people who actually wrote this were in the midst of taking back the land of Canaan on God's command and believed that the descendents of Canaan were squatters on their land and usurpers of their rights. Like Shem taking his birthright back from Ham, who stopped at no disgusting act to usurp the power, his descendents had a moral obligation to put authority in good hands. What does this say to me as a 21st century Catholic? I too must vote to put in power those who will do what is right with it and fight to keep out of power those who will do what is evil. We have to cover our father's nakedness, while keeping our eyes covered. We have to ensure that those in power don't have to get in bed with evil to get there, while at the same time ensuring that we avoid doing the very same thing in our efforts.
Well, once again, we stand with the world divided. There are Shemites and Hamites, the good branch and the bad. Ha-Shem, "the name" is what Jewish people who want to avoid naming God call him. It is the line of "The Name" and the line of those outside of it. How long will it be until the darkness and light mix again? The first Fall was an act of breaking down marriage and as a result all inter-personal relationships suffered. The second fall broke down the family and thereby all methods of passing down knowledge and authority from one generation to the next were done for.
Noah sacrifices some of his hard work in the form of animals he maintained, and the goodness of this act is described as smelling wonderful to God. The simple goodness of this act is met by promises to never punish the innocent world, animals and plants that do nothing but reflect God's glory, for the sins of mankind who is dominant over them. I'm not sure why seasons are seemingly brought about here, but it seems like God is offering a physical, natural reminder that no human being is totally without darkness or totally without light, completely hot or completely cold. The cycle of years and months will include all of these. God will send rain as a more obvious sign of His caring for and tending to nature, where previously He just did so. It seems to imply that before this, plants and animals were cared for without visible signs of their maintenance, like rain and such.
Nature is here given into man's dominion in a more obvious way than in the previous covenant. We're allowed to eat animals now, and they know now that we are dominant over them and may eat them, so they will acknowledge our authority and be afraid. But now we are called to be even more respectful and just in our authority. We're called to respect the blood, the essential life-force, the "divine spark" in every animate creature, especially ourselves. Even our unborn!!!! How clear does the handwriting on the wall need to be? This respect and justice in our dominion again comes from the fact that we are made in the image of God. We need to treat all creation the way He does.
Like the other covenants, there is a sign to remind us of this one. The "bow in the clouds" - the rainbow. The rainbow often comes at the end of the rain, when the sun shines again. Hope and promise are obvious here - the rain when it comes will end. Innocent creatures will not be destroyed on account of guilty ones ever again. Amazing, isn't it. When we hear of some natural disaster as being "God's retribution" on people, it makes you stop and consider...God promised never to destroy the innocent with the guilty. His world sometimes works that way, that natural disasters take lives of humans and animals, but it is never in retribution for the works of the guilty. God promised that, and He always keeps His end of the bargain.
Here too, the good man falls and has a son that lets him down, renewing in humanity that spark of sin. Noah brings a very good thing to earth, wine, but lets it destroy him. He gets drunk and something sexual happens to him as a result that keeps sin alive and well in the world via his son Ham. What exactly happened? It could be just what is described...that he, in a drunken state, is naked in his tent and his son Ham goes in for a quick peek at Dad's junk, to compare sizes or something, to obtain some kind of hold over Noah. I've also heard that "to uncover your father's nakedness" in other places in the Bible means "to steal Dad's wife " - to commit incest with Mom. It almost makes sense to me... perhaps an alcoholic Noah allowed Ham to control more and more of the family's power and authority until one day he made the ultimate power play to take control of the family, sleeping with his mother. Thus, his more dutiful and righteous oldest son Shem (the Name) and his relatively moral baby son Japheth were squeezed out of the importance Noah meant them to have.
When Noah gets sober (either from alcoholism or from one single episode of drunkenness), he realizes that what he did left the door wide open for his incestuous or otherwise power-grabbing son to do what he did. And thus he sets the descendents of this foul branch, Canaan, in direct opposition to the Shemites, the Israelites, and their relatively supportive brethren the Japhethites. The people who actually wrote this were in the midst of taking back the land of Canaan on God's command and believed that the descendents of Canaan were squatters on their land and usurpers of their rights. Like Shem taking his birthright back from Ham, who stopped at no disgusting act to usurp the power, his descendents had a moral obligation to put authority in good hands. What does this say to me as a 21st century Catholic? I too must vote to put in power those who will do what is right with it and fight to keep out of power those who will do what is evil. We have to cover our father's nakedness, while keeping our eyes covered. We have to ensure that those in power don't have to get in bed with evil to get there, while at the same time ensuring that we avoid doing the very same thing in our efforts.
Well, once again, we stand with the world divided. There are Shemites and Hamites, the good branch and the bad. Ha-Shem, "the name" is what Jewish people who want to avoid naming God call him. It is the line of "The Name" and the line of those outside of it. How long will it be until the darkness and light mix again? The first Fall was an act of breaking down marriage and as a result all inter-personal relationships suffered. The second fall broke down the family and thereby all methods of passing down knowledge and authority from one generation to the next were done for.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Genesis 6 and 7: Re-Creation
The single most "child-friendly" story in the Bible, there is so much more for adults to understand about Noah than the mere "boat full of cute animals", and new layers keep popping to mind every time I read this. A wonderful story, it really is. It speaks of baptism, of extending the covenant to make of God's people a family, not just a marriage, of hope during disaster.
The way Noah is described makes him a beacon of singular hope. He is a good man, which coming from the inspired writer of this text means quite a lot. He is "blameless in this age", even stronger language to convey his utter morality among the immoral hordes. He, furthermore, "walked with God," now the third party in the Bible to do so. He is faithful to the previous covenant, which is kind of a flickering candle at this point. Noah is a rock star of faith, an island of pure awesome in a sea of greyish purple blended evil-and-good. He is an indication that, despite how things seem, all it takes is one truly on-fire person in a bunch of lukewarm and ice-cold people, that God will never leave us forsaken, without a single shred of hope. God's anger at our unfaithfulness is exaggeratedly described, making it seem like He wants to write off, not just humanity but all of creation...a way to indicate just how ugly and awful every sin is to Him. It was time for judgement to be unleashed.
I notice that the places and buildings where God and man come together in these covenant meetings are all described in painful detail. It seems that pointing out every dimension, every aspect of how a place or thing is built (or in the case of Eden, what He built there) is a way of poking us in the chest and saying "Slow down! This place matters! You need to know what it looked and felt like because I met you here!" I'm beaten over the head by a 2x4 with comparisons to the regulations the Catholic Church has for church architecture and the liturgy that goes on there. "Say the Black and do the Red!" is the rallying cry of liturgical traditionalists, and there is often vocal disappointment expressed when churches are "built wrong", with altar, ambo, and tabernacle in the wrong places. Why? Because it matters! God cares deeply about the spaces and ways in which we meet Him. There is great symbolism and power in them, as well as practicality. Thus, I, as a reader in the 21st century who will never build the Ark myself, still need to know how big it was and where the windows were.
Calling it the Ark totally makes sense to me too. An ark in the Bible always bears humanity's salvation, always bears the sign we have of our covenant with God. In the first covenant, the ark was a day...the Sabbath...and a place, the Garden. The second Ark was a boat carrying the seeds of a new creation. Later, there will be the Ark of the Covenant itself, a box. I'm not sure what the "ark" will become when David covenants with God, but I know in the end...the last and most amazing covenant of all will be borne by an Ark of flesh...my Blessed Mother.
These covenants are always hinged, too, on exceptionally obedient people. People who agree to what plans God has in mind. Adam, at least to start, said "sure, I'll stay away from that tree". Now Noah "does what God commands him". There's a lot of sevens in it, the covenant number, the perfect number. There are eight people in the ark, the "next step after covenant", the renewal of covenant after the judgement and breakdown of the old. And these eight people are a family, sons, daughters, parents. God covenants here with an entire family, making humanity His family, not just His spouse.
I also think of what hardship it must have been for them all while in the process of making this covenant happen. The first covenant was born with very little suffering on the part of humanity. It just kind of happened. Suffering and hardship only entered the picture after the first Fall. But this new covenant came about through sitting around on a smelly, noisy boat full of animals for weeks, losing everyone and everything they ever knew or cared about. The sons' wives lost their families, for example. But they gladly went through it because they were obedient. The third covenant, with Abraham, is sure to involve suffering and pain as well. I know enough to believe I know how that is going to happen, but I'll wait to see if I'm right.
The Flood is often considered sort of a baptism for the earth, all creation dying in water and rising out of it again to a new era, a new life. The death of the old and the recreation in a newer, more beautiful way. But where my reading ends today, that process is still happening.
The way Noah is described makes him a beacon of singular hope. He is a good man, which coming from the inspired writer of this text means quite a lot. He is "blameless in this age", even stronger language to convey his utter morality among the immoral hordes. He, furthermore, "walked with God," now the third party in the Bible to do so. He is faithful to the previous covenant, which is kind of a flickering candle at this point. Noah is a rock star of faith, an island of pure awesome in a sea of greyish purple blended evil-and-good. He is an indication that, despite how things seem, all it takes is one truly on-fire person in a bunch of lukewarm and ice-cold people, that God will never leave us forsaken, without a single shred of hope. God's anger at our unfaithfulness is exaggeratedly described, making it seem like He wants to write off, not just humanity but all of creation...a way to indicate just how ugly and awful every sin is to Him. It was time for judgement to be unleashed.
I notice that the places and buildings where God and man come together in these covenant meetings are all described in painful detail. It seems that pointing out every dimension, every aspect of how a place or thing is built (or in the case of Eden, what He built there) is a way of poking us in the chest and saying "Slow down! This place matters! You need to know what it looked and felt like because I met you here!" I'm beaten over the head by a 2x4 with comparisons to the regulations the Catholic Church has for church architecture and the liturgy that goes on there. "Say the Black and do the Red!" is the rallying cry of liturgical traditionalists, and there is often vocal disappointment expressed when churches are "built wrong", with altar, ambo, and tabernacle in the wrong places. Why? Because it matters! God cares deeply about the spaces and ways in which we meet Him. There is great symbolism and power in them, as well as practicality. Thus, I, as a reader in the 21st century who will never build the Ark myself, still need to know how big it was and where the windows were.
Calling it the Ark totally makes sense to me too. An ark in the Bible always bears humanity's salvation, always bears the sign we have of our covenant with God. In the first covenant, the ark was a day...the Sabbath...and a place, the Garden. The second Ark was a boat carrying the seeds of a new creation. Later, there will be the Ark of the Covenant itself, a box. I'm not sure what the "ark" will become when David covenants with God, but I know in the end...the last and most amazing covenant of all will be borne by an Ark of flesh...my Blessed Mother.
These covenants are always hinged, too, on exceptionally obedient people. People who agree to what plans God has in mind. Adam, at least to start, said "sure, I'll stay away from that tree". Now Noah "does what God commands him". There's a lot of sevens in it, the covenant number, the perfect number. There are eight people in the ark, the "next step after covenant", the renewal of covenant after the judgement and breakdown of the old. And these eight people are a family, sons, daughters, parents. God covenants here with an entire family, making humanity His family, not just His spouse.
I also think of what hardship it must have been for them all while in the process of making this covenant happen. The first covenant was born with very little suffering on the part of humanity. It just kind of happened. Suffering and hardship only entered the picture after the first Fall. But this new covenant came about through sitting around on a smelly, noisy boat full of animals for weeks, losing everyone and everything they ever knew or cared about. The sons' wives lost their families, for example. But they gladly went through it because they were obedient. The third covenant, with Abraham, is sure to involve suffering and pain as well. I know enough to believe I know how that is going to happen, but I'll wait to see if I'm right.
The Flood is often considered sort of a baptism for the earth, all creation dying in water and rising out of it again to a new era, a new life. The death of the old and the recreation in a newer, more beautiful way. But where my reading ends today, that process is still happening.
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