Jonah 1:12 He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea! Then the sea will become calm around you. I know it’s my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” (CEB) I was taught Jonah was possibly the only successful prophet. He told the people to turn from their ways, and they turned from their ways. True, they were the enemy of the Israelites. True, Jonah was more invested in the people being destroyed in a righteous fire. Eventually, he did what he was told, and the outcome was good. (Side note: I personally believe the sign of a successful prophet is telling God's wishes. Period. It is then up to the people to decide if they want to listen to the prophet.) Congregants and ministers alike struggle with what to take away from Jonah. He fought God. He didn't really give his best once he consented. What is there to learn from this guy? Giving up. He was stellar at it. I'm not talking about giving up where God wants you to hang on. You know, when God calls you to a Nineveh, and you book it to Tarshish instead. I'm talking about giving up when it's best for everyone else. Giving up when it might hurt you. That's what Jonah was good at. Sometimes, we don't know when to let go. We are not comfortable with uncertainty, and when God is calling us to it, we tend to hang on a little tighter. The ship might go down, but darn it, we hung on for as long as we could. Having the foresight, trust, and humility to know when to let go and jump into the unknown is a spiritual practice. We should embrace it when it comes upon us. I would love to hear from you. There are several ways to communicate and connect:
Join Fig Tree's Subreddit Follow our Pinterest page Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Dorothy sat with the Wizard in a huge cavern. They were reacquainted with one another the same way their paths were parted. The Wizard floated away and back again, in a hot air balloon. Now they were trapped underground. They could see the sun in the distance, but they had no way to reach it. Once again, the Wizard had survived by tricking the different people into believing he could do real magic. No one in this party believed he was a real Wizard. The curtain had been pulled back, and the trick had been learned. Dorothy knew what he really was. The Wizard was a humbug. The Wizard spoke those words in an injured tone. Dorothy spoke those words in love. Despite what he really was, Dorothy still loved him. - Summary from Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz- pages 177-8 So many phrases stick out in my mind from my young adult life, but one has really come to mind today, "Once we learn the truth, it cannot be undone. We simply must move on to understand what that truth means." We are allowed to accept that truth can hurt us, like the Wizard. Yet like Dorothy, we are called to find the real magic and wonder once that truth is learned. Dr. Rev. Fred Craddock was a Wizard of sorts. He was able to speak bold truths about the bible without pulling the curtain back. It made his sermons both relatable and educational. It's serious business preaching, because once you learn the truth, it cannot be undone. It's not like everyone is in the same place in their faith journey.We are not all walking into the great hall to get our heart, brain and courage at the same time. It's also not like there is some mystic age where these truths can be learned. We all have our own pace to accept these truths. A sixteen year old might be where a forty year old is when it comes to faith development. Eventually, there comes the time where the curtain has to be pulled back for the story to continue. For our faith to grow. This is why I'm not going to give you a sermon on the Creation narrative. I'm going to show you my work. I'm going to pull back the curtain, and explain what I'm doing. Let's begin. The bible begins with two Creation Narratives. The first is Genesis 1-2:1-3. The second is Genesis 2:4-25. (These audio captures are from Reddit Reads the Bible. It's a project of /r/Christianity.) We believe these are two different accounts of creation because certain things are happening again. Let's use those tools I mentioned last week to figure this out:
When I'm doing sermon prep, I'm not just doing the above work. I'm also trying to figure out what you can do with it. Like a surgeon doesn't cut upon a patient and just point out what he or she sees. They see a problem, and they find a solution to that problem. We must, as a people of God, find a way to close this up so we don't bleed out. I am not an Atheist. I am not an Agnostic. I believe there is something beyond this realm of existence. It is something that cannot be easily quantified. I believe there is a God in that existence, and that God is a God of love. I believe Christ is the Son of that God, and the Spirit of Christ dwells in all of us. We get to the Emerald City of our faith, and we give up when the curtain is pulled back. In actuality, the curtain is just the beginning. We can choose to get stuck with our green colored glasses, and not accept there's more. Many have made that choice, and many a faith have grown stagnant because of it. I'm moving forward. I'm taking a new path, knowing where I'm headed. I'm headed towards the Truth: the Word made flesh. Yes, when I first began my Christian journey I thought it would look different. That's the trick about Truth. We don't know until we get there. Do what Dorothy did. Love what was, and let it go. Our old faith will not help us as we begin this journey. Also, it will eventually come back to us, when we can reacquire it in a new way. Understand it in a new light, and to walk in that light.
What color were Dorothy Gale's magical shoes? The answer all depends on the source. If you are trying to get to the original text the answer is silver. If you are going for more of a collective knowledge the answer is ruby. That was a softball question. Here is a hard hitter: Are there horses in the land of Oz? The novice would say yes. There was the "horse of a different color" in the MGM movie. The intermediate would say no. In Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, a horse finds its way to Oz with Dorothy. Everyone is shocked because they have never seen a horse before. An expert would say maybe. While both of the above are technically true, there are other things going on. Like there is a saw horse Tip/Ozma create in The Marvelous Land of Oz. Why is "horse" a known word at all in the land of Oz? Also, before the real horse ever shows up, Ozma describes the creature as walking as well as any real horse. Once again, if horses do not exist in Oz, how does Ozma correctly reference one? When people learn CPR they start on dummies. When theologians talk about biblical interpretation they, for some reason, go right into the biblical text. Why? I think it's because most theologians forget the pastoral side of their educational call. Not only do you need to give these future minister the tools for Biblical interpretation, but you need to give them certification for teaching it in a pastoral setting. I believe, this should require finding a secondary text to use the tools on first. A text that is safe, and can be pulled apart without fear of faith getting crushed in the process. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (Or be awesome about explaining these touchy subjects in a caring way, like Dr. David L. Petersen, a Presbyterian minister. We all can't be Petersen.) With Wizard of Oz we have the collective story being drastically different from the original. Even when people write about it today, most can't help but slip in the MGM variant. Sticking with the original canon is also problematic as there were 14 books written by Baum and multiple written by other authors. It is the perfect set of stories to practice critical thinking. One of the tools theologians use to understand the Hebrew bible is called Documentary Hypothesis. Basically, there is reason to believe the Torah was multiple individual sources, brought together to create one central story. There are a few reasons to believe this.
Think of it this way: Imagine all the Oz canon was to disappear, along with the MGM movie. You are left with "Return to Oz," "The Wiz," "Oz: The Great and Powerful," and "Syfy's: Tin Man." Then it was your job to try to figure out what sources were used. Where did the different aspects of the story come from? This is difficult enough having the sources at our disposal. Imagine the immense difficultly when they no longer exist. This is what we are dealing with when it comes to understanding the voices in Biblical text. The original story was oral tradition. When the story was finally written down the oral tradition was lost. Think of what written text cannot do: We come across it all the time on Reddit. Inflection, at the very least, has been lost. The feelings of the characters were left with the verbal tradition. That is our original source, and that source is gone. (Well, the original source was the actual event, so really we are two steps removed already from the story.) Next week I'm going to wrap this series up by returning again to Genesis 1-2. I'm going to show you behind the curtain, so to speak. I'll give you the different tools I use in writing these meditations and sermons. Most importantly, I'm going to give some suggestions when talking about these texts with others.
What should we know biblically about first fruits? This offering is supposed to be “without blemish.” It’s not good enough that it’s the first of a crop. It has to be the crème de la crème of the first. If you are bringing your new grain, it better be the best grain. If you are bringing an animal, it better be a first born one year old male in good health. This is believed to be the reason Cain’s offering was not accepted but Abel’s offering was. Abel gave the best of this first born flock, while Cain just gave an offering. The result was, God rejected Cain’s offering, while accepting Abel’s. When it’s God taking our first fruit, instead of us giving it, it could be a curse. Think of the last Egyptian plague, where God took the first born sons of the Egyptians. Meanwhile, when we are offering our first fruits, biblically we are supposed to to understand it will be followed by God’s blessing. Our giving is a sign of trust in God’s grace. It is mentioned in scripture in multiple areas, if we give our best, God will bless what we have left. Because of this, these scriptures have also been misused and abused over the years, especially by those I unabashedly call the “Snake Oil Salesmen” of the faith. Let me just say, a few things in life make me livid. People using faith to con others out of their hard earned money is one of those things that just make me angry. I guess when talking about first fruits it is easiest to start with what it isn’t. It isn’t a magic candy machine. Let me explain. When one gives because they want God to bless them in return it gives the illusion that God is just one cosmic candy machine. Put in your quarter, get blessings in return. When I was a teenager and young adult I saw giving this way. I may have found blessing through giving, but it wasn’t like I gave $10 and I miraculously came upon $100 the next week. There was a Spiritual blessing, for sure, but I would be bummed when my giving wouldn’t pay out. (You know, the further I get from my childhood, the more it embarrasses me.) Anyway, there came a point where I had to learn what giving (and giving from our best and first) was all about. First, we give because it all belongs to God anyway. This is possibly the most preached subject by every Disciple minister I have ever heard ever. I would fathom to guess you too have heard it. “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give unto God what is God’s. The catch is, even when you are paying your taxes, it is still all Gods. Therefore, when it comes time to give to God, we should always keep that fact in mind. Great message. Second, the gift to God was a thank you for saving the Israelite people from slavery in Egypt. Every year they spent in the Promised Land was another year they were a free people. Salvation, in a very real way was a physical reality for them. They were literally saved. As Christians, we receive our salvation through the redeeming acts of Jesus Christ. Our gifts are a thank you for that salvation. Once again, a stewardship sermon I’ve heard over and over. Another great message. Third, we give because our first fruits always goes to what we are most dedicated to anyway. A couple of years before I entered High School, South Cobb received the title, “Georgia School of Excellence.” They invited Monica Kaufman-Pierce to come speak the students. Nothing remains of that speech today except one line painted over the senior hall: “What you do, with what you have, is who you are.” As someone who came from a less than perfect childhood, that sentence was a motivator. It pushed me in great ways. I say it all the time, so much, I’m guessing my husband is tired of me saying it. What you do, with what you have, is who you are. When it comes to first fruits, what we do first with our time and money speaks of who we are. It speaks to what our greatest want really is. Play this game with me. Imagine you walk out of church, and somehow you came upon $1,000. (Legally, of course. No one pretend to rob the local Panera. We’re in church.) It’s just an unexpected windfall. What is the first thing you want to do with that money? What was the first thought that came in your head? I submit that immediate desire is what you naturally give your first fruits to. Was it God? There is a reason why giving a speech about paying the bills never works. We are not dedicated to the electricity or water bill. We are not here because of the air conditioning. We are here because of the mission and the community. Electricity, maintenance, water gas… these are things that support and help the mission and community. I took a course with the former General Minister and President Dr. Rev. Dick Hamm. In one of the lessons he talked about Bullard’s life cycles of the church. In a new church plant it all begins with the vision. With the vision, relationships are formed. With those relationships, programs develop. Finally, some form of management is put in place to act as an accountability system. When a church begins to fail the first thing they lose is the vision. The object the church hangs on to at the last moments is the management. Then, that is what they try to sell at stewardship campaigns. “Hey, were not meeting the needs to pay the bills. Everyone needs to give a little more so we can keep the doors open.” No! It doesn’t work that way. Finally, these churches try to throw new programs at the problem thinking that will solve the issue, but without a real vision (a desire to do God’s work in the world) the programs fail and so does the church. That being said, what excites you about church? What is going on that you just have to support it? Is it a clothes closet? Is it adult and youth ministries? Is it Godly Play? It is the church's involvement in the local community? What fires you up here and gets you giving your first fruits? Is it Christian education? Is it the fellowship? What you do, with what you have, is who you are. Who are you? What are you doing with what you have? Find the fire here, the passion for God work. When that offering burns with living fire that will be the offering God will accept. That, my friends, is what stewardship means, and how it works. Find your desire here, and give your first fruits in response. In that, God will bless the church and all who worship.
Purpose: To connect the chasm between the faith based world of the church, and the knowledge based world of Seminary. Many of those who visit Fig Tree are not going to be upset today. Most of what I am going to say might be enlightening, but won't be scandalous. Some will be upset. Please realize, it is difficult to discuss the bible, and we should be gentle with those who will be taking those giant leaps. For those of you taking those big leaps, I'm with you. Everything I am going to share I believe, and I am still a Christian. Also, I am writing to all of you, not just the "you" that will embrace what I am saying. Now that's out there and we can move on. I want to talk about Genesis 1-2 for the next few weeks. Today I want to talk about perspective. In the beginning scrolls, ink, anything used to write didn't exist. As we evolved as a people, we evolved how we told stories. Now, I don't know how many Christians contemplate when the Creation story was written down. If we are talking about a literal story, it wasn't written down the moment it happened. No one back then had the ability to write. There is Jewish tradition that says God told the story to Moses and he wrote it down. While I don't personally believe this (because of issues we will get into next week) let's run with this idea. If God told Moses the Creation story that must mean the story as we read it is the perfect representation of what really happened. Research over, no reason to go any further... or is there? Now, I just want y'all to think rationally about communication between a less advanced person, and a higher being. Actually let me simplify it further: How does a parent communicate with a child? It's not that a parent is lying to their kid. It's that a parent has to tell the story in a way the kid would understand. Now you honestly tell me: If Moses asked, "God, how did you create all this that I see?", wouldn't God dumb it down for us to understand? I'd bet the answer would still be dumbed down, even if it was an astrophysicist asking the question. Could you imagine God talking to someone who didn't even understand the Earth was round. How do you explain the beginning of everything to a person who doesn't even know there are other lands beyond their seas? This is how we can embrace the God inspired myth. Okay, deep breath. I know I just used the word myth, but there are times when our own family history becomes a sort of mythology. That's how I want you to look at the Creation Narrative. God gave us stories to help us understand the beginning. As a more scientific people, it has become more difficult to digest, but the core of those stories still remain true. God created the heavens and earth. It was good. Now rest. It gets even deeper next week.
Purpose: To connect the chasm between the faith based world of the church, and the knowledge based world of Seminary. You know what I realized? I hate using hoity toity words to explain what I am doing. I hate it because if you don't understand the words, or the words give you headaches, they are rather pointless. I could use them today, but it won't change what we are doing. Instead, I am going to be as simple as possible. The goal is to make you want to figure it out yourself, and not always rely on a minister, or a history channel show to do the work for you. I'm going to lean heavily on how the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) saw things as examples because, well, this is a Disciple congregation. Our theology is influenced by those who have come before us. Depending on the Christian faith tradition, one might see this differently. For the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic, this would be talking about the Councils. The Councils were times in history where the Church leaders gathered and codified different aspects of what it means to be a Christian. Each Council added from the ones that came before it. A Heresy is something that is counter to the doctrine of the Cathlodox Church, or what is found in those Creeds created in the Councils. For the Protestant Church, many have a book that outlines the beliefs of their faith tradition. For example, the United Methodist Church has the Book of Discipline. For the faith traditions that come from this line of thought, it very important seminarians can understand and agree to their different points of faith that rose up from the different Creeds and meetings. Our theology is corrupted the further we get from the actual event. An old phrase in the Christian Church was "No creed but Christ. No book but the bible." It was no wonder! Alexander Campbell's father (Thomas Campbell) was the minister of a Old-Light Anti-Burgher Seceder Presbyterian Church. It was a mess. It existed over many splits as the churches tried to figure out faith. The Campbells saw it as the church becoming less like the church as the generations progressed. Therefore, it was decided they would try to restore the early church. No creeds. No commentaries. No books of worship or discipline. Just try to be the early church today. Interesting enough, the Restoration movement led to splits too. The problem with understanding the actual events is the bible was never enough. Even Alexander Campbell wrote his own commentaries and even wrote his own Theological work: The Christian System. (Great read btw). As I discussed last week, it is really easy to find yourself thinking theologically while reading the bible. That being said, it's a great to try to emulate the early church in some ways. Theology is the tension between faith now, and understanding what happened back then. This is really where I believe the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) lives today. It is where I am theologically. No one person is capable of understanding the bible. We want to understand the event, as it happened. Therefore we look at archeology, commentaries, anything that can help us understand the story better. Then we can figure out, how does this information affect my life now. Which road one takes leads down very different and paths: Focusing on theology being the voices of those who have come before, would make faith full of creeds from the councils. Traditions become important to the space of worship. Focusing on getting back to the early church would also have a huge affect on theology. If no creeds or secondary books are allowed, even hiring a seminary educated minister could been seen as dangerous. Focusing on both is preferable in my eyes, but I will say there are dangers. Simply put, I have to constantly hold myself accountable to whether I'm putting myself before the text. It's knowing the dangers before one starts that is important. Next week, we are going to discuss some of the tools I use when dealing with that tension, and how easy it is to create extra-biblical narrative. Then we will discuss why this could be both good and bad.
We had been working on something else. The boys had just finished giving presentations on famous Americans, when I pulled out three different kinds of knives. Gently, I showed what each knife did, what it was named, and let them get a closer look. This was the first step in learning how to safely use a knife. When it comes to Theology Safety, identification is also our first step. Just like everyone cuts (whether it is with the edge of a fork, a pair of scissors, or a knife) anytime we try to understand our relationship to God, we are practicing theology. Theology is the study of the nature of God and religious belief. Perhaps when we think of theology we think of dusty tomes with learned people sifting through thousand year old words. Yes, this can be theology. The truth is, anytime we attempt to understand God, we are practicing theology. Perhaps we are using someone else's template to define theology for us. Perhaps we want to believe we don't practice theology at all. Perhaps we use multiple sources to come to our own theology. No matter what we believe, we are practicing theology. Today I'm going to use a simple scripture to make a point: I'm going to get into some really important tools as the weeks progress. Today I just want to make a point. Read through the scripture without inflection. Seriously. Stop reading this and read the scripture. Okay, what can we glean from the text? We know Mary, Martha, Jesus and others are there. Maybe the disciples were there, maybe they were not. Notice it doesn't say Martha welcomed the disciples as a guest when she welcomed Jesus. If you mentally put the disciples in the house, congratulations, you made a theological choice. If you mentally did not put the disciples in the house, congratulations, you too made a theological choice. We know that Martha was working on the meal while Mary sat at Jesus' feet. Did you visualize the body language of Mary, Martha, Jesus, or those others listening? Did you see them disgusted, intrigued, or something else? If you did, you were practicing theology. Now read through the scripture again, and this time add inflection to the dialogue. How is Martha talking to Jesus? How is Jesus talking to Mary? Really? You are just going to keep reading, and not do what I asked? Go back up there and read the scripture with inflection. Come back here when you are done. The scripture says nothing about the emotions in the room. Emotions are really important to this story. How is Martha talking to Jesus? She told Jesus to order Mary into the kitchen. How did she do that? Was there humility in her voice? Was she comfortable enough to just to make bold statements like that? This tells us something about the personal relationships of Jesus, and yes it's theology. Why did Jesus say Martha's name twice? Was she trying to talk over him? Was she heated or hurt and he was trying to calm her down? Was he angry and he was chastising her? How we mentally think about Jesus' words tells us something about his humanity. It is theology. Here are the things we are going to look at over the coming weeks:
This is the conclusion of movie/book month. I wanted to conclude with The Giver, because it allows me to bring a theological idea forward. It can transition us from a short meditation about a movie, to the hard work we are going to begin in September. The Giver is a book/movie about an apparent Utopia. There is no illness. The weather is always temperate. Everyone is content. It's only as you dig into the story you learn these perfections can only be reached by sacrificing in terrible ways. There is no illness because the very young and old are sent "Elsewhere", which is a veiled word for death. Not only is the weather temperate, everyone is temperate. Everyone takes medication to make personal weakness go away. Sameness is not possible with color, music or love, so those things don't exist in this Utopia. The story follows Jonas, a person who was chosen to be a receiver of all the memory the community no longer remembered. He learned through past events that the bad things still exist, they were just hidden within the system. I want to introduce a sentence we will dig deep into in a few weeks, but let's beginning looking at it now: How a person defines a word is more important than the word itself. If you want to know the reason I don't use high church words, it's mostly because of my denominational context. We understand that people define those words differently depending on personal context. This goes for really high church words, and simplistic church words. Actually most words have different definitions depending on who is using them. Sin, for example, can have multiple definitions. I'm not going to go into anyone else's definition, but let me give you my definition: Sin: Any action that draws us away from God. To connect to this movie, I want to talk about a specific kind of sin: communal sin. Communal Sin: When an action that draws us away from God becomes a social norm. With individual sin, a person is damaged in drawing away from God. With communal sin, everyone is damaged and the individuals who try to steer the community back to wellness is punished by the community. Let's take Martin Luther King Jr. as an example. The world was/is living into the communal sin of racism. King exhibited the highest form of moral justice by purposefully breaking the law, and accepting the punishment for doing it. Why did he break the law? Because the laws were created out of communal sin. When King broke the laws, even though those laws were wrong, he was punished for it. MLKjr wanted wellness for a broken community and was punished for seeking it: communal sin. In The Giver, Jonas wants wellness for the community. He too is going to be punished. (I won't say anymore. I suggest you check out the book, or watch the movie.) Needless to say, The Giver is a hyper-realistic view of our reality. Movies tend to go to the absurd to make a point. The question becomes: Are we too living into a communal sin we might not even realize because the sin has been accepted by the community? Something to think about. When we are living in communal sin, it's not as obvious as government mandated pills, but like those pills it numbs and blinds the problem through becoming a social norm. I'll leave you with this: What are we blind to? Are there people who are trying to draw us closer to God? Something to think about. We would love to hear from you. There are several ways to communicate and connect:
Join Fig Tree's Subreddit Follow our Pinterest page Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Wow, what a ride. I said I could use three months to tackle biblical animals and I stand by that. Today I'm going to give a physical, biblical, and pastoral look at this bird. The truth about dovesI need to go scientific for a moment. All animals have a biological classification. Usually the animal is only identified by its genus and species. That's only the last two steps in the classification. These scientific names help us see the connections between different animals. For example, spiders are part of the order Araneae, which is part of the class Arachnida. A scorpion is part of the class Arachnida, but not part of the order of Araneae. All Arachnida are known for their two segmented body parts and their eight legs. Scorpions are in the order Scorpiones. Their order include to pinchers as their front two legs, and a venomous stinger. Spiders are part of the Phylum Arthropoda. This includes bugs, like ants. However, ants are not part of the order Araneae because they are insects. Insects have three segmented body parts and six legs. I like to use spiders and ants to describe biological classification, because it's easy to see how they are related and different. Spiders are not insects. What does this have to do with doves and pigeons? With doves and pigeons we have something exactly opposite happening from the spiders and ants. We can see how spiders and ants come from the same phylum, but branch out in their own class and order. All birds are from the class Aves. Not only do doves and pigeons share the same order, Columbiformes, but the same family, Columbidae. This means all doves are a form of pigeon. They are so closely related they are part of a Clade. A Clade is a group of organisms that evolved from a common ancestor. Like humans are not clade with gorillas because there isn't a known, or close enough, common ancestor between us. Scientifically the term "dove" or "pigeon" can be used interchangeably. "Pigeon" derives from french, meaning peeping chick. "Dove" derives from the German, and refers to the term "diving bird." A general separator, but not exclusive, are doves are smaller, and pigeons are larger. Biblically and Theologically speaking...In Biblical Hebrew and Greek, there isn't a separation between the word dove and pigeon. Did Noah release a bird we would scientifically call pigeon or dove? No idea. Did the Spirit descend like a pigeon or a dove at Jesus' baptism? Hmm. When we make the translative choice whether to call the bird pigeon or dove, we have chosen dove. Why? Well, there is stigma surrounding pigeons. Pigeons are pests. Companies put spikes on top of some areas to keep these "pests" from creating nests on their buildings and signage. We are warned not to feed them in parks. Doves, however, are magical. We release them during special events. We draw them into our invitations. They appear out of nowhere during a David Copperfield act! Knowing the strong biological connection with pigeons and doves, and knowing there are gray areas on which this bird is described in biblical text, I think there is something pastoral we can take from this. Pigeons are the birds we want to push aside and forget, much like certain classes of people. I'm thinking mostly of the homeless. Did you know some cities have changed their benches to include extra arm rests in the middle? This isn't to make the bench more comfortable. This is to keep the homeless from sleeping on it. Did these politicians consider a solution for the person who would no longer have a bench to sleep on? No. Even the pigeons have a place to make their nests outside of the company signage. The homeless have nothing. There are cities where it is illegal to feed the homeless in the park. Once again, pigeons can find their food elsewhere, but was there consideration for where the homeless would get their next meal? No. I can eat in a park. Genetically speaking a homeless woman and I are nearly identical. What separates us aside from a home? Stigma and acceptance. Perhaps we should allow ourselves the opportunity to say pigeon instead of dove when these texts come up. We need to remember God loves those who have stigma attached to them. They are part of the kingdom too. They are part of the same family. They are our Clade.
23 He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!” 24 When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. 2 Kings 2:23-24 The first time I heard this scripture was the summer before entering Seminary. I was a counselor for Chi-Rho, (This is the name my denomination gives for middle school kids. This was the Summer Camp in my region.) One of the fellow counselors, and keynoter for the week, had just finished seminary, at the very seminary I was about to enter. He shared his newly acquired knowledge throughout the week, culminating at the Talent Show, where he had his cabin group reenact our scripture for today. No commentary. Nothing added. He read the scripture. The kids pantomimed the words. That was it. All of us were left dumbfounded. A few laughed awkwardly. He wanted to leave us with a simple message: There are bible verses we have no idea what to do with. It’s better just to leave them alone. Apparently this had been what my ministers had done, because, up until that point, I had never heard that scripture before. Yeah, I knew who Elisha was. He was the prophet handpicked by Elijah. This would be the same Elijah who went up in a flaming chariot to heaven. The Elijah who dropped his mantle down to Elisha. This was the same Elisha who confronted the priests of Baal on top of the mountain. The same Elisha who had every last priest killed when Yahweh won the bet. Of all the prophets in the Hebrew Bible, Elisha is the most hotheaded. With that context, it’s probably not that surprising this would be the prophet involved in a story where two bears maul a bunch of children. As for the bears side of things, until that fateful talent show night, I had no idea bears had ever been mentioned in the bible. Lions, sure. Donkeys, of course. Bears? Not really on the radar. Come to find out bears are mentioned, in some form, 12 times. Two of which are in Proverbs! Really, I wanted the Elisha story to be the only story that had bears. If it did, maybe it was something added years later by some sleep deprived monks. I wanted to read the story how European bears ended up in a Middle Eastern text. No such luck. There are middle-eastern bears. The thing is, I want to do something with the text. I don’t want to put it aside because it makes me feel uncomfortable. It is there for a reason, and I want to understand what that reason is. But that's not really our culture right now, is it? Our culture tells us to cut off, turn off, and ignore. Don’t understand; just ostracize. If someone is saying something we don’t agree with, it’s like they are spewing poison. Only, if what a group is saying is poison, ignoring them means they are dying from that poison. Or, God forbid, we are the one who are really wrong. Not being open enough to listen to opinions counter to our own could mean we are the ones really dying from that poison. It’s a bear. Literally it’s a couple of bears, but figuratively it’s a bear to deal with these texts. It’s easy to do nothing. If we do nothing, the texts sit in the back of our mind, a reminder of what’s in the bible, of what we can’t deal with. What do we do? Let me break this apart for you. Here is my theology: I believe there is something beyond this realm of existence. You might wonder why I start here. We are at the point in our culture this needs to be our starting point. We believe something exists or it doesn’t. Our reality is the end all, be all, or it isn’t. I believe God is part of that existence. There is some sort of Creator for this existence we call life. Maybe the design took trillions of years, but I believe it’s a design. I believe God acted in the world, and communicated how we should treat ourselves, one another, and God. I believe those actions and precepts so positively affected a people, they wrote the events and precepts down. When I read the bible, I’m trying to understand the original God event. What really happened 2,000-6,000 years ago? This is why I use secondary sources. This is why I want to know how others interpreted the event. This is why I want to know the archeological and cultural understanding of the words. No, I don’t see the bible as literally the Word of God, because seeing the bible literally turns the bible into a thick concrete wall. To quote God talking about the ocean in the book of Job: ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther.’ To use my own words, “Nothing to see here. You’ve got the story right here. No need looking any deeper.” /s The bible is a resource, not a foundation. Christ is the foundation. I once described building a faith on top of the bible is like building a house on top of a house. It might be possible, but it’s precarious at best. Use the bible to build on the foundation of Christ. Now, if you think I’ve chosen to talk about the bible instead of a bunch of boys getting mauled by a couple of bears, you’d be wrong. Now is where I bring it back around. Do I believe the event in 2 Kings could have happened? Sure. Is it possible a few boys criticized a prophet? (It was criticism by the way. People from that area rarely went bald. It was not a genetic trait for the early Hebrew people. Therefore, it was disrespectful to call someone bald whether they were or not.) So, was it possible a few boys criticized Elisha? Yeah, of course. Is it also possible a couple of momma bears attacked a bunch of boys? Well, not even going outside the bible there are scriptures about the danger of being around momma bears. Momma bears are fierce. They will viciously attack anyone or anything that could possibly get near their cubs. Yeah, I think it is very possible. Literally, do I believe God sent momma bears to attack the boys because they called the prophet bald? No. I don’t. If I was sitting in the pews right now, this is what I’d be thinking. “Pastor! You just had us sit through ten minutes of dialogue just to tell us you don’t believe it?! What was the point?” The point. Now let me get to that. Yeah, I believe both Elisha being called bald, and the boys being mauled could have happened. Yes, I believe it wasn’t God directly sending bears to maul disobedient boys. The obvious question becomes, what do we do with this scripture? Yeah, you could take what I’ve already said, and learn a little about the context. Sure. If you want to take it deeper, learn something about how the Israelites saw God. The two events appeared connected for them because they saw God like a protective parent. God called Elisha as a prophet. Sure, he was the most hotheaded prophet of the bunch, but he was still called. It wasn’t the strong and dangerous lions that came to attack the boys. Instead, it was the protective momma bears. Elisha belonged to God, and as the Israelites saw it, God was protecting Elisha as a mother bear would protect her cubs. That’s a strong and reassuring image. God is our protective momma bear. There was no way we could have seen that if we just decided to push the scripture aside because it was uncomfortable. I’m Facebook friends with someone I’ve known since middle school, Randall Self. With the Supreme Court ruling and the Charleston Shooting still fresh in our memory he’s had Facebook friends say things he’s in complete disagreement. Whether or not you agree about the side he’s on, listen to his words regarding what he is going to do about it: Ok, so I have a few people arguing that same sex marriage is wrong. My initial reaction is to unfriend, unfollow, shun and scorn these individuals but I've decided against it. Theologically speaking, we can’t cut out biblical passages we disagree with, because we don’t learn anything doing that. Socially speaking, we shouldn’t ostracize our friends and colleagues for believing something different from us because doing so puts us in an intellectual vacuum, and no one learns anything. I’ve heard some very hurtful things in the name of protecting ones faith over the past few weeks. Things said with venom but painted over with “God’s love.” It’s too easy to hit “unfriend” and move on. We do it online, and we do it in real life. We do it to each other and we do it to our bible. When others and our scripture gets uncomfortable, that’s when we need to push into it with Christian love. That’s when we need to ask one another the tough questions. If we do that, if we really begin engaging one another again… God is there too.
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