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Archive for the ‘textures’ Category

hope, futility, hope: Genesis 5

Posted in textures, tagged , , on January 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

In the ‘account of Adam’s line’ that appears in Genesis chapter five, the genealogy’s structure assumes the very shape of the human situation.

The summary of each individual’s history begins with life and ends with death, this for a race that the narrative presents as deathless until they rebelled against the Creator who blessed them as soon as he had breathed life into them. An example establishes the pattern:

When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh. And after he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Seth lived 912 years, and then he died. (Genesis 5:6–8 NIV)

Modern translations rightly tidy up the flow of things with a subordinate clause (‘When A had lived 105 years …). The Hebrew text itself develops the human rhythm to a more austere beat:

And A lived X years and he engendered B … And all the days of A were Y years, and he died.

Always, he lived. Always he played his role in the sustaining of the race by engendering children. Always, he died. (more…)

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mixed emotion: Zechariah 12

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 28, 2011| 2 Comments »

The twelfth chapter of the book of Zechariah is timid about neither the Zion-centered nationalism that it celebrates nor the corresponding defanging of the nations that besiege Jerusalem ‘in that day’. To the contrary, the Lord announces through his prophet that he will make Jerusalem ‘a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling’. Then, via the extravagant mixing of metaphors that is characteristic of the genre, the Lord ‘will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.’

The harassed Judahite city will become the Archimedean point that cannot be shifted while its attackers are levered violently this way and that, their former belligerence reduced suddenly to drunken impotence. (more…)

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ease and unease: Revelation 18, Psalm 146

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on December 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The biblical witness privileges the anxiety that we resist.

Taking up a motif that is common to the Old Testament prophets, the Book of Revelation celebrates the demise of ‘Babylon’ by mocking the ease in which she had luxuriated.

Give her (that is, to Babylon) as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, ‘I sit as queen; I am not a widow, and I will never mourn.’ (Revelation 18:7 NIV)

It is often this way when a privileged class of human beings or an erstwhile superpower comes under YHWH’s judgment. Sarcastic irony is deployed against the certainty with which the fallen victim once assumed that his wealth and safety would endure forever. When one gathers such statements together, it appears almost as though presumption itself stands as an indictment again the one who deploys it to ward off the fear of fragility that lesser mortals endure as a feature of everyday life. (more…)

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speaking truth to power: Daniel 5

Posted in textures, tagged , , on November 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Pathetic Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, is that shadowy diminishment of his great father Nebuchadnezzar that is familiar to readers of royal drama.

Our phrase ‘the writing is on the wall’—everyone knows what it means—comes from a frightening incident on the last day of this king’s sad, little life. Yet we struggle to recall Belshazzar’s name. (more…)

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not many wise: 1 Corinthians 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , on August 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The Bible maintains a consistently high regard for those human qualities and actions that are noble, elevated, and good. Indeed, it encourages one to view such things in proximity to that dignity or glory which belongs in its purest form only to God.

Yet the biblical witness remains unimpressed by the tawdry or ungenuine proxies for those qualities represented by—for example—class or economic potency or impressive speech or educational credentials. It is not that any of these things is necessarily bad, just that they are awful measures of what is truly good. Too often, such things elevate what deserves to remain low and blind our eyes from recognizing what is best esteemed. (more…)

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no hurry: Proverbs 20

Posted in textures, tagged , , on August 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Those well-intentioned stewards of spiritual humility who make ‘the depravity of man’ their first and central principle fall easily into a rigidity that does not characterize the biblical witness which they claim as their source. Scripture’s own assessment of humankind underscores human dignity and potentiality at the same time as it holds tight to the brokenness in which these things are realized.

Yet partisans of human corruption, if it is not unfair to understand their purpose in this way, are on to something. (more…)

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get up!: Proverbs 20

Posted in textures, tagged , , on August 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

One could wish, on a sleepy morning’s reading, for something more inspiring, more … um … spiritual.

Do not love sleep, or else you will come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread. (Proverbs 20:13 NRSV)

The expression at first seems an exaggeration: Don’t love sleep. (more…)

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feasting amid foes: Psalm 23

Posted in textures, tagged , , on July 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The generative peculiarity of the twenty-third Psalm lies in its refusal to compromise the threat.

The valley of deep darkness (traditionally, ‘the valley of the shadow of death’) and the surrounding enemies remain intact. Their destructive capacity is not underestimated nor is the enemies’ sinister intention disavowed. They are simply left, in the poetics of the psalm, to be what they are. (more…)

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ordinary fury: Romans 12

Posted in textures, tagged , , on July 29, 2011| 1 Comment »

Paul is not pollyannish in the face of evil’s reality.

The apostle names opposition to God’s purposes with supple and varied vocabulary. There are ‘principalities and powers’, ‘rulers’, ‘dominions’, and ‘authorities’. Paul can discourse widely upon the power of sin and death. He lays hold of imagery of warfare, its weapons, and its equipment to paint the picture of the bellicose environment in which the follower of Jesus sooner or later discovers himself.

Yet in the twelfth chapter of his letter to the Romans, as he describes the confrontation of good with evil, Paul’s language is decidedly civilian.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21 NRSV)

Paul places his readers in the power position. They are not so much potential victims of evil as its conqueror. Yet the battle tactics are asymmetrical. They will not experience their conquest over evil as the result of employing evil’s own tools. (more…)

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deep water: Proverbs 20

Posted in textures, tagged , , on July 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The human being, in his or her majestic complexity, is almost inscrutable.

We only rarely know ourselves, and never exhaustibly. How then can we know another?

The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. (Proverbs 20:5 ESV)

What is his end game? What does she want? What is his deepest passion? How can she find what she seeks? (more…)

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