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Archive for the ‘textures’ Category

an early appearance: Matthew 2

Posted in textures, tagged , , on January 1, 2009| 1 Comment »

The gospel of Matthew begins its presentation of ‘Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham’ with a genealogy. This fits perfectly the identity given to Jesus at the front end as heir of a rich, three-fold legacy of memory of expectation. If he is ‘Messiah’ and if he is heir to David’s throne and if he is the vehicle or realization of the promises made to Abraham, then he before all else will be the restorer of Israel. So does the carefully selective genealogical material that follows cohere perfectly with Matthew’s grand design.

Matthew then crowns his genealogy with a rather famous quotation from the book of Isaiah which is now understood to have pointed to Messiah’s birth by way of a virgin. At least two features of this approach suggest that a key party—the nations—is missing. YHWH’s promise to Abraham embodies blessing to many nations, in the first instance. Any prospective reading of Isaiah nourishes the expectation that the nations will stream to Israel’s God at some future date and that they may even compete for first arrival honors as they flock to Zion to learn from him. (more…)

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finishing well: Psalm 150

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 31, 2008| Leave a Comment »

It is fitting that the book of Psalms should end with just this one hundred fiftieth and that the one hundred fiftieth should end with this totalitarian doxology:

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD! (Psalm 150:6 ESV)

All the other exemplars of that kind of summons to praise in the psalms which scholars since Hermann Gunkel have labeled the hymn provide a reason for the doxology to which they call the assembled worshippers or the ready individual. That motive, that basis for praise is usually an act or a quality of YHWH himself. The psalms do not smile upon the shell of praise when there is no kernel. Not for them the constant whipping up of a congregation to praise more, praise more loudly, praise better. To the contrary, the psalms provoke dense praise. It knows its reasons. (more…)

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monochrome holy: Zechariah 14

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 29, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The book of Zechariah ends with a Jerusalemite flourish. YHWH sees off the agglomeration of nations that besiege the city, unending feasting is established as the soup du jour inside the walls, and the peoples of the world schedule their vacations—admittedly under some compulsion—so that they can join the noise.

In the process a long-standing priestly imperative is undermined. An important feature of the biblical plot line underscores the lethal danger that living in close quarters with a holy God entails for Israel. The priestly legislation is aimed in part at establishing and then carefully maintaining the equilibrium that is required if the people are to survive YHWH’s company. Careful distinctions, not least between what is holy and what is mundane, contribute to this blessed status quo and are maintained against the rage that might ensue if YHWH’s proximity were to be met with casual indifference. (more…)

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unusual preferences: Psalm 147

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 28, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Strength and speed rightly draw admiring eyes.

Whether stallion, sprinter, swimmer, striker, or wide receiver, the ripple of muscled thigh and the cheetah-esque capacity to finish are awe-inspiring. Such forceful, fluid athleticism commends itself. It needs little added praise. (more…)

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fallen in a moment: Revelation 18

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 27, 2008| Leave a Comment »

I am not a doomsayer.

If this sounds both egocentric and unrequired, I risk making my statement in just this way because I am headed in the direction of one of those apocalyptic texts in Revelation of which the doomsayers drink deeply and then scatter their painfully precise predictions to the wind.

As I write this, we are in the midst of or in the wake of or at the beginning of an economic shakedown that many are calling unprecedented. I’ve consulted with a lot of smart people on where events appear to be taking us. None of them knows. (more…)

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as bad as it is: Revelation 17

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 26, 2008| 1 Comment »

For a reader like me who has lived without hunger and first-hand experience of judicial violence, it is difficult to fathom the venom that the writer of the Apocalypse injects into his depictions of cosmic villains. Babylon the great mercantile capital, figured as a woman, is a case in point:

So he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.’ And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly amazed.

John sees an incorrigible evil in the world’s conventional arrangements that I do not. Where he detects the brazen drunkenness of a woman who has gulped won ‘the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus’ from a filthy goblet, I see a flow of goods and services that perhaps could become a bit more fluid if only the boys at the WTO would get their act a bit more together on the Doha Round. (more…)

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safety in numbers: Zechariah 8

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Zechariah inhabits that prophetic intermezzo in which the divine purpose lurches redemptively between well-earned judgment and the most deeply inevitable restorative mercy. It is not a bad place for a poet to live, for the space is rich in drama and pregnant with unanticipated action. Certainty of doom crumbles over and again when YHWH decides he simply cannot continue to curse those whom his heart drives him to bless. (more…)

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desperate prayer: Psalm 143

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on December 24, 2008| 1 Comment »

No joy accompanies a prayer that’s been returned to sender. The leaden, silent skies mock our attempts to penetrate them. Our words deflect and fall to the soil that’s been dampened by our tears and packed hard by our restless pacing. (more…)

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strange things: Proverbs 30

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 23, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The biblical proverbs owe a portion of their potency to what we might call the shock-and-recognize phenomenon. The pithy statements that are the warp and woof of this wisdom anthology are capable of startling with the apparent novelty of a declaration, then allowing the reader to settle back into the realization that, yes, he always felt that way but wouldn’t have found the words to say so. (more…)

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un pueblo creado: Isaías 43.1–10

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 21, 2008| Leave a Comment »

La literatura bíblica emplea el verbo hebreo bara’ con reticencia. Notoria por la manera en que describe la creación del mundo en el primer capítulo de Génesis, la palabra adquiere un significado creativo que realiza su vocación léxica en la medida que alude a actos de creación de la nada. Es decir, YHVH de costumbre forma y YHVH de costumbre configura. Pero uno siente que la palabra bara; llega a ser apropiada solo en aquellos momentos cuando YHVH hace algo nuevo de la nada. (more…)

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