Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Exodus, textures on February 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The biblical book of Exodus tosses off some odd and enigmatic scenes in the life of Moses, Israel’s liberator and law-giver. Curiously, his erstwhile Midianite wife Zipporah plays a role in more than one of them.
The narrator allows us to stumble upon details that we feel we should have known but do not. For example, the fact that Moses had ‘sent away’ not only Zipporah but the two sons whom she had borne to him. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Exodus, textures on February 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »
As they fled their Egyptian taskmasters under the half-truth of worshipping YHWH in the trackless Sinai, the Hebrew slaves displayed a capacity for extraordinary myopia. ‘Were there no graves in Egypt?’, they taunted Moses. ‘Is that why you brought us out here to die?’
Yet bearing along the palpable promise of Joseph’s bones—caught between negotiated servitude and audacious freedom—the complaining ‘sons of Israel’ deserve a bit of empathy. Slavery, a known quantity, is at the least survivable. Freedom is potentially lethal. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, John, textures on February 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Contrary to an attractively sentimental reading, John’s account of the miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee is not about Jesus’ common touch, Mary’s maternal affection, or the Master’s interest in the details of our lives (the embarrassment of an under-stocked wine cellar on wedding day, for example).
The event is, for the writer of the Fourth Gospel, neither a personality profile in narrative format nor what we might call a simple ‘miracle’ nor even a ‘problem’ now shifted to the ‘problem solved’ column. It is a sign. Indeed, it is for the writer nothing less than the first of Jesus’ signs. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Matthew, textures on January 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Surely we are due some credit!
We have labored long, we have wept, we have worked our way to exhaustion and back, we have sacrificed leisure, friendships, even love for a most high calling. We asked very little and have only rarely complained. No one knows the price we have paid —and willingly—for the cause.
Then comes this damned Jesus-story about day-laborers hired at intervals by a landowner. The best and the brightest, the earliest risers, the young, ambitious and hungry have worked their butts off from earliest light to put bread on the table and pay a little ahead on Junior’s college tuition. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Proverbs, textures on January 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »
It can be a violent swing to lurch from, say, Jesus’ apocalyptic words to the this-worldly cadence of the biblical Proverbs. ‘Whoever is not with me is against me … Do not think that I have come to bring peace, but a sword!’
These are the kairos-inflected call to decision that come from Jesus lips, though hardly the only tone that he struck.
Yet living in accordance with biblical tonalities requires also that one know how to bring grace and harmony to this earth, not only to decide viscerally to ally one’s self with Jesus’ incoming kingdom.
The proverbs wish one to learn to be a good neighbor:
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Genesis, textures on January 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The norm in the historiography of the other is to write him out of meaningful history. If it is inconvenient to demean one’s adversary—or if doing so requires too much energy—the obvious alternative is to ignore him.
So does it become possible to make the too trite claim that history is written by the victor. That mantra is more than a half-truth but falls short of the whole. It fails to reflect the complexity of who records and interprets the flow of lives and events and who does not. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Levítico, Leviticus, reflexión bíblica, texturas, textures on January 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »
El estudio de Levítico en el siglo veinte no puede ser resumido sin destacar el nombre de Jacob Milgrom. Los escritos magisteriales de Milgrom dan evidencia de una amorosa imersión en la literatura sacerdotal.
Este erudito crítico logra mostrar en cada sílaba de su acogedora prosa un profundo respeto por los valores que el libro procurar transmitir. Es más, Milgrom considera los ritos sacerdotales como valores inscritos en ceremonia. No se puede comprender una ley levítica en su espléndido—o tedioso—aislamiento. Al contrario, es necesario ver cada pronuncamiento como un elemento en un sistema global que pretende llevar a Israel a la escuela para que ahí aprenda los valores que necesita para realizar una vida significante en la presencia de YHVH.
Si presentas una ofrenda de cereal cocida en la sartén, la ofrenda será de flor de harina sin levadura, amasada con aceite. La partirás en pedazos y le echarás aceite. Es una ofrenda de cereal.
Milgrom afirma que las palabras fallan. Por un lado, no penetran a la comprensión de las personas menos ‘letradas’. Por otro lado, es fácil olvidarlas. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Matthew, textures on January 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »
John the Baptist appears in the gospels as one of those existential purists who gives himself to few causes, but with all-consuming energy. Fearless before the people who trek to the Jordan to hear his fiery rants, he is equally fearless before a profligate pseudo-king. John cannot be bought. John gives the lie to cynical refrain that ‘every man has his price’. Perhaps most do, perhaps nearly all. Not John.
Yet even this passionate martyr-in-the-making must be conceded a space for his doubts. Imprisoned, John wonders not so much about the veracity of his own calling as about his quick identification of Jesus as the one whose emergence on the scene would signal the successful performance of the Baptist’s task.
When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’ Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.’
John had correctly perceived that YHWH’s next move would prioritize the needy beyond all conventional proportion. He had discovered an antecedent, even in his mind a prediction, of his fiery calling in the vocabulary of the book called Isaiah. That prophetic vision had manifestly anticipated YHWH’s healing presence and both his announcement and enactment of transformative good news for those with empty hands and grumbling bellies. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Matthew, textures on January 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The Jesus whom Matthew presents to us sounds positively Johannine for an instant in Matthew’s eleventh chapter.
At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’
These words come fast on the heels of Jesus’ denunciation of those who will criticize any of his Father’s messengers. They will find John the Baptist’s severe austerity equally as off-putting as Jesus’ party-going. Criticism becomes a convenient and effective tool in the hands of those who simply will not hear.
It is in the wake of this negative appraisal that Jesus’ words turn fondly and with a tone unaccustomed in the three ‘synoptic’ gospels towards the ‘little children’. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Levítico, Leviticus, reflexión bíblica, texturas, textures on January 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »
La cantidad de personajes involucradas en la transacción del holocausto es reducida. Resulta ser una operación sencilla y, en el mejor de los casos, íntima.
El texto que estipula las acciones requeridas es precisa y exacta, pero deja cierta duda con respecto al sujeto de ciertos verbos de acción. Por ejemplo, parece—pero no sin discutir—que el hombre que ofrecía el ganado en 1.3 y pone su mano sobre la cabeza del animal en 1.4 es también el sujeto que degolla el ganado en 1.5. De ser correcta, esta interpretación, el ofrendador asume una función activa en el rito. Su participación es parte de la transacción que pretende restaurar o mantener el equilibrio en su relación con YHVH.
Pero existe una participación anterior a este detalle. En por lo menos dos de los tres escenarios presentados en el primer capítulo de Levítico, el ofrendador trae un animal que él mismo crió. Su ofrenda no depende de la suerte de la calle ni la de la caza. Es más, es un macho sin defecto. Es decir, la ofrenda es costosa.
Lo mismo es cierto, aunque la dinámica económica es distinta, en el caso del pobre que ofrece un ave (1.14-17). El también asume el costo de adquirir el ave; presumiblemente, se lo compra a una tercera parte.
La sencillez o intimidad del rito en conjunto con la provenencia del animal ofrendado se combinan para amarrar al ofrendador y su familia en un proceso notablemente personal. El ofrendador ofrece lo suyo; él se identifica con el animal en su experiencia; él mismo lo degolla.
Solo el ofrendador, el animal, el sacerdote, y YHVH están presentes. En la legislación levítica, el papel del sacerdote se limita al instrumental.
Un participante no sobrevive la transacción. Uno se prepara para repetir su función instrumental con el ofrendador que sigue. YHVH, conforme al resultado que el texto nos invita a anticipar, abandona la distancia o inquietud que hubiese sentido para con el ofrendador. Éste se va con la paz que resulta a partir de la harmonía restaurada.
Se ha pagado un precio. Se ha realizado una transacción.
El deficit relacional ha sido correspondido.
La vida puede continuar.
Canter Bridge 