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Posts Tagged ‘biblical reflection’

the invisible silence of righteousness: Matthew 6

Posted in textures, tagged , , on January 7, 2009| Leave a Comment »

As the old saw used to put it, ‘Children are to be seen and not heard.’

Jesus’ teaching on righteous behavior is even more severe. Good deeds ought to be neither seen nor heart, at least not in a way that reflects creditably upon their practitioner:

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Jesus tackles both the horizontal and the vertical axes of piety with this potent offensive against religiosity. That horizontal sharing of resources with one’s human neighbor is to be carried out unnoticed. It’s objective is the mere application of mercy and allocation of resources where they are needed. No referendum on the actor’s stature is to figure in the equation. (more…)

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affection: Matthew 4

Posted in textures, tagged , , on January 4, 2009| 1 Comment »

It is possible even through the centuries of transmission and the editorial layers of the gospels themselves to discern the deep affection that Jesus’ earliest followers had for their ‘master’ and friend. Some of them would choose to die for him rather than renounce his memory. (more…)

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the oddest of cameos: Genesis 5

Posted in textures, tagged , , on January 3, 2009| 1 Comment »

In the midst of one of its less inspiring genealogies, the Bible offers us a brief glimpse at the remote fringe of what must have been a remarkable story. As it is wont to do, rabbinical tradition would fill in the absence of detail regarding a certain Enoch. The biblical text presents this man in its most sparing voice:

When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him. When Methuselah had lived one hundred eighty-seven years, he became the father of Lamech.

The comment about Enoch ‘walking with God’ and about God taking him—whatever these things might mean—stands out against a strictly patterned genealogy that merely names biological antecedents, successors, and their respective life spans. (more…)

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the cynical lie: Genesis 3

Posted in textures, tagged , , on January 2, 2009| 1 Comment »

The serpent figures in the paradigmatic story of human origins as the Bible’s first cynic. He has strong ideas about the arbitrary nature of God’s decrees and the selfish motive that lies behind them:

But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

The serpent has some convenient data with which to work. God in fact does not give a reason for his unexpected ring-fencing of just one tree when he has already given the whole ranch over to the first couple. It seems so unreasonable and, certainly, asymmetrical. It is the kind of thing that raises suspicions. (more…)

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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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