Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘biblical reflection’

leveling: James 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , on November 17, 2008| Leave a Comment »

James, the author of a New Testament letter ‘to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion’, is sure that the Christian community has no place for favoritism based on wealth or status. His rhetoric is nourished by the Hebraic legacy of a divine Turner of the Tables. YHWH, by these lights, is almost before anything else a liberating God who brings low the mighty and arrogant and lifts up the humble poor:

Let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up, and the rich in being brought low, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. It is the same way with the rich; in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away.

The novelty of James’ expression lies not so much in his conception of the Lord as social revolutionary—this has a long pedigree—but rather in his instruction to members of the Christian community that they should enthusiastically discover their own identity by this same light. The ‘believer who is lowly’ is urged to boast in being raised up. The rich person, paradoxically, is to find delight and a defining role in the experience of ‘being brought low’.

Surely James intends that the relativization of all rankings which the natural order of things imposes upon human beings should be welcomed by followers of Jesus as an invigorating and delighting redefinition of community. The rich man should not only embrace the poor man with unembarrassed glee. He should find great joy in doing so.

Read Full Post »

alternative sacrifices: Hebrews 13

Posted in textures, tagged , , on November 16, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The writer to the Hebrew finds himself and his compatriots—citizenship is not marginal detail for him—momentarily caught between two worlds. This one, that is to say the undeniable environment in which we move about and suffer an intermittently painful quotient of distress, is a mere shadow of the one for which we long and to which we are destined. It is not unreal, yet it is less real than the enduring world whose gates we aspire to enter when we have served out our vocation in this landscape of shadows and perplexing mystery. (more…)

Read Full Post »

a larger purpose: Hebrews 12

Posted in textures, tagged , , on November 15, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The subtext that winds its way through much of biblical instruction and leavens it so that it rises not as something ludicrous but rather nourishing is that our Maker has a larger purpose in mind than we are normally capable of perceiving for ourselves. This is no easy truth, nor one whose veracity can be assessed by a minute or two of reflection. (more…)

Read Full Post »

mobility: Lamentations 5, Ezekiel 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on November 10, 2008| Leave a Comment »

It might almost seem that the first chapter of Ezekiel answers to the pained cry of the last chapter of Lamentations. That poem, which in our modern bound Bibles immediately precedes the work that bears the prophet Ezekiel’s name, ends with a picture of a royal deity whose apparent disinterest in his people exceeds all appropriate bounds:

But you, O LORD, reign forever;
your throne endures to all generations.
Why have you forgotten us completely?
Why have you forsaken us these many days?
Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored;
renew our days as of old—
unless you have utterly rejected us,
and are angry with us beyond measure.

It is not too much to say that the exilic prophets, Ezekiel among them, saved the life of the Jewish people. At a time when all historical currents and the circumstances of exile that pressed down upon them should have obliterated this tiny nation and erased the memory of it, the prophets pleaded that YHWH had not yet finished with his people. Lamentations leaves an awful possibility hanging in the air: unless you have utterly rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure. (more…)

Read Full Post »

messiah school: Hebrews 5

Posted in textures, tagged , , on November 5, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Because of its tenacious insistence that Jesus was fully human—as we are—the New Testament permits itself some daring assessments of how this man completed his God-given assignment. The priestly metaphor that becomes quite common in the book of Hebrews flows easily into this stream, for the priests Israel knew were, quintessentially, specially placed human beings assisting other human beings who lacked the same vocation. (more…)

Read Full Post »

not much like an angel: Hebrews 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , on November 3, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The biblical tradition is rightly jealous of the incomparability of YHWH. Nothing gets up the dander of, say, a prophet like Isaiah as the notion that other gods are made of the same stuff as YHWH. ‘Made’, in fact, is the operative term. YHWH is the unmade Maker. The Hebrew Bible does not deny that other powers, even majestic ones, inhabit what one might call heavenly places beside YHWH. In fact, the matter is fairly taken for granted. (more…)

Read Full Post »

common cause: Hebrews 2

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

The New Testament ‘book of Hebrews’ places one layer of allusion and quotation upon another, creating a dense matrix of historical echos and interpretative nuance as it contemplates the Jesus Thing. At the animating core of this document lies the conviction that God’s actions in history and especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus display a remarkable continuity over the course of time. Events recorded in the New Testament are astonishing but not entirely surprising. That is, they might never have been predicted; yet, once realized in space and time, they should be understood as compatible with what has gone before. (more…)

Read Full Post »

shrewd like those other guys: Luke 16

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Seldom does one of Jesus parables defy quick comprehension like the one we traditionally have called ‘the parable of the shrewd manager’. Fallen into a crisis that threatens his and his family’s future, this otherwise uninspiring man pulls off a sleight-of-hand that raises the admiring eyebrows even of the boss who had just fired him.

His predicament is not small:

Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.”‘

When we find ourselves face to face with a biblical passage that defies easy solution, the most prudent step is often to look back on the history of interpretation. The aggregation of minds wiser and closer to the literary and cultural ground than ours often shows the way or—at least—cumulatively indicates that plausible description lies in this way and in that one but not in any other. (more…)

Read Full Post »

unable to speak: Jeremiah 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

In the biblical narratives of a prophet’s calling to his particular function, the individual in question is usually summoned against or independently of his own will. He never asks for the job, never finds himself in some sublime moment reveling in the fulfillment of his long-time dream to become a prophet.

Moreover, such passages frequently show him asserting not only his disinterest but also his lack of ability for the work into which YHWH has dragged him. (more…)

Read Full Post »

the quiet life: 1 Thessalonians 4

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 14, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The apostle Paul is often taken for a fire-breathing apocalyptic with little time for this present world as it sulks and struts in its overwheening vanity. Such a view misses both his respect for our realia as the very texture of creation and his counsel to the Thessalonians to lead a respectably independent life:

Aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Paul is concerned here with the believing community’s integrity. Having just concluded some choice words about what integrity looks like on the sexual interior of the people’s house, he turns to the painting and trimming of its outside walls. Here the topic is largely a matter of practicing a proper work ethic. A community that views itself as the first fruits of a new humanity can hardly get away with the life of a couch potato. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »