Dr. Howell's eSeries

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eGenesis - a new beginning

So, faithful reader! We spent some time looking at highlights of theBook of Acts, and what it means for today's Church. If you have any thoughts or questions on that, please let me know.

I am thinking that during the summer, I will turn my attention to the Book of Genesis, and what it means not just for the Church but for all humanity and even the universe itself, since the scope of Genesis is... everything.

Some day it would be fun to walk through Genesis verse by verse - but that would take quite a few summers! Instead, I thought I would share with you some new things I have learned recently about Genesis. The very fact that there are such new things is intriguing, I think. I've spent a lot of time in my adult life with Genesis, reading it in Hebrew, probing thick commentaries by brilliant scholars, teaching and preaching Genesis - and yet it really is true that the Bible is an inexhaustible mine that constantly yields new treasures.

Sometimes we discover new truths in the Bible simply by reading a bit more slowly. Sometimes our lives change, or the world changes, and God's Word resonates in fresh ways. Sometimes we overhear a new perspective - and a couple of books that are new to me have blown my mind and helped me see what I'd been blind to for decades.

So let us begin. You might make it a summer project to read through Genesis. The book has 50 chapters, and just 63 pages in the version that happens to be sitting next to my computer. That's less than a chapter or a page per day! You can do it! ...and if it's baffling or strange, be grateful: God's way is beyond the dull world in which we live, and the presence of God in life has a mysterious, marvelous, surprising,

uncomfortable dimension. Go with it - and click "reply" to ask me questions as we go. I won't be covering everything, just fascinating new things I've been learning - but am happy to converse personally on any aspect of Genesis.

Thanks for reading; the fact that we can share these moments together means a lot to me.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis - dysfunction and hope

Genesis is a wonder, although some turn it into a battleground on what kind of science should be taught in the schools, or ammunition for dogmatic debate, or a tool to get along with others on the planet (or not to get along, to defeat them). But Genesis is a remarkable story, earthy, profound, offensive, out of the Bronze Age but wiser than the trivialities of 2011, puzzling and revealing. Genesis begins with - well, nothing at all, and Genesis ends, oddly, with "a coffin in Egypt" (its very last words!). Genesis tells of the stunning birth of all life, and God's promise to the people that they will thrive in the promised land - but the story ends with a funeral, a death and burial far from the promised land.

Genesis teases us, making grandiose promises, but then leaves us hanging, wondering how on earth God will accomplish what God promised, as things look laughably unpromising. In one way, Genesis seems to be about olden times: we look back, far back, into the recesses of the past - and yet Genesis itself leans into the future, pulsates with an orientation toward tomorrow, reaching forward for resolution, brimming with hope.

This hope is for everyone! In Genesis, God deals primarily with one individual, or one family at a time. It's Adam, alone in the garden; Noah builds an ark while his faceless, nameless neighbors are left unmentioned. Abraham, out of however many thousands of people existed back then, engaged in a lifelong relationship, faithful and then doubting, missing the point and then rising up heroically, but always one to one with the God who chose him, just him, just one guy, to save the whole world!

And if there's any saving, it's all God's doing. Brothers squabble with one another: Cain vents his rage and kills Abel, Jacob swindles Esau (and his father), Joseph is sold as a slave by his jealous brothers. Genesis is all about dysfunctional families - and it may be that if your family is 100% happy and robust in soul, you may not get some of the book... Tolstoy opened Anna Karenina by writing, "Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Genesis clearly isn't holding up exemplary families we should imitate. Instead, Genesis seems to know what goes awry in our families, and suggests God not only loves and heals, but actually uses us in our craziness, in our brokenness.

So we don't look for role models in Genesis, and we don't look for a geology or physics textbook - although the deep friendship between Genesis and science is a topic we will explore. Finally we don't look for Jesus in Genesis, although Jesus' Father, and the Spirit, are there - and Christ himself might be there implicitly. Genesis was the Bible Jesus read and treasured - and so we will notice echoes across the centuries between Jesus, and Genesis, and our life together today.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis - which translation?

When we read Genesis, or any biblical book, we may have translation questions, like, Which is the most accurate? or Which is the most understandable? or even Can we trust translations? Since very few of us have the luxury of traipsing off to seminary to take Hebrew for a couple of years, we rely on scholars who've translated - and all of them do their best to capture the essence of Hebrew, which is a lovely, artistic yet earthy language, with 22 letters in its alphabet, and not nearly as many tenses and moods as we find in English and other romance languages.

Hebrew is more compact than English, and it always takes more English words than Hebrew to say something. In Hebrew storytelling, we find very little about emotion and motivation - which we want to know more about! Instead, Hebrew style simply reports action and words. How did Abraham feel when he went up the mountain to slay Isaac? Why did Jacob rip off his brother? We do not know - or we can find a host of possible emotions and motivations between the lines, which may be why re-reading the Bible constantly turns up new treasures.

Hebrew reads right to left, and the original is actually lacking vowels and spaces between the words! - because in cultures before the printing press, not many people could read, but all knew the biblical story from memory, so the writing out was simply to protect against slippage over the centuries.
I have learned much from Robert Alter's new translation, Genesis, which rather heroically captures Hebrew nuances with similarly quirky and clever English phrasings, and supplies us with brief, insightful comments on each passage. My Bible translation of choice remains the Revised Standard Version, first published in 1948. Its accuracy is stellar, and even though it is totally comprehensible, there is some elevation of language.

This isn't old English prissiness either! Alter explains that the Hebrew used in Genesis is a little bit different from daily, spoken Hebrew from ancient times. The style of Hebrew is a bit decorous, dignified, not arrogant or ornate, but a special, literary language reserved evidently for God's Word. In my little devotional book, 40 Treasured Bible Verses, I reflected on why we prefer the King James Version for familiar passages, like Psalm 23 ("he maketh me... for thou art with me..."): "Could it be that elevated language, words with lineage and dignity, are appropriate to the grandeur, the majesty, the immeasurable grace of God who is our shepherd?"

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis - the begats

Genesis features quite a few seemingly dull genealogies. God created man and woman; then began the begats.

Using internet services or courthouse records, some people are obsessed with genealogy. I like the idea of finding not just a hero, but a horse thief or two... but genealogies, for us, are a long list of names. For Israel, spellbinding stories attached to the names: Abraham begat Isaac (remember how arduous all that was...), Isaac begat Jacob (who ripped off his brother), Jacob begat Judah (who broke his heart...). The people of Israel relished their historical identity, rife with stories better than any TV drama Hollywood produces today.

But are the biblical genealogies simply a chronicle of olden times? There is a forward movement to the begats. Time moves forward, not backward, and there is a profound sense that this begetting is about a bright, vital future, not a petrified, shadowy past. To have a child, after all, requires a good dosage of faith that the future is worth living, that despite the losses of the past and the perils of today, tomorrow is the domain of hope.

There are some intriguing items in Genesis's genealogies. It turns out that the first person born after the death of Adam is Noah; Adam was the first of the judged, failed generation; Noah was the first of a new day, God's new covenant after the flood. Noah (along with every person born after the flood) is still alive when Abraham is born; all of them lived long enough to see the advent of God's new promise - like Simeon who, in old age, witnessed the birth of Christ (Luke 2:25-35). Cain, who murdered the only other young person alive, was enough of an embarrassment that when Genesis 5 lists the descendants of Adam, Cain is not mentioned! Methuselah lived to be 965! - and his 965th year was precisely the year of the flood!
The life spans? Adam lived to be 930? Enoch a mere 365? These absurd numbers are actually quite small compared to those reported by Israel's neighbors, the Babylonians and Sumerians: Alulim lived to be 28,800, Enmenluanna of Badtibira 43,200, Megalaros 64,800. No one takes these numbers literally - and I think of Frederick Buechner's wise thought after turning 80: "The stage I hold forth on is littered with the dead, including my only brother, my oldest friend, and an increasing number of others I always assumed would be with me. My body is no longer altogether the one I have depended on and enjoyed and neglected all these years. Death seems less of a negative to me now than it once did. If somebody a while back had offered me a thousand more years, I would have leapt at it, but at this point I would be inclined to beg off on the grounds that the eventual end to life seems preferable to the idea of an endlessly redundant extension of it. The really sad part of checking out is I won't be around to see what becomes of my grandchildren, but maybe that is just as well. They say we are never happier than our unhappiest child, and if that is expanded to include the next generation down, the result is unthinkable."

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 1 - heaven and earth

Eight years ago, I preached a series of sermons (that became a book, The Life We Claim) on the Apostles' Creed - and it was then, for the first time, I paid attention to the way we say we believe in God, "Maker of heaven and earth." God made the earth, the whole universe... and we get embroiled in issues of physics, geology, and evolution to the point that we do not notice that God made heaven and earth. Eight years ago, I said, "Mercifully, God did not just make the earth and stop. God also made the heaven. Earth is a wonderful place, but this earth is not all there is. God in his mercy also made the heavens; so whatever happens on this earth, we have a home, a destination, as declared so thrillingly in the last stanza of How Great Thou Art: 'When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!'"

What I didn't attend to back then, but have been reflecting on lately, is the order: heaven and earth. Certainly, "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). God made light and darkness, and a firmament, before the waters and the dry land. But this order, heaven and earth, also tells us something about God's ultimate purpose. The universe, this planet, the tree you see out the window, the very eyeball you're using to read this: the earth God created is overwhelmingly fantastic, utterly splendid, inexhaustibly amazing.

But God made it all for a purpose even higher, and the purpose (heaven) was devised first, since it is first, and last, in God's heart. Earth is a staging area, a preparatory school, a tender arrow pointing us toward God, toward heaven, toward the consummation of God's plans, toward eternal togetherness with God. God made the heaven, the end of everything, first - and that hoped-for reality envelops and hovers over all we do and are as a promise. Yes, God made sun and moon, but the goal is the city of the Book of Revelation, the happy ending of the story Genesis began, which "will not need sun or moon, for the glory of God will be its light" (Revelation 21:23).

If we can recall, as often as possible throughout the day, that this world is not ultimate reality, then we focus on what is, and our lives can become a prayer: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We don't try to save the world so much as we try to participate now in what heaven will be like. Our mission statement is what the Archbishop of Canterbury said to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the end of their wedding: "May God bless you and fill ye with grace that ye may so live together in this life, that in the world to come ye may have life everlasting" - with the Creator who made heaven and earth.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 1 - rest and restlessness

How interesting: if we read Genesis 1, the feel of it isn't that God slaved away for 6 days, and then said "Wow, creating is hard work, I better take a day off!" Rather it feels like God starts with something astonishing, but builds ever grander wonders on that foundation, pressing brilliantly forward toward a climax - which isn't the creation of the people, but the day of rest. It is the seventh day that appears to be the culmination of it all, the reason for bothering with a whole universe. God's purpose for God and for us is rest - which is stunning, as we are addicted to frenetic activity, and not very adept at rest.

Each day, God calls the divine handiwork "good." On day 6, the people strike God as "very good" - but I suspect this isn't merely because God is so fond of us. Rather, God's holy intention at the very moment of creation was to become one of those people, to take on human flesh - so humanity is indeed "very good," for it is the very manner in which God would show us his heart and bring us to creation's noble purpose.

God makes us in God's own image. Some think that means we enjoy the blessing of reason - but aren't unreasonable people, or those who are debilitated with mental challenges, still in the image of God? Rusty Reno wisely defines this image as "the intrinsic spiritual dignity God has bestowed on humanity... making us capable of fellowship with God"; it is "the basis of our supernatural vocation, the capacity to do what God intends for us, greater than any possibility resident in our natural powers." But like some old coin, the image in us gets worn, blurred - so we need restoration work, or the "new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:22-24).

Made in the "image of God," we are charged with divine responsibility: to have dominion over the earth, to care for what God has made, not lording over like a petty potentate, not seizing the goods of the world for ourselves, but exercising faithful dominion, the way a parent guides a child, or a gardener tends to flowers, or a musician strives to capture the wonder of the moment the composer overheard something from the heavens.

We exercise dominion wrongly, but there is hope. "God has spoken to us by a Son, heir of all things; he reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature... So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Let us strive to enter that rest" (Hebrews 1:2-3, 4:9-11). Our very restlessness is God calling us home, to an eternal Sabbath rest - as St. Augustine prayed, "O Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you."

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 2 - training for the supernatural

We are probably familiar with the story of the "Fall" (and "original sin"): God created human beings, and then told Adam, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat" (Genesis 2:16-17). As we know, Adam and Eve do eat, and trouble ensues.
When I have taught this in the past, I've explored the nature of this dangerous tree, and what it is about humanity that makes us crave the very thing we aren't supposed to go after. Somehow our problem is that we want to be "like God" (Genesis 3:5), when we would be wise to let God be God; ours is to find our right and joyful place as creatures and servants of God.

Then I read a new commentary on Genesis by Rusty Reno, who pointed out how arbitrary this command seems: it's a good, tasty tree, it yields knowledge, so why not eat? Reno observes, "This is as it must be. If God is to train the natural man toward the end of participating in the supernatural rest, then his commandments must transcend our inner-worldly purposes, must exceed our capacity for understanding." Think about it: the story in Genesis, and in fact all of life, might just be God training us, giving us the opportunity to learn the things of God, not merely to realize our natural potential and be the best we can be (which the world can teach us), but for our supernatural potential.

We question God's judgment, and this is our downfall. If God had said, "Eat of any tree, except that poisonous one with thorns," we would say "Absolutely; thanks! I agree." But it is a good tree, and the command strikes us as not having a sufficient explanation as to why - but the Why? is that God wants us to learn to become responsive to God, citizens of heaven, responsible laborers in the kingdom of God. The question isn't whether we regard what God suggests to us as shrewd, productive or helpful; it is simply that God asks it of us, and so we do what God asks, because it is God who does the asking.

I like this idea that we are "trainable," that life isn't merely about me maximizing what I think is good for me, but learning, humbly, to be entirely attentive to God, which probably means I need to learn to refrain from doing some things that seem fine, or that I like, or that may even further clever purposes. I like that this passage thinks rather highly of humanity: that we can obey. When Mary was asked to be the mother of God's own son, this probably seemed absurd, risky, not sensible at all - but she replied, "Let it be to me according to Your word" (Luke 1:38). I want to be like her, and like Jesus, who chose total, dogged obedience to God. I don't want to be one who reads Scripture, and picks and chooses based on what strikes me as a good idea and what I'd really rather not do. I want to be trained for the supernatural.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 2 - the word that must not be emailed

 
I've discovered, over the years, that if I send an email with that 3 letter word that begins with s, ends with x, and has an e in the middle, many of your email filters deny permission and you miss the email. The irony is rich: in a culture where s...x has run amok, where the internet has upped the ante on access to the tawdry, a hidden puritanical email blocker prevents the Church from saying healthy things about s...x.

God must blush, and grieve. The world is good - and Genesis goes to great lengths to clarify that s...x in particular is perhaps God's most extravagant gift - and not merely s...xual activity, but our bodies, our identities. The world is good; God didn't create us as riddled with angst, guilt, and reckless desire. Evil is a perversion of the good, a twisting of the beautiful.

In Genesis, God's first command to humanity is to "be fruitful and multiply"; far from being unspiritual, s...x is profoundly spiritual: physical intimacy, and our stewardship of the body, is a primal way we enact our faith, and follow Christ in the real world. Not surprisingly, then, idolatry, the worship of false gods, almost always has a s...xual connotation in the Bible. Russ Reno explains that the idolater has much in common with the adulterer - who wants s...xual union but not children. "The idolater is like a man who visits prostitutes"; he wants the pleasure without the responsibility - just as the idolater wants to worship but reserve the power to live as he pleases." Just as a man who has an illicit relationship hopes she will keep quiet, so the idolater is not all that disappointed if his god is silent - for to hear from God would be rather inconvenient.

Genesis rather wonderfully tells us that Adam and Eve were unclothed, but also unashamed. Of course, the very mention of their lack of shame is a dark foreshadowing of the day when there will be shame, when their lost innocence will be the ruin of their joy, faith and sense of goodness. It is intriguing to consider the loss of shame in modern culture. Teens and even children are far from ready emotionally to cope with what they are exposed to through the media. Neil Postman, in his brilliant The Disappearance of Childhood, suggests we have lost shame - good shame: "Without a well-developed idea of shame, childhood cannot exist. Children need to be sheltered from adult secrets, particularly s...xual secrets. If we turn over to children a vast store of powerful adult material, childhood cannot survive. By definition adulthood means mysteries solved and secrets uncovered. If from the start the children know the mysteries and the secrets, how shall we tell them apart from anyone else?"

Genesis 3 calls us to the highest delight in the gift of s...xuality, which requires a sense of beauty but also shame, a careful attentiveness to the distinction between beauty and the merely carnal, responsibility and irresponsibility.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 2 - a partner fit

"On New Year's Eve, 1967, the knowledge that I did love Thanne pitched me headlong into a crisis wherein I suffered a blindness, from which I arose - married." So goes Walter Wangerin's first sentence in As for Me and my House, which I rank as the truest, most moving, funniest, and most helpful book on marriage in print. Wangerin, a Lutheran pastor and superb writer, tells of his relationship with Thanne, and it is honest, nothing sugar-coated or idyllic, sharing the typical difficulties with candor, good humor, and greatest of all - hope.

His recipe for a successful marriage? Not having fun or shared hobbies or even stellar communication, but forgiveness, truthfulness, dependability, sharing the work of survival, talking and listening, giving and volunteering - which not surprisingly sounds like wise counsel for friendships, coworkers, families and neighbors.

Why mention Wangerin during our series on Genesis? As for Me and my House includes a fascinating reflection on Genesis 2 - when Adam names all the animals, but none of them is a "fit" for him until Eve is created: "Beasts of burden conform to their owner's desires, bearing loads, but this sort of creature is not 'fit' for a spouse. Birds fulfill the aesthetic side of our nature, beautiful in plumage, thrilling in song - but neither is a spouse 'fit' only to be a beautiful object. Cattle are considered personal property - but a spouse was never meant to be. The slow may make up speed by riding horses, the weak may make up strength by driving oxen. The blind use dogs. The thirsty milk cows. But that purpose (completing one's self by gaining the talents of another human) is not fitting for a marriage, and is dangerous, for it reduces the spouse's role to that of an animal - something to be used. Only one being was intended to dominate in a marriage, but that one was neither of the partners. It was the creator himself - God."

The only One intended to dominate any relationship would be God - although the form of that domination is humble service, giving life, fostering hope, an unquenchable love that seeks us relentlessly, not treating us as property but we the holy beloved.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 3 - God's will + ?

In our series, Year Through the Bible, we covered the basics of Genesis 3, the story of temptation, original sin, the "fall" of Adam and Eve. Four thoughts I'd add to the basic story of desire for control, craving to be the center of things, trumping in over God, and over service and humble service to God:

1. Eve, when questioned by the talking serpent, expands upon what God actually directed. God had said, "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat"; but when Eve quotes God, she puts additional words in God's mouth: "neither shall you touch it." So she repeats what God said quite accurately, but then expands upon it. I wonder how often our problem is that we take what God offered as fairly simple and straightforward - and we complicate it, enlarge upon it. Could it be that, for us all too often, God's will = God's will + something else we attach to it - either because there's something beyond what God wants that we want, or because we imagine God asking for too much, or for something ridiculous, so by piling on to God's simple, beautiful, life-giving direction, we pervert it into something else which we then follow to suit ourselves, or don't follow - also to suit ourselves?

2. Eve gets chatty, if you will - and it could be that restraint in words is part of God's will. We live in a day when people talk, talk, talk; they carry cell phones and talk while driving, walking the dog... just constantly. Sometimes we gossip, which is simply too much talk. James, the brother of our Lord, warned that "the tongue is a fire" (James 3:6), and part of spirituality isn't talking so much, but actually being quiet and listening to the few but vital words of God.

3. We notice in Genesis 3 that almost everything is permitted of Adam and Eve, and only one thing is prohibited. Dostoevsky wrote that, "without God, all things are permitted" - which may mean nothing really is "permitted," for in the absence of God, nothing is good or bad, permitted or prohibited, for everything is totally arbitrary. In our society, everything is permitted, which means everything is arbitrary. We would be wise to reflect more gratefully upon the things that are prohibited.

4. And then there is this: the "punishments" doled out to Adam and Eve are much like the life they had before they sinned: the must till the soil, bear pain in childbirth, work will be tiring... and Russ Reno has then suggested that these "punishments" are not just punitive, but reformatory; that is, they are designed, not for God to spank us or retaliate, but to change us, to teach us, as if by the discipline of hard work. Yes, there is now a sorrowful distance between ourselves and God - but that very distance is an opportunity, not merely for us, but also for God, to cross that gap and find us, heal us, and bring us back to God.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 4 - holy unfairness

How intriguing: the first instance of tension between two people happens because of God! The altar, where Cain and Abel worship, is the place of division. We find plenty to argue about, but the only one that matters is how we respond to the presence of God. Religion gets a bad name for causing problems in the world - but it may well be that God is important enough, God is so very pivotal, that if we get out of sync with one another about God (which is more momentous than disagreeing about the best brand of toothpaste or the tastiest wine), we might expect real difficulties there.

In other emails, we've looked at the basics of Genesis 4, Cain's jealousy and his violent murder of his brother Abel. What I had never considered, until reading Russ Reno's great commentary on Genesis, is this. Cain is active: he labors, he brings his offering, he reacts, he moves, he does something - whereas Abel is rather passive. Oddly, God's grace asks for a kind of passivity: you can't control it or make it happen, you rather let it happen to you. "Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength" (Isaiah 40:31).

Why did God choose Abel's sacrifice positively but not Cain's? There may be a tiny clue in the text, if we read slowly and carefully: Cain gave "from the fruit of the ground" while Abel gave "the choice/firstlings of his flock" (Genesis 4:4). Could it be that God is pleased when we give the first, the choice, the best, what we truly value? instead of merely something "from," a little portion of what we have?

Interestingly, once Cain is upset, God gives him a warning, a chance - but Cain squanders his opportunity and kills Abel. The problem really isn't in God (as in Why did God choose one over the other?) but in the way Cain dealt with the self-evident unfairness of life. Cain wants total fairness - but life isn't fair, God never promised it would be, and (as Reno shrewdly put it) "not every inequity is an iniquity." It is said that to love people equally, you will need to treat them differently - and the fact that God encounters each of us in a peculiar, occasionally incomprehensible way does not mean then that God doesn't love, and that we don't have the opportunity to respond faithfully.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 6 - Noah and Mary

Reading and pondering Genesis - again, now that I'm getting older - it occurs to me that Noah has a lot in common with Mary, the mother of our Lord. Noah may in some way foreshadow Mary, or perhaps just be a similar sort of disciple. Noah, like Mary, finds favor with God - although frankly we do not know why. Noah is chosen by God, as Mary is chosen - not due to intellectual brilliance, or wealth or social standing; they are not persons of influence who are likely to get much accomplished. Perhaps God can foresee that they will be faithful - but they are still humble, faithful, totally obedient in response.

Noah is not exactly a resourceful, inventive person. He devises no clever plan to survive the flood; he simply does as he is told by God, even if it makes him a laughingstock among his neighbors. Mary does not hatch some strategy, or use her savvy to achieve God's purpose. She simply obeys: "Let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).

And yet Noah doesn't just sit there. He acts - but, as Rusty Reno points out, "We should not confuse human activity with human independence." Noah is quite busy, he labors diligently on a huge building project, and with no help - but he exhibits not a shred of independence. In America, where freedom and independence are our badges of honor, we have an uphill climb to discover the kind of dependence and total obedience we see in Noah, and Mary.

The flood might feel like God's vindictiveness - but once human beings sin, massive loss is the kind of thing that inevitably ensues. As Reno put it, "We drown in the consummation of our misplaced loves." But God provides a future, a glimmer of hope: the wood of the ark has, through Christian history, symbolized the wood of the cross of Christ - and just as the water of the flood both killed those outside but saved those inside the floating ark, so the Water of life, Jesus, and the waters of Baptism save those who get close to the obedient, humble ones, Noah, Mary, and her son, Jesus. It is not surprising that a dominant symbol of the Church through the ages has been the ark:Duke Divinity school's logo is an ark, and even church sanctuaries (like ours!) are said to resemble the inverted insides of an ark.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 11 - Babel and Eden

In Genesis 3, we see individual sin, rebellion against God; by Genesis 11, that individual sin has taken on public, corporate, international dimensions. We are wise to understand sin not merely as a solo problem you or I might have privately with God; sin takes on national, worldwide, cultural forms. Look at our media culture, so vapid and tawdry, and yet so manipulative and dominant, or look at the misdeeds of megacorporations, or violent pseudo-religious movements, or the simply vain triviality of society, and we see the Tower of Babel looming once more.

What is fascinating to me is to consider that in Genesis 3, the story of the demise of Adam and Eve, and in Genesis 11, the splintering of the nations, we see good efforts, we see positive intentions to achieve something important and helpful. As Reno puts it, "devotion to the collective projects of society is very tempting"; many joint projects we cheer on have the "form of self-sacrifice similar to devotion to God. But we cannot escape our slavery to the Lie through patriotism or other forms of selfless service to the world."

Ponder these thoughts! In our society, we see big initiatives and grand endeavors that promise to deliver us and bring about the good we crave; but they are merely human efforts that, for all their noble intentions, are oddly out of sync with God's way. In ancient Babylonia, citizens labored and sacrificed to build the Hanging Gardens (one of the Wonders of the World), and the tall ziggurats, wonders of technology - but these were not God's design for humanity. Back in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve didn't say to one another "Let's ruin our lives." Instead they noticed that the forbidden tree "was good for food." There are so many goods we may prefer in the place of God! Patriotic fervor, political ideologies, my personal gain, consuming, career, comfort, success, my good feelings about myself - but God seeks our love, our loyalty, our obedience. Bonhoeffer rightly diagnosed our problem: we often prefer being "good" to doing what God actually asks of us - which is never bad, but may not be the "good" we think of on our own.

The antithesis of God's will, which swiftly becomes evil, disguises itself as good. Pride looks like self-confidence, greed looks like responsibility, and we rationalize much that is not holy in the name of goodness.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 14 - I saw something Abraham saw

Two years ago I snapped this photo. My pulse was racing when I considered that Abraham - yes, the biblical Abraham from the Middle Bronze Age, had stood precisely where I was standing, and had walked through the gate, who remains I was studying for the first time.

In one of the more obscure chapters of the Bible, Genesis 14, we read about a confusing coalition of kings (really mere petty chieftains, each a warrior leader of a city, valley or hill fortress) chasing about the countryside seeking plunder and a little more territory, or to secure a trade route to Egypt and hence more business. In the thick of battle, a prisoner escaped, ran to Abraham and told him that Lot, his nephew, had been captured. "When Abraham heard this, he led his trained men, 318 of them, and pursued as far as Dan, and routed the enemy" (Genesis 14:14-15). Dan, in the far northern tip of Israel, almost in Lebanon today, would have been a walled city, the only entrance being the stone arched gate, which archaeologists have discovered. Can you see the arch over the smaller, filled-in dirt around the doorway?

Many hyper-critics declare there is nothing historical in Genesis. Even those with a healthy appreciation for the book realize we are in the dim recesses of time, before history was ever recorded much, and so the number of facts and dates we can count on are few to nonexistent.

But Genesis 14 puts Abraham at a particular place we know was standing during that time period. And why would Genesis share such an exact number of soldiers - 318! - if it was a legend made up centuries later? We'll never find the Garden of Eden or Noah's ark; we cannot know much about what counts as "history" today in reading Genesis - but I know I saw a stone gate Abraham saw, and walked through with 318 men.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis12 - read Genesis 12:1-4!

"The scandal of particularity" is the phrase theologians use to describe the mysterious manner of God's action in the world: instead of some blanket salvation strategy that directly targets billions of people, God chooses what is small, God chooses just one person, one people, and asks them to be the ones God uses to save everybody else. What is God up to?

Just before God pledges in Genesis 12 to choose and thus use Abraham to save everybody else, we read of the colossal failure of a large-scale, worldwide project in Genesis 11. Humanity in general, all the nations, gathered and built a tower; not only did they fail to achieve their goals, they made things worse. God focuses on the one, for it is always just one person that matters; if we have any hope to cure poverty, it isn't by curing "poverty," but by befriending one person in poverty, and another, and another, each with a face and name.

As Russ Reno describes it, "The small scale of the divine plan seems ridiculous... that the creator of the universe invests himself and his purposes in such small, feeble realities." We think what is big will save us, but it is "our rebellion against smallness" that is our ruin. God's goal is "to transform, rather than to destroy or overwhelm a sin-infected world. The divine plan is for God to counter sin with the real presence of his holiness in human life, and this requires the small, thin needle of a syringe rather than the baseball bat of necessary truths or global proclamations. The divine plan fights the infection of sin with a counterinfection of holiness."

People love to debate: who did more good? Bill Gates or Mother Teresa? The world surely reaps great benefit from the engine of a thriving economy, but any gains may turn out to be disastrous if we never glimpse the simple, holy counter-infection of a single person devoted to God, prayerful, humble, unimpressed by technology or wealth, wholly absorbed in God.

Charles Dickens spoke of "telescopic philanthropy," the tendency we have to think good should be done for humanity in general, or for somebody somewhere else, instead of for the one who is close by, the one right in front of us who needs us. Society's calculus declares it is a waste of time just to help a single person. But I'm a single person, and so are you, as is every person you know, and each one God made. Mother Teresa once arrived late for a hunger conference in Bombay, where analysts were assessing global food supply trends. She saw a starving man outside on the steps, so she fed him, and missed the conference. When criticized, she responded, "It's just a drop in the ocean. But what is the ocean, if not many drops?"

God seems to prefer, in a world where big trumps in every time, to work through what is small, through Abraham - and through you. After all, God became flesh in the shape of a tiny infant. God became small, to show us his heart, to win our hearts, to invite us to follow, with Abraham, and be a blessing to others.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis12 - Abraham left

I can't get my mind of the risky courage Abraham must have had to do what God asked him to do. We read in Genesis 12 that God said to him, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you." In The Will of God, I suggested this is an intriguing model for how we discern God's way for us: God doesn't pinpoint on the map where Abraham is to go, God simply says I'll show you later on, just start going - or coming. We wish to know how it will all turn out for us, but God says simply Come! and stick close.

That's well and good, but to Go, Abraham had to Go from his country, from his kindred, from his father's house - which means leaving his security, everything he'd achieved and counted on, behind. There is some shedding, or a lot of shedding, that God asks of us. The disciples "put down their nets" - their livelihood as fishermen! - to follow Christ. St. Francis abandoned his father and the lucrative family business to follow Christ. Our problem is we fantasize that God only asks us to do easy things, and we can still grasp tightly all we've marshaled to this point, and that God likely will give us even more.
Two wise scholars have pondered this moment for Abraham, and for us. Russ Reno wrote, "Because the children of Adam and Eve are beholden to the lie that worldly life can satisfy our desire for rest, God must interrupt the cascading flow of time, tear out one family from the drumbeat of the generations, in order to cut to the joints and marrow of human history... You cannot find heart's desire by satisfying your desire of the things of this world."

And Walter Moberly helps us understand the hidden wisdom in the realization that the world cannot deliver: "If Abraham will but trust God, he can leave current security and identity behind in the confidence that greater security and identity lie ahead. Those who respond to the costly call of God to leave behind what they have, and whose subsequent way of living will set them apart from their neighbors and perhaps provoke antagonism," discover a solid hope "that will sustain them through difficult times."

Indeed: the "times" are difficult - so why would following Christ be easy? God asks us to do what is hard - and history and literature are highlighted by the heroic deeds of those who took on what was difficult, or even impossible; and in your own life you realize in retrospect that deep joy only comes from stretching and valiantly embracing and enduring what seemed perilous or arduous - when you thought you might not make it through. A couple of weeks ago, in a sermon on Genesis 22, I tried to tell my own story of God calling me to do something extremely difficult with my life; if you have time to watch, let me know what you think this might mean for you.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 12-18 -

Quite a few authors and speakers have played on the conception that Abraham was the ancestor of Jews, Christians and Muslims, hoping that our ancient kinship might be a way to find peace and understanding today. The marvelous Families of Abraham photography exhibit, featuring Muslim, Christian and Jewish families from Charlotte, was on display in our own Church

But there are a few problems with this notion - and our fealty to Abraham has been around for a long time but we still have had Crusades, Holocausts and Jihads. Christianity was never about genetic ties to anybody; and in the Genesis story of Abraham, Ishmael, the alleged ancestor of the Muslims, is treated fairly shabbily.

Walter Moberly, who teaches Old Testament at the University of Durham (not Duke, but the Durham in the north of England), has wisely suggested that a better resource for Jews, Christians and Muslims to consider is not our kinship to Abraham and thus to one another, but rather Abraham's behavior - which might inspire us to do likewise.

Abraham was noted, above all else, for his extraordinary hospitality. Abraham yields the best land to his kinsman Lot. Any time strangers show up, Abraham invites them in, provides food and drink. There is even a legend (the so-called Testament of Abraham) that Death came calling, and Abraham, ever hospitable, welcomed Death, and went to glory from this earth.

It is hospitality - the disposition of welcome, of listening, of openness, of including the stranger at the table, that is the hope of our religions to learn to love one another and be at peace. No better book has been written than The Dignity of Difference, by Jonathan Sacks, on the matter of how we relate to those who are different, who believe differently, who even seem strange - and yet we would not hate, fight, or believe wrongly about the other, but we would love, and listen, welcome, and share.

And Genesis teaches us that it is not only a potentially helpful idea, this hospitality. When we show hospitality toward the stranger, to the one who is terribly different, we draw very close to God. In Genesis 18, Abraham and Sarah welcome three strangers, and... God happens for them. Arriving in Emmaus, two confused disciples invite a stranger to stay, and it is Jesus, and their eyes are opened. And Hebrews 13:2 tells us, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 15 - carcasses and torches

Genesis 15 is surely one of the most important passages in the entire Bible, as the New Testament resorts to this moment to explain the heart of the Christian life: the apostle Paul makes Genesis 15:6 ("Abraham believed the Lord, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness") the fulcrum of his passionate Gospel message.

But can anyone read the entire chapter and not leave baffled? Picture all this in your mind: "The Lord came to Abraham in a vision: 'Fear not, I am your shield; your reward shall be great.' But Abraham said, 'O Lord, I continue childless.' The Lord brought him outside and said, 'Look up, number the stars, if you are able; so many shall your descendants be."

So far, so good - although we might wonder how to hear the Lord's voice, or how we get ushered outside by the Lord. Abraham could certainly see exponentially more stars than we can, with all our fake ambient light. But what's next? "The Lord said, 'Bring me a heifer, she-goat, ram, turtledove, and pigeon, all 3 years old.'" Abraham did this - but how so quickly? Then: "Abraham cut them in two, and when birds of prey swooped down upon the carcasses, Abraham drove them away. When the sun had gone down, Abraham fell into a deep sleep. Later it was dark, and a smoking pot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces. On that evening the Lord made a covenant with Abraham."

What happened? Some ancient ritual shrouded in mystery, animistic beliefs that butchering animals and lighting torches would bring blessing or some glimpse of what God would want you to do. Robert Alter, the brilliant Yale scholar, at a loss to explain all this, concluded that "all this is mystifying, and is surely meant to be so, in keeping with the haunting mystery of the covenantal moment." In the dim recesses of time, before there were books, science, travel, or even history, the earliest people connected profoundly with God, and engaged in worship in ways that may strike us as bizarre and inexplicable.

Perhaps today, with the mountains of knowledge and rationality we possess, worship remains a bit of a mystery, a strange sequence of actions that may puzzle outsiders. We get out of bed and show up in a big room of stone and wood, while others are playing golf or lingering over breakfast; we sing, together, not the pop songs of the day but songs sung only in this place; we hear old, very old stories about carcasses and divine voices; we bow our heads, fold our hands, and speak into the darkness; we voluntarily hand money to people we may not know, and we sign up to take our good time and help a stranger in need without asking many questions; then during the week, at work, in our world of cause and effect, where everything is about efficiency and making sense and profits, we remember the hour in worship, we realize God is lingering near us, and we exhale with a brief burst of gratitude, and ask what God would have us do next.

Sounds about as strange as slicing up turtledoves and rams, and waving a torch - and keeping it up in the face of all that would lure us away from God is a bit like waving off the vultures swooping down to devour all that is holy and beautiful....

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis17 - be perfect

In Genesis 17:2, God urges Abraham to "walk before me, and be perfect." Much as we might dream of perfection before God, not many of us think we have the slightest chance to get anywhere near perfection - at anything, much less in the eyes of God.

But what is this perfection? and why does God ask such an obviously flawed person to be perfect? The contours of perfection might surprise us. Abraham, repeatedly, questions God - and questions are not contrary to faith, but are at the very heart of an open existence with the God who isn't afraid of questions. Abraham, Jeremiah, Paul, and all great saints through history have questioned God; even Mary, when being told she would be the mother of God's own son, asks "How shall this be?" (Luke 1:34). Faith seeks to understand, faith longs to know more, faith doesn't settle for half-baked half-truths.

The ultimate question in the life of faith is "How long, O Lord?" (Psalm 13:1) - and who better to ask than Abraham? He was already 75 years old when God got started with him, but he had to wait decades for the fulfillment of God's promise. We modern people aren't very patient with promises, or good at making and fulfilling them. We want what we want now, we don't wish to wait - but the Promiser says Wait, I will come, I will act, but part of the delight, the joyful discipline, is in the waiting, the delayed fulfillment.
Perfection isn't being squeaky clean, morally speaking; perfection is about being willing to wait, to trust that God, in God's good time, will deliver. After all, it is God, so it is all grace. Perfection is being forgiven; perfection is following Christ (Matthew 5:48).

Grace and love have a necessary corollary - which is a changed life. God makes outlandish promises to Abraham, but for Abraham to live into what God plans, for Abraham not to squander the gift, Abraham must change. "He must become a different kind of man, one fit not only to walk in the land, but also to walk before the Lord" (Russ Reno). In Abraham's case, actual physical change, a bodily holiness is required - in the form of circumcision. Paul is at pains to insist you can follow Christ without being circumcised. But he is very clear that bodily holiness matters; if we do not consecrate what we do with our hands and feet, what we eat and drink, how we use our body, we fritter away the marvelous gift of grace and ruin what was God's beautiful work - not only for us but also in us.

Christian theologians have always insisted on the dual importance of justification and sanctification: justification is what God has done for us, sanctification is what God does in us and with us. We would not even wish to receive from God without living for God, and doing so realistically, with all our might, our bodies, our minds and practical actions.

It seems that, for Genesis, this perfection required of us is a dedication of not just our souls but also our bodies to God; and as John Wesley thought about it, we are always "going on to perfection," which doesn't mean we are already perfect, but we are headed in the direction of perfection in our walk before God. Holiness, striving for bodily perfection, is what we do while we wait for the sure fulfillment of God's sacred promise.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 22 - new wisdom on the sacrifice of Isaac

During Year Through the Bible, we devoted an email to this passage - attending to the anguished drama, and the hard questions raised by the notion of God asking Abraham to take his own son's life, especially since this son had been so long in arriving. Could it be, since an angel intervenes and prevents the slaughter, that the point of the story is that in Israel, children are not to be sacrificed - as this was a horrific practice among Israel's neighbors back in the Bronze Age?

The freight of the story as told in Genesis 22 seems to be about "testing." We don't like to think of God as testing us, and we likely fear we'd fail abysmally. Rusty Reno pointed out that "trials and tests are consistent with divine love. They work against our hopeless hope that our finite powers can see us through." I like that: God seems to set up situations that are tests, partly to expose what is truly in our souls, but also to teach us a daunting but delightful dependence upon God.

God asks a lot of us, not a little. Walter Moberly points out that God not once but twice tells Abraham to "go." In Genesis 12, God asks him to leave his home and security, to relinquish his past; and then in Genesis 22, God asks Abraham to climb a mountain and relinquish his future. Right now, God says Trust me alone, not what you've saved up, or what you're counting on, but simply my power and provision.

If you have any fondness for the 10 commandments, you are asking God to test you. In Exodus 20, when Moses has just presented the commandments, he explains their purpose: "to test you and to put the fear of God upon you so that you do not sin." God tested Abraham, and God devised commandments to draw us searchingly into a purer and more faithful way of living.

The "point" of the story is peculiar to Abraham's personal adventure with God, not ours - and yet Genesis 22 seems also to ask us not to withhold whatever is most precious to us from God, so we might fear God. Faith is the shedding of a timid kind of fear, but faith also is the encouragement of a holy fear, one that trembles before God, and wants nothing more than to please God. The idea of good fear might be familiar to new parents, who sense a kind of reverent fear before their infant, or to a soldier heading into battle, cognizant of the peril, yet courageous all the same.

Genesis 22 probably says more about God than about us. God provides. The whole drama of salvation, the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, is the fulfillment of this ultimate truth: God will provide - not things that I want, but hope, the unfathomable presence of God in every trial, and the eventual defeat of all evil.
I've tried to imagine what life was like with Isaac after nearly losing him; in fact, for any of us, any time we nearly lose someone we love, the treasuring is (hopefully) more tender, and our gratitude immense.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis25-32 - God's wanton disregard for our

How at odds with conventional wisdom is the book of Genesis? It is Jacob, the younger of Isaac and Rebekah's twins, the one thus without strong legal standing, the one who swindles his brother, father, in-laws, and anybody else who might stand in his way, who not only prospers (we expect the survival of the fittest, the upside for the craftiest, in a world like this!), but actually is God's instrument (read Genesis 25:19 through Genesis 32). And he becomes God's instrument, not by converting or seeing the error of his ways, but simply because God chooses him - almost as if God delights in the unlikely; the God of Genesis seems to assert his authority, and to remind us of our humility, by passing over the strong, capable, "good" ones to select the lousy candidate with no spiritual credentials.

Genesis seems to underline what Moses reported God said (and which the apostle Paul quoted as the very heart of the Gospel): "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion" (Exodus 33:19, Romans 9:15). We recoil a bit - until we remember our own unfitness, our own renegade waywardness from God; if God waits on our excellence, if only the holy can be part of God's adventure, then we are left quite alone without God or any hope or purpose.

Russ Reno described Jacob's situation, and ours, quite eloquently: "Only God's wanton disregard for our moral and spiritual worthiness makes fellowship with him possible. That God tosses reasons aside does not signal that he does not care, but instead indicates a love that tosses aside the fact that the beloved does not deserve to be loved. Love without motive or reason invests everything in the beloved, and this makes love invincible. Nothing can speak against a love that has no reasons."

Human love, of course, always has reasons, and limits; but God provides the curious stories in Genesis so we might learn the startling, dizzying, wonderful truth that God quite simply loves, and chooses the unfit, and uses us. Ours is to bask in the love, and to let our hearts cling to God, and to stop resistance to being used by such a merciful, overwhelmingly gracious God.

James
james@mpumc.org
www.mpumc.org

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eGenesis25 - advantage to server

The dramatic episodes of conflict and outright rage between Jacob and his slightly older twin brother Esau are unforgettable - and instructive for us. While still in Rebekah's womb, they "struggled valiantly" (Genesis 25:22). Jacob was a mama's boy, staying indoors; he was a "smooth" man, while Esau was "hairy," dad's favorite, a hunter and man of the field. But Jacob was more cunning, and one day took advantage of Esau's hunger, offering to swap him some porridge for his birthright - and Esau, foolishly, with no forethought, accepted the bargain (Genesis 25:29-34).

Esau, clearly, is an object lesson to modern people. His inability to defer gratification, his sense that his desires must be satisfied, and now, that he simply couldn't deny himself, is all too familiar. Bodily desire trumps in over what is precious to God; cravings for immediate satisfaction ruin long-term goods that are only good because we have waited for them.

What is not so obvious, what I have never really contemplated in my years of reading Genesis, was suggested to me by reading Reno's commentary on Genesis, often-quoted in these emails. Jacob, no matter how manipulative or wily his intent might have been, served: "And precisely because he is ready to serve, Jacob finds himself at an advantage. The mighty elder brother is about to be put down." Jacob serves the one who is hungry. Perhaps his motives are less than noble - but serving is always good; to serve is to mimic God; to prepare and serve food for the hungry is to be like Jesus and the saints of history.

Perhaps when we first decide to serve, our purposes might be defective: maybe we're working off community service hours, or padding a resume, or trying to feel better about ourselves, or to get the preacher off my back! But when we serve, we are suddenly at a surprising advantage: we are on God's side of things, we are reenacting Jesus' way in the world, and we notice corrupt motives, and they are purified, and we discover the surprising joys of serving. Maybe we aren't fixed internally or focused spiritually; but if we serve, if we assume the humble position of doing for others, we get close to God, and God teaches and uses us in ways we weren't ready for when we started.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis28 - we are climbing Jacob's ladder

I've written and preached quite a few times on the story of Jacob's ladder. The Hebrew, interestingly, doesn't indicate a "ladder," as in two longish pieces of wood with slats for you to step up on, but more of a "ramp," the sort of massive dirt/stone ramp the Romans buit when besieging Masada (see what's left of it today by clicking here), or the access ascents into Babylonian temples (see an example here).

Jacob is on the run from his brother, and from God and his stormy past; but God appears to him in a dream. Angels "ascend and descend" on this ladder/ramp - and the order of the words is fascinating. We'd expect angels to descend and then ascend - but if they first ascend, that means they are already down here! God is already with us - even if we don't realize it! You might enjoy an earlier email I wrote on this passage's marvelous thought, "The Lord was in this place, and I did not know it" (Genesis 28:16).

Here are Russ Reno's thoughts about these angels: "Although the ladder reaches upward, Jacob is not himself called to ascend the ladder in order to leave his worldly life behind. He does not stop and remain in his place of vision. He offers worship, makes a vow and then continues on his way. Jacob is not called up and out of life. Grace perfects rather than destroys nature. The angels ascend, then descend; they take Jacob's vision upward, only to return it to the horizontal reality of this world."

And then, while I'm still on Jacob's ladder, I was recently reading some profound meditations by Thomas Traherne, the English poet who died in 1675, who thought about this passage and wrote metaphorically, "The Cross of Christ is the Jacob's ladder by which we ascend into the highest heavens. There we see joyful Patriarchs, expecting Saints, Prophets ministering, Apostles publishing, Nations centering, and Angels praising. That Cross is a tree set on fire with invisible flame, that illuminateth all the world. The flame is Love: the Love in His bosom who died on it. The Cross is the abyss of wonders, the centre of desires, the school of virtues, the house of wisdom, the throne of love, the theatre of joys, and the place of sorrows; it is the root of happiness, and the gate of Heaven."

Oh my: more than Genesis had in mind! - and yet isn't his spiritual insight profoundly true?

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis37-50 - Joseph and Jesus

The competitive baby derby that is Jacob's family predictably resulted in strife between siblings. Joseph is clearly the father's favorite. Although children (andAndrew Lloyd Webber's musical) envision Joseph in a "multicolored" coat, the Hebrew indicates he wore long sleeves; laborers in the field would wear short sleeves, to avoid getting caught in the brambles, so it would be the indoor position of ease that would allow for long sleeves.

Joseph dreams a dream - and it is difficult to discern if he is an arrogant brat, or one literally thrown into a saving role by God. We know the story: the brothers, in jealous rage, sell him into slavery, bloody the long sleeved garment, and lead their father to believe his favorite was mauled by an animal. But Joseph miraculously rises to the zenith of power in Egypt, even after spending time in jail, and it is because of his administrative prowess that Egypt squirrels away enough food to survive a lengthy famine - and therefore Jacob's family can also find bread, and survive, and fulfill God's promise, despite their dastardly behavior.

It is not difficult to find profound parallels between the story of Joseph and that of Jesus. Genesis does not predict the coming of Jesus; but the unfolding of Joseph's stunning story and the redemption in Jesus follow the same, holy pattern. Russ Reno describes things beautifully: "Just as Joseph is the beloved son of Jacob, hated by his own kin, so also does the beloved Son of God come 'to his own home, and his people received him not' (John 1:11). Yet just as the effort to destroy Joseph leads to the salvation of his family, so also does the suffering and death of Jesus end up securing salvation for the human family... Joseph is not set above his brothers in order to be exalted, but in order to serve them. Like Joseph, Jesus comes out of prison, and like Joseph shaven and given new clothes, the risen Christ comes out of the prison of death not as a disembodied spirit but instead in a body purified and clothed in incorruption."

Joseph is described by Genesis as "handsome." How intriguing that Jesus, about whom many good things are said, is never said to be "handsome." His gruesome death echoes the mystical words of Isaiah: "His appearance was marred; he had no beauty; he was wounded and bruised..." (Isaiah 53).

Yet his ugly, shameful death brought life - and we are drawn once again to the climax of the Joseph story. The groveling, desperate brothers find themselves before their powerful brother - and he forgives them, saying "Do not be angry with yourselves; God sent me here to preserve life" (Genesis 45:5-8), and "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20). Joseph doesn't mean God manipulated them into sinning, but rather that God can take evil and bring miraculous good out of that very evil. What in all of human history was more unjust that the brutal execution of God's own pure, perfect, loving Son? But didn't God send Jesus to preserve life? Those who rejected Jesus meant evil against him, but God meant it for good.

How marvelous is the biblical story, and God's way in the world, for a dysfunctional family's startling outcome to be recalled, to unveil the very nature of the God who would seventeen centuries later send his own Son to the crazy family of humanity to give life!

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis 42-50 - a broken family healed

How compelling is the drama of Genesis 37-50? Take a few minutes and read the incredible saga, or at least chapters 37 and 39-45. A fractured family, luck, heartbreak, destiny, unfathomable forgiveness, the vision of the subtle divine hand exorcising even the most despicable human action, bringing good out of evil, a family reunited, tears of joy: Joseph's path from dreamer, to despised, sold into slavery, a surprising rise to power, an innocent tumble, a recovery by seeming chance, and then the brothers who loathed him winding up in front of him pleading for food - but they do not recognize him.

Their inability to realize it was Joseph before whom they knelt asking for provisions: we cannot know why they didn't say Gosh, he looks familiar... Perhaps it was the simple assumption that he must be dead or rotting in prison; at first the risen Jesus wasn't recognizable. Perhaps he was healthier, better dressed, well-coiffed as he'd never been; Russ Reno even wonders if he has become entirely assimilated to Egyptian culture, very comfortable in his new life, perhaps even forgetful of his old life.

But he knows them, and does not simply embrace them or rush to punishment or reconciliation. Instead he toys with them, asking questions, sending them back home to get little brother, testing them to see how they would cope with being accused of theft, after he'd had a luxury item planted in their bags.
Psychologically we may rightly say that healing takes time; some process is required for people to get from brokenness to spiritual restoration, from rancor and mistrust to a renewal of love and trust. Joseph had to be pleased - and thus surprised! - with his brothers. Judah offers himself up to die in place of Benjamin (Genesis 44:33). Early in the story he had not only refused to be his brother's keeper; he was his brother's near-killer!

But now, perhaps having learned from the pain of his shattered family, he would eagerly die than have a brother suffer. He is like Christ - and then it is Joseph who puts Christ on display - 17 centuries before the birth of Christ! Joseph reveals himself as their brother, and forgives, even claiming God sent him there so many could live. God did not cause the brothers' sin, but God used it to bring life - just as the hatred of those who put away Jesus was abominable in God's eyes, but God used their violence and Jesus' suffering on the cross to give us (and even them!) life.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eGenesis - eGenesis ends, eMoses begins

And so we end our summer explorations of Genesis - and thank you for letting me ramble about new things I've learned and thought about the book. Do you have any questions, or reflections, as we wind up this time together?

Genesis ends on an ambiguous note: Joseph died, was embalmed, and placed in a coffin in Egypt. Sorrow hangs over the death of perhaps the greatest of the Israelites; and yet we sense fulfillment, joyful completion, the fitting death of a man of considerable achievement, glory, and holiness.

His passing establishes context for what's next: Exodus, and the rise of (and need for) Moses. "Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph" (Exodus 1:8). The Pharaoh, instead of cherishing the memory of Joseph and how he had saved Egypt, clamped down on Joseph's descendents, enslaving them (and cruelly). The stage is set for the combat of good vs. evil.

But it is important to realize that in the Bible it isn't that God's people are good and others are evil; evil resides in every heart - and there is some good as well. How this plays out, and what it means for us as Bible readers, and what we expect to find in the Bible (and what we will never find!) are the subject of Monday's email...

James
james@mpumc.org