Ok, so here’s what you’re about to read – as I went through the week, I jotted down a bunch of notes. At the end of the week, I put all these notes in a document and picked out a bunch of themes and wrote on those (along with a few observations). So instead of reading everything as I initially saw it, you’re getting a week’s worth of meditation. This also helps me to process what it was that I read and how it all relates to each other (as opposed to being compartmentalized from day to day.
Old Testament (Genesis
13:5 – 26:35)
- I’ve never understood why the Egyptians get punished for Abram’s wrong. I mean, the guy lies and whores out his wife and Pharaoh gets sick? This happens later with Ablimech (who gets burned twice – once with Abraham, once with Isaac). However, it seems that my question is answered during the Ablimech arc. God gives Ablimech a choice – return this chick or suffer. I think this whole thing is meant to illustrate Abraham’s limitations – the fudging God of the Universe has promised Abraham security, prosperity and kids – but Abraham is still afraid of these provincial kings. Even the kings seem to get it – when Ablimech returns Sarah, he essentially gives Abraham carte blanche over the land because he realizes who Abraham’s corner-man is – but Abraham still doesn’t seem to get it. As a further example of those outside his circle getting it (and possibly Abraham’s strength of character), Abraham insists on paying the full price for Sarah’s burial plot even though everyone just wants to give it to him due to his relationship with God. I choose to look at it as a strength, a sign that Abraham doesn’t want to take advantage of the kindness (or fear) of others or of his relationship with God.
- Sarah tells Abram, “God has not seen fit to give me a child” so knock up the maid. Thanks for being God’s emissary, Sarah. And of course Abram’s gonna go along with it because now he gets twice the action! And it’s sanctioned by his wife! Then she flips out once Hagar gets pregnant and blames Abraham – she’s got a real problem with personal responsibility, that Sarah. This continues later with the way Sarah treats Ishmael and forces spineless Abraham to send him out into the wilderness. Safe to say, this reading of Sarah didn’t endear her to me that much.
- Circumcision… ugh.
- For
years I’ve used the story of Abraham and
- Abraham may have his failings, but his trust in God is definitely his strength. Looking over this past week, I’m able to see a timeline: God promises Abram prosperity and a nation if he leaves, which is pretty good motivation, so he leaves. In the middle of the journey, though, God hasn’t given Abraham Isaac yet, so his trust falters and he gives in to Sarah’s suggestion about Hagar and continually tries to pass off Sarah as his sister to protect himself. However, once God gives him Isaac, Abraham’s faith and trust is restored and he goes so far as to bring his son to the mountaintop to serve as the sacrifice that God asked for, trusting that God will provide the sacrifice regardless (because God has provided what he’s said he would all along). Working from the addictions/twelve-step perspective, Abraham’s trust in God during the sacrifice situation is a prime example of Step 3 - someone submitting to God’s will over self-will (and receiving the bounty from it). There’s also the parallel and foreshadowing of Christ’s coming and sacrifice in Abraham’s statement, “God will provide the sacrifice.” Very powerful stuff.
- One thing I’ve always struggled with is the favoritism that the patriarchs seem to play. Abraham favors Isaac, Isaac favors Esau and Jacob favors Joseph. I can’t help but read these initial stories and think about how all of this will eventually come to a head with the story of Joseph. Prior to this reading, I would read the passages where God would tell Abraham that his line would come through Isaac and think that God was fostering this favoritism – now, though, I see that God talks about how he will provide for Ishmael and give him a nation and all these other things – God isn’t playing favorites with Abraham’s kids.
- That Rebekah must have been quite a looker – Isaac can’t even wait a day! He sees the chick, hears the story and immediately brings her into the tent and marries her. Not only that, but Rebekah presents herself to be the original Lady Macbeth/Cersei Lannister in the way she manipulates her husband to elevate her favorite son to receive the blessing.
- Finally, I’ve always felt like Isaac was the lamest of the patriarchs and have questioned why he gets listed amongst them. He has the least written about him, his character seems to be that of the spoiled son and even God says, “I’ll bless you because of my relationship with your pops.” Isaac was the original Roger Sterling (or Jackie Aprile Jr, depending on your preference).
New Testament
(Matthew 5:27 - 9:17)
- Say what you will about The Message, but I really liked the different spin it puts on the Beattitudes. Again, this is a section of the Bible that I’ve read/heard so many times that it passes over my like water on a duck’s back most of the time. However, in this reading I was halfway through them before I realized I was in the Beattitudes. The translation highlighted the positive, practical virtues of what Christ is saying, rather than turning them into antonymic platitudes that I’m used to. As someone who leads close to 15 hours of group therapy a week, I love it that Jesus teaches in object lessons and real world examples, rather than philosophical garbage. I read a book in college about ways churches can appeal to their male constituency and it essentially boiled down to “Shorter sermons with object lessons.” I’ve got the world’s shortest attention span, so I appreciate it when someone uses pop-culture references or situational examples that I can relate to when trying to deliver their points. I also hate wasting my time with concepts and philosophy, and I think the majority of folks do as well. So, to me, the fact that Jesus teaches this way makes both his message and him so much easier to grasp to the everyday person… which is our theme for the week with Jesus! This comes in at the end of our readings as well, when the teachers jump all over Jesus for dining with and teaching the tax collectors and “sinners”, to which he replies, “Sick people need doctors, not healthy folks. I came to teach the outsiders, not coddle insiders.”
- Additionally, we always talk about how we need to “meet people where they’re at” instead of only talking to folks when they seek us out – and I think one of the ways that Jesus did this was through his miracles. He would meet both their spiritual and physical needs and show that he could be all things to all people. And when the skeptics would call him out and say, “Hey! You can’t tell people their sins are forgiven! That’s blasphemy and you can’t even prove that they are!” He’d give em a smirk and say, “Yeah? Well, which is easier? Telling a lifelong cripple that his sins are forgiven or telling him to stand up and dance? Well, here’s BOTH! BOOM!” Finally, Jesus tells us that we shouldn’t be impressed with charisma, but should look for character – and I think he practices what he preached. He wasn’t just a guy who would tell you to love your enemies and then hang out with his buddies – he’d minister to those enemies. We’ll hit more on this later in the year when Nicodemus comes in.
- Jesus tosses out these crazy statements (cut off your hand/poke out your eye if it causes you to sin), talking about the importance of the heart and mind and possibly contrasting that with the extreme lengths that these religious folks would go to in order to satisfy their perceived requirements – getting one’s heart right instead of superficially following a rule. When talking about loving one’s enemies, I caught that God loves his enemies, regardless of whether they love him back or not. And Thank God for that. I also love it that Jesus essentially says, “I’m not going to congratulate you for brushing your teeth in the morning – doing something you’d do anyway.
- A topic I’ve discussed with my clients time and time again is value. I always talk about the importance of evidence in assessing whether you truly value something or not. To me, my evidence is time – If I say that I value my Bible, but I spend all my time watching Oz or vegging out with my 64 and can’t allot 15 minutes a day to my Bible, I probably don’t value it like I say I do. I feel like this concept is just an echo of the passage, “Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.” What I truly value is what I’ll spend my heart, mind and time on. Jesus also talks about how his words aren’t just spices to add to my life – they’re to be the foundation. Now I don’t think I had much of a choice with this one, since I learned how to read using a Beginner’s Bible – but I think this is a perfect preemptive strike for folks who simply want to incorporate some of “Good Man” Jesus’s sayings into their lives. And one thing I’ve found myself doing over the past few years is attributing Biblical virtues and phrases to other sources, forgetting where I originally heard them – so I need to get back to my roots and foundations.
- If I quit being so obsessive with getting and instead focus on giving, I’ll be a happier guy, because what I’ll get from God is what I need and not just what I desire. This also goes along with what I read about Abraham this week, in that God provides his children with what they need when they do what he asks.
- “Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans.” – Well, there goes half my vocabulary.
Psalms (6:1 –
10:18) & Proverbs (1:29 – 3:10)
- David says that he brings his requests to God every morning and then waits expectantly. I’ve got the expectant part down – it’s the waiting that I have trouble with.
- David may be a little melodramatic at times, but I like that his messages essentially boil down to, “regardless of the stuff the world throws at me, I find comfort in knowing that my God loves me (and sometimes that knowledge is all that I have.” Last Sunday I visited Vintage Metairie and Rob Wilton spoke a little about how sometimes he doesn’t need praise songs or a sermon or anything – he just wants to feel the presence of God. When I’m at the beach, I spend the majority of my time sitting on our balcony, reading a book because I don’t need to feel the ocean or the sand under my feet or the hot sun beating down on me – I just take pleasure in knowing I’m doing something I normally do somewhere I’m normally not. I don’t know if that’s connected at all with this, but it brought me some comfort and a smile.
- One thing that both David and Solomon hit on is that God/wisdom responds to those who actively seek Him. “You, oh Lord, do not abandon those who search for you,” David says, while Solomon goes all Field of Dreams on us and says that, “If we seek Wisdom, we will find it.”
- “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path.” This is one of those verses that, I guarantee you, 42 Sunday School classes made their kids memorize this morning. It’s one that I, Bible-drill-illiterate as I may be, can say forwards and backwards. It’s one that I normally skim over because I’m like, “Yep, know that one, what’s new?” However, this week I focused on this passage, because I don’t want to skim and because I saw how it related to the stories I was reading in Abraham and Jesus and the centurion. In the past year that I’ve been working with addicts and studying the relationship between sponsorship and awareness, I’ve developed a new appreciation for how limited my own sight is. To me, the idea of not leaning on my own understanding runs counter to what I want to do – but it’s what I need to do because I’m (literally) nearsighted and can only see what’s in front of me (and not that well either, I’m afraid). The idea of considering God in the things that I do and allowing him to direct me like a cosmic GPS is uncomfortable to me… but effective. What I’m trying to say, in other words, is that if anyone has a WWJD bracelet left over from junior high, I’ll take it.
*EDIT* I'm not even gonna lie - I retroactively googled and added this jam, to fit my new goal of including a pertinent jam to each entry. But I love Sixpence, I love Leigh Nash and somewhere in the back of my mind, I want to remember hearing her since an uptempo version of this song at Cornerstone... but that has become lost in history.
