Romans #4

I am slowly getting the Bible Study summaries for the Romans study that took place through the summer and fall of 2012 written up - my goal is one a week. Apologies for the delay. Here is the fourth in the series...

Romans #4                                                                                                                         08/17/12

Chapter 6 of Romans gives two key metaphors for the Christian life- death and slavery. Both attempt to illustrate a radically transformed desire.

The chapter starts with the question “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” That is, what is to stop me sinning if all is now grace? This is human thinking--in response to absolute free of gift of God's love--and Paul grapples with it. Paul answers that those who die to sin cannot go on living in it. You have completely changed. When you die your old will is overcome. We die in order to live in newness – the life of the resurrection. We identify with Christ’s death – allowing that loving, life-giving, life-filled death to enter. Baptism is the symbol of this. It is total body metaphor for dying so that we might then “walk in newness of life” (v.4). Hope in the resurrection takes the fear out of death.

“Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace”. In other words, it's not a matter of "doing what you like," but a totally new way of human existence and the best metaphor for that is actually death-then-life.

Paul then asks again “Then should we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” If there is no more morality, if we have total freedom, then what stops us from sinning with impunity? Paul answers the same question with another metaphor: we have exchanged one kind of slavery for another. You have to serve somebody. Mimesis is inescapable. But now your enslaved old world self has become enslaved in a new way. We have become “slaves of righteousness”. Instead of the law we have a completely different way of relating in love. As Augustine said “love and do what you will”. Worldly freedom is just another form of slavery and oppression, ending in death. In contrast, being enslaved to God gives eternal life. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

Chapter 5:12-21 is a piece of tortured writing in which Paul tries to explain something new. To do it he makes a comparison of Adam and Jesus and discusses the relationship between sin, law and justification. This passage has been used as a basis for the doctrine of original sin – a doctrine that the Jews don’t have. The doctrine of original sin is that we are all born with a deficiency inside of us that puts us in God’s disfavor. Augustine believed that, as a result, anyone not baptized and therefore put right with God, will be condemned to hell. This led to the pressure to get infants baptized.

It is important to realize that this passage can only be read retrospectively. Verse 14 is the key verse: “Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come”. The word for “type” comes from the Greek word for “pattern” - from cylinders with engravings on them that could be used to imprint and produce a repeated mark or type. The way Paul writes it, Christ is the repeated mark of Adam. But that would make Adam original and Christ derivative, whereas it is the figure of Christ who has changed everything and is therefore original. Thus in fact Christ is the original, the pattern of humanity that allows us--retrospectively--to understand Adam. Christ must be understood first so that we can then understand Adam. The new logic comes from Christ. We wouldn’t know about the old humanity unless there was a new humanity in Christ. Adam only becomes understood as the “type” of our (old) humanity because of the new humanity shown to us by Christ. If interpreters had hung on to this order--of the in-breaking of the new--they would not have seen everything in such legal terms--Adam's fault to be compensated and put right by Christ.

Genesis warned that death would come from sin and Romans says this in fact happened (5:12). But then Paul says that sin is not reckoned when there is no law (v.13) so in some way we must have inherited death from Adam (who sinned). But Paul never says we inherited his sin. In fact he states plainly "death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam" (v.14, my italics). All have sinned so therefore all will die. But we only know we have sinned through/because of the Law. If there isn’t any Law then there is no reckoning that we have sinned. Therefore Adam has to be responsible for our death, but only in terms of a comparison with Christ. Paul is only interested in setting up a view of two humanities (two anthropologies), not a specific chain of causality. In this sense Adam is simply a metaphor, a corporate figure, for all humanity.

In respect of the Law, it only becomes a problem after Christ – now, with him as contrast, we can see it makes things worse. The Law condemns. The Law in trying to deal with sin actually results in death. Christ is the new thing. But the free gift is not like the old thing – the trespass. What comes is not just more of the same – but something very different. In Christ there is no condemnation, no barriers. There are two logics at work. The old logic is one of condemnation and opposition grounded in the Law. The new logic seeks to set us free from this old enslaved humanity. “But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (5:20-21). It is because of Jesus and the gift of grace and life he brings us that we can begin to understand and to see that we were imprisoned precisely by the Law.

(Re)reading the Bible #9

This is a summary of the last two Bible studies from June 17th and June 24th – both on Isaiah. Apologies for the delay and disruption. This has been a bit of a crazy summer so far – with wedding celebrations, naturalization, funerals, conferences and international trips all playing their part in interrupting the flow. Hopefully we will soon be back on track… Linda

Isaiah


From chapter 40 Isaiah is the prophet of the return from exile – his message is one of comfort and hope. He is a counterpoint to Jeremiah who created new possibilities of spiritual relationship in the face of impending loss. Isaiah also finds God in the midst of social disorientation. The exiles return to a situation without king, army or temple – institutions that had been closely associated with God – stamped with divine validation and authority. The people are now in a situation of powerlessness and weakness. Isaiah’s message is of weakness, love and reconciliation within this context. He writes with a growing recognition of the compassion and gentleness of God.

Isaiah 54:4-8 describes God’s people as a shamed and forsaken wife now being brought back into relationship. “I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer”. Here the figure of the redeemer (the “goel”) is introduced. The “goel” was a familiar role in Hebrew culture of that time -usually a family member who stepped in to restore life. If someone was unjustly killed, the goel would exact revenge or retribution. If a man died his brother might marry his widow to save his brother’s family from ruin. Ruth acts as goel when she follows Naomi to the land of her ancestors and agrees to marry her kinsman. In so doing she provides protection to Naomi and preserves her family line. Here in Isaiah, God becomes the goel, the redeemer, the restorer of life. Isaiah announces a new relationship that extends beyond the privileged relationship he shared with single key figures in the past like Moses and David. Here the relationship embraces all of the people. Isaiah uses the word “love” to describe the relationship between God and his people – a term that is now enriched by the new depth and sensitivity of the relationship where the conditions of power and violence have been removed.

In Is 40:1-11 a new biblical voice is introduced. It has a new tonality – of tenderness, gentleness and comfort. This is evident in both the words and the images used. An especially key figure emerges in 2nd Isaiah – that of the Servant. There are four Servant songs describing this individual. The study of this figure as the “Suffering Servant” grew prominent in the 19th century. Perhaps a more accurate, less passive term would be “the Non-violent Servant”. The second and third songs are written in the first person, the first and fourth in the third person.

The identity of the servant has been a matter for scholarly debate. He has been identified with the idealized nation of Israel--“you are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (49:3). However, the passages where the song is written in the first person strongly imply a single individual with an identity separate from Israel. For example, “And now the Lord says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him” (49:5). Moreover, in this instance, the servant is seen as distinct from the people (Jacob). This individual, formed in the womb to do God’s will, brings to mind Jeremiah, a prophet. The Servant could therefore also refer to the prophet (2nd Isaiah) who wrote these passages. This individual has gained insight through the suffering of the people and through personal suffering. He understands that the loss of power has created a new opportunity. That it is the way that the people, and in fact the whole world, can turn to God.

The four songs are linked, not only by the central figure of the Servant, but also by the theme of escalating violence. The first three songs anticipate the violence that climaxes in the 4th song. The songs not only have a shared protagonist and common content, they also directly refer to each other. The commentary of the second song is actually a response to the servant in the 4th song : “one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations” (49:7) - compare with 52:15 and 53:3. There is therefore a descriptive unity within the text. Another example is the start of the second song “Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away” (49:1) which refers back to the first song where “the coastlands wait for his teaching” (42:4).

Following each of the first three songs there is a short commentary:
1st Song: 42:1-4 Commentary 42:5-7
2nd Song: 49:1-6 Commentary 49:7
3rd Song: 50:4-9 Commentary 50:10-11
4th Song: 52:13-53:12

In the first song this commentary is flagged by the words “Thus says the Lord”. It marks a shift from description to an oracle voice that addresses the Servant directly. The commentary of the third song shifts to a second voice exhorting the people, the audience of the song, to pay attention to what has been said.

The 4th Song 53:1-11 is written in the first person pleural. It is a “we” section representing another change of voice. The song refers to a third party – to the Servant. Here, the mob implied in the other songs, especially the third, finds its voice. The crowd has changed their perceptions of the Servant. He was ugly, despised and of no account – “we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted” (53:4). They had thought he had offended God and that God had turned against him. Now they understand that he was wounded for them. This is not substitutionary atonement. He was not punished in our place, but punished "for" our sins. The “for” here is understood as “because of” or "in relation to" rather than “in place of”. He accepted the violence/punishment in order to bring us to a different place, to teach us and change us. The Servant is the Lord’s choice for this task “the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (v6). He is only able to do this because the Lord has chosen him precisely for this purpose, taking the burden of humanity in order to transform it. It is not an accident of suffering but something taken on and accepted by the Servant.

In the third song (50:4) the Servant is described as both disciple and teacher “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens – wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught”.
53:11 speaks of the Servant. “Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge”. This is followed by: "The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous." The period does not exist in the original and is an editorial addition for sense. Without it the first sentence could end at "satisfaction" and then the text would continue “Through his knowledge the righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous”. This changes the meaning from punishment and satisfaction to knowledge and revelation. I.e. this knowledge is non-violent non-retaliatory love, a breakthrough in human meaning. Indeed if righteousness is understood as non-violence, then this passage has a coherent transformative meaning: “The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous” (53:12) becomes “The non-violent one my servant, shall make many non-violent”.

Jesus was familiar with these texts – “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard” reminds us of his teaching about turning the other cheek. The Servant songs, probably more than any other Old Testament text, lie at the heart of Jesus’ self-identity and teaching.

(Re)reading the Bible #8

Here is the next in our study of the Old Testament -Linda

Jeremiah 05/27/11

Jeremiah stands at a pivotal moment in the Bible. The prophecy demonstrates the absolute centrality of the events of the 6th century BCE. This was a time of global spiritual growth: the time of Confucius, the Buddha and the Jewish Exile - the central landmark of the Bible. Solomon had established the temple shortly after the formation of the kingdom. The priests and the Temple helped establish and validate the power of the monarch. This is how culture works – largely benefiting the powerful. God, however, is working to overcome culture. In Israel, the Temple and state were overthrown in the 6th century BCE.

Jeremiah 7: 1-4 presents Jeremiah’s first prophesy against the Temple. He says the Temple is an institution that will be destroyed. “Do not trust in these deceptive words ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’”. Jeremiah mocks those who take pride in the temple.

In Jer 26:1-16 the story is retold. Here the account is placed specifically in the reign of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah of Judah. This dates the prophecy to 609BCE. Jeremiah predicts the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem. The two are integrally connected. As long as the temple stands so does the city. “I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth”. (Shiloh was a holy place 7-8 miles outside of Jerusalem destroyed by the Philistines. In Jeremiah’s time it would have been a heap of ruins).

The prophesy comes true. Jer 39:1-18 describes the fall of Jerusalem under the reign of Jehoiakim’s son, Zedekiah. The passage is not just recounting historical events. It is also prophesy and enactment. The fall of Jerusalem becomes a part of the sign system of loss that is being developed. The Babylonians (Chaldeons) entered the gate and slaughtered the sons of the king Zedekiah. They then blinded him and exiled him along with most of his court. Jeremiah was confined but not injured. His life is spared, in large part because he has advocated surrender. The fall of Jerusalem is repeated at the end of book of Κings, again as prophetic fulfillment (2 Κings 24: 18-19): “(Zedekiah) did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. Indeed Jerusalem and Judah so angered the Lord that he expelled them from his presence.”

Judges through 2 Κings are known as the historical books by Christians, The Hebrew Bible calls them the “Earlier Prophets.” They are prophetic because from the moment the monarchy is instituted these books record the downhill spiral towards exile. The "early prophets" therefore fulfill the prophesy of Moses in Deuteronomy – that if the people follow the Law then they will receive blessings, but if they disregard the Law then things will not go so well. The Lord demands fairness and justice. The early prophets tell of the the king's (the people's leaders) predilection for idolatry and injustice. Prophesy is not about prognostication or portents, it is about transforming human behavior. By reflecting on the past, lessons are learned that can translate into the present and predict the future based on present actions.

After the king, court and key administrative and military personnel have been taken away to Babylon, Jeremiah stays behind in the ruined city. He then joins a group who decamp to Egypt – and it is there that, as the tradition goes, he is killed by them. In Jer 29:1-23 is Jeremiah’s letter from Jerusalem to the exiles in Babylon. He tells them to forget Jerusalem and to get used to Babylon. He exhorts the people to make a life there - build homes, plant gardens and build families. They are to ignore any one advocating rebellion and an early return. He prophesies that it will be 70 years (two full generations) before the Lord will bring them back – after the present generation has passed away.

Exile is when you lose what you love, what you would fight for. It is the loss of your culture, your temple and your way of life. Jerusalem had come to represent all of these things and had been idolized as such. Neitzsche talked of “depth” in people, a greater or deeper level of self associated with the will. The situation of the exile created depth in Judaism in the bible – but in this case one that came from suffering and loss. The richness of the Exile was that it created an empty space that allowed the people freedom to enter into a deeper relationship with the Lord. Deprived of the physical objects of their status as a people they could enter a place of absolute trust, hope and love. As the Janis Joplin lyric goes “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”.

Out of this space, this freedom comes Jeremiah’s most beautiful prophesy (Jeremiah 31:27-34). It is his prophesy of the new covenant, the law written not on stone but on the human heart. The law is no longer about punishment but instead becomes part of your heart, your inner meaning. This re-writing can only come when all the other stuff is taken away. Dispossession allows space for love. In fact it creates the heart, the place and possibility of relationship in the absence of physical possession. A relationship emerges of inestimable worth. This is God’s will – that the people begin to relate not to what they have but what they do not have – to a promise, to hope, to the other.

(Re)reading the Bible #7

Here at long last is the next installment of the Bible study. This one focuses on the theme of Temple. Peace -Linda

Temple 05/20/11

The Book of Exodus, which tells of the liberation of the Jews from Egypt, the giving of the commandments and the establishment of the code of the covenant, also devotes eleven whole chapters to a description of the wilderness tabernacle. The architectural design of this tabernacle (another word for tent, later associated by implication with sanctuary and temple) is set out in some detail. The description is found in chapters 25-31, then repeated again in the account of its construction at Chapters 35-40.

Commentators say that it is highly unlikely that a people newly escaped from oppression and poverty would have had the means and ability to create and transport a tabernacle of such opulence and proportions. Therefore it is likely that what is described is an idealized desert sanctuary. It describes an outer tent and an inner tent with a holy of holies, a design that mirrors the later stone temple built under Solomon. It is a retrojection of the later temple onto the desert period.

33:7-11 describes another tent. The word for tent used here is different. This one is outside the camp (the Tabernacle was always placed in the center of the camp). This tent is called the tent of meeting. It is a tent of divination – a small sacred space, rather like a shamanistic cabin, where Moses communes with God. The passage also describes a different worship practice. The people worship in their own tents, not in this tent or in any other separate sanctuary. Only Moses and Joshua enter the tent of meeting. The likelihood is that this is a more authentic account for a nomadic people.

Amos, one of the earlier prophets, lived in the 8th century BCE. He wrote when the Temple tradition had been established for about 200 years. While the events the writes about are later than those of Exodus, it was actually written earlier than the book of Exodus. Exodus was compiled a couple of centuries later in the 6th century BCE). Amos is therefore closer to the actual events of the exodus. Amos 5:21-25 demonstrates his disdain and rejection of the Temple. God despises the festivals and takes no delight in solemn assemblies. God does not want burnt offerings – instead he seeks justice and righteousness. In v.25 God asks the rhetorical question “Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?” Amos implies that during the Exodus period there was in fact no established ritualized sacrifice. This came later with the establishment of the temple by Solomon. (In fact it stands to reason that a refugee group needing to eat manna and quail did not have cattle from which to select the sacrifice.)

2 Sam 7:1-13 describes yet another tent – this one housing the arc of the covenant (v.2). David, the great warrior king who established the Κingdom is contemplating building God a temple. God, however, responds through the prophet Nathan: “Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle”. Nathan tells David that God will make him a house (a dynasty) but David should hold off building God a temple. The temple will be built by his offspring. In this way the text tries to balance the tension that arises from two conflicting strands present in the Old Testament - the establishment of the temple cult and the historical and prophetic witness against it.

Chronicles, written from the priestly perspective, re-tells the story. Here the reason that David does not build the temple is because of his violent past. The Temple is not to be contaminated by unholy blood. The priestly perspective is concerned with ritual holiness.

In 1 Samuel 24:10-25 David, at the end of his reign, orders a census. The primary purpose of a census is for taxation, conscription and establishing an empire. This act so displeases God that he punishes David – but gives him the choice of punishment. He opts for three days of pestilence. At the end of the three days David erects an altar on the threshing floor of land he has just purchased. On this site he has seen a vision of the angel of death and he is hoping, through burnt offering, to avert further catastrophic plague. This plot of land is the same one on which Solomon later builds his temple. Although he does not actually build the temple, David establishes the holy ground.

The establishment of the Temple finds its roots in the establishment of empire. There is a need for temple sacrifice once imperial forces come into play. The reasons are many – for centralization of power; for display; for the displacement of the greatly increased forces of violence. Sacrifice and temple are integral to the heart of worldly power.

Sacrifice obviously existed before the Temple, but was not an established hierarchical event. Rather it was normally apotropeic and spontaneous – an act of warding off evil. The Passover sacrifice is an example of this. The blood on the door lintel acts as a protection against the angel of death. In contrast the heart of the prophetic tradition was that God communicated directly through the prophets. The people existed under the overarching care of God and called to practice justice and mercy under the covenant of the Lord.

Third Isaiah (who lived towards the end of the prophetic period, after the return from Exile) gives a thorough rejection of sacrifice. (Is 66:1-3). Cultic practices are equated with violent, impure, idolatrous acts. The whole world is God’s house, so how is it possible to build God a temple?

Jesus rejects all forms of sacrifice. He equates people to sheep – the primary sacrificial animal. As the good shepherd, he sets the sheep free. In Mk 11:15-19 Jesus clears the Temple. After he overturns the tables of the money changers and disrupts the purchasing of sacrificial animals “he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple” (v16). The word for “anything” is actually “vessel” (skeuos). In 1Κings 7:45, 47-48 and 51 this same word is used to describe the vessels used for carrying all sacrificial materials. Jesus comprehensively stops the flow of offerings and the process of sacrifice.

(Re)reading the Bible #2

Here is the next in the study summaries in our new series. It is an overview of the Bible with the Wood Hath Hope slant - showing how the understanding of a non-violent God emerges through the text. Peace, Linda

Job 04/08/11

The forty-two chapter book of Job begins and ends with a "frame story" describing the basic circumstances of the loss and restoration of the fortunes of Job. Job, a devout and successful man, becomes the object of a wager between God and Satan in the heavenly court. Satan at this point is not the Satan of the Gospels (the symbolization of earthy evil and violence). Rather he is a kind of officer whose job is to prosecute (accuse) guilty humans. The Satan has been "patrolling up and down upon the earth." God boasts to him of his servant Job, “a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil”. The Satan replies that Job has no reason to turn from God, but “stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face”. God accepts the Satan’s challenge, allowing Satan to take everything from him – his possessions, family and health --sparing only his life.


In Job 2:3 God is portrayed as the first to succumb to the Satan’s temptation. He says: “Although you incited me against him to destroy him for no reason ('for nothing').” The Bible is saying that God was tempted by the Satan/the accuser. He crushes Job “for nothing” (Job 9:17). In contrast, Jesus, during his third temptation, replies to Satan ,“Do not put the Lord your God to the test ” quoting from Dt 6:16. Thus in the book of Job God is shown to be less than ideal, in fact to be very "human".. Why is this? What lesson is being taught about the meaning of "God"?


It is hard to put a date on Job’s composition. The reference to a Satan patrolling the earth could come from the Persian practice of organizing regular patrols as a way of controlling their empire. If so it indicates a date of around 500-350 BCE. Job was not an Israelite. He came from the land of Uz and his name can be translated as “enemy”. This fact signals early on that the book is reasoning outside the accepted framework of the Law. It is Job, the enemy and foreigner, who is relentlessly shown to be righteous and blameless.


Job, covered in sores, sits silent among the ashes until three friends, hearing of his troubles, show up to comfort him. After seven days Job starts to speak. The central part of the book is made up of a series of speeches. Job speaks first, then each friend, with Job replying to each in turn. This cycle is repeated three times – so Job has 10 speeches, the friends three each (the final speech of the third friend is missing, presumed by most to have been lost). As the text progresses the friends become more irritated and their arguments and accusations more forceful and direct. Their arguments are basically the same: These misfortunes are not happening by accident. Job must have sinned to have lost God’s favor. They urge him to admit his guilt. Job remains steadfast in the declaration of his innocence.


After the three friends have exhausted themselves a new character is introduced – Elihu, a young man. He is angry that Job’s friends have been unsuccessful in their attempts to convince Job that he is guilty. He also makes two speeches that this time are not answered by Job. Who is Elihu? His name means “He is God”. It is almost as if everyone, including God, is ganging up on Job. When everyone is scapegoating a victim, the manufactured god of unanimous human violence emerges. Elihu sets the stage for Yahweh who finally appears on the scene and speaks to Job out of the whirlwind (40:6). He also gives two speeches but these do not actually answer Job’s complaint. Rather they are an account of the majesty and power of God evident in nature. He describes the Behemoth (hippopotamus) and the Leviathan (crocodile). He lists all of the stuff that he can do that Job cannot. The response doesn’t work. It rings hollow in the light of all that has gone before. It sounds majestic (even pompous) and believable, but remains inadequate.


In his speeches, Job constantly asserts his innocence. He stands alone, yet has the courage to continue. He addresses his complaints to God (not Yahweh here like in the frame story, but “El”). In 9:15 Job protests that God is beyond justice. “Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser”. If Satan is the accuser, then God has become Satan. And God is on the side of the mob, the same as the mob: "He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me. They have gaped at me with their mouths; they have struck me insolently on the cheek; they mass themselves together against me. God gives me up to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked...he has set me up as his target; his archers surround me." (16:9-12)


In 9:22 he says that God destroys both the blameless and the wicked. This is an ironic commentary on the psalms and the Deuteronomic God. Deuteronomy is the classic book of reward and punishment. “You must therefore be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess” (Dt5:32-33) Later, Ezra and Nehemiah would appropriate the Deuteronomic view. They saw the Exile as God’s punishment for the people’s transgressions, and exhorted the people to get it right this time. The Pharisees, also adopted this concept of reward and punishment, creating a hedge around the Law to safeguard against any unintentional transgressions. The same thinking (reward and punishment) is evident in certain strands of Christianity today – for example in prosperity preaching.


Job, in contrast, is saying that God does bad things to bad and good people alike. It would be a return to the arbitrary fatalism that existed before the psalms, except that Job rails against God personally. Job has no confidence in the trustworthy character of God displayed in the psalms, who acts justly because his nature demands it. Job is struggling to make sense of the problem of innocent suffering together with blame-the-victim theology, while maintaining a belief in a personal God who intervenes on behalf of his people. Job protests to God about God. He is profoundly questioning the nature of God. In the same way Psalm 22 cries out “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” It is almost like God has disappeared in these texts. Both Job and Jesus have put God to death – the God constructed by humans. Job implicates this humanly created God in the exclusion, blaming and scapegoating of the innocent. Job cries out for a different kind of God.


What then is the way through in Job?


Job begins to talk about a third party in his dialogue with God. Someone who will stand on his side against God. It occurs in three places in the text, gradually becoming more developed. At 9:32-33 “For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both”. Here Job expresses his wish for an impartial umpire to act between him and God. Humans have no recourse against the divine: he needs someone else who can arbitrate. In 16:18-21 this wish becomes more concrete – a belief that he has a witness in heaven. A witness who is not God. “O earth do not cover my blood; let my outcry find no resting place. Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high.” It is his innocent blood crying out from the ground that is the source of his belief. In 19:23-27 belief is transformed into knowledge. “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side”.


The figure of the redeemer (“go’el”) or the avenger of blood appears elsewhere in the Old Testament (in Numbers and Deuteronomy). It was an institutionalized role in nomadic/tribal cultures before the establishment of civic law. If someone is killed then someone has to avenge the spilled blood. This was usually the duty of a close relative. The blood can then lie quiet. Ruth is also the go’el . She doesn’t kill, but marries the cousin of her dead husband and in so doing redeems the line of her dead husband. God is called go’el in 2nd Isaiah – Redeemer. In this text God comforts his people – he will not let their blood disappear. Job was probably written after 2nd Isaiah and there is the possibility that the idea of a redeemer may have been seeded in the mind of the author from that text. Here in Job, with his relentless defense of innocence against the mob, and with God siding with the mob - the Redeemer suddenly appears. Someone will stand upon the earth to defend the scapegoat.


The book of Job ends with Job’s response to God’s justification speeches. “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth” 40:3-6. “I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42:1-6). The irony and sarcasm of the earlier chapters appears to be closed down in the final frame of the story and it is usually interpreted as Job’s confession for doubting God. The Hebrew is actually better translated as “I reject and regret dust and ashes”. (See note in New Interpreters Study Bible). If read this way the preceding verses retain their irony and the sense of “But now my eyes see you” becomes instead “I see through you”.


Job’s wealth is restored and now it is his friends who are on the receiving end of God’s wrath. "For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7).Thus the frame story tells us, amazingly, Job is in the right! Moreover, Job now prays for his friends to God – adopting the role of the redeemer. The book of Job shows us that the truth lies with Job and his pathway.


It is a perfect example of the "(re)reading" the bible, of the bible re-reading itself, revealing the underlying flaws of the Deuteronomic understanding of God. Jesus later assumes the mantle of Job – both as innocent victim and as redeemer. He asserts that God is not a God of violence that sends punishment to the bad and good indiscriminately– rather God sends his rain to fall on the good and bad alike without reservation, without expectation – as pure grace.

(Re)reading the Bible #1

Here is the first summary of the new Wood Hope Bible Study. It is a foundational study for Wood Hath Hope theology, discovering how the bible's voice finds its deepest self, growing and maturing over the course of its writing. Linda Lament at the Heart of the Psalms. 04/01/11


Christians are in crisis – trying to understand their role in history. Unlike previous crises in church history, this is not primarily a doctrinal issue. Christians are turning to the Bible one more time, with modern scholarship providing a fresh approach, to help them situate themselves in the world. The Old Testament is interpreted, as a revelation of humanity that is at least as important as the revelation of God. We understand God in a new way as we begin to understand ourselves. The Bible is a description of who we are as human beings. We have been told that the Bible tells us we are sinners - indeed lists all of our individual sins. Christ took these sins upon himself and saved us. These concepts are formal and legalistic. If the Bible is seen instead as a means of disclosing the way we are misconstructed as human beings, then it begins to mean much more. It becomes transformative. Understanding is part of being made new. Jesus is both the lens and the path through which we gain this revelation. He brings a radically new way of being human which is at the same time a new knowledge of ourselves and a new knowledge of and relationship with God. “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (MT:11 27). Outside the nonviolence of Jesus (which is his forgiveness) it is impossible to know God.

The Bible moves forward, but is always in tension with itself. So where is the best place to begin? The Psalms are hard to date. They include some of the oldest material in the Scriptures (from the reign of Solomon) but extend perhaps through the second century BCE– an arc of 800 years. They have the honesty and authenticity of a diary or a journal. They provide a witness to the emotional, existential experience of the people of that time. The Psalms are not so much about history or doctrine but about feelings.

They are a personal human response. The Psalms can be divided into three general categories:

1. Psalms of thanksgiving and praise. In these the author thanks and praises God for nature or for God’s protection and care of his people. Psalm 8 is an example of one of the nature Psalms – human beings are the crown of creation. “You have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor”

2. Covenant or Torah psalms. These psalms are about the Law God gave and the relationship between the people and the Law. They have a strong ethical sense, of what God requires of us. Psalm 15 is an example: “O Lord who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill? Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart”.

3. The Psalms of Lament– the most typical of the psalms, and the most powerful. They are a personal or communal crying out in lament or complaint. The psalms of lament begin our biblical journey. Psalm 3, 7 10 and 12 demonstrate the dominant themes and tones of the psalms of lament. They cry out for justice against the strong, powerful and greedy who oppress and do violence and think that God does not see. The psalms are not a political statement. They are cries of help addressed to God, asking him to act against the enemies of the people. The Psalmist trusts that God will hear his complaint and will act. If your God first revealed himself by setting you free from Egypt, then there is an assumption that your God is involved and is concerned about your situation. The psalmist’s entreaty depends upon an established personal relationship, one of justice. This was a radical belief.

Alphabetic writing began to be widely used in the area of Tyre and Sidon around 1100BCE and was already established by the time the Hebrews began recording their history. It was more expressive than hieroglyphics and cuneiform which go back at least two thousand years before this. Writing was used by the scribes in ancient Egypt and Babylonia for discursive wisdom-style literature (how to behave), and also to record business transactions, and provide diplomatic and governmental reports for the ruling elite. A few wrote about the difficulties of life. The “Babylonian Theodicy” (around 1000 BCE) is similar to the book of Job. It is a reflection on injustice. It concludes by deciding that the gods have set things up this way and that nothing can be done. “The gods gave perverse speech to the human race. With lies, and not truth, they endowed them for ever” Everywhere the gods collude with the powerful. There is no active God of justice intervening in the world for the poor and the suffering. The wise sought to evade the notice of the gods and the powerful who have them on their side, to avoid their wrath by remaining under the radar. Or by placating and serving the gods through cult and sacrifice and so keeping evil at bay and earning favor.

The Hebrew God of justice is a cultural anomaly. Humans are no longer pawns of the gods. For the first time there is an emotional connection to the divine expressed in terms of relationship which expects justice. Deep human emotion is valued. The writers are not afraid to express fierce anger at injustice because they know their cry is heard. God is expected to act because that is his character. There is at last a recourse to counter the “divine right” of the kings. Psalm 58 is perhaps one of the worst psalms in terms of violence and vengeance. It rails against injustice and calls upon God for vengeance: “Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge people fairly?” This person is not even addressing God. It is a critique against the mighty, a release of hatred and anger.

Emotionally it makes sense, an expression of the emotion that is released once the possibility of a just world emerges for the first time. The psalms thus express this emotion as a necessary stage in the process of becoming human. It is the first human rebellion against resignation and fatalism. Even in the psalms that rail against God himself, the anger is evidence of a relationship.

Anger only exists when one cares, when greater expectations are unfulfilled. The psalms of lament are also therefore a way of channeling and discharging violent emotion. This can be directed towards God or just as likely be reflected back upon the psalmist in terms of remorse. These are the psalms of repentance. In these psalms there is a recognition that we are the same as those we cry out against. Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143 are examples. Psalm 51 is the greatest of these. The call here is not for vengeance but for mercy. The psalmist has experienced a world with God’s presence of justice and human wholeness and now cries out to return to that place. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me”. There is also an implied solidarity with the rest of the human condition. The psalmist seeks to bring others to repentance. Above all there is a dependence on grace. Sacrifices bring God no delight, rather a broken and contrite heart. The last verses (18-19) are widely recognized to be additions, an editorial comment. They strike a dissonant chord within the text – illustrating its human composition.

Psalm 22 is arguably the greatest of all of the Psalms. It is the psalm that Jesus cries out on the cross. He cries out the opening words and in so doing invokes the whole psalm. Here the emotional pathway reaches its fullest development. The sense of being surrounded by persecutors and under threat runs through many of the psalms. But here there is no call for vengeance or retaliation. The end of the psalm invokes the absolute power of God to save and that the whole of the earth will turn to God and worship him. There is a realization that the only way that non-violence can work and justice still be done is by in some way dealing with those who have died. “To him indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust” (v29). There is a belief in a God that will reach down to death itself. Even after death the relationship with God continues. The thing that makes us retaliate is ultimately the fear of death. If the relationship continues in death then God breaks through the barrier that keeps us locked in injustice and the endless violence that is its counterpart.

Sacred Space #11

Here is the final study summary from our Sacred Space series. Over the next few weeks Tony will be summarizing our current study - of his book "Virtually Christan". Peace- Linda

Trinity 12/17/10

The doctrine of the Trinity is highly evolved, not finding full, systematic expression until 451 AD. It describes three persons of the Godhead who share the same substance, and one of whom also became a human being! It came out of the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople and Chalcedon from the fourth to the end of the fifth century, the time when Christianity had become the established religion of the Roman Empire. It was formulated in Greek terms of substance and nature but was rooted in the lived experience of the early church.

In polytheistic religions there is a rivalry among the various gods. In monotheism, the single god inevitably becomes a symbol of solitary might and power. For Christians, the Trinity became the way of understanding God in terms of community, love and equality – without rivalry or violence. While triadic forms exist in other religions and three is a holy number in many cultures, for Christians, the idea of the Trinity grew organically from the person of Jesus.

1 John :1-4 is a riff on the Prologue of John’s Gospel. It was written at a later time than the Gospel of John and attempts to counter the Greek Docetic and Gnostic heresies that were emerging at that time. These denied or down-played the humanity of Jesus. Jesus only appeared to be human. 1 John underscores the physicality of Jesus: “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life.” (v. 1)

On the night before his death Jesus prays for his disciples in John’s Gospel (Jn 17). Jesus makes the amazing claim that he alone knows the Father. “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you” (v.25). Here “knowing” refers not to intellectual understanding and conceptualization, but to intimacy. In this sense it is closer to the Old Testament meaning of “knowing” as sexual intimacy. This claim by Jesus comes as liberation: the concept of Trinity is rooted in the practice of love witnessed in Jesus. It brings God into our human realm. Through the concrete ways that he behaved – teaching, healing, serving, dying, Jesus manifests this claim that would otherwise appear megalomaniacal.

Mt 11:25-27 has a similar passage. “All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” It is a Johannine like passage but written much earlier. It is unexplained in the text but is entirely memorable. It reads like other of his wisdom sayings and is probably authentic to Jesus. It suggests an exclusive intimacy between Jesus and the Father which is not a matter of doctrine but of perfect love unmarred by any division or rivalry. Packed away in these earliest traditions the Trinity is already there.

The Holy Spirit appears in John’s Gospel: “if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go I will send him to you” (Jn 16:7). A three-fold relationship is shown to exist. The Spirit is the reality within the Christian of the unbroken relationship of love between Jesus and the Father. The Spirit comes from Jesus and becomes our inner experience of God. The Spirit is something inside us that is not Jesus. It is poured out on people. And so the only way to describe it is as another entity, and necessarily a personal one. It was therefore through the lived experience of the early Christians and their attempts to describe it that the concept of Trinity was born. Jesus’ final prayer is that his disciples be one as he is one with his Father. He is praying for the relationship within the Trinity to spread out to the human race. The Trinity is meant to be passed on. Christianity is about learning this relationship.

If we relate to Jesus and imitate him we will imitate his crucial formative relationship. Trinity is the ultimate sacred space determined not by architecture or geography but by relationship. If the Spirit is pure loving relationship, then relationship becomes the ultimate sacred. Any place where this relationship exists becomes sacred. The Trinity sets us free from defined sacred space in order to make every space sacred.

Sacred Space #10

Here is another study summary, the last in this series is coming soon. Our new study (on Tony's new book "Virtually Christian") begins this Friday - January 7th at Health Pathways. Hope to see you there - otherwise keep watching this space for the study summaries....Linda

Revelations. 12/10/10

Revelations is the final book of the Bible. Some early Christians did not think it should have been included in the canon because it did not have apostolic authorship. It describes a dramatic vision of history yet to come. It is mind-bending in its expression and its repetition of themes. It is important because the story ends with an opening. It is written in crisis mode – not a comfortable expression of sacred space, but is yet filled with tremendous energy and hope.

The book begins with a series of addresses to seven churches. Seven is a recurring figure throughout the book. Chapter 2: 12-13 is a letter to the church in Pergamum. This is a place where Christians are being persecuted “where Satan lives”. Antipas, a faithful witness, has been killed there. Pergamum was a city where the cult of the emperor was practiced. An important shrine to Zeus and to the Caesars (Julius and Augustus) had been erected. It was a trading city in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) that traded goods between Greece and Asia Minor. Pergamum vied with other trading cities to get privileges from Rome. Pergamum gained a march on its rivals by instituting the cult of the emperors. Anyone who traded there was probably required to participate. The “mark of the beast” probably relates to participation in this cult. There was pressure on Christians to collude with – the worship in the temple of the Caesars. Antipas refused to collude and so he was killed.

Satan here is code for the Beast and its power. It is a word that encompasses the Roman system of rule and culture. Satan represents all worldly violence, power and influence. This is similar to the Gospel use of the name - Satan is depicted as the ruler of the world in the temptation of Jesus. The emperor Nero is also associated with the Beast. He heads a kingdom that opposes the Kingdom of God. Christians towards the end of the first century were becoming aware of the powers ranged against the Lordship of Christ. These were real and significant. Satan is not understood as a real personal metaphysical rival of God (as in Milton’s Paradise Lost). Rather Satan is the price of doing business - the forces of the world.

Chapters 4 – 5 describe the court of heaven and the worship of the Almighty on his throne. In his right hand he holds a scroll that no one in heaven or on earth is worthy to open. “Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered…” The Lamb opens the scroll at the throne. The only one worthy to open the scroll is the Lamb who was slain. Here the Lamb, as the agent of God, becomes the conquering hero in opposition to the throne of Satan. The Lamb is mentioned twenty-nine times in Revelations. A lamb is immediately recognizable as a sacrificial animal – the inverse of one who slays.

In 5:9 the blood of the Lamb is introduced for the first time. From this point blood becomes a dominant theme - the blood of limitless violence and the blood of the Lamb. The blood of the Lamb is in conflict with the bloodiness of the world. This changes the meaning of being “saved by the blood of the Lamb” from the purely personal to a much more social or systemic thing. The blood of the Lamb discloses or reveals the bloodiness of the world and brings it to an end.

In chapter six the scroll with seven seals evokes the scrolls of the prophets. The scroll is a prophetic motif in Isaiah and Ezekiel. It also captures the excitement of something hidden that is going to be revealed. It has seven seals that can only be opened by the Lamb. The first four seals are four horsemen – white, red, black and green. These represent Christ, war, famine and death. The fifth seal is the crisis of Christian persecution – the blood of the martyrs. Their blood calls out for vengeance from under the altar. The normal function of sacrificial blood is to bring peace. Here the blood is not peaceful. The word for vengeance can also mean vindication – a restoration of life. The blood cries out – like the blood of Abel. The blood of the witnesses of the Lamb is not quiet.

The sixth and seventh seals continue the blood theme with the moon becoming like blood (v.12), and after the seventh, with the trumpets, hail and fire mixed with blood (7:7) and the sea becoming blood (v.9). Other blood references can be found in 11:6, 14:17-20 and 16:4-7. The more blood you spill – the more blood will be spilled (see 13:10). Once the innocent victim is revealed, the world reacts with more violence in its attempt to restore the world to the old order. It is a picture of the twentieth century with its two huge world wars, including the Holacaust and the atom bomb. Things can no longer be brought to the peace of forgetfulness anymore – the blood cries out. The cross has brought on the crisis. The worse the crisis is the closer the triumph of the Lamb. The book of Revelations is a revelation of violence, not (as it is sometimes used) an inciting of violence. The blood of the Lamb is not the terrifying red stuff that all humanity fears, rather it transforms and brings healing and peace. The Lamb’s blood counter-veils (reveals) and counter-offends (forgives) – robes are made white as snow. (7:13-17).

The miracle of Revelations is that, after all the blood-letting, comes the promise of healing and transformation. All those who have been killed will reappear and in Chapter 21: 1-4 we have the vision of the new Jerusalem – the final sacred space without sacred violence. This final image is of sexual union – of a bride and groom. New humanity is the bride, the Lamb is the groom. There are no more temples (v22). The Lamb triumphs over the violence. There is no more need for a temple to negotiate with a God identified with violence. Rather the Lamb replaces the temple - the Lamb whose blood sets us free from blood-letting.

Sacred Space #9

Here is the next bible study summary - working on the final two in the series..
-Linda

Jesus and the temple 12/3/10

In John’s Gospel Jesus replaces the temple. After he announces his ministry at the wedding feast at Cana, the first thing Jesus does is to shut down the temple. This event is placed at the end of his ministry in the Synoptic Gospels – which is more likely to be chronologically correct. It is hard to imagine that he would have succeeded in completely disrupting the business of the temple without having established a reputation and a large following. John places the incident at the beginning of his Gospel to signal that he is reconstituting the human relationship with the divine. That he is making all things new.

Traditionally the purpose of placing the clearing of the temple at the start of the book was understood as the gospel reconstituting the sacred order. The temple still exists – but has been replaced by the body of Jesus. The temple therefore becomes cosmic and bigger – the underlying sacrificial system remains. In the Roman Catholic tradition this is evident in the idea of the universal sacrifice of the mass, no longer limited to one central temple but accessible on any church altar. Wooden church altars to this day are required to have an embedded piece of stone that evokes the ancient sacrificial altars. Protestant churches may not have altars but often have tables set aside for the purpose of communion, with a sacred aura and which cannot be used for more secular things.

Jn 2:13-22 gives us the account of the clearing of the temple. It is the feast of the Passover, celebrating the liberation of the Exodus. It describes a scene of dramatic action. Jesus drives out the sacrificial animals, along with the money changers and the traders. The money changers were engaged in exchanging the shekel into the officially approved Tyrian coin—probably with the most stable value as currency. This was surely one of the most lucrative industries in Jerusalem.

Next time the temple is mentioned is in Jn 5: 1-9 – the healing of the man at the pool of Siloam. This takes place during a feast. This feast is most likely the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost was a festival that celebrated the first fruits of the harvest. The healing takes place at the sheep gate – the place where animals enter to be prepared for slaughter. The healing here is already a displacement of sacrifice.

The third mention of the temple is in Jn 7: 1-11. This time the incident is during the feast of Succoth – the festival of Booths. Succoth, the later harvest festival, included dancing with fires and drink in the piazza of the temple. It celebrated the goodness of the land. It also recalled the wandering in the wilderness. Its name comes from the tents or booths that the people made as shelter in the wilderness. Jesus is staying away from Judea because the authorities were looking to kill him. His disciples go to Jerusalem to take part in the festival. Jesus initially says he will not go but then goes in secret. On the last day of the festival the priest traditionally poured water all over the altar – possibly relating to the Ezekiel prophesy about water flowing out from the temple, but also to the prophesy in Zechariah 14. Jerusalem is pictured as the source of a mighty river, of life for the whole world. Here (in v.37-39) Jesus again displaces the temple. He cries out “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” This echoes Jesus’ meeting with the woman at the well in Samaria. There the invitation was for her to drink living water – here the invitation is extended to the whole world.

The feast of Booths is also an eschatological feast. It refers to a Messianic text in the prophet Zechariah about the future king (the anointed one). Zechariah was written immediately after the exile (about 530-510 BCE) at a time when there were no kings in Israel. The King described in Zechariah is a peaceful one, a non-violent Messiah (not planning on rebelling against Persian overlords). Zechariah 9: 9-10 describes him riding on a donkey instead of a horse, (associated with warriors and war). Instead he is to bring peace to the nations. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey in the Synoptics signals that he is to be a Zechariah style messiah.

Zechariah is written at the end of the time of the prophets. The fifth century BCE marks the end of the monarchy. As they disappeared so too did the court prophets and also the need for prophets speaking out against the injustices associated with power. What replaced the court was the temple, and with it a move towards religious purity. When John the Baptist comes he is the eruption of a new prophetic voice after a period of silence. What is new about John the Baptist’s message is the element of apocalyptic. An increasing sense that God himself has to break into history to transform the world, overcome the wicked and raise up the good. His message is a call to prepare because God is going to come soon. Jesus embraces this, but changes the message to a non-violent act by God – not the expected violent war against evil.

Chapter 14 of Zechariah is one of the earliest apocalyptic texts. It is the chapter associated with the festival of Booths. Jerusalem has no army here – instead it is God’s army who fights for the people. Zech 14:8 describes the living water flowing out from Jerusalem. In v.16 the enemies that have been defeated in the battle will keep the festival of Booths. It describes the end times, when all things promised to all peoples will come to pass. It is an eschatological, or last-times, text. It is a vision of peace and celebration and the end of purity boundaries. “On that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, ‘Holy to the Lord’. And the cooking pots in the house of the Lord shall be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar; and every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of the sacrifice. And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.” (v20-21).

The horse represented war and military power. Even the bells on the horses, the most secular things, will be inscribed as holy. The cooking utensils are holy. Everything that is secular will be filled with holiness. The people will not need to have special pots to prepare the meat of sacrifices. Pots were used to carry the sacrificed meat from the temple back to the family. At the time of the Passover clay ovens were set up on street corners to help cook the meat so that it would last the journey home. Here everything is reversed. Here the pots in the city kitchens are holy. There essentially is no need for a temple, or at the least the basic distinctions on which it is based are destroyed.

In fulfillment of this feast of Booths prophesy, Jesus gets rid of the animals and the traders in the temple. Mark 11:15 tells the same story. “..and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.” This has often been understood in sacrificial terms – that Jesus was keeping the temple space holy and pure by not allowing anything to be carried in to it, maintaining the sacred space of the sanctuary.

But the word used for “anything” here is skeuos which means vessel or utensil generally, and in the context of the temple refers to all the paraphernalia of sacrifice (there are numerous OT uses in this sense) and of course including pots. Jesus was preventing the traffic of vessels, the kind used in sacrifices to carry materials in and the carcasses out. It should be best translated as “pots”, as in the Zechariah prophesy (although the actual word in Zechariah is not skeuos). Jesus’ action marks the end of the sacred function of the temple. In the Synoptics it is after this that the authorities seek to kill him. Jesus is slain by the forces that would keep the sacrificial system going.

Sacred Space #8

Here is the next Bible Study. Hoping to get the last three in this series posted soon - Linda.

Sacred Space #8 11/26/10
Relationships in the Gospel of John.

Jn1:35-39 gives the account of the calling of the first disciples. These were followers of John the Baptist who hear him announce, “Here is the Lamb of God.” They follow Jesus who asks them, “What are you looking for?” They ask, “Rabbi where are you staying?” Jesus replies “Come and see” - and they stayed with him.

Jn 20:15-17 describes the morning of the resurrection. Mary Magdalene sees Jesus, but doesn’t recognize him. Jesus speaks to her, asking, “Whom are you looking for?” Mary recognizes him and calls out, “Rabbouni”. Jesus tells her not to hold on to him, but instead to “go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, my God and your God’”.

These two passages are bookends or literary inclusions. There is a progression between the first to the second. Both have questions, but these transition from what to whom, from the impersonal to the personal. The disciples call him Rabbi (translated as teacher); Mary calls him Rabbouni. In both accounts the evangelist uses parenthesis to give the same translation - teacher. The difference is that the word’s ending changes to give the meaning “beloved teacher” in the resurrection narrative. They are structurally parallel accounts with a common drama. Mirror stories placed at the beginning and the end of the Gospel. The first story announces the thematic –Jesus is a teacher. As the Gospel unfolds the reader enters into a deeper, more meaningful, relationship with Jesus. The Gospel is an invitation to learn from Jesus and enter into this relationship.

There is a lot of turning in this story. In v. 14, “When she had said this she turned around and saw Jesus standing there…” In v. 16, “Jesus said to her ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rabbouni”. The Hebrew word for repent is “to turn around”. Turning here has a spiritual and relational sense. The first time she turns she sees who she is expecting to see, what she is looking for – the gardener. The second time she hears his voice and is open to a different understanding. You can’t see this new risen Lord unless you turn, change your perspective. When you move from your fixed way of being you can begin to see him. It signifies a shift in relationship – from Rabbi to Rabbouni. In the first story the disciples follow Jesus to his home in Capernaum; here Mary is called to a new relationship.

Mary tries to hold on to Jesus, to keep things the way they were in the past. Jesus replies that “I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father…” He then tells her to go to the brethren and tell them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”– the present tense. He is in process of ascending. Ascension in John is not a physical thing, a movement to another place, but rather a progressive growth in relationship. Otherwise why link himself and his disciples in this way? He “ascends” in the measure that his disciples enter into the same relationship as he has with the Father.

At the same time being “raised up”, going upward, in John is all about the cross. Jesus will not complete his ascension, he will continue to ascend, until people understand that Jesus’ God, his Father, is also their God and Father, and that he is the one who willed the nonviolence of the cross. When you see Jesus you see the Father - a nonviolent God. Because of this all the barriers between us and the divine are no more. The intermediary mechanisms of sacrifice and temple are redundant once you have been brought into this relationship. Priests and Pastors may serve a useful pastoral role but cannot substitute for the new relationship with God. We see that Mary needs to let go of Jesus and this is so in order that she may enter into this privileged relationship with the Father and help lead others into it. Although we understand the Father through Jesus, Jesus in a way has to become less so that the Father becomes more.

In Jn 14:1 Jesus says to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” Here he is talking of the same thing. That the Father is nonviolent and loving, so there is no need to worry. Jesus shows us who God is - the Father. Jesus mirrors the Father – and so creates an endless reflective relationship with us in the middle!

The accounts of the Samaritan woman at the well and the anointing of Jesus by the woman at Bethany are also parallel stories. Jn 4:6-15 describes the meeting at Jacob’s well –a holy site. Jesus gently deconstructs that sacred space. He asks the woman to give him water, breaking the cultural barriers associated with Samaritans and Women. Jesus as the source of living water will become the source welling up within you. There is no more need to return to the well. True worship is in spirit and in truth. Neither Jacob’s well nor Jerusalem will be necessary as sacred space. They are replaced by this new relationship between the believer and Jesus. The woman who anoints Jesus in Jn 12:1-8 is a mirror of the Samaritan woman in terms of relationship. She pours costly nard on Jesus’ feet in an extravagant gesture of limitless love. She has moved beyond argument to an act that shows the depth of this relationship.

Sacred Space #7

Here is the next Bible Study summary in our series on Sacred Space. Still to come are Sacred Space in the Gospel of John; Jesus and the Temple; Sacred Space and the Book of Revelations; and the final study in the series will be on the Trinity. Keep watching this space! -Linda

Sacred Space #7 11/19/10

The early Christian community

The earliest writings of the New Testament are those written by Paul. Thessalonians is one of the first – from about 49AD – roughly 20 years after Jesus death. It is a direct communication between Paul and one of the early Christian communities. It provides us with a sociological study of the early church.

The Greek word for church is ecclesia- which was a secular term meaning “called together” or “gathering”. It did not have the modern association with a sacred place of worship. Christians were called together at each others’ houses. The concept of “church” as a separate building came with Constantine. The Roman emperor gave a Basilica (a royal palace) to the church. The king’s private quarters became the area behind the altar from where Jesus/the king would emerge to be seen. The church was adopted by the imperial power and became identified with power and prestige and all of its trappings. For the first three centuries, however, Christian gatherings took place in peoples’ homes. Ecclesia was a small assembly of people. The Pauline letters usually use the phrase “church at the house of”. For example 1Cor 16:19 “Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, greet you warmly in the Lord”. (See also Romans 16:5). Prisca and Aquila were tent makers who moved around – living in Corinth, Ephesus and Rome. At that time it was relatively safe to travel – during the relatively stable Pax Romana. Other examples of house churches are found in the letters to Philemon (1:1-2) and to the Colossians (4:15).

When the head of the household became a Christian, it was usual for his household (his wife, children, servants and slaves) to follow suit. Romans 16:10 alludes to this “ Greet those in the Lord who belong to the house of Aristobulus.” In 1 Cor 1:16 we see the same thing “I did baptize the household of Stephanas.” It has been estimated that 25-33% of the population of the Roman Empire, were slaves. Paul does not argue against slavery as an institution. He did not set out to abolish slavery – rather teaches a subversive love that will ultimately undermine it. For Paul, the Christian message is not about bringing down the empire – rather it introduces a new understanding about who we are in relationship to others, something that overturns the deep structure on which the empire rested. In Philemon Paul says to receive a slave as a brother.

The Pauline message is a message of transformation. God invites us to change our hearts by the power of love. Social order is subverted from within. In 1 Cor 7: 17-24 Paul describes the freedom that comes through belonging to the Lord. The Jewish community had clear demarcating lines with its practice of circumcision, and through its dietary laws. Christianity in contrast has no preconditions. This being the case there is always the tendency to chaos. Paul’s letters struggle with the tension between anarchy and freedom in the Spirit. Paul tries to keep the freedom but at the same time seeks to introduce some order. He recognizes that freedom requires a tremendous surrender to the Spirit to make it work. Christians can experience freedom in any situation – whether slave or master, woman or man, rich or poor.

The early church also has a number of women in leadership roles. Romans 16:1-2 describes Phoebe, a deacon and benefactor. She is a woman of independent means, who traveled to Rome. Her name is not linked to any man. In Romans 16:7 another woman, Junia, is called an apostle. In the Middle Ages an “s” was often added to the end of her name to make it sound like a man’s. In Acts 16:14, Lydia, a business woman dealing in purple (a luxury dyed cloth) is described as the head of her household – another woman of influence.

The New Testament gives us a picture of the people who made up the early church. It also gives us a picture of how they worshipped as a community. 1Cor 11:17 describes problems emerging in relation to the communion meal in Corinth. Corinth was a small Christian community – perhaps just four or five households. Divisions had emerged because people had not learned to share with the poor. Paul says it is better that they eat at home if they cannot be in community.

1 Corinthians also offers teaching on the issue of whether it acceptable to eat food sacrificed to idols. There are three chapters devoted to this subject (8-10). 1 Cor 10:23 -32 sums up this teaching. There is no need to observe dietary laws if you are ruled by love. Food should not become a barrier to entering into a relationship with another. The Christian is free to eat any food, even if it has been dedicated to a god. If another believes that the dedication is meaningful, however, then don’t eat it because it might cause them offense. This concept of no rules only works if you have respect for the other and for yourself. The new Christian movement has no sacred order – instead it is trying to work out a new way of how to be free with each other. “ For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them….I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.” (1 Cor 9:19-23)

Sacred Space #6

And another Bible Study Summary...

Sacred Space #6 11/12/10

Wisdom

The wisdom literature of the Old Testament is neither prophetic in character nor does it see the need for temple. It is a way of thinking common to all peoples –that if you act well your life will turn out well. It is age and experience passing on to the next generation the message that life has a pattern to it. If you are truly listening to life’s message then there is a level of truth within you that you can rely on. Of course it may be blown away by circumstances, but basically it holds true. Proverbs 3:13-20 talks about the source of true wealth. “Happy are those who find wisdom and those who get understanding…” Jesus uses the same form of expression in the beatitudes: “happy are the poor in spirit, etc.” - i.e. these are Wisdom statements.

Wisdom is personified as a female relational being in the Old Testament. She is not simply something in your head or inherited right thinking, but a persona. Wisdom is a shadowy figure in the Old Testament. She is linked to the tree of life at the center of the Garden of Eden. See Proverbs 3:18, “She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her’. The implication is that through Wisdom, humans can attain life everlasting. In contrast, folly leads to death. Without wisdom people come to harm. There is no God of wrath. Instead we can choose to bring destruction upon ourselves by denying Wisdom, or choose life by following her paths.

The Lord, through Wisdom, created the earth. She is a beautiful person in relationship with God. She was there at the beginning, at the moment of creation (Proverbs 8:22-36). "When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily he is delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race”(v. 30-31). The word for “master worker” can also be translated as “little child” which seems to fit better contextually. The former is usually used though, because it is less relational and more Greek, so easier to deal with. Wisdom delights in us, God delights in Wisdom. It is a wisdom thing to do – to delight in other people. There is no need for a separate sacred place if the world is full of delight – no need in fact for a temple. Instead through Wisdom we find transcendence in each other. We find the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creation.

Wisdom is a minor key in the Bible – less dominant than the Torah, the prophets and the history of the kings. But still it is one of the strands. It is present throughout the Bible. In the Torah Joseph is in fact a Wisdom figure. He figures things out through his dreams which provide insight into actual circumstances. He reorganizes the food stores of Egypt so that they are able to survive the famine. His wise actions bring life.

The book of Proverbs (a wisdom book) is hard to date. It has material from the 10th century (the time of Solomon) but probably reached its final form in the 6th century. It is fairly well developed – particularly the first eight chapters. In the 2nd century Sirach, another Wisdom book, was written. This is considered deutero-canonical by the Roman Catholic Church, apocryphal by the Protestants. Jesus knew this book and was informed by it. Parts seem to have been used and developed by him. In Chapter 24 Wisdom praises herself in the presence of the Most High. “I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist…” (v.3). Here Wisdom is associated with the breath or the word of the Most High. There is an identification of Sofia (Wisdom) with the Logos (the Word). The Prologue in the Gospel of John uses this Wisdom thought, saying that all things were created through the Word. This is a wisdom theology. Jesus used Wisdom sayings and identified himself with the person of Wisdom – who invites people to eat and be filled and promises them life and peace.

In v. 13 Wisdom is depicted also as a great tree. “I grew tall like a cedar in Lebanon, and like a cypress on the heights of Hermon” In v.23 she is associated with the Torah, and in v. 31 forms a great river spreading across the earth.

In Ch 50:1-21 the scribe describes a temple service that took place at some point between 219-196 BCE when Simon son of Onias was high priest. It gives us a snap shot of the liturgy. The scribe sees this is a continuation of the world made good – It is a glorious picture of heavenly splendor come to earth. It is also the last time that Wisdom literature basks in its own confidence.

In 167 -164 the Seleucid kings of Syria take over Judea. Alexander the Great had conquered the known world at end of the 4th century. After his death, power was divided among his military leaders. Two powers in particular arose– the Ptolemies (Cleopatra was a member of this family) and the Seleucids who were centered in Damascus and Syria. The Seleucid leader, Antiochus Epiphanes, tried to turn the temple in Jerusalem into a place of Greek worship. As a part of this effort he erected a statue of Zeus - the infamous “abomination of desolation”. He also forbade circumcision and the reading of the scriptures. This was the first time that an invading army had tried to wipe out the Jewish religion. There were also Jewish Hellenizers in Jerusalem promoting the Greek way of life. They adopted Greek dress and built a gym in Jerusalem. Antiochus Epiphanes’ attempt to Hellenize the temple provoked a guerilla war. The successful rebellion was led by the Maccabee family. They were not a Davidic family instead they were a minor priestly family. Following the success of the rebellion they assumed leadership in Jerusalem. Herod the Great married in to the Hasmoneans – the last of the Maccabean line. Herod was regarded as an imposter because he was of Arab blood and also married to this non-Davidic family.

1 Maccabees 1:36-50 describes the defilement of the temple. Many chose to flee to the desert rather than accept pagan rituals and laws. 1Macc 2:29-41 describes how they were pursued into the wilderness. They were overrun on the eve of the Sabbath. They refused to fight on the Sabbath and so profane it: “ ‘Let us all die in our innocence; heaven and earth testify for us that you are killing us unjustly.” So they attacked them on the Sabbath, and they died, with their wives and children and livestock, to the number of a thousand persons” (vv 37-38).

The Maccabean leader, Matthias, is more secular minded. He justifies fighting on the Sabbath to prevent them from perishing. “When Matthias and his friends learned of it, they mourned for them deeply. And all said to their neighbors: ‘If we all do as our kindred have done and refuse to fight with the Gentiles for our lives and for our ordinances, they will quickly destroy us from the earth.’”

The initial non-violent group were, very probably, the forerunners of the Essenes (the community of the Dead Sea Scrolls). They sought holiness through purity, and refused to fight the Romans. They were not completely non-violent, however – according to the Qumran “War Scroll” they were prepared to fight when the angels came to lead them in the final battle to restore holiness to the land. The Pharisees also sought holiness through purity and were probably related in some way to this initial group.

In the context described, the project of Wisdom – that if you chose to live a righteous life you will do well – appeared to have failed. In response Wisdom thought becomes apocalyptic in the Book of Daniel. The premise of apocalyptic literature is that in order for good to prevail, for the righteous to live, God has to intervene directly. This book, the last of the four major prophets, was written at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes in 167-164 BCE. In Daniel 11: 29-35 there is an account of the Greek profanation of the temple. It also tells of non-violent resisters who fall by the sword. These wise among the people will give understanding to many. Though they fall by the sword, unresisting, this will be so that they might be “refined, purified and cleansed, until the time of the end, for there is still an interval until the appointed time.” (v 35). In Chapter 12: 1-4 we have the first clear description of resurrection in the bible. In this picture some of the dead will awake to everlasting life and then “those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky…”

Wisdom from being a broad picture of living well has shifted to a key of non-violence in a time of crisis. And logically connected to this the only way we are going to make the world turn out well for life is through resurrection. In this thinking it is not a reward of “salvation” in a heavenly hereafter, but as the only way a God of wisdom can bring about the fulfillment of his project. The violence of the world may destroy you – but the resurrection makes it right and becomes our hope.

The concept of sacred space breaks down. Violent power took over the temple and the people who finally triumph through violent rebellion are not the authentic descendants of David and quickly became corrupt. At the time of Jesus, the temple was compromised. Instead the wilderness was the place where people went to meet God, awaiting a breakthrough of a just life on earth. John the Baptist represents the movement away from the temple to the wilderness and apocalyptic. He becomes the link between the Old and the New Testaments. Jesus is then the fulfillment of Wisdom’s project for the earth.

Sacred Space #5

Here is the fifth in the series on Sacred Space, #6 coming shortly...
-Linda

Sacred Space #5 11/5/10

Ezekiel’s temple of doom and the temple of his dreams.

Ezekiel is one of the four major prophets (the others are Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel). All of these prophets pivot around the crucial event of the Babylonian invasion, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the exile. Daniel, unlike the others, was not written at that time. It was written 400 years later, but gives its 2nd century prophecy added weight by placing it in the 6th century BCE. These prophets were a big deal. They preserved the faith of the people when they had lost their leadership, land and temple. In the process of preserving the faith in the midst of unthinkable loss, they actually created something new.

Ezekiel has been called a catatonic schizophrenic! His visions have an almost psychotic feel. Why then is he considered a major prophet? He stands out. His psychic state is a matter of public record and the psychosis he is dealing with is a national historical event. Jeremiah has a relentless message of judgment; Isaiah has words of consolation and a new vision of Zion. What Ezekiel has is an intense sense of violence. There is something about his understanding of the violence of the moment, and of Israel’s role in it. Ezekiel has a priestly, ferocious image of God – a God of wrath. Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion states that the Old Testament God is arguably the most unpleasant figure in literature. His description of a violent, autocratic and patriarchal deity is not far from Ezekiel’s vision of God. Ezekiel was a temple priest and his mind is formed by the temple. Unlike Jeremiah who had little time for the temple, Ezekiel cares deeply about it.

Ezekiel 1:1-28 gives a description of the divine chariot – the merkabah. The chariot was the fighting machine of the day (like a modern tank). God is kick-ass in an armored vehicle. It is a chariot of supernatural qualities – full of fire, wings and eyes. Filled with life and spirit, it can move in any direction and immediately, without turning. Angel imagery, picked up from the Babylonians, is incorporated into the description. Sitting on the top of the chariot is the glory of God. At this point Ezekiel’s language begins to break down. In v. 26 he starts using the phrase “something like” because he can no longer fully express God’s glory.

He has this vision in Babylon five years after the first exile occurred when Jehoichin (the 18 year old king) surrendered the city. Ezekiel was one of the 10,000 members of the court, the army, craftspeople and temple who were exiled with the young leader. The city is still intact at this point – it will be another five years before Jerusalem’s destruction. Ezekiel is writing in the midst of a secular, non-Jewish alien environment. He mentally compensates for the absence of the land, temple and culture. He has lost his holy place. It is in that gap that he sees this vision – a vision of the glory of God inhabiting the temple. Ezekiel is dealing with violence done to the most precious thing to him – the temple.

Ezekiel 22: 1-16 Ezekiel describes a city of idolatry and violence. A place where strangers suffer extortion, slander leads to bloodshed and people give false witness in court, women are violated while menstruating, and where “the princes …have been bent on shedding blood.” The spilling of blood is mentioned a lot. It is an account of a bloody city. Ezekiel has an aversion to blood spilled in the wrong place (v.26). It becomes a violation of the holiness which happens when blood is poured in the right place – in the temple. Sacrifice is the only acceptable form of bloodshed. Everything else renders things impure. The city is unclean and impure. Because of this, Ezekiel says, the Lord will make you even more impure. Ezekiel makes the mechanism of vengeance clear, violation of the holy brings violation of the people. He wants to blame the invasion on the sins of the people. They have created the sacrificial crisis. The people will thus be made the sacrifice. Here he prophesies the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.

Chapter 9:1-10 is one of the most intolerable chapters in the Bible. Here God orders the slaying of the people. He pours out his wrath on Jerusalem, defiling his own temple with the dead bodies. The people have defiled him so he will defile them in turn to show his holiness. Only those who “sigh and groan over all the abominations” will be spared – having been marked on their foreheads by an emissary of the Lord. No mercy will be given to the elderly, women or children. No sanctuary found in the temple. Scholars think that this chapter, with its instructions to the executioner, is probably an account of what actually happened. In times of invasion people often gather at the temple as a last sanctuary. That is also the place where a conquering army would target. Their goal would be to profane that place, cutting the people down without mercy. What is at stake is the transcendence of the other, which you must destroy. The Romans did the same thing. Ezekiel describes the event then gives it a theological spin. Saying that it is all part of God’s nature and his plan.

In Ez 10:1-17 the chariot described in chapter one is here in the middle of the temple. The fire from the wheels is used to burn the city and the temple. In vv 18-22, after the slaughter, the chariot carrying the glory of God leaves Jerusalem. This chariot carrying the glory of the Lord lifts from the temple and parks itself on top of a mountain halfway between Jerusalem and Babylon. Only when the people are again dedicated to holiness and purity will God’s glory be restored to the temple.

Ezekiel is sometimes called the Father of Judaism. After the return from exile, his prophesy of the rebuilding of the ideal temple (found in Chapter 40) becomes a key text. Today it is important for Dispensationalist and fundamentalist Christians. Ezra and Nehemiah look to the Ezekiel tradition for their sense of national purity. The Pharisees at the time of Jesus have dedicated themselves to holiness laws and rituals in an attempt to keep God’s favor and to forestall further disaster. They are seeking not to repeat the mistakes of the past. For Ezekiel, the sacrificial system with its focus on sin, holiness and purity keeps things controlled and is the source of the people’s security. For Ezekiel the holy is everything. At the same time he has a sense of a genuine interior transformation (“a new heart and a new spirit I will give you”, 36:26). It is for this that the prophecy is remembered more than his concern of the temple. All the same Jesus stands very much in contrast to his temple ideology. He deliberately hangs out with the impure and heals on the Sabbath. He transforms the water jars, set aside for purification, into wine. He breaks the holy open by shutting the temple down.

Sacred Space #4

Find below the fourth summary in our Sacred Space series
- peace, Linda

The City of Zion as Sacred Space 10/29/10

Isaiah is comparatively a huge body of text. It is generally agreed it was composed over a long period of time by a school of prophesy. The material spans over two hundred years – including a period before the fall of the northern Kingdom and up to the end of the 8th century well before the Babylonian invasion, then the Exile followed by the immediate post-exilic era (last third of 6th century). A distinctive thing about Isaiah is that it is located in Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah is hostile to Jerusalem – he is a prophet of doom against the temple. Ezekiel is worse - with God authorizing a slaughter in Jerusalem because of the sins of the people. Isaiah doesn’t have this sense of judgment. Instead Isaiah celebrates the city. It is a Zionist school (in a sense completely unrelated to modern Zionism). Isaiah holds the image of Zion as the sacred city.

In Isaiah the city itself becomes sacred space. A whole city becomes beloved of God, the place where God dwells. Here the focus has shifted from the temple to the city as the sacred space. When Jesus weeps upon seeing the Jerusalem (Lk 19:41-44), he is recalling the feeling and words of Isaiah. Jesus sees the drama and catastrophe of Jerusalem set against the backdrop of Isaiah’s promises for the city. There is a mystique attached to Jerusalem that persists to this day, making it one of the most fought over places in the world. It was a walled city, impregnable for a long time up until the Babylonian invasion.

Isaiah 2: 1-4 describes the city as a place of peace. A peace not resulting from overwhelming military might as was the case with the Pax Romana. Rather this peace emanates from the word of the Lord: “for out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”. Politically, Israel was never a major player, yet this prophecy describes it as the place that draws all people. It is a triumphal image.

Isaiah is not blind to the sins of the city. In the opening chapter (1: 1-17) Isaiah speaks out against the injustice and corruption in Jerusalem. In Is 1:21 Jerusalem, the faithful city, has become a whore. God abhors the evil doing and the empty feasts. Isaiah has no use for the temple – despising its uselessness, emptiness and the futility of its rituals.

Isaiah 11:1-9 is the prophecy of the peaceful kingdom: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse….” It is a picture of peace that is more than political. It spreads to the animals – the wolf living with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid. All flesh is related and no animal is preying on any other: “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea”. (v.9). This is the heart of the prophesy. The spirit of the Lord will rest upon the Messianic figure. He will strike the earth, not with violence, but with the rod of his mouth. Justice will come through hearing and understanding the word, through a change of heart.

Isaiah 25:6-10 continues this beautiful vision. It portrays a big feast that takes place on the mountain of the Lord. It is a feast of rich foods and well-aged wines for all peoples. God will remove the shroud that is cast over all peoples – he will destroy death. The prophesies written up to the end of Chapter 39 are those of First Isaiah and are written before the Babylonian invasion in a time of relative prosperity.

Second Isaiah begins at chapter 40. It is written after the destruction of Jerusalem. (Jeremiah is written in the period between first and second Isaiah). Second Isaiah is a new voice written in the context of the loss of everything. In the face of such devastation, he tries to make sense of the earlier Isaiahan promises. How can the earlier prophesies be true?

He begins “Comfort, Oh comfort my people, says the Lord” (40:1-11). It is the Book of Consolation. Zion is destroyed, but not irrevocably. Hope springs up again – existing when everything else is gone. The prophet urges the people to find their security in the word of the Lord. Structures can, and do, fail – but the word of the Lord stands firm. (“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (v. 8). In chapters 40-55 there is no mention of the temple because it no longer existed. Instead, like in the Gospels, compassion, promise and relationship are what are sacred.

In 539 Cyrus took over the Babylonian Empire. He decreed that all displaced peoples could return to their original lands. He was considered an enlightened ruler. He believed that it was better for people to pray to their own gods for the good of the Empire. Many of the exiled Jews returned to Jerusalem and around 520 BCE a rudimentary temple was rebuilt.

Third Isaiah begins at chapter 56. It opens with a promise that God’s covenant will be extended to all who obey his laws: “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”. (v. 7). This passage is quoted by Jesus attached to the quote from Jeremiah 7:11 about the house of God being turned into a den of thieves. Here Isaiah is taking a stand against an emerging movement to exclude outsiders form Judaism. There was a decisive push for the returning exiles to marry only among their own community. For Jewish leaders, the exile was seen as resulting from impurity. Their desire was to create a pure community – in practice, beliefs and bloodline, to stop such devastation occurring again as a result of the sins of the people. (Ezra and Nehemiah, written at this time, demonstrate this belief). As a result foreigners, eunuchs and other ritually unclean people were excluded from the temple. Third Isaiah’s response to this is to include all who observe the Sabbath.

In the final chapter (Is 66:1-13) there is again a shift away from the temple to the city. There is a growing disillusionment with the temple (“Whoever slaughters an ox is like one who kills a human being”), but not with Zion. Jerusalem is seen as a mother bearing children. Her days of mourning are over, after the travail of the exile. Compassion flows out from the city to her children - compassion learned through her experience of loss. Now Zion becomes a source of compassion for the whole earth. The Bible itself ends with a vastly expanded vision of the New Jerusalem. It is depicted as a perfect geometrical, symmetrical space. A place where the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations; and death is no more.