Violence in the Bible: Authority Through Ultimate Force
December 20, 2010
I love Westerns. Actually I can’t stand watching them – I get really anxious because people are so vulnerable, life is so precarious, and the guys holding the guns tend to be so cold. I worry about the women and children. But I make myself watch one or two Westerns a month – like a penance. Because I teach the Bible, and I need to remind myself constantly that these stories do not take place in my own place and time.
Open the Bible to any page, and people are vulnerable, life is precarious, and the guys holding the whips and the weapons, chains and chariots and the nails tend to be so cold.
I got interested in Westerns while I was in seminary. My wife Elizabeth told me that, when in college, she’d taught a class on apocalyptic movies. Well I love apocalyptic movies! I love dystopias! What could she recommend? And she told me, most of the films she’d used were old Westerns. …What? But those take place in the past. And she said ‘well, it’s the future too.’ European culture tried to expand eastward, but it hit a wall…of Eastern culture. So it expanded west. And it went – it stretched itself as far and as thin as it could go, all the way to the California coast, and it could go no farther. But it was stretched too thin, so it crawled back again. And the wave left ghost-towns in its wake, dying outposts of European culture, populated with people who, for one reason or another, couldn’t go back. Women in last year’s Parisian dresses, now caked with dust, scars on their faces. Men in tattered three-piece suits, trying to maintain civilization in cheaply-built towns that look like a strong wind could knock them over. People basically waiting to die, because civilization has no future.
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Waiting for Fragile Things
December 5, 2010
This fall, I got to hold a friend’s newborn baby in my arms. He seemed fragile to me, with his delicate fingers, unfocused eyes, soft skull, and feeble neck muscles. It was seeing that final detail in person that made me understand the total dependence of infants on their families in a real and visceral way. He needed my help to hold up his head.
A couple of years ago, I was talking to some friends at a seminary, and they started discussing an ancient Christology that eventually was declared heresy. According to the understanding of the nature of Jesus that was developed in Adoptionism, he was born as an ordinary human and then “adopted” by God at his baptism as God’s spirit, shaped like a dove, descended on him; God’s nature and God’s power did not enter into Jesus until this moment. Two of my friends argued that they believed this to be true, that God’s nature and God’s power could not possibly have rested in an infant’s body.
There was something very disturbing about this idea to me. I want to believe that incarnation means that God understands what it is like to live with the fragility and limitation that being human entails. I want to believe that God knows what it is like to be poor, hungry, tired, unable to communicate clearly, and dependent on people for life itself. When I need God and can’t even put words to my prayer, I want to believe that God “remembers” what it was like.
The scripture in the lectionary for today, the second Sunday of Advent, is Isaiah 11:1-10. It begins, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” This image speaks to me of fragility, of the seedling that needs protection, of the green life that needs care to thrive. This Advent, I am keeping watch for fragile things, the green shoot bursting into my life from some dark corner, the infant idea that needs my help to hold up its head, the emergence of God in delicate and breakable moments. Oh come, oh come Emanuel.
Of Robots and Redemption
November 28, 2010
My brother is an electrical engineer who works with robots, so I always keep my eye out for stories about robots and innovations in robotic technology. Last night, as I was thinking about this blog post, I ran into an article on the New York Times website: Robots, the Military’s Newest Forces. Reading it made me proud of my brother, who recently went through a logistical nightmare to switch work groups in his PhD program because he feared his ideas and inventions would be used to create machines designed for combat. It also made me despair for our country and our world. On this, the first Sunday in Advent, we read the famous prophesy from Isaiah (2: 1-5), “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Last night I sat in front of my computer reading about robots designed to bring death and wondered when we will start investing in the technology of life. In the plowshares and pruning hooks, books and dry erase markers, windmills and solar panels, water filters and medicine that we need to make our communities thrive. When will we stop learning war?
Advent Blog
November 28, 2010
Welcome to Transmission’s series of blog posts for the season of Advent. Seven men and women from the Transmission community have committed to writing one blog post each week for the four weeks of Advent. The posts might be related to the lectionary for the day, or might simply be the musings of the author. Whether you join us for one day or the entire season, we hope you will join us in clearing some space in our busy lives to prepare for the coming of the Christ.
Genesis told in sand
August 5, 2010
Augsburg Fortress is releasing a new Bible Study plan, and they’re accompanied by videos like this one:
I found it surprisingly beautiful and for more interesting than what I’m used to seeing in Sunday School curricula. Way to go, Lutherans.
The Lord is My [blank]
March 22, 2010
About a year ago, I led a Transmission focused on prayer. The scripture from the Daily Office happened to be Psalm 23, so as part of the ritual we created our own versions of of the psalm. I was really moved by the personal psalms that came out of this activity, so I thought I would share. Without introducing Psalm 23, ask participants to write down answers to the following questions:
- What is your metaphor for God? Do you think of God as a father? a friend? a rock? the color purple? What image makes sense for you when you think about God?
- Where does your soul find rest?
- Where does God lead you?
- What are you afraid of?
- How does God comfort and protect you?
- How does God bless you?
Then give participants a paper with lots of space between the following lines:
The Lord is [blank]
I shall not want.
God makes me [blank]
God leads me [blank]
God restores my soul.
God leads me in paths of righteousness for God’s name’s sake.
Yea though I walk [blank]
I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
Your [blank] comfort me.
You [blank]
You anoint my head with oil.
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Each blank corresponds with an answer to the question prompts in order. Give participants some time to craft their psalm. Invite people to share aloud. If you try this with your faith community, let us know how it turns out!
Samir Selmanovic, Founder and Christian co-leader of Faith House Manhattan, an interfaith community in New York City, ends the whole debate on faith vs works. Samir is the author of It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian
[audio:epp019.mp3]
Download Sheet Music | Subscribe via iTunes | Subscribe via XML
Prayer, Prophecy, Scripture
September 5, 2009
A few conservative bloggers and podcasters recently critiqued my podcast and book for not giving enough recognition to the Psalm’s role as prophecy; apparently the fact that I don’t immediately look for Jesus in the Psalms means I’m not interpreting them correctly.¬† The thing is, I’m not entirely convinced that the Book of Psalms does prophesy Jesus, or that they were originally meant to be prophecy at all.
This has gotten me thinking about the nature of the texts contained in the Bible. The question of whether the Bible is the “inerrant Word of God” is such a hangup issue for so many churches – it’s used as a litmus test to determine whether a believer is a “true Christian” or whether a teacher is a “false Prophet.” When the final version of the Torah was put together (probably shortly after the Babylonian Exile), did the redactors suspect it’d be used as scripture? Well, yeah, they probably did. When Paul wrote his letter to Philemon, did he suspect that it’d be read in churches thousands of years later and declared “the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God?” No, he probably didn’t.
In Jewish copies of the Bible, the books are clearly separated between Scripture (Torah), Prophecy (Nevi’im), and Writings (Ketuvim). In Christianity, the lines between the three are much, much more ambiguous, whether we’re talking about the Psalms or the writings of Paul. Since I’m much more familiar with the Psalms, I’ll focus on them.
Psalm 45 – Nadia Bolz-Weber
August 26, 2009
Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Sarcastic Lutheran, discusses Psalm 45, the nerdiest love song in the Bible. Nadia is the pastor of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver and the author of Salvation on the Small Screen: 24 Hours of Christian Television.
Also, for those who didn’t know, all the sheet music from the book and podcast is available for free download at Church Publishing.
If you’re podcast savvy, the XML feed is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/emergentpsalterpodcast/podcast.xml
If you want to to listen to it on iTunes: click here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=322056809
If you’d rather just download it, the link is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/epp045.mp3
If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.
[audio:epp045.mp3]
Psalm 130 – Todd and Angie Fadel
August 4, 2009
Agents of Future
Todd and Angie Fadel, members of the Bridge, an emergent community in Portland, discuss hope, participatory music, and being Agents of Future. Go buy their new album at Proost.
If you’re podcast savvy, the XML feed is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/emergentpsalterpodcast/podcast.xml
If you want to to listen to it on iTunes: click here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=322056809
If you’d rather just download it, the link is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/epp130.mp3
If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.
[audio:epp130.mp3]