For the sake of the world

Tags

Abraham, Easter, Genesis 18:16-33, Genesis 6:6-7, Genesis 6:8, Genesis 6:9-10, Good Friday, Grace, Judgment, Mercy, New Creation, Noah, Our brokenness, Sodom and Gomorrah, Truth, Violence

This post continues a series started as a project for Lent 2024 with “In Beginning”.  I invite you to go there and follow the whole thread.

Genesis 6:8

But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD.

It’s troubling coming back to the Noah narrative.  The words that introduce it are so painful.  The earth is filled with violence.  The thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually.  All flesh has corrupted its ways upon the earth.  (And by “all flesh” the text means all creatures; it’s the same word in 6:19 for all the animals.  Humanity’s rebellion has infected everything, even the wild animals now live by violence.)  God regrets making humanity.  The heart of God is broken with grief.  God intends to destroy it all.

We take the story of Noah lightly.  We paint the ark on nursery walls and make children’s toys.  But it is a profoundly disturbing narrative.  The story begins with a fierce judgment about the world humanity makes.  The animals peaceably assembling aboard the ark is the dying gasp of the Edenic world.  

And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created – people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:6-7)

We can only read this story because of those few little words with which we began: “But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD.”

That sentence contains just five words in the Hebrew, but on them the whole narrative turns.  Suddenly, there is a crack in the pending darkness, the possibility of an unexpected future. 

There is a curious play on words in this sentence: the word “favor” is “Noah” spelled backwards.  It harkens back to the prophetic word of Noah’s father at his birth that “this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.”  But there is also a haunting note in our verse 8: the Hebrew phrase our text translates as “in the sight of the LORD,” is more literally, “in the eyes of the LORD.”  That reference to eyes takes us back to Genesis 3 where the fruit of the tree was “a delight to the eyes” and the serpent promised it would “open their eyes.”  Humanity’s eyes lead to all this violence, but God’s eyes lead to mercy.

One version of our story (the one using God’s name “LORD”) says simply that God’s heart is turned to favor.  The other version of our story (calling God “God”) talks about Noah’s righteousness: “These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. ¹⁰And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” (Genesis 6:9-10)

What our ancient writers were inspired to do was keep both these ideas together.  Everything depends on God’s mercy.  But faithfulness matters.  God doesn’t save Noah because of his faithfulness (we are the ones who make that assumption), God chooses to have mercy.  But faithfulness matters.  When we get to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham will argue with God about the fate of Sodom, asking if there were 50 righteous people in Sodom, would God destroy the righteous with the wicked?  For Abraham, this was unthinkable, and he told God so.  When God concedes not to destroy the city for fifty righteous, Abraham negotiates God down to ten. But the principle abides: One righteous family is enough for God to save the world.

With all the evils in the world why doesn’t God wipe us all out?  For the sake of one faithful family.

There is no Easter without Good Friday, no forgiveness without confession, no mercy without truth. The judgment upon humanity’s corruption of God’s good world needs to be said before God’s favor can work its work and lead us into the new creation.  But Easter comes.  When hope seems lost, Easter comes.  Mercy comes.  A new path is created.  God continues God’s life-giving work to restore God’s good world.

Noah found favor.

Wondrous Grace
Unexpected Mercy,
help us walk faithfully
for the sake of your world.

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Photo: DKBonde
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
© David K Bonde, 2024, All rights reserved.

A voice that summons

Tags

Bible, Genesis 6:11-12, Genesis 6:5, God's living Word, Noah, Word of God

This post continues a series started as a project for Lent 2024 with “In Beginning”.  I invite you to go there and follow the whole thread.

Genesis 6:5

The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.

Genesis 6:11-12

¹¹Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. ¹²And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth.

In Genesis 6:5 we hear the terrifying judgment about humanity that “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.”  And then in verse 11, we hear it again: “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.”

It’s important to recognize that the compilers/editors who assembled what we now know as the main body of the Hebrew Scriptures were weaving a narrative by gathering, editing, and shaping existing elements into a larger whole that would speak about the work of God with a troubled people in a broken world for the sake of God’s redemptive purpose.  

One can imagine that among the refugees fleeing the city, and among the prisoners taken to Babylon in chains, were some who had been deeply connected to the palace and temple trying to rescue what scrolls they could before it all fell into flame.

We don’t know the details of this work of assembling the scriptures, but we can occasionally see the seams where different narratives were knit together.  This is especially clear in this story of Noah.  Twice the text tells us the world was corrupt (vv. 6:5 & 11). Twice it will say God was ready to wipe out all living things (vv. 6:7 & 13).  Twice it will tell us that they went into the ark (vv. 7:7 & 13).  Twice God will promise “Never again” (8:21 & 9:11).

The compilers of the scripture were content to let different versions of these stories sit side by side because together they weave a more profound picture than either could alone.  They regarded both tellings of the story as inspired.  They understood that together the two accounts bear the voice of God to us.

We can see the seams in the text. The name used for God is particularly telling.  One narrative refers to God by the four Hebrew letters that get translated as “LORD” (all caps); the other refers to God by the Hebrew word “Elohim” that is normally translated as “God”.

And there other seams in the narrative: one says God took two of every kind of animal, but the other will say there were seven pairs of the “clean” animals and of birds, but only one of the “unclean” animals.  In 7:7 Noah enters the ark seven days before the flood comes, in 7:13 they enter on the day the flood arises.  This doesn’t make the scripture unreliable – unless one is using it as a scientific fact book rather than a message inspired by God to reveal the heart of God and speak God’s call and promise to the world.

Facts are just facts.  They don’t ask me to show allegiance.  They don’t ask me to be faithful.  They don’t reveal the meaning of life or the call of God.  They don’t comfort me in affliction or console me with forgiveness.  “God is love” is a fact.  “I love you” makes me choose whether to lean into that love or run away.  Scripture is the voice of God saying, “I love you.”  These narratives were conceived and preserved and handed down because generation after generation heard in them that voice of God. 

The biblical writers/compilers are assembling a story that summons us to lean in.  They are letting the voice of God capture our wayward hearts through these narratives.  To do that, they are content to let differing stories sit side by side – or to weave them together – and even to let them conflict with each other.  We saw this in the creation stories.  Does God make humans before or after the animals?  The stories don’t agree.  They don’t have to agree, because both elements say something profound to us about the heart of God and our place in God’s world.

The scripture is rich in its diversity.  And it can be trusted to work God’s work in us if we listen carefully with open hearts and minds.

Oh, and about this picture: we have two pups, wondrously different from each other, yet each in their own way – and both together – creating in us wonder, affection, and care.

PS: For more about the nature of the scripture/Word of God see The Living Word and The Living Word (second try)

Wondrous Grace
Word of Life,
grant us ears to hear
and courage to follow.

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Photo: DKBonde
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
© David K Bonde, 2024, All rights reserved.

They took wives

Tags

Angels, Genesis 6:1-4, Genesis 6:5, God's Grief, Our brokenness, Sin

This post continues a series that started with “In Beginning”.

Genesis 6:1-4

When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, ²the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.

³Then the LORD said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.”

⁴The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

Obscure passages of scripture become the source of much speculation.  Outside the scripture there are many writings that inquire into the world of angels and demons, but the Bible lacks interest in such things.  The scripture is focused on humans in this world and in the faithfulness of God.

There are references in the Bible to Satan as the father of lies, and we hear of demons being exorcised, but there is precious little about the ranks of angels and their origin.  The scripture doesn’t waste our time on such things – as curious as humans tend to be.  God doesn’t gossip: God doesn’t want to talk to me about other people, God wants to talk to me about me (and to us about us). 

So what shall we do with this strange text about the “sons of God” sleeping with the “daughters of men.”  And why is this divine word limiting human life to 120 years stuck in the middle?

Honestly, we must admit we don’t know much about what these words meant 2,500 years ago (something we always have to keep in mind as we stand before the scripture).  We are listening in on the cultural ideas of the ancient world where stories of the gods cavorting with humans and of ancient heroes, half god and half human, are familiar stuff.  But the biblical writers aren’t interested in this particular story; they are framing a larger narrative of the world careening off kilter.  And the ultimate testimony to the world’s degradation is the transgressing of all boundaries – including the boundaries between the heavens and the earth.  Heavenly beings and humans cavorting in the creation of something other than humans born of God’s divine image does not lead to honored heroes but an unthinkable corruption of God’s good world.  Our text’s very next sentence is: The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)

The biblical imagination experiences the world of power as the world of great kings and their armies, so such language and imagery is used of God.  Here the context leads to the suggestion that God’s soldiers and servants are betraying their responsibilities to guard and protect.  They are pursuing their own desires.  They are cops and soldiers gone off the rails.  God acts to set limits, but ultimately God regrets having made humanity.  

And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Genesis 6:6)

The narrative means to carry us with it into a recognition of a broken world.  It bids us share God’s grief.

Grief and horror are the proper response to police officers shooting persons of color in the back, to corrupt officials lining their own pockets at the public expense, to rape and pillaging by invading soldiers, to starving children and bombs dropped on aid workers in an unconstrained war.  It grieves God to the heart.  It should grieve us.  And it should lead to something new.

PS: notice the presence of the word “took”.  This is not about mutual love but taking.

Wondrous God
Creator of a good and precious world,
help us know your grief
and lead us from brokenness
into the light of your grace.

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Photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sons_of_God_Saw_the_Daughters_of_Men_That_They_Were_Fair,_by_Daniel_Chester_French,_modeled_by_1918,_carved_1923_-_Corcoran_Gallery_of_Art_-_DSC01065.JPG, Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
© David K Bonde, 2024, All rights reserved.

Mercy will shine

Tags

Forgiveness, Genesis, God's faithfulness, Isaiah 55:7-8, Jesus, Life and work of Jesus, Mercy, Noah, Our brokenness, Resurrection of Jesus, Sin, Work of God

This post continues a series that started with “In Beginning”.  It follows a break for the three day Celebration of the Cross and Resurrection from Maundy Thursday until Easter Morning.

Genesis 5:28-29

When Lamech had lived one hundred eighty-two years, he became the father of a son; he named him Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.”

It’s hard to go back to the Genesis story after walking through these days when Jesus washes feet, breaks bread, is stripped of honor, shamed, brutalized, and yet vindicated by God.  Jesus speaks no curse as he hangs upon the tree.  God casts no fire from the heavens at the brutal death of God’s anointed.  The temple still stands – though Rome will come to tear it down when Rome is insulted by rebellion.  Rome will crucify.  Rome will plunder and carry the survivors off to be sold as slaves.  Rome will punish, but God does not.  God suffers the shame and sorrow – and vindicates Jesus, declaring him true by raising him from the dead.  God does not turn against humanity; God breathes a new spirit into Jesus’ small band and calls again for us all to turn away from the lion crouching at the door.

“My ways are not your ways” says God in Isaiah 55.  What God is speaking about is not that God has inscrutable plans for why things happen as they do.  God is speaking about forgiveness.  God does what we do not do – at least not very well.

let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. (Isaiah 55:7-8)

We have to turn next to the Noah story.  It’s a dark story, suggesting God is capable of wiping out not just all of humanity, but every living creature.  It’s a very dark story because it says this is precisely what we deserve.  It’s a sad story because God grieves over the tragic turn of events in God’s good creation.  And yet it is a truly remarkable story because God cannot give us what we deserve.  The heart of God is turned by one man.  And though nothing has changed in the human heart when Noah descends from the ark, yet something has crystallized in the heart of God: God will not be a destroyer. God the life-giver chooses life.

It will happen to the childless wanderers Abraham and Sarah.  It will happen to the descendants of Jacob in Egypt.  It will happen to Hannah in her anguish.  It will happen to the widow of Zarephath and her son and to Naaman the enemy general.  It will happen to the exiles, scattered and hopeless like dry bones in the desert.  

It will happen to the widow and her son, the synagogue ruler, his daughter, and the woman at the side of the road, and to the ten lepers. It will happen in the tomb of Lazarus.  It will happen in the tomb of Jesus.  God is the Good Samaritan who comes to the aid of a wounded world, who binds our wounds, who carries us to safety, who pays the price for our healing.  God the life-giver chooses life.

The scripture will speak honestly about our terrible brokenness and faithlessness.  But it will continue to show us a God who comes again and again to set us free.  Who teaches us again and again to set one another free.  To love the neighbor, the vulnerable, the outcast, as God has loved us.  To feed the hungry as God has fed us.  To welcome the stranger as God has welcomed us.  To forgive as we have been forgiven – meaning to release others from their debts as God has released us – the kind of debts we feel when we have betrayed someone and feel the need to make it up – even when that debt is unpayable.  What can Brandon ever do to make it right once he has killed my daughter and her friends?  What can we ever do to make it right once we have nailed God’s beloved to a tree?

Yet the tomb is empty.  And Jesus comes to us.  And breathes upon us anew as into the first human.  And sends us out to release others.

The Noah story will be dark, but mercy will shine.  And all the subsequent stories will speak painfully about our brokenness, but mercy will shine.  Again and again and again mercy will shine.

And the tomb will be empty.

Breath of Life, 
Wondrous Mercy,
be our living and our healing.

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Photo: DKBonde
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
© David K Bonde, 2024, All rights reserved.

A prayer for Easter

Tags

Easter, Prayer

Breath of Life
Fearful mercy,
in whose hands are the scars of every violence
yet who loves
and lives:
send forth your Spirit 
into every human heart
and guide our feet in your paths.

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Photo: dkbonde
© David K Bonde 2024

A prayer for Holy Saturday

Tags

Death and resurrection of Jesus, Incarnation, Jesus, Our brokenness

Into a broken world , O God,
you came as a vulnerable child,
walked as a healer,
spoke as a teacher,
loved as a brother to all.

With jeers he was taunted,
with a spear he was pierced,
with tears he was laid in the grave.

Guide us through the silence of the night,
sustain us through the days of confusion,
and meet us at the empty tomb.

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Photo: dkbonde
Text: © David K Bonde 2024

A prayer for Good Friday

Tags

Death and resurrection of Jesus, Good Friday, Healing, Jesus, Life, Light, Prayer

O thou who art the voice in the eternal silence,
the light in the spreading darkness
the warmth in the growing cold,
the peace in the rising fear,
the truth in the crowded confusion:
Wounded, you heal.
Broken, you restore.
Abandoned, you gather.
Disgraced, you redeem.
Hated, you love.
Dying, you live.
Be our light, our hope, our guide, our joy, our life.  

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Photo: dkbonde
Text: © David K Bonde 2017

A prayer for Maundy Thursday

Tags

Confusion, Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, Fear, Holy Communion, Maundy Thursday, Redemption, The cross, Washing of feet

O Wondrous Mystery,
Heart of Love:
In this strange and awesome night
we hear the sounds of water
and puzzle at the master at our feet.

We see bread broken
and hear troubling words of breaking and betrayal.

We taste the wine of a shared cup
but there is a prayer for the cup to pass him by.

Wake us from our fear and confusion
and help us walk this journey to redemption.

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Photo: dkbonde
Text: © David K Bonde 2024

And he died

Tags

Death, Genesis 11, Genesis 5, Isaiah 25:6-8, Mark 16:4, Mortality, New Creation, Resurrection, Revelation 21:4

This is the 24^th post in a series that began with “In Beginning”.

Genesis 5

⁴The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years; and he had other sons and daughters. ⁵Thus all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred thirty years; and he died.

In the fifth chapter of Genesis the compilers in Babylon list ten generations from Adam to Noah.  Noah is the next big turning point in the biblical narrative of the human journey from a good and perfect world to a world deeply broken.  The names in this primeval history lived extraordinarily long lives, averaging over 900 years if we discount Enoch who wondrously disappears at a mere 365.

In the ten generations from Noah to Abraham in chapter 11, the next crucial figure in the biblical narrative, the average will fall from the 600’s to the 100’s.

The farther we get from the perfection of God’s first creating, the shorter human life becomes – even as humanity grows farther from God.

But the point our Biblical writers pound upon unceasingly is our mortality.  None of these human heroes are welcomed into the home of the gods as in the ancient near eastern stories.  None are rewarded with immortality.  

⁵Thus all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred thirty years; and he died.

⁸Thus all the days of Seth were nine hundred twelve years; and he died.

¹¹Thus all the days of Enosh were nine hundred five years; and he died.

¹⁴Thus all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died.

¹⁷Thus all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred ninety-five years; and he died.

²⁰Thus all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty-two years; and he died.

²⁷Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years; and he died.

³¹Thus all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy-seven years; and he died.

When Noah gets off the ark, we will hear:

^9:28After the flood Noah lived three hundred fifty years. ²⁹All the days of Noah were nine hundred fifty years; and he died.

Except for Enoch.  Of Enoch the text says enigmatically:

²³Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. ²⁴Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.

We get caught up in the extraordinarily long lives attributed to these ancient heroes, but the text is reminding us of their mortality.  There is no pathway for us to immortality, no way for us to be “like God”, no heroic deeds will earn this reward.  Life can only be bestowed by the wondrous grace that called all things into being.  We live now under death’s shadow.  But this creating God is working in us to bring all creation to that day when death has lost its grip and all things are again in the open hands of God.  When death is swallowed up.  When every tear is wiped away.  When the stone is rolled away.

Breath of Life, 
Wondrous Mercy,
be our living and our healing.

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Photo: DKBonde
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
© David K Bonde, 2024, All rights reserved.

A ray of light

Tags

Cities, Empire, Grace, Hope, Lamech, New life, Revenge, Seth, Taking, Violence

This is the 23^rd post in a series that began with “In Beginning”.

Genesis 4:19-24

¹⁹Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. ²⁰Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. ²¹His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe. ²²Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

²³Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. ²⁴If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

When we come to Lamech we are five generations removed from the Garden and the deterioration of the human community continues.  Beginning with Adam and counting Lamech’s sons we have seven generations – evoking, hauntingly, the seven days of God’s good and beautiful creating.  What began “naked and not ashamed” is now boasting of murderous revenge.

These generations are the descendants of Cain who “went away from the presence of the LORD, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” There Cain builds a city.  The Hebrew word for city seems to carry the sense of a defensible space.  Ancient cities had walls to protect them from marauders.  We forget the necessity of such things throughout the course of human history.  For the compilers of the scriptures, the fall of Jerusalem’s walls are still vivid memory – as well as the corruption and idolatry that came to rule in that city.  Babylon, also, is a great city, like Nineveh before it. City and empire are connected.  Empire and kings and taking.  Such are the descendants not just of Cain, but of humanity and its envy.

Lamech takes two wives, and while there is no specific condemnation of this act – polygamy was part of the ancient world – it is nevertheless a reflection of humanity’s continued journey away from the world of God’s creating where “a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

The children of Lamech’s first wife are identified with herding and with music.  The child of the second is the creator of “tools” that need sharpening.  The technology that makes a scythe also makes swords. When Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians, they fall to the sword – and the survivors are taken away in iron chains.

With the creation of weapons comes the boast of Lamech that he has killed a man for wounding him.  Though God solemnly warned of seven-fold revenge for killing Cain, Lamech promises seventy-seven-fold revenge.  We are no longer in the realm of justice and mercy; we are in the realm of power, violence, and taking.

In such darkness, when the future grows dim, comes a ray of light:

Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, because Cain killed him.” ²⁶To Seth also a son was born, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to invoke the name of the LORD. (Genesis 4:25-26)

There is another child, another line of descendants, and a people calling upon the name of the LORD, the God of creating and redeeming.

Faithful Love, 
Wondrous Grace,
Lead us in the path of Life.

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Photo: DKBonde
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
© David K Bonde, 2024, All rights reserved.