you\’re it

As I read this post I thought about the idea you brought about God saying “Go walk…” The idea of movement even in our particular context is really striking. It reminded me that we are not called to be stagnant, that God a God of action…there is a lot going on around me! Right now I feel much like Abram, there is a promise now ot be fulfilled later. To trust in a promise that is not manifesting itself in front of my eyes is so hard…if it is promised I want to see it now! But really, God does give Abram a sign in the midst of the promise to come. Where are the signs in my life for the promise to come? How do I hold onto this promise, even when it is in the future tense? Do I feel like it is not enough? And how does the community play into this? I’m not sure. The call to go and walk feels difficult, because I am weary and hanging onto a promise that i don’t understand. Movement is helpful in that, especially when I feel stuck.

Thank you Ronna for bringing movement to this passage and to me. It is a much needed reminder that I am following…not leading…this God of ours. And following means trusting, and trusting means movement even in the midst of confusion and bad choices and misunderstanding…

Okay, onto Genesis 14!

In this chapter, Abram and his family, along with Lot’s, all their combined livestock, their tents, and their accumulated wealth in silver and gold begin moving out of Egypt and toward the unknown. Despite the vastness of the land stretched before them, it seemed to not be enough. The text tells us “the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.” (6) Either the land was not as vast as I had imagined, or their entourage was far greater than I had grasped. I’m thinking the latter…

And, so like human nature, when there’s (seemingly) not enough, quarreling ensues – not between Abram and Lot, but between their herdsmen, those who were having to support the livestock with limited resources – and who were responsible for such to the men who paid them. The land was not vacant, but inhabited, and it was not enough. At least that’s how it appeared to them. Parenthetically, I can’t help but think about this in relation to the early history of the United States and our unswerving, quarrel-ensuing commitment to more land, more resources, more power. Why is it that we confuse God’s blessing with more? In Abram’s call, in Chapter 12, we don’t hear God offer him more land, resources, or power; we hear God’s promise of making him into a great nation – of people; and even more, we hear God’s promise of making him a blessing - to people. Now, standing before more, Abram and Lot decide it isn’t enough for them to share. How might this story have gone differently in the thousands of subsequent years if they had stayed together and made the land before them more than enough? We’ll never know, nor will we know what might have been true about the United States (and the Middle East?) had we seen what was before us as more than enough and not uprooted indigenous peoples or resources in pursuit of what we misunderstood as our inalienable and self-defined right to blessing.

OK…back to Abram and Lot. To their credit, they decide that they’d be better off to split up than to let the arguing be what separates them. (Hmmm.) Abram tells Lot that he can decide where he’d like to go and that he will go the opposite way. Lot sees the whole plain of the Jordan – well watered, “like the garden of the Lord” (v10) and chooses such. “So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.” (12) More narrative to follow there…

After Lot departs, God speaks again to Abram and says, “Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.” (14-17)

I realize that these very verses have the tendency to answer what I just questioned above: now God is promising land. I continue to wonder, however, what it might have meant to understand the land as “his” and in cooperation/community with those who were already residing there. My theology would tell me that God’s blessing is never at the expense of others. And the chapters and books that ensue are largely (and painfully) about a pursuit of land, of resource, of power, of more.

In the midst of this struggle, I find rest in two words in the verses above: “Go, walk…”

How beautiful that God calls Abram to move, to walk, to wander through what is already around him; to be present in and aware of what already surrounds him. He is not to settle, to encamp, to position, but to go. He is not to become entrenched in one place, one circumstance, one reality, but to walk. I wonder about this for us. We often seem far more like Lot – always looking beyond what we have and wanting more. What if we heard God’s call to Abram as a call to us and then walked, moved, wandered, and wondered in gratitude and awe in the places we currently live? What if we understood God’s blessing to be in the here and now instead of something yet to come?

The tense of the verbs is interesting. Admittedly, I didn’t go to my Hebrew lexicon to make sure I’m reading such accurately. I’m curious enough for now with what I’m finding in the NIV. God says, “I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth…” and “I am giving (the land) to you.” One is future. One is now. It seems that God’s understanding of blessing is not only someday, but in the present. That said, will we “go, and walk”?

Both words require movement in the midst of where we currently are. This is so much easier said than done. There are so many places in our lives in which we either feel stuck and unable to move, or where we are so comfortable that we are unwilling to move. But I wonder if the experience of God’s promised blessing would be more felt if we were to constantly be about going and walking – not toward more, but knowing that it is God’s very presence that will be more than enough, no matter the vastness or constriction in which we find ourselves – personally, professionally, relationally, institutionally, theologically.

As I continue to wonder, I hope that I will do so in movement - almost dance-like: graceful, lithe, beautiful – and dangerous, as you so beautifully invited, Meredith. I also hope that I will invite others to the dance – in a spirit of more than enough. I am enough (and I am not too much). You are enough (and you are not too much). Let’s go, walk, and dance beautifully, dangerously together. It might just negate what is about to happen in Chapter 14…

~Ronna

P.S. Tag, you’re it, Meredith!

Such great stuff, Meredith. And I couldn’t help but go to Dostoevsky’s words: “Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.” Indeed, this is played out in Genesis 12 (and Genesis 3) and it’s what you have brought forth – in all its mystery and unfortunately, terror. This chapter is a battle and the assumed hero falls far short whle a behind-the-scenes God steps forward and honors a woman who has been deeply harmed…for being beautiful. It’s a dangerous text.

Beauty’s danger feels especially palpable in these verses and I’m deeply grateful that you show God as the (only) one who protects and honors it – and this woman. What if we believed and trusted the same to be true for us? Too often, at least for me, I worry about the ramifications of being beautiful: being who I truly am, speaking what I truly feel and know, especially when it has the potential to contradict people in power. What if I/we believed our beauty to be not what is seen in magazines, on billboards, or TV, but a manifestation of who we are, uniquely as women, created in God’s image, powerful and yes, dangerous? 

God affirms Sarai’s beauty – not behind the scenes, but up front, bringing both truth, justics, and her deserved honor to the fore. In a world that affirms beauty, but not a beauty that is real, I’m extremely grateful for this God – and the beauty that God sees, affirms, and protects in me. I’m grateful to you, Meredith, for seeing this and stating it – so beautifully. I appreciate your beauty – and danger. Both are amazing.

~Ronna

The heading in this section of my Bible says “The Call of Abram.” It seems an appropriate title, as we see Abram called by God to leave his country and go to the land God will show him. And as he sets out God reveals the place that Abram’s descendents will inherit. All of this is good and worthy, Abram is a major character in our story of faith. Yet the person I would like to focus in on is Sarai, because this call affects her far greater than even Abram.

We see that there is a famine in the land, and so Abram decides to pass through Egypt. Yet as they apporach he says to Sarai, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life will be spared on your account.” (12:11b-13)

Okay, so Abram is called, sets forth, finds a famine, goes to Egypt, and Sarai gets caught up in this scheme to save Abram’s life. First I wonder, did they need to go to Egypt in the first place? The text does not say, other than the implication that Egypt was not experiencing the famine. I wonder if this was a choice of seeking security outside of God’s call? We often hold Abram up as a great man of faith, and indeed he is, but we also see cowardice here. We see him hide behind his wife, manuever her into position, so that he would be spared.

But even more striking to me is the way he speaks of her beauty. While it is something he probably enjoys about her, he also sees it as a danger to him. He fears being killed as a result of it, and so he puts it back on Sarai to be responsible for him because she is beautiful. And if she goes along with his plan, he will be spared. So he tells his wife to act as his sister, so she may be taken by another man. Pharaoh takes Sarai as his wife, and thus she is forced into a situation where she must use her beauty to protect her husband, and therefore give her body to another person against her will. She is powerless in this story, and the one who should protect her hides behind her instead.

This leads me to thinking about beauty. It is often celebrated when it is safe and contained, but if it would lead us into situations where we are unsure of the outcome, we seek to control it and use it to our advantage. We either tame it, shame it, or blame it. Which is exactly what we see here with Abram. He first blames Sarai that her beauty will be the cause of his death. He then seeks to tame her beauty bu weaving a plot where he can use it to protect him (but offering her to another man for his pleasure). And then he shames it by allowing another man to sleep with his wife.

As a woman I know that beauty is dangerous. It has the power to undo not only myself, but the people around me, especially men. Beauty unravels, it seduces, it is subversive in many ways. And so women are told to be less, to not be so threatening, or if they are beautiful then they must become an object of desire. Either beauty must be contained or it must be controlled.

How do we as women find ourselves being blamed, tamed or shamed in our beauty? How do you as men find yourselves unable to handle beauty and all the power it brings? How do we allow beauty to undo us in ways that frighten us and yet call to us? I am not sure of these answers, but I know that I long to be free in beauty and not quite so frightened of it. I hope to be able to hold my own beauty and not allow others to make me less as a result of it.

And lastly, I do see some redemption in this story, and of course it comes from this character God who we have been following. God afflicts Pharaoh’s house with great plagues because he is sleeping with Sarai. And Pharaoh, when he finds out, confronts Abram and his cowardice. Abram is forced to leave Egypt with Sarai and all his other possessions. The only defender of beauty is God. God sees this plan hatched by Abram and unknowingly executed by Pharaoh, and God denounces it. God will not be silent in the abomonation of beauty. For this, I am thankful.

Okay Ronna, you’re it.

Ronna,

Okay, I know that you don’t love the geneology passages that have fallen your way, but what you have brought with this one is really special. The idea of rhythm being found in the text, to hear where things begin to slow down in pace or crescendo in excitement…what a beautiful hermeneutic to bring to reading Scripture. We have very much lost the idea of the poetic in the Bible, which has led us to lose the idea of the peotic in our own lives. To be sensitive to not only what our story is, but the pace at which it is being told is such a gift. You have brought to me a reminder that it is indeed the same God who is writing my story that has written the story of the ages…and this God is masterful, creative, poetic and beautiful. I too often live my life at one pace, and that is hectic. I am learning how to slow down, to be attentive to the signs God may be giving to pause, or wait, or stop. I am learning to be useless before God, silent without much to offer. I am tuning into rhythm. But now I am excited to see not only rhythm in my story, but to be open to it on others as well. Will we have eyes to see and ears to hear when God is slowing down in order to bring something new to us. Will we remember the story we find ourselves in long enough to wait with baited breath to see what the next revelation of God’s love and goodness will be? So, bravo Ronna for being one who is sensitive to rhythm, and calling us there as well. may you have more fun passages come your way…but know that you have remarkable insights even when the passage seems like one to just skim over.

Thank you!!!

Another genealogy. So far, these have fallen to me and I find more here than I anticipate…

It seems that this genealogy is serving the primary purpose of bringing us from Noah’s sons to Terah. As far as I can calculate, this is some seven generations and 320 years after the flood. We track quickly through the lineage of Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, and Nahor and then come to Nahor’s son, Terah. There is then a marked and obvious change in the pace and rhythm of the verses thus far. We read, “This is the account of Terah.” (27a) Clearly, something of significance is about to be stated: “Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.” (27b) By verse 29, Sarai, Abram’s wife is introduced and by verse 30 we are told that she is barren. The remainder of the chapter tells us that Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot and his daughter-in-law Sarai and set out for Canaan, but settled in Haran, where he died some 130 years later. End of chapter 11.

Something about these 22 verses dramatically shifts the plot from all that has come before to all that will come after. We’ve gone quickly through creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the earliest settlements, Noah and the flood, and just verses earlier, the Tower of Babel. Now everythign changes. The pace slows. The plot thickens. The story being to take on even more detail, texture, charact er, and perhaps even meaning.

When I slow down enough to look at this genealogy I’m struck by how even its meter invites me to this change. There’s something lyrical and poetic about it; as though nothing is incidental and every aspect of Scripture is telling the same story. It says to me: “Pay attention. Something is about to happen. Notice what has gone before and recognize what is about to come.”

Where might I find that rhythm in my own life? Do I read the verses of my own “text” closely enough, deliberately enough, intentionally enough to see where those marked changes occur? Rarely. I’ll be they are there though and not by chance, but written by the same Author who has carefully crafted the Biblical story. Is there the possibility that the genealogy of my family, hundreds of years prior, slowed at all prior to my birth? Or what if it slows for the announcement of my daughters’ birth? I can only imagine the impact yet to be written in and of their lives. Will I notice? Will I read well? Will I pay attention to all that has gone before and all that is yet to come?

I continue to be stunned by the reality that every aspect of this story is significant: even the genealogies. Indeed, there are always stories left untold and names left unmentioned but somehow, their presence is still felt when I take the time to add up the years, read between the lines, and pay attention to the rhythmic meter of this unfolding tale. That’s what I want for my own life: attention paid to the rhythmic meter of the unfolding tale. I don’t know its end. I don’t even know its plot most days. But it matters. I matter. You matter.

May we choose to be curious and committed to the unfolding of our stories as ones that carry as much import, detail, and texture as those in Scripture. May that then impact the way we interact with others – knowing that their stories are just as important; that they significantly impact our own. And may that awareness cause the rhythm of our days to change and our pace to slow – all toward an ever-deepening awareness of our story’s Author and what might just yet be to come.

May it be so.

~Ronna

P.S. Tag, Meredith. You’re it!

‘Worth the wait, Meredith. It is a perplexing passage, but I love the tension you’ve created between unity and diversity – as well as the wondering about God’s motivation in it all. There is, of course, the “mood” of God’s disappointment in verses 5-7 so one has to assume that such is true. At the same time, all of God’s activity in the lives of God’s people, as we’ve seen time and again even in these first chapters of Genesis, has been to pursue – all for the sake of relationship with God’s self and with each other: Adam and Eve, Cain, Noah and his family… Why would Babel be any different? Could it be that the very scattering, though not God’s initial hope or intent, now becomes the means through which God will become known in far more lives, places, and ways? I love this possibility.

I also appreciate your honesty over unity vs. diversity. We want the former, particularly when it has to do with our comfort. We resist the latter, particularly when it has to do with our comfort. And this is what Babel speaks to profoundly, I think: a disruption of comfort. Maybe, just maybe, that’s not the end goal. ‘Doesn’t seem to be God’s. If only I, we, all of God’s people could learn to choose relationship over comfort. Imagine the possibilities!

If I consider such for only myself I can quickly (far more quickly than I’d like) make a list of the areas in my life in which I know and pursue comfort: my home, my job, my marriage, my parenting, my car, my stuff. Of course! And, nearly everything in Scripture would tell me that such an emphasis is not God’s. What would it mean for me to intentionally choose non-comfort…toward the ends of both unity and diversity? Certainly that has been God’s choice on my behalf – again and again and again.

Thanks for the call to this, Meredith. Something to ponder, wonder about, be compelled by, and hopefully apply. I’ll end with your final words in this post: “Perhaps we may have the courage to do the same.” Indeed.

~Ronna

The Tower of Babel

This story leaves me baffled, sad and hopeful all at the same time. In this part of Genesis we see humanity as “one people, and they all have the same language” (11:6) and in their unity they seek to build a tower up to the heavens so that they may make a name for themselves. When God sees this, God decides this is not a good thing and so God confuses their language and scatters them across the earth.

So why my mixed reaction to this story? Well, first I guess I feel sad because of what humanity loses at this point…unity. I can see that we use our unity to worship ourselves, our own name, rather than God’s. We seek our own security in a tower which will keep them from being scattered. (11:4) We could look a this story in two ways I guess…one is that it is bad to build a tower in your own name. This is certainly true in many of our lives…well maybe bad is not the right word…perhaps distracting or unhelpful. Humanity does not even seem to be thinking of God in this moment, but rather their own security. They have once again forgotten who has created them and will provide for them…that’s one way. (and keep in mind perhaps these two ways are not either/or but more both/and)

The other way to look at this story is to see that they were buildinga tower to prevent being scattered…since they say as much in verse 5. See, many times this story of the Tower of Babel has been used not to celebrate diversity, but rather to reveal it as something sinful. Does God scatter these people because they have done something bad, or did God hope for them to scatter on their own? We have seen several times that God commands them to be fruitful and multiple and fill the earth. So maybe God scatters them not as punishment, but rather to fulfill God’s hope for humanity? Perhaps we were not meant to speak one language, stay in one spot, think one thing, eat one food, live one way…though most of us would prefer that.

I think that is what leaves me baffled in this story. I am sad at the loss of unity, but I also see diversity as a good thing. But I am also scared of diversity. I am scared of making a mistake, not looking right, not understanding or being understood. Diversity has created confusion. But it is not diversity that seems to be the problem…it is our lack of humility and curiosity in the midst of diversity. How many times do we find ourselves afraid to ask a question because we’re not quite sure how to word it? Or how many times will be not venture out and try a new food, or new dance, or new music, play, novel, festival…you name it. How many of us build towers of unity because we are too afraid to be scattered and unknown. We prefer the comfort of knowing…I certainly do. But my life has been so enriched as I have dared to reach out, however clumsy it is, to those who are not like me. I sometimes ask the wrong question, or don’t even ask at all…I assume a lot as a white middle class American. But I am learning as I dare to allow diversity to change me.

So I guess I find myself hopeful in this passage as well. Perhaps God is not punishing…perhaps diversity is not a lack of unity, it is a lack of sameness. I think just maybe God wants the world to be more interesting than we do. God wants us to be impacted by each other more than we do. And I think God delights in the variety of worship throughout the world more than we do. We have tried over and over again to create this unity at the expense of diversity. And it has harmed so many. We have used God’s gift of diversity to exclude, shame, rob, rape, pillage and decimate other cultures. And without curiosty there is will be no genuine healing.

But I am drawn to the place and Revelation where it says of Jesus:

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.” (Revelation 5:9-10)

In the end we do not see a return to sameness, but a celebration of difference in unity. Perhaps we may have the coruage to do the same?

~Meredith

PS- Ronna, you’re it.

Thank you for bringing to bear the faces and names we do not know. The stories that are yet to be told…I guess it gives me hope for part of what will make Heaven so fun…getting to know these people. It is a great reminder that God is writing a story in each of our lives, whether it is recognized or not. We are all uniquely being shapep and formed into who God has created us to be. It is also a great reminder that rather than seeking to be noticed, we are called to be faithful to the one who is writing, knowing that we are ultimately seen in the eyes of God.

Thank you for the invitation to be a warrior with you Ronna. I accept whole heartedly. I love the idea that a warrior is one who brings people’s stories to the front, one who fights for recognition of the overlooked and forgotten. You have been a great warrior for those not seen, both in this story and the stories around you. I am thankful for you today.

~Meredith

OK…I’m sure everyone is waiting with bated breath to see what I’ll do with a chapter of geneology. Yikes!

As I read through this chapter I see the many names and cities that descended from Noah’s sons. Life has continued and flourished. The flood seems like a distant memory. And, in fact it might very well have been distant in these new peoples’ minds as well, given what’s about to come in Chapter 11. The pattern continues: despite the numerous failings, missteps, and blatant harm of one another, God continues to pursue, rescue, purify, and love.

But God’s pursuit is not only for those listed in this text. Many names are missing: the mothers and daughters and sisters. Surely God knew of them and saw their value, contribution, and life. Their absence is not that shocking, really, AND it’s disappointing. Who were the women who bore these sons who are selectively listed? What were their stories? What might their many and significant contributions have been to the hundreds of years of history contained in this short chapter?

Could it be that they were just as notable as one of the many men listed here? Just as notable as Nimrod who “grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth”? (10:8-9) I think there were many warriors in the midst – far mightier than Nimrod. They were the women who continued to tell the stories of the past – of Eve and Eve’s daughters, of Noah’s wife, daughters, and daughters-in-law. They were amazing young girls who grew up to be wives, mothers, storytellers, weavers, creators, lovers, and yes, warriors! Their lives impacted the stories of the men and women who came after them. Their lives continue to have impact today – whether they are named and noted in Scripture or not. In fact, their unnamed presence may be what most deeply influences and transforms me. Their stories are bound with mine and I can be a woman who is a warrior – on their behalf, on behalf of my own daughters, on behalf of my marriage, on behalf of my work, on behalf of my theology, on behalf of my God.

Just like them, I don’t need to be named and acknowledged in order to be a warrior (or a mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, co-worker, planner, leader, writer, speaker, movie-watcher, reader, house-cleaner…) How they chose to live is what mattered. How I choose to live is what matters. And, in reality, the way I choose to live brings their names and faces back into our midst. They were seen and loved by the God who sees and loves me. Their stories matter. Mine does, as well.

Genesis 10 compels me to be one who wonders about the many who have gone before me – the great cloud of witnesses. It also compels me to be one who writes and lives a story that brings to life the stories of the many women (and men) who impact my story still today. Undoubtedly, many will yet follow after me. And the same God of this text will be the same God of that yet to be written. What will we choose to write? And how will my writing impact that which is yet to come? Chapter 10 invites me to care about such. It’s may not be the meatiest of chapters but it may just be the most powerful invitation yet to the story God desires to write in and through me. I’m grateful, hopeful, and humbled.

‘Want to be a warrior with me, Meredith? You are a brave and mighty one already, my friend. I’m grateful to be in the battle with you.

~Ronna

P.S. Tag…you’re it!