“Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God.”

I feel like Gamaliel could have been an INFJ.

nods approvingly.

I’ve read a lot of scornful things this week - both 1st-degree stuff, where someone just spouts off about something, and 2nd-degree, where someone is reacting to 1st-degree. I love it when other people are snarky and skillfully sarcastic. I can read it and get a kick out of it without having to deal with the repercussions in my own life. And I have a circle of close friends with whom I am super snarky too, about whatever dumbass things the non-close people in my life do.

And then I read 1 Peter 2.

“For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.”

Yeah…didn’t do that so much this week…or any week in recent memory. Not really. Not with much effort.

Ooooofffffffff.

Mark 7

“And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.”

I don’t know what on earth Jesus is doing here (though it reminds me of a couple of different massage therapists I’ve had), but “ephphatha” is one of my favorite words in the Bible.

And yet [the Holy One] is wise and brings disaster;
he does not call back his words,
but will arise against the house of the evildoers
and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

The Egyptians are man, and not God,
and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. 

from Isaiah 31

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This has an aching resonance with my life at the moment, touching areas that I’m not prepared to talk about yet. But it is swirling with the Holy One bringing disaster as mercy, striking with death as a part of bringing life.

Acts 3

Um, that’d be me, reacting to Peter telling everyone what’s what in Solomon’s Portico when they’re all like “Dudes, you just healed that lame beggar” and Peter’s all like “Yeah, and it wasn’t actually us, but the Holy and Righteous Author of Life that you #^$^#$ers KILLED, but yeah, it was because you are IDIOTS and clueless, even though there were hundreds of prophets that told about him coming, I mean, nobody could have seen that, but yeah, God did this all so that you could be blessed instead of being such wicked reprehensible miscreant losers.”

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Actually, too, though, I love just this little bit here -

“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.” (19-21)

“Times of refreshing” and “the time for restoring all the things.” What will that even be like?

Mark 6

I sometimes get really down about the unworthiness and inability of the Church to carry out Christ’s work on earth. I mean, this is the God who had to have beauty and perfection in everything offered to him, and we are so…not beautiful and perfect, so much of the time. It is hard to believe that the Spirit in us can hold us in Christ and make that all work.

It’s a common presentation of this passage to see the little we give to God as being spread with magnifying blessing as he distributes it. But I read it a little differently today; I saw the bread and fish not as the things we offer the Lord, but as actually us, just us. It struck me that Jesus breaks the food (making it imperfect) and hands it to the disciples to distribute. This really is how he’s going to feed the world with himself, later on, of course - he gets broken and handed to his disciples to be taken to the ends of the earth - but also I suppose that since we are in Christ and he is in us, our imperfectness (I’m not talking about our deliberate sinfulness, but certainly all the sin-world-filth that coats everything we do, as well as just our complete inability to be whole and wholly good or even aesthetically very good, most of the time) is part of the way that we are aligned with him.

He broke himself/we broke him, and he gets handed by himself to us to be given. He broke us/we broke ourselves, and he hands us to others to be given.

We are Jesus-fish and Jesus-bread; and again, he’s made us in his image.

“God said to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.’…and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So he called its name Allon-bacuth.”
Genesis 35:1,7-8. 

“Oak of Weeping.” I am so very curious why it is that some tiny story-corners are mentioned in Scripture. Why tell us about this Deborah’s death, without telling us about the rest of the story?

Genesis 29

This chapter is so weird partly because it’s all so foreign. First Jacob argues with Laban’s shepherds over the appropriate way to water sheep. Then he figures out who Rachel is, and kisses her and cries. Like, loudly and publicly. And then she goes and tells her dad, and he comes and kisses Jacob and invites him into his home for a month before he gets around to his scheming. And then Laban pulls trick after nasty trick on Jacob. Seriously. Bad in-laws. Is this common for their day and age?

I will go to sleep humming this song…

Mark 1

“And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.”

I don’t know why this is one of the most endearing (is that the right word? I want something a little more…respectful, awe-filled…but endearing is right too…it makes me love him more) about Jesus to me, but it is. He’s going around, making people healthy and ceremonially clean so they can be restored to temple acceptance, and casting out demons - who know who he is, when everyone else is just doing double takes and saying “Who is this?” And he won’t let the demons talk.

Three weeks have passed. The first half of that was insane-crazy-busy work preparing for a couple of big events, going on four/five hours of sleep a night; I was reading only a little bit every day. 

The beginning of the second half of the elapsed time began right before my birthday, when I learned some very difficult news about my parents. I didn’t want even God to touch me because if I let my insides hurt, they’d hurt too much. I don’t defend this…self-protection is sinful, though beating yourself up for wanting to run from the effects of sin isn’t a virtue either, so I’m not doing that. 

Tonight I had some space and an unexpected spurring to grieve, and it hasn’t been fun. But I did pull out my Bible to the next section (that I otherwise would have read quite some time ago) and wouldn’t you know, the next on the lineup was Psalm 27. I’d been repeating verse 10 over and over since getting that news last week, and did not know that it was here waiting for me in print and Providence for the night I let myself experience pain for a while in the Lord’s presence. I pray my way through this whole psalm, some of the verses with great difficulty. (The exclamation marks belong to the ESV editors. I’m not quite there yet.)

Things will be okay later on. For now, he lets me hurt, and I trust that is a mercy.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh,
My adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear;
Though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after;
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble;
He will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
He will lift me high upon a rock.

And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me,
And I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;
Be gracious to me and answer me!

You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.”

Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
O you who have been my help.
Cast me not off; forsake me not,
O God of my salvation! 

For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.

Teach me your way, O Lord,
And lead me on a level path because of my enemies.

Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And they breathe out violence.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!

Wait for the Lord;
Be strong, and let your heart take courage;
Wait for the Lord!