Uprooting Anew

Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Jeremiah 1:9-10; part of lectionary text Jeremiah 1:4-10 for Aug 25, 2019

It is both a discipline and a gift to take what the lectionary offers each week and see what the text says in my context as well as its own. I’ve set for myself the work of attending to the prophetic texts while they are given: not reading all the lectionary selections and deciding between but defaulting to the word of the prophet, whichever prophet. This week, though, the lectionary gives me — again — Jeremiah 1:4-10. But I had that one already this cycle!, I want to protest. Let me choose another!

Except I’ve set myself this task not to choose but to accept. And I really do love this passage. So accept the invitation to ponder it again as a gift. Maybe there’s a narrowness to so (relatively) prompt a return to the same words. Or maybe there’s a wideness in clinging to the discipline’s constraint.

So. Jeremiah 1:4-10.

Why do I love this passage? Start there. I love the interplay of the words, the relationship exchange: the LORD gives ‘the boy’ as a prophet (1:5); the LORD gives God’s words to the prophet’s mouth (1:9).

I love it for the intimacy: ‘the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth’ (1:9). The contact is physical: hand meets mouth. The words, even, seem palpable: transferred via touch, taken between the lips, onto the tongue. God’s word eaten (Jer 15:16). Was it sweet as honey (Ezek 3:3)? Did it flame as coal (Isa 6:7; Jer 20:9)? ‘How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!’ sings the psalmist (Psa 119:103).

Suddenly, my lip cringes. Honey is too sweet. My tongue craves chocolate so dark that the depth of its taste rounds my mouth for hours.

Read on. The words that follow the given-word are not sweet. Jeremiah is appointed ‘to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant’ (1:10). Four infinitives of destruction; only two of hope. The bitterness of the first four verbs are only barely tempered by the concluding two. The words tell that Jeremiah’s work will be gut-wrenching, pain-filled (20:8-9). Not sweet.

I know something of the context of Jeremiah’s time: violent destruction, deportation, and death, a traumatic end to the nation. I know something of the context of Jeremiah’s scroll: oracles scribed and re-inscribed, edited and redacted and put into varying orders. I know that the balance of four to two may reflect the trauma of Jeremiah’s context or even a later spirit softening the first bitter draft with the final phrase of possibility.

As I spend the week (again) with the text, it’s these last words — not at all sweet — that stay longest in my mouth, on my mind. There’s a truth to them wider than the particulars of Jeremiah’s time. A truth narrower, too, than the breadth of a nation’s existence, or end. A truth that fits my life.

Think of gardens or forests. Or bookshelves or closets. Or calendars. Think of anything overgrown with weeds that choke the wanted plants, anything crammed too full of old things to leave space for possible new. The ground must be cleared. Of trash. Of debris. Of structures that oppress; patterns of practice or attitude that repress. Even of tangible items and rhythms of living that were good and dear but whose presence crowds out any alternative. (The curly-leafed ivy from my wedding bouquet which has overtaken the entire planter.)

I don’t mean to de-emphasize the violence of the prophet’s words, nor minimize the pain their proclamation portends. To pluck up and to pull down. To destroy and to overthrow.

But more and more I realize their necessity, notwithstanding the pain. At some point, the garment can no longer be patched. At some point, the pattern of life can no longer be tweaked and trimmed around the edges (whether ‘trim’ is read as addition or subtraction). At some point, the only possible way forward requires first an action of relinquishment, an experience of death.

It is exhausting work just to persist. Continuing on as ever we have because forever we have is so wearying that we can miss the way we are meant to take. Or even seeing it, feel ourselves too exhausted to make the turn. After all, we know how to walk this road. One foot in front of the other. There may be no great joy in it, but at least it feels familiar underfoot, it can be trodden without extra effort.

To push and push and push against a wall does not necessarily re-create it as a door. Leave off the fruitless effort. Step back. Study again the way and all the weights you are bearing. Hear the call to pluck up and pull down as invitation and as obligation, as discipline and as gift.

What in my life must I carry on? What in my life must I lay down? What in my life must I let die? What in my life must I uproot? What cost of loss and grief must I risk, allow, even try to welcome?

What in my life may then be planted and built? What of me may bloom new?

God’s Planting

Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it;

he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

Isa 5:1-2; full passage, Isa 5:1-7, for Aug. 18, 2019 linked at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+5%3A1-7&version=NRSV

It feels a bit awkward trying to appropriate for my own life texts so obviously addressed to a community. The prophet speaks of and to ‘the house of Israel’ and ‘the people of Judah’ (5:7) — the nation planted for justice and righteousness (Isa 5:7), yet yielding only ‘wild grapes’ (Isa 5:2), ‘bloodshed’ and ‘a cry’ (Isa 5:7). I can read the text and recall the sound-play that in Hebrew joins and opposes ‘justice’ and ‘bloodshed,’ ‘righteousness’ and ‘a cry.’ I can review the context of eighth century Judah, the inequity of its affluence, the iniquity of its structures, and I can posit convicting connections to my own context. But that reading alone does not carry me through. I do not need to read the text to see my own world. I know it already as broken and ill. Reading the text as a lens on my context — find the parallels, connect the dots — is important and necessary work. Yet doing just this week after week feels reductionist, redundant. It becomes a short cut that takes me quickly to a blank wall, a dead end. I stand there staring at graffitied bricks. There’s no way forward.

But what if I turn the lens the other way? Instead of treating the text as God’s revelation meant to show me my world and myself, receive the text as a revelation of God’s self. Read the text and look for God. What then do I see? Who is the LORD revealed in this given word?

God as lover. The singer, the LORD, and the vineyard are conjoined in this title, not just ‘beloved’ but ‘my beloved’ — relationship claimed.

God as gardener. There’s love in that image as well, and a suggestion of physical exertion and intimate contact. God breaks up and turns over the soil — heavy, sweaty, dirty work. God hauls out the stones, sets them aside for the watchtower to be built. God plants choice vines: soaks the roots, digs holes and sets the tender plants in, bends to press the dirt around, stakes the tiny vines. Does God’s back ache? Are God’s fingers filthy? Does God pause to wipe sweat from the divine forehead with a forearm? Does God gaze with pardonable pride at the work, seeing already and gloating with joy over the sure growth coming? God builds a watchtower and hews out a wine vat and looks forward to the harvest, the processing, the wine given to ‘gladden the heart’ (Psa 104:15), mixed and poured and set on a table for all to partake (Prov 9:1-6).

God as generous, as ultimately invested. Having given all that could possibly be given: ‘What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?’ (Isa 5:4). God as hurt and puzzled: ‘Why did it yield wild grapes?’ (Isa 5:4). God allowing that emotion, acknowledging the cost of the investment in naming the disappointment of its failure.

God as inviting the vineyard to be invested as well. The inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah are called to judge between the LORD and the vineyard (Isa 5:3). Such judgment is only possible when both sides are fully seen. To ‘judge between’ means to see the vineyard truly, which the text defines as seeing the vineyard in relation to God. So, and again: read the text to see God. The glance turning back and forth between, from one to the other; looking deliberately, carefully; widening the gaze; acknowledging the identity-with as well as the vast distance between.

The LORD planted a vineyard. I — we — are the LORD’s ‘pleasant planting’ (Isa 5:7).

Harvest will come. The LORD makes that plain. God’s plan may be resisted but will not be gainsaid. God commands creation itself to further God’s aim (Isa 5:6). Harvest will come. Yet God wants all of this — planting and nurture and growth and harvest — not done to us but with us. God calls the vineyard itself to ‘judge between,’ and so that we can see enough to judge, God lights the way with words that shine to reveal God’s self.

The writing is no graffitied dead-end but an open door. Through it I glimpse the gardener — if only from behind — bent over and working to till and plant and nurture the growth. Persistently willing a tableful of joy.

Please, LORD: Let me see the world with your sight, by your light. Give me enough heart and courage to walk out into it bearing your image. Lover, gardener, risking the gift, persistently working to bring the harvest to full and joyful fruit. As I myself am brought.

‘Come now’

When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Isa 1:15-20 (from lectionary text for Aug 11, 2019; full cite Isa 1:1, 10-20)

It is somewhat unnerving to come to this week’s text in a week after news of new shootings, new raids. Bodies torn open. Families torn apart. (I find myself almost, perversely, relieved that the last shooting of the series — the last as of this writing, and based on the information now known — seems to be ‘merely’ wanton criminality rather than flowing from our nation’s divisions.)

It is difficult to read the text’s reference to ‘hands full of blood’ as anything other than literal in such circumstances. Yet the blood-full hands are not only those dripping from intimately physical violence, the oppression of brethren (whether distanced as ‘other’ or acknowledged as kin). The blood-full hands are also those which have offered the right sacrifice — ‘the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats’ (Isa 1:11) — yet who live in complicit accommodation of the systemic iniquity. The reference to ‘blood’ implicates not only that wickedly shed but also that properly required and accounted for. Even that reddens the hands. Open your palms; spread your fingers wide; flare your nostrils at the iron smell; see the red so bright before it darkens, grows thick and sticky. You’ve touched pitch; did you think you could escape the stain? Rub your hands together; the spot remains.

The blood-full hands are literal and metaphorical. The bloodshed is individual and communal. And even that widened gaze is not enough. Not this week. Because this week has felt a fresh storm of violence, physical and emotional. I need not just a word to the community (notwithstanding all my teaching, my inmost and utmost conviction that this text was given to and through and for community) but a word to me. A word to bring me through to next week. That’s all I ask. Not a forever word but one for-now, a sustaining sufficient to bring me through these days and back again to the text for next week’s word.

Maybe it’s because last week’s text already evoked the motif of the LORD as parent: ’When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son’ (Hos 11:1). Maybe it’s because the motif appears as well in verses just prior to those assigned for this week: ’I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me’ (Isa 1:2b). Maybe it’s because of how I myself feel after this storm of emotion, of anger, of weeping. I am left wrung out, not just limp but lined and turned askew with the marks of its twisting. I read and re-read, and a line catches me. It catches my eye, first, and then, as my lips shape to sound the words, my ear. ‘Come, let us argue it out, says the LORD’ (1:18). And though the ‘Come’ is plural in Hebrew, in English I can hear and imagine it as addressed to me, even me. ‘Come,’ the LORD invites, ‘Come now. Let us argue it out.’ Let us dispute it; let us reason it out. ‘Let us reach an understanding,’ reads the translation of the Jewish Publication Society. The summoning is implacable but not harsh. Is there not a warmth in it? The LORD wants the argument, the reasoning, the understanding. The LORD wants the conversation. The mouth of the LORD speaks as a mother does to a child wrung limp, turned askew by a temper tantrum, the throes of violence having passed, leaving a damp exhaustion behind … and the corresponding inability to figure out any way out of the impasse, any way to resist the paralysis, any way through to newness.

The mouth of the LORD has spoken. The storm need not be a full-stop end of sentence. There is another word. There will be another after that. And it is through the word, the speech, the argument, the reasoning, that the cleansing shall come. It is through relationship that the scarlet stain will be lifted and the white of snow or wool given instead.

Newness shall come. I don’t know how. I don’t need to know fully — I did not ask a forever word, after all, but a word sufficient for this day, for the next. And this is the answer. Come now, the LORD invites. Let us talk together. Through this day, and on into the days coming.

Twisted System

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And the LORD said to him, “Name him Jezreel*; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the LORD said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah**, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.” When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said, “Name him Lo-ammi***, for you are not my people and I am not your God.” Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”

Hosea 1:2-10; lectionary text for Sunday July 28, 2019

The text and I are in the kitchen together. One of us is at the sink, washing dishes. The other stands looking at the dishwasher’s back. For a moment neither of us speaks. I can no longer stay silent.

‘‘Wife of whoredom’ — really? — my God! do you hear how alienating that sounds? Who wants to spend a week with those words ringing? They’re coarse and unwelcoming. Hostile, even.’

‘’Wife of whoredom’ — of course it’s alienating. Don’t you hear what’s going on?

‘What I hear is ‘whoredom.’’

‘So then you stop listening? Because it’s offensive? Because it’s uncomfortable? No! Don’t shut your ears and refuse to hear more. And don’t assume you know what I mean and start talking over me, responding to the point you assume I’m making. It’s not about the sex. It’s not about fertility cults or harvest orgies or temple prostitution. Don’t turn away! Listen to me!’

The voice of the text had risen strident. Now it drops without losing any of its fervor, its force somehow stronger in its quietness.

‘It’s about fidelity. It’s about identity. And it’s about how brokenness is bigger than just one person, just one couple. Brokenness spreads like cancer throughout the land. We beat each other with it, blame each other for it. We forget and lose who we are meant to be.

‘Yes, the words are alienating. How else to name alienation? How else to make it plain?’

The text and I are facing each other now. Her face is worn; her voice hardly more than a whisper.

‘Read me through. Try. Hear the pain behind the anger. Think how it feels to have to name your daughter ‘not-pitied,’ your son ‘not-my-people.’ These your children whom you called as your own: ‘I will take you as my people, and I will be your God’ (Exod 6:7). These your children whom still you love. These your children who have turned away, who seek security and power and purpose elsewhere. Whose claimed identity is no longer God’s-own but …

‘… but their own.’ Now I am speaking back to the text. ‘Who live as if they have made themselves and called themselves. Who cry in the dark, nor can figure out why or what is wrong. Who do not realize how far from that way they have strayed. Because still they make the ‘right’ decisions, celebrate the ‘right’ festivals. Who respond to the promptings of the larger society — whether walking lock-step or rigidly resisting — so that its imperatives govern their way, define their lives. The system is sick, and it’s twisting us all. And worst of the sickness is that it’s unacknowledged or mis-diagnosed.’ My own voice is now a whisper, echoing that of the speaking text. ‘So it’s not about the sex. It’s about the children.

The text replies, ‘Yes. It’s about the children.’

‘Is it plea, then, rather than judgment? To name them ‘Not-pitied’ and ‘Not-my-people?’

‘Oh, child. It is both. A plea for turning and a warning of consequences. The sowing of Jezreel (‘God sows’) is judgment. The sickness must be named and the sickness must be treated.’ Her voice is warmer, now, but still firm. Her face is set — she will not relent — there’s ache and understanding in her gaze. There is love. My own eyes drop. The text presses.

‘Where do you find your worth? How do you define your worth? What is the name you’re truly living now?’ the text asks. ‘What is the true name you were meant to bear?’

Still gazing down, I feel for a moment a hand resting blessing on my head. The text speaks on, ’In place of the name ‘Not-my-people’ it shall be said, ‘Children of the living God.’’

* Jezreel means ‘God sows.’ ** Lo-ruhamah means ‘Not-pitied.’ *** Lo-Ammi means ‘Not my people.’

Text in Context

Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’” And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”

Amos 7:10-13

The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.

Amos 8:11-12

[Amos 7:10-13 part of lectionary text for July 14; Amos 8:1-12 lectionary text for July 21, 2019] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Amos+8%3A1-12&version=NRSV

I try to read the coming-Sunday’s texts on Monday, to live with them through the week, to see how text and context read each other. Sometimes the connecting line is subtle, so personal that I am not entirely sure whether I am connecting dots or marking them in myself. All I can do in such a case is to re-commit myself, every week, to read the word and read my world, each in light of the other. All I can do in such a case is pray that through practice and repetition and return, the discipline of reading and re-reading, I am not just reading the text but finding myself read, writing and re-writing my life over and over on the way limned by the Word.

That’s why I do this.

Then there are the weeks when I open my Bible to the text prescribed by the lectionary, and find the connecting line from word to world writ stark and bold. When the vision is not just personal nor even particularly subtle, but writ in letters so large and ‘plain … that a runner may read it’ (Hab 2:2). And because the lectionary is a contrivance — useful but not the word itself — sometimes the connection crosses the lines between lectionary divisions — just as the news is not over when we put our paper in the recycling but continues across days and weeks.

There is a nation, the text says. A nation enjoying the security of its ‘restored’ borders (2 Kings 14:25) and a season of prosperity. A nation of ‘great houses’ and ‘houses of ivory,’ a ‘winter house’ and a ‘summer house’ (Amos 2:15). A nation whose residents have ‘built houses of hewn stone’ and ‘planted pleasant vineyards’ (5:11), whose fortunate ‘lounge on their couches’ and eat and drink like gourmands (6:4-6). Who amass the latest in luxury items and experiences, who enjoy a rising real estate and stock portfolio. A nation whose leaders claim fidelity to the ideal’s claim on their identity, with ‘festivals’ and ‘solemn assemblies’ (5:21), with concerts (5:23), and parades and fireworks. There is a nation urged to rejoice in its own strength (6:13)

Yet a nation which will not hear the one who ‘reproves in the gate’ (5:10). A leader who calls judgment conspiracy (7:10) and seeks to eject the one who sees affluence and power — ‘something good’ — and insists on writing them ‘bad.’

‘The land cannot bear all his words,’ the leader says (7:10). Conspiracy, the leader charges (7:10). ‘Go, flee away’ (7:12), the leader commands, go back to where you came from. The leader does not engage with the substance of the proclamation (perhaps Amos’s charges are irrefutable — the poor are trampled (5:11), brought to ruin (8:4), sold for silver (8:6); righteous are afflicted, bribery is rife, the needy are pushed aside (5:12); religious festivals are mere pauses in practices of deceit (8:5)). Instead, the leader asserts that the land, the city, the sanctuary are the king’s (7:13), as if possession entails exclusive right to speech. As if any countervailing voice is an act of infidelity, even treason, to the nation’s ideals, rather than the plaint of the LORD God-self who charges the nation with having betrayed its own founding covenant, the writing by which it was formed (2:4).

There is a nation which ‘commanded the prophets saying ‘You shall not prophesy’’ (2:12).

I do not know whether I would have recognized Amos as the LORD’s messenger. Living as I do in a house (singular), able to lounge in bed or on the couch, aware that my fridge and cupboards are filled with food, my closet with clothes, my shelves with books, Amos’s word would have made me uncomfortable. (Because it does.) I might have disagreed with Amos’s assessment — he finds only falsehood, from sanctuary to market to the court in the gate, in a tone so strident that I suspect he exaggerates, ignores the small mercies that must also have existed. (Amos prophesies imminent and ultimate disaster, yet the nation is stable for decades after his own.) Even if I entirely agreed with Amos’s social diagnosis, I likely would have critiqued his prescribed remedy. The rolling down of justice with an accompanying flood of righteousness (5:24) sounds not just threateningly transformative but so vague as to inhibit legislative implementation. (It’s as impracticably vast as ‘Love God and love your neighbor.’) (Oh.)

Yet I hope I would have listened. I pray I would have tried to hear.

Not just for the sake of remedying those particular injustices, averting that prophesied catastrophe (the land trembling and sinking under the waters, the earth darkened in broad daylight, the grief and mourning as ‘for an only son’ (8:8-10)), but for the sake of hearing itself.

For comes a time when nation will know famine (8:11-12). Not a famine of food or drink but a famine of the word, a dearth of truth. Comes a time when we realize not just our lack but our desperate need. Comes a time when we will know ourselves starving and parched. We run to and fro; we search and we seek. Yet if we have refused to hear, we will not even know if we find. If we have grown unwilling to listen to truth, unaccustomed to listening for truth, we grow unable to hear truth. God may even speak, and we will not know.

I pray for the humility to listen. I pray for the courage to speak.

That seeking with and through each other, we together find and hear the word of the LORD.

What time is it?

This is what the Lord GOD showed me: he was forming locusts at the time the latter growth began to sprout (it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings). When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, “O Lord GOD, forgive, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” The LORD relented concerning this; “It shall not be,” said the LORD.

This is what the Lord GOD showed me: the Lord GOD was calling for a shower of fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. Then I said, “O Lord GOD, cease, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” The LORD relented concerning this; “This also shall not be,” said the Lord GOD.

This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the LORD said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Amos 7:1-9; portion of lectionary text for Sunday July 14, 2019

We’ve had crazy rains this week. Monday’s morning rush hour storm led to flash floods. Photos of DC commuters atop their cars surrounded by swirling water made the national news. The good news is that new collection systems prevented 170 million gallons of sewage and runoff from reaching the Anacostia River; the bad news is that 50 million gallons still did.

Trouble about immigration continues. Reports describe conditions in border detention centers as squalid and worse. Meanwhile, ICE raids are publicized as imminent. Our bishop has called congregations to ‘prayer and action for migrants.’

And Amos sees visions of the land being eaten and pleads for Jacob ‘so small!’

I love the pathos in that plea. The nation’s sin has already been proclaimed — the luxuries enjoyed by the few, the oppression suffered by the many (e.g. Amos 2:6-8; 5:10-13; 6:4-7). Yet Amos sees it as too small to stand in the face of judgment. Amos is affected by the vision the LORD shows him, and his plea moves the LORD’s own affection for this people chosen and known (3:2), and the LORD relents from punishment. I love that too. The LORD relents.

The pattern shifts in the third vision. ‘This is what he showed me,’ the prophet writes, ‘The Lord standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.’ ‘Amos, what do you see?’ the LORD asks, and Amos answers as he can, and the Lord pronounces the meaning of the vision.

Commentaries point out that the meaning of the Hebrew translated ‘plumb line’ is obscure, that the vision Amos saw had to be explained by God. The disaster of locusts and of fire devouring is immediately obvious. A wall with some sort of weight held beside it may not be. Commentaries note that the LORD relents twice, but that the nation’s sin is so great, there is no third relenting. As if the shift is in some decision to firmness on the part of God.

But the shift is not only in God’s words. It is begins already at the start of the vision. Amos had seen nature great and terrible and the vulnerable land. Now Amos sees the Lord and a wall, a built thing laid upon the land. Amos’s prior pleas seem born of his own sense of vulnerability, of primary identification with the thing (people) upon which punishment is laid. ‘Jacob is so small!’ This third vision, Amos is shown the wall and the plumb, and Amos is invited to name aloud what he sees. The prophet still speaks, and the LORD still responds, but the dialog has shifted to a different plane. It seems to me as if Amos had been a witness protesting punishment of something else or other, as if Amos is standing just outside the relationship between the LORD and the land and protesting on the latter’s behalf. Now Amos is invited by God to recognize God’s own point of view (the Lord is standing there; the Lord is holding a plumb line), to acknowledge the terrible crookedness of the structure so-small Jacob has built.

Perhaps it is not that the LORD refuses to relent a third time, as if God rushes to voice judgment before the prophet can plead yet again. Perhaps it is the prophet himself whose view has shifted, perhaps there is a pause … and the prophet does not even open his mouth to plead. Because what can the prophet say? Yes, we built this. Yes, however soundly the first course of bricks was laid (or not), each successive course has been that bit further out of true, out of straight, out of plumb. Such a wall cannot stand. Perhaps it is the prophet — invited to see not just what God shows him but as the LORD God-self sees — perhaps it is the prophet who stays silent. Seeing that the land bears the burden that the people themselves laid upon it: that crooked wall. The intercession needed is not a plea directed to the LORD but a proclamation pronounced against the people. (Amos 7:10-15).

And the prophet’s silence becomes part of the dialog between prophet and God.

The movement of water and the movement of people are not two separate things. The land, the rivers, are burdened by our living, by our bad building. The weight of it is borne well beyond the acre we stand upon. When do we plead with the LORD on the land’s behalf? When pronounce the LORD’s judgment against the people? See what the LORD is showing us. Tell the time. Speak the vision.

“The Lord GOD has spoken; who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:8b).

Immersed and Buoyant

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. […]

[Naaman] went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean. Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.” But he said, “As the LORD lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!” He urged him to accept, but he refused. Then Naaman said, “If not, please let two mule-loads of earth be given to your servant; for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the LORD.

2 Kings 5:1-5, 14-17; excerpt from lectionary text for Sunday July 7, 2019

full text linked: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+kings+5%3A1-19a&version=NRSV

Naaman is a great man; a mighty warrior. Naaman is good at what he does. Maybe Naaman even is good. His wife’s maid, an Israelite captive, cares enough for his well-being to speak to her mistress. The women’s speech may be for their own sake — the status of the household is not unconnected to the status of its master — yet, reading, I imagine relationship — hierarchical, yes (this is the ancient world, after all) but flowing within that frame. Perhaps the slave-maid cares not only for household stability but for the household. Picture Naaman a man of rectitude. Self-disciplined. He knows what he is due, and expects it. He knows his own duty, and fulfills it. His sense of honor requires of him courtesy. He inclines his ear to one who owes him her survival, hears the possibility of hope from a slave, and commits himself to pursue it, even to another land. He is able to hear and willing to ask, and what he asks is the opportunity to buy.

Naaman does not request a gift. Naaman expects to pay with vast quantities of silver and gold and garments (2 Kings 5:5), with extreme exertion (5:13). There is a certain humility in Naaman’s approach. He is not demanding, not taking, not grabbing. He asks permission from his king; he approaches Israel’s king; he brings resources to procure what he requests. He respects the process and follows it dutifully. Yet maybe this deference betrays his pride. Naaman not only expects to pay, he wants to pay. He is offended when the prophet does not appear himself (5:11). Naaman knows what he is due. Naaman does not come as a supplicant. He comes with resources, treasures, all of which he is willing to offer. Naaman does not intend to accrue a debt. Naaman has planned and prepared to pay his own way.

Yet the message the prophet sends to Naaman is ‘Go, wash in the Jordan seven times’ (5:10). And once his servants have pointed out the absurdity of resisting the simple for having expected the difficult (5:11), Naaman ‘dips’ or ‘plunges’ or ‘immerses’ himself in the river (5:14).

The Naaman that emerges from his immersion is clean from leprosy. He is stunned at the healing, offers again all that he has brought — explicitly naming it ‘present’ or ‘blessing,’ a response to his new knowledge of Israel’s LORD (5:15). Naaman offers. Naaman urges. The man of God refuses. Twice.

The Naaman that emerges from his immersion is not only freed from leprosy. He seems, as well, to have been freed his proud insistence that he must pay his own way. Instead Naaman asks that something else be given to him, something more: two loads of earth from Israel, that he may take them home to Amon and there worship the LORD.

Having spent the week immersed in this text — gone all the way under, felt its ripples and waves and current more closely and strongly than I could have known from shore — it seems to me that Naaman’s asking is the most telling effect of the potency of God’s grace.

Naaman had been given victory. Naaman had been given healing. Now Naaman begs a gift. He becomes supplicant. He admits need. He risks refusal. He relinquishes his sense of self-sufficiency, stops clinging to the gifts (innate and material) that bought him prestige and position, the ability to pay, stretches out his hands, palms up and open to receive, and asks.

Naaman makes himself vulnerable.

As one realizes, when immersed, entirely encompassed by the force and flow of the water’s embrace, one already is. Immersed yet — asking grace — buoyant.

The Shock of Ascent

Now when the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; for the LORD has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the LORD will take your master away from you?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent.”

2 Kings 2:1-3; from the lectionary text for Sunday June 30, 2019

full passage linked at: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kings+2%3A1-15&version=NRSV

Elijah and Elisha. Gilgal to Bethel. Bethel to Jericho. Jericho to the Jordan. And across the Jordan — miraculously parted — a whirlwind of chariots and fire catching Elijah up into heaven.

I know how the story ends. We all do. The end is told right at the start, in v. 1: the LORD is about to ‘take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind.’

Even those within the story know the event towards which it is aiming. Gilgal to Bethel. Bethel to Jericho. Jericho to the Jordan. At each point, the imminence of the LORD’s ‘taking’ is told. ‘Today’ say the prophets at Bethel (v.3). ‘Today’ say the prophets at Jericho (v. 5). Each time, Elisha replies that he, too, knows what will come. ‘Be silent,’ he says to them.

The pattern shifts slightly only at the Jordan. Now it is Elijah who alludes to himself being ‘taken,’ and his command to Elisha suggests the urgency of the time: ‘Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you’ (v.9). The taking will be soon. It is coming. It is nearly here. Neither of them knows the time. Neither of them can control the time. Only step by step respond to the sending sign. Gilgal to Bethel. Bethel to Jericho. Jericho to the Jordan. The points don’t map in a straight line; they reverse course; their route slants sideways. ‘The LORD has sent me,’ Elijah had said at the start, and commanded his companion to stay. Elisha refused. Elisha is intent … upon what? Upon clinging to his master? Upon walking the way? Upon watching and watching to see what he knows is coming unfold?

The story tells its end right at the start: Elijah is about to be taken up by the LORD. Those within the story know this taking is near. They tell of it; they look towards it; they wonder what it will bring: ‘If you see me as I am being taken…’ Elijah tells Elisha (2:10). Elijah cannot grant Elisha’s request nor foretell whether the LORD will grant it. Which itself is odd, since the LORD had commanded Elijah back chapters before to anoint Elisha prophet in his place (1 Kings 19:16). Could it be that Elijah has learned humility — to wait on instead of anticipate the LORD? (His tone has changed since 1 Kings 18:36-37). Or is the story not about Elijah but about Elisha? Elisha so focused on walking closely in step, putting aside those distracting other-prophets with their superfluous words — I know, I know, already I know; keep silent about what will be, so that I can see what is even as it unfolds. Elisha cleaving close to Elijah until he is able to articulate his hope for when they have been cleaved apart.

It’s a strange story. Not only for the whirlwind of chariots with its crackle of flames and thunder of hoofbeats, nor for the odd route along which Elijah says he is sent, nor for the words Elisha cried after his departing ‘father’: ‘The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ (v.12) — I hear his voice grow high-pitched and crack as Elijah is carried off.

The strangeness, too, comes in the mismatch of the verbs which narrate the event’s anticipation and realization and the verbs used by the characters within the story. How many times have I read this text and never noticed this? The companies of prophets say Elijah will be ‘taken’; Elijah himself says he will be ‘taken’; the verb in both places is the same. But the Hebrew of the bracketing narrative says something slightly different: v.1 explains that Elijah will be led up, brought up, caused-to-ascend; and so in v.11 it is: Elijah ‘ascends’ into heaven.

Is this why Elisha has to follow and watch so closely? Is this why Elijah cannot speak with certainty of what will be? Because they both know that what they know is partial, not the whole. They know enough to watch, to walk from Gilgal to Bethel, from Bethel to Jericho, from Jericho to and across the Jordan. They know enough to see that the LORD is about to act; they try to ready themselves to recognize the act. But they don’t really know. They can’t. All they can do is read and walk the signs step by step, place to place, word and word, continuing ’walking and talking’ (2:11). They know what is coming and still there is the shock of its in-breaking.

Some deaths come like that. And every birth. You know, and you know, and still you are stunned when you see that it is not, after all, a ‘taking.’ It is ascent. It is one being caught up by glory, into glory. And the other walking back, and further on. Still in the story, but having been given a glimpse of its larger frame. Your voice rises and cracks.

The knowing you’d had — that ‘taking’ is coming, even near — partial, insufficient, the knowing matters. The work to see and to hear and to talk and to walk — that matters too. By it you are brought across the river, to the encounter with crackling flame and pounding force. By it you are enabled to take the next step. To pick up the mantle and cross the river back and walk on into the portion of work that is yours.

I am still in my story. DOJ to seminary. Seminary to local church. Local church to doctoral work, and then across. An odd process, sometimes sideways. And if right here, right now I cannot even see to name the journey’s end, yet through this text, I am reminded of how partial my story is and given a glimpse of its larger frame. Gilgal to Bethel. Bethel to Jericho. Jericho to the Jordan, and then across. An end that is like but also unlike; expected yet impossible to anticipate; an end that is not an end but merely one more turn. Until the next. I do not know, nor fully can, the story’s frame. It will come as surprise; it cannot be else. But here within the tale, I can watch and listen and talk and walk on to the next thing, the next glimpse of heaven breaking in and catching a little bit of this world up into itself, until the kingdom comes.

Fire crackles and chariot wheels rumble and hoofbeats pound against the air.

Wisdom Calling

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?

“To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. …

The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. …

When he established the heavens, I was there,

when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, …

then I was beside him, like a master worker;

and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,

rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

Prov 8:1, 4, 22, 27, 30-31; from the text for Trinity Sunday, June 16, 2019;

for full text see: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Prov+8%3A1-4%2C+22-31&version=NRSV

Wisdom calling. Wisdom standing at the crossroads and raising her voice.

I have a crush on this woman. I don’t aspire to be her — such attainment is ‘too high for me’ (as the psalmist might say). I want to be near her, to spend time with her. Sit at an outdoor cafe and chat as we watch the passers-by. Then find ourselves occupied by our own conversation — leaning in, bodies turned towards each other, intent on our communion. Laughing aloud together for the very humor of being alive.

I want to be friends with her.

I imagine Wisdom so strongly. She calls to all, here and now. She stands at the crossing — that one, just there, where they’ve shifted the lane-lines over to make room for the new transit line coming in, and the buses lumber crowded in the construction-narrowed road (picture the bus with its shoulders hunched in, like the passengers that stand crammed in its aisle). Wisdom talks in high flights of poetry and with a well-grounded gumption. Wisdom talks to me.

I am driving that very road, held by the red light, a bus just beside me. The weather is drab and damp, not even poetically so, yet I am aware of delight rising with me. I turn the feeling over and realize Oh, it is because I get to spend the week with Wisdom. It is because I am headed to the library, where I will pull commentaries and lexicons off the shelves, and look up words and learn from others’ insights. Pay attention to that joy. It’s telling something.

Wisdom calls. Heard or unheard — the very mention of crossroads suggests all the traffic that passes by without even pausing; now the light turns green, and I turn left — Wisdom cries out to all who live. And for all the seeming playfulness of her proclamation, Wisdom’s delight is not ignorance or avoidance or petty weakness. Wisdom knows creation. She was there before its beginning and through every step of its coming to be. Wisdom’s hymn trumpets deep awareness and full engagement and potent strength.

Wisdom sings her birth from the LORD — not just created but gotten, in the old English sense, begotten; the verb in v.22 the same as in Gen 4:1, in Eve’s exultant joy at the birth of her first son. The birth image echoes again in v.25: ‘brought forth’ is a verb suggestive of the writhing and travail of childbirth. The LORD in labor, bearing and bringing forth Wisdom, keeping her near, delighting in her daily delight. Wisdom hymns her identity as joy; joy before the LORD, joy in the world, delight in humanity. She is entirely herself, and the self that she so freely rejoices in is not solitary but relational.

I come home from my library delving and pick up the ‘Outlook’ section from Sunday’s Washington Post (a day late) and see the cover article, ‘Changing Channels,’ about women after 50, stories from eight women who’ve reinvented their lives, themselves. The article opens with the line, ‘When women turn 50, the world starts to tune them out ….’ Woman Wisdom! I think, standing on that street corner, calling to the passers by. As the article continues, the women describe an ‘energy shift,’ a new sense of freedom to be themselves, to discover anew who those selves are. This is me, I realize as I read. Second calling (or third, depending on how you count). Wandering and wondering and recognizing again and again that I myself (and at my age too!) am in-process. And the freedom to claim that becoming, is that not also Wisdom?

I am in-process, still being created, still being born. As Wisdom — way back before the beginning of it all — once was. And as Wisdom even now delights in the joy of that eternal and daily newness, so might I.

Wisdom stands on the corner, and she looks me full in the face and smiles warmly and stretches out a hand and says, ‘Come and see…’ (John 1:39). She shows me wonders vast and tiny. She shows me how to see and how to hear. How to laugh. And — please God — how to tell.

I am being born into friendship with Woman Wisdom. A laughing thought, indeed! Yet that is the promise. ‘I love those who love me; those who seek diligently will find me’ (Prov 8:17). The promise is plural — not just to me, but for each of us, all of us. Be attuned to the delight that signs the encounter.

Birth involves writhing and travail. But — oh! — then comes the light, and the shuddering gasp and intake of breath, and the life.

And ‘the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy’ (Job 38:7).

Re-minded to Joy

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? … in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Acts 2:1-18, 11-13; text for Pentecost, June 9, 2019

Our house backs up to an elementary school playground. The children file out for recess and stand in line until dismissed to play. Immediately, then, they run and shriek. When I am home on a school day, I am amazed at the volume of the sound and the violence of its coming. There was a set of schoolchildren in tidy rows. Now — suddenly — there is a chaotic dispersion, pounding across the pavement, scrambling up the climbing equipment, skirmishing for balls. As I watch, some order emerges — whether the emergence is in their play or my observation, I do not know. There is one game over here, and another over there, and these few children squatted on their haunches at the edge of the pavement are probably poking at the hole in the blacktop that has been expanded over several school years’ worth of recesses. The expenditure of energy and the intensity of focus touch my heart.

I watch the children and wonder. When was the last time I effervesced in such a manner?

A few times in college, my friend and I went onto the green after dark. We ran and laughed and collapsed on the grass and all without benefit of alcohol. Who needs beer, we scoffed, when there is play. There was something intoxicating about abandoning the appearance of sense, making ourselves ridiculous for joy. A delight I feel still when singing aloud as I walk through the city. Tipping back my head and throwing my arms wide as if to embrace the wind on a gusty day. Grinning with excitement, and rising to tip-toes on the Metro platform when a train rumbles past and blows its horn. (I do not entirely forget myself, I admit; I do not wave at the train driver, tempted though I am.)

Why am I thinking about play, about being so intensely present as to risk ridiculousness? As if this text is about intoxication. Drunkenness is the claim is raised by those who don’t understand, who sneer at what they hear as noise. Peter rebuts the charge. Yet Peter’s rebuttal does not entirely dismiss the issue. Peter does not argue that the scoffers have mischaracterized the behavior but asserts that they have misunderstood its source.

This is not new wine imbibed, Peter asserts. This is God’s Spirit ‘poured out’ (Acts 2:14-17). Listen to what is being said and shouted and sung. Hear the order that emerges. This seemingly frantic babble, heard and understood in so many tongues, is all about God. It is praise for the Lord whose ‘word is very near … in your mouth and in your heart’ (Deut 30:14). It is wonder that they have lived into God’s promised days of visions and dreams (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17). This is not passing gladness. This is rock-founded. This is not new wine. This is joy in the Lord.

Reading Pentecost I wonder. When was the last time I was that aware of joy?

Joy as effervescence, burbling forth forth like a spring, foaming over rocks as it tumbles out and down. Joy welling up as if I am a cup, brimful — I hold a moment quivering still, amazed at its presence, living water in me, joy’s meniscus curved slightly above the edge of my lip — and then I cannot but grin, cannot but wonder, cannot but tell. Did you see? Did you hear? Did you feel?

The Spirit’s spark that Pentecost was not stubborn resolve or impassioned argument or faithful duty. The Spirit’s spark was joy. The people flared bright with it, spoke flames with it. The Spirit lit a fire whose dancing tongues amazed and perplexed and confounded and transformed.

I watch the children. I read the text. I need to be reminded of joy. I need to be re-minded to joy. Wait and watch, sticks and kindling dutifully arranged in expectation of the spark. Realize, then, that the tinder is already aglow. I don’t need to wait for some coming but to see what has already come. Blow gently and increase the flame. Sustain it; be sustained by it. Dip my bucket into the well, trusting to draw it forth brimful and shining. Drink deeply and find myself intoxicated with its urgency. Catch someone else’s eye. Grin and gesture to the very well I drew from, look to see joy spark across.

Make myself ridiculous in the expectation. Make myself ridiculous in the experience.

That’s how it began. That is how it begins again.

Risk joy. Pray for it. Prophesy it. Live it. Tell it.