Category: Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

Two Texts At a Gathering

Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, 
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” … 
But the LORD said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you, 
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.” 
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 1:4-10

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. …  [Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. …  And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.  1 Cor 13:1-2, 7-10, 13

texts for Sunday Feb. 3, 2019

Which route to take through the thicket this week?  The reprise of silence and speech, as from Isaiah 62?  The continuation of Paul’s writing the Corinthians about gifts?  Which passage speaks more strongly?  Or do they speak to each other.  I know the text-connection is just a trick of the lectionary, which lists both passages this same week, but I wonder all the same. I imagine the texts as two guests at the same gathering.  What do they share beyond acquaintance with the host?  

Maybe they engage with the classic, ‘What do you do?’  Or maybe ‘When …?’  After all, the words of each arise out of the particular time and place in which he worked:  Jeremiah prophesying at the end of the kingdom of Judah, in the shadow of the crisis of exile; Paul instructing the Corinthians, a church in the crisis of its growing pains.  Each spoke in a different world. Which does not mean their words cannot speak to each other.  

Imagine overhearing these two texts, standing at that gathering, glasses in hand, surrounded by the buzz and movement of others also there, talking towards their own particular connection.  

A dialogue on speech:  ‘You shall speak whatever I command you… ’; ’If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels….’  A dialogue on prophecy:  ‘I appointed you a prophet …’; ‘And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries….’  Does it seem each overture of Jeremiah’s is undermined by a retort from Paul — ‘I am a noisy gong’; ‘as for prophecies they will come to an end…’?   Listen again, and closely.

‘The word of the LORD came to me,’ Jeremiah tells, as the conversation swirls around them both.  The LORD said, ‘I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’  Only in Jeremiah’s speech, what the LORD says is ‘I have given* you …’, a giving which recurs towards the end of the encounter, as the LORD stretches out his hand and touches Jeremiah’s mouth and says ‘See, I have given* my words in your mouth.’  Giving.  Gifts.

‘Gifts!’  Paul exclaims, in delight at the connection.  ‘That’s what I am talking about: the gifts God gives in and through and for the body.  And the greatest of these is love.’

‘Of course love,’ Jeremiah replies.  Did the command to pluck up and pull down cloud the issue?  It is love that connects God and prophet and people so closely that the suffering of one is experienced by the other as grief and heart-sickness, hurt and dismay (Jer 8:18-21).

‘Love bears all things,’ Paul murmurs.  

‘Love gives all things,’ Jeremiah says.  The LORD gave me myself; the LORD gave me God-self.  Paul nods in rueful recognition, recalling a certain encounter of his own (1 Cor 15:8).  

Not an easy gift, love.  Its force breaks in to life-as-it-was and plants life as-it-might-be, life growing towards complete.

The texts’ conversation continues, overture expanding into symphony; the music of their exchange stretching past their two times and on into my own.  Breaking in and giving still.

* [literal Hebrew; the NRSV connects Jer 1:5 and 1:10 by repeating the verb ‘appoint,’ stressing the connection of Jeremiah’s appointment as prophet and the nations/kingdoms he is appointed over; the Hebrew of the MT connects Jer 1:5 and 1:9 by repeating the verb ‘to give,’ stressing the connection of the LORD giving Jeremiah as a prophet and the LORD giving words to Jeremiah’s mouth.]


Silence and Speech

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, 
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn, 
and her salvation like a burning torch. … 
Upon your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have posted sentinels;
all day and all night
they shall never be silent.
You who remind the LORD, 
take no rest, 
and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it renowned throughout the earth. 

from Isaiah 62:1, 6-7; from Isaiah 62:1-7

Jan. 20, 2019

I’m cheating.  Is it cheating?  The lectionary text is Isaiah 62:1-5, but I’m reading two more verses.  Because what catches me is not the imagery of Zion as a bride (v.4), nor Jerusalem renamed (v.2), nor whether the crown of beauty and royal diadem (v.3) should be understood as reference to the rebuilt walls of the post-exilic city — all of which are important issues, properly the focus of scholarly and devotional attention.

What catches at me is the very first line:  ’For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent.’

Silence.  Enjoined.  Invited.  Unbearable.  Unsustainable.  

Silence and speech.  Recurring motifs throughout the book.  I’ve spent the past few years focused on them, from the prophesied hardening of Isaiah 6:6-10 (‘… stop their ears and shut their eyes’), through the renewed call to listen and to look (Isa 42:14-18), on to the servant, ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’ (Isa 42:19), yet ‘given the tongue of a taught-one* … to sustain the weary with a word,’ whose ear the LORD wakens (Isa 50:4), and further to the promise that ‘all your children shall be taught-ones* of the LORD’ (Isa 54:14).  Silence and speech.  I had followed that thread so far and am not sure that I ever had hit upon this particular passage.  Or been struck by it.

Silence and speech.  I thought that first line caught because of the work I have done.  Now I wonder if the work itself caught me first.  Because I have felt silent.  Because I want to speak.  Because my ear has been wakened.  Because it’s no good listening if I cannot tell others what I hear.  Because I don’t always know what I’ve heard until I say it to someone else.  Because the imperative to speak is given so that I know.  So that I am known.  So that I know I am known.

Yet this passage says even more.  Something new to my ears.  

‘For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.’  

Zion.  Jerusalem.  The LORD’s bride; ’My Delight’; ’Married’ (Isa 62:4)  This is not about me as an individual nor about a particular other to whom I might speak.  This is about the people of the LORD.  Whose vindication, whose salvation, will shine out  like the torches of dawn … so long as I do not keep silent.  

Is it is as conditional as that?  Does the vindication of the Zion depend on my voice?  Of course not!  Yet might it require it?  Might the raising of my voice towards that end effect its realization?  Might my speech expand not just the expression but the experience of God’s grace?  Might I be obliged, even if not responsible?

Words reminding me.  Speech reminding Zion.  Utterance reminding the LORD.  That vindication is promised, salvation is sure, glory is to be seen and a new name given and claimed.

‘For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.’  

I raise my voice to participate in the promise.

*literal translation of the Hebrew