Luke 5: The calling of the Disciples. In Luke, Simon already calls Jesus "Master," but Jesus assumes that Simon is his follower and simply reassures him: "Do not be afraid; [and how often we have heard those words when humans encounter the Divine!] from now on you will be catching people" (5:10). This is really quite a different call story from what I've seen in the other gospels; but I really didn't notice it until now.
It might also be helpful to notice that things we might put under the general category of "healing" are distinguished from each other in the New Testament. Lepers are "cleansed." The man with paralysis is "healed." Those with what we might call neurological or mental health issues have demons cast from them. The result in all cases is a new kind of wholeness.
Finally, in v. 39, there has been a lot of discussion of what Jesus intended by his seemingly out-of-the-blue praise of the old wine. After all, he has been speaking about how to contain "new wine," how to put a patch on an old garment, how to do anything but rejoice when the bridegroom is near.
Psalm 59 Another prayer for deliverance from enemies. If nothing else, these psalms are a reminder that God cares for and watches over those who are struggling. We are not always used to being the people in need. But praying these psalms puts us into that mode. My husband was once involved a decade long lawsuit and during that time he said that these "imprecatory" psalms came more naturally from his heart than at any time before or since.
Deuteronomy 19-21. Notice the practical nature of the anecdotes that make an argument for the setting up of cities of refuge, of property boundaries, and of laws about witnesses. Lying when called upon to be a witness is terribly disruptive of human trust. Thus there are heavy penalties associated with bearing false witness. It is in this context (19:15-21) that we have a restatement of what is called "Lex Talionis": life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. This is not a principle that perpetuates Hatfield vs. McCoy vendettas. Rather, it is an appeal to limit vengeance proportionally.
Chapter 20 assumes that Israelites will have to go to war. (Of course this is anticipated as they will need to kick out the current residents of the land they believe God promised to them.) If the war is carried on for legitimate reasons, they may anticipate that God will be with them and help them (20:3-4). There is a certain compassion about who may be conscripted: "Has anyone built a new house but not dedicated it?...Has anyone planted a vineyard but not yet enjoyed its fruit...Has anyone become engaged to a woman but not yet married her....Is anyone afraid or disheartened?" All these people should postpone their military service. The wisdom of these instructions seems apparent in our day when we have now been at war for more than a dozen years, and some soldiers from the USA have served multiple deployments.
Notice how first before attacking the Israelites are to offer terms of peace, allowing the residents of the city they are attacking to become essentially slaves. Males are to be slaughtered; women, children, livestock, are considered spoils of war. (Women are, along with children, understood to be property?)
But God appears to be commanding genocide, ethnic cleansing, of the peoples of the Promised Land. "As for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them--the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites--just as the LORD your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the LORD your God" (20:16-18).
Is this really God authorizing ethnic cleansing? There has to be another way to read these passages. And it is not enough simply to say, "Well, the people were evil; they worshiped other gods instead of the LORD." That does not exclude the killing of innocent children or adults who knew no better. And besides, the Israelites themselves were, according to the LORD, "a stiff-necked people," who were wicked and rebellious. Yet they were the LORD's wicked and rebellious stiff-necked people, and so they were redeemed. There is no way to read this passage charitably beyond perhaps saying that Moses misunderstood the LORD; or saying that the rules changed after Israel learned to be a light to the nations after some centuries of developing nationhood.
I don't see the people who want to take the prohibitions against same-sex unions taking literally the commandments about rebellious children in 21:18-21.
Anybody who says there is no "canon within the canon," that is, no way that we should privilege some passages of scripture over others, that all is equally authoritative for our lives today, is lying or self-deceived.
No comments:
Post a Comment