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Loss and Love in the Old Testament The Reverend Mark Edmiston-Lange, June 12, 2005 Reading: Genesis 19 -1-11: The two angels came to Sodom in the evening: and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed himself with his face to the earth, and said, “My lords, turn aside I pray you, to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise up early and go on your way.”I love the the book of Genesis. It has such great stories. Noah and his boat, the tower of Babel, Abraham and Issac, Jacob and Esau—the characters and events are drawn with a very large brush on a very large canvass. My preference is, however, not only shaped by the entertainment value of the tales. Genesis is a very old text, or “texts” I should say, a collection of stories, some of which are over four thousand years old. Scholars have identified three authors, possibly a fourth, and a still later editor, or “redactor.” The Yahwist author probably compiled his earliest version of Genesis in 950 B.C.E., but the stories he used were in some cases already quite ancient. The Elohist author came a few centuries after that, and the Priestly author several centuries still later. The book did not achieve its final edited form until after the fifth century BCE. Different authors? The distinctions are derived from textual analysis because, for instance, the Yahwist and Elohist authors are primarily interested in historical sagas but each uses, exclusively, a different name for God, respectively, Yahweh, and Elohim. The Priestly author is much more interested in theological interpretation, religious practice and is often more systematic in presentation. Thus the first creation story, listing the creation day by day, is a Priestly document. The second creation story beginning in Chapter 2 with its mist and clay and magic trees of good and evil and eternal life is a Yahwist document. These layers of additions and editorial comment provide something like a fascinating literary archeological dig. By sifting through the sources we come face to face with the fact that at one point several thusand years ago, human beings thought in ways that we would now find quite alien, foreign, hard to follow. This great gulf is difficult, yet not impossible to bridge. But whether we bridge it or not, the real thing to remember is that if human thought was once very different—it could still be different again. That is, we sometimes might despair about the potential for human beings to every really find a way out of the maze in which we find ourselves. This despair neglects the very real fact that human beings have changed—in fundamental ways. And as have changed before it must mean we are perfectly capable of changing, in fundamental ways, again. The degree of this alteration in the human mental landscape is also an important fact to keep in mind when trying to understand the meaning and intent of these stories. As good an example as any is the story of the destruction of Sodom, a Yahwist tale. Most scholars agree that the saga of divine wrath directed at a city is an ancient and widely told story which the Yahwist incorporated into the Abraham narratives. This story is also, of course, frequently cited as the justification for judgment about homosexuality. The author states that God was going to destroy the place because their “sin was very grievous.” And we all know what that means, right? Of course, you’d think that if the Yahwist meant homosexuality, he would have said so, but he doesn’t. More recent scholars have suggested that the real sin of Sodom was a tendency to treat visitors and guests very badly, perhaps stealing their goods and sending them penniless out into the desert. Among these semi-nomadic people in that time, such harsh treatment was the exact opposite of good behavior and would have been thought of as grievous. Well, we do not really know the nature of the grievance. It is very likely the case that the Jahwist didn’t know either and was very reluctant to guess. Yet what remains quite remarkable to me is that there is an event in the story which strikes me as patently grievous, and yet no word of judgment is offered, then or now. And in fact, the offender in the story is the hero, Lot, a kinsman of Abraham. After Lot brings the strangers into his home, (the right thing to do), the men of Sodom accost him. They threaten to break down the door. And what does our hero do? He says, “I have two lovely daughters, why they are virgins even. Take them.” Take my two daughters. That’s just a wonderful shining example of how to handle a crisis. I suppose if you were a literalist, you would have to believe that in situations of duress, it’s okay to offer the bandits your daughters; but, of course, only if they are virgins. This detestable behavior is not hidden, is directly named, and yet the focus for literalists is upon a behavior that can at best be only imputed, read into the test. Isn’t that strange? There are two other episodes in Genesis when a hero under duress offers not his daughters but his wife as a way of avoiding trouble. In these separate cases the hero passes his wife off as his sister and in each case, both the Pharaoh and second King Abimelech take the wife/sister into his harem. In both cases the hero profits enormously, is showered with gifts in return for giving the wife/sister. The stories are nearly identical but one is a Jahwist version, the other a Elohist. In the Elohist story (Gen 20:1ff), that of Abimelech, God appears in a dream to the King and says, literally, “You’re a dead man because the sister is a wife.” In the Jahwist version (Gen 12:10-20), God simply sends enough nasty plagues to the Egyptians until they figure out that the sister is a wife. It is puzzling, at least to me, why the King and Pharaoh are treated so badly when the authors of the story clearly portray them as innocent dupes. Meanwhile, the liar who was very liberal with his wife profits enormously. The hero, Abraham, is given fantastic booty in exchange for his “sister,” Sarah. And, even more amazing, Abraham gets to keep the booty even after the deception is uncovered! Scholars have pointed out that there are some anachronisms in the story. The most glaring is that in the catalog of gifts received. Abraham is reported to have received camels. Problem is, camels would not be domesticated for several hundred years after the latest date that Abraham could have lived. Receiving an undomesticated camel should not probably be thought of as a gift. The other anachronism concerns Abraham’s calling his wife his “sister.” Hurrian culture was predominant in Canaan at the time of the tales’ origins but apparently not common during the period when both the Yahwist and Elohist authors wrote. Archeologists in the 19th century C.E. discovered something which neither the Elohist nor Yahwist knew, namely, that treating your wife as a sister was a sign of great respect and ensured that she would receive better treatment by relatives and stronger protection from strangers. That piece of archeological information sheds some light on, adds depth to our understanding about these twin stories. But the puzzle remains. The authors seem unaware of the Hurrian cultural context and thus regard Abraham’s deceit as punishable because wives are not supposed to be thought of as sisters. But in both cases the victim of the ruse is punished while the deceiver is rewarded. The apparent contradiction is only resolved when we think of these two stories as typical examples of the “trickster” motif in ancient story telling. Again, neither the Yahwist nor Elohist author seems to be aware of the tribal traditions surrounding the importance of tricksters. Briefly, tribes greatly favored tricksters because they could pull a fast one on some other tribe. Tricksters were held in very high esteem because they could, by deceit rather than dangerous resort to force, enhance the wealth of a tribe. The nearest examples of such tricksters we have in our culture are that of the “cat burglar” or the gang that pulls off the elaborate ruse in the film “Ocean’s Eleven.” It seems, however, that the Jahwist and Elohist authors are uncomfortable with thinking of Abraham as a successful trickster. Admiration for Abraham’s gift for deception is replaced with God’s insistence that Abraham, as his chosen one, is rewarded no matter what. And as for Sarah, the best face we can put on Abraham’s treatment of her is that maybe she was the Canaanite equivalent of an Julia Roberts who, in on the ruse all along, could make her daring escape after the cattle, he asses, goats, gold and she asses had been secured. More probably, she was treated with the same utter disregard as did Lot treat his daughters. I believe that the complexity and depth of these stories clearly demonstrates that literal interpretations of them are just thoroughly inadequate. If one is insistent upon their literal truth then I don’t see how you can avoid believing that handing over your daughters to violent neighbors is the right thing to do. That’s what the Lot story literally states. And, the stories become so much more interesting when one goes beyond the literal interpretation. Perhaps most important, reading them in depth invites each of us to contemplate that those ancient Canaanite eyes really did look upon the world in ways that are quite strange to us. And such changes in human consciousness suggest, at least to me, that we human beings are not forever stuck with how we currently think about the world, each other and ourselves. Indeed, we have changed much, and are actually far more adaptable at changing for the better than we usually give ourselves credit for. We are, in fact, a lot smarter than we think. Readings: Psalm 44— In God we have boasted continually, and we will ever give thanks to thy name forever.Whenever I read many of the psalms I think that David, or whoever the author might be, must have had bipolar disorder. There are some Psalms which just ring with praise and joy—and then there are the other psalms, most of them in fact, which tell of great despair. The prophets, on the other hand, are rarely joyous. Their emotional expression seems to range all the way from irritation to fire breathing anger. Occasionally, as in much of the second half of Isaiah, they conjure up a rosier outlook but by and large they are mostly unhappy and quite certain that God is very unhappy with his chosen people. David posed the frequently asked question, “Why have you hidden your face from us?” and the prophets supplied the answer. Because Israel has forsaken the ways of God, has replaced right living with Israel’s principal social dilemma can be traced to the fact that throughout almost all of recorded history Palestine has always been located between much larger and more powerful neighbors. The times when Israel flourished as an independent country for the three millenia before the twentieth century coincided with periods when Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, Arabia or the Ottomans were too exhausted to fight. As they say in real estate, location, location, location. Every time an emperor desired to subdue another empire, they almost always had to go through Palestine to get there. King David was a remarkable leader, Solomon slightly less so, but unlike the cultures of other peoples, the Jews never sought to conquer for conquering’s sake. All they ever wanted was their “God promised” home. And Palestine might indeed have been the land of milk and honey, but from a purely geopolitical point of view, living there was rather like finding a hundred dollar bill in the middle of the street—Wow!—just before you got hit by a bus. Most of the dramatic tension in the Torah, Prophets and Wisdom writings is bound up with this very difficult circumstance. The Jews had long believed that Palestine was promised to them in perpetuity by God. The Jews in return had to follow God’s laws as understood in the Torah. In time it came to be believed that success as a nation depended upon following the Torah—with sincerity. And as often happened, when the land of milk and honey was overrun by one empire after another, the prophets would claim that God was punishing them for insincerity in religious practice, indulging in idolatry, and rank social injustice. Jeremiah was perhaps the most damning of them all, finally claiming that God had utterly deserted them all. “I have given the beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies.” This tension, between the promise of fulfillment, and routine experience of desolation, could be regarded as a horrible joke by God, something like an extended version of, “look at that marvelous apple—which, by the way, you are forbidden to eat.” But this tension is the crucible in which transcendent hope is given great strength. Throughout this history the Jews always believed, even in the most desperate circumstances, that something better must lie ahead. “Somehow or other, no matter how much we ourselves fall or get knocked down, we will find ourselves secure in the land of milk and honey.” This saga reminds us that this unyielding commitment to a dream of something better is not something given, but must be learned and earned. Most of the time, most of us, are very comfortable with the idea of living in the land of milk and honey. What we are less willing to admit, quite understandably, is that the way there is watered with tears. But how else will the dream survive, even the most difficult of circumstances, unless we learn to love it even as we weep? Our tears of desolation then become tears of great longing, and we know, utterly know, that we will not, under any circumstances, lose that dream. Indeed, “if in a safe land you fall down, how will you do in the jungle of Jordan?” Reading: Song of Solomon 4:9-11, 8:6— You have ravished my heart my heart, my sister, my bride,The Song of Solomon is a very short book, ending the wisdom writings just before the reader encounters the prophet Isaiah. It’s almost as if the people responsible for arranging the texts thought, “Maybe we’ll give the reader something pleasurable before we hit them with Isaiah.” That prophet begins his very first chapter with “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity....” Compare that judgment with the Song’s typical verse, “Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves...” When I read the Song of Solomon I am reminded of The Captain’s Verses by Pablo Neruda. It’s just, so—juicy. And one of the most unique characteristics of the Song is that God is never mentioned, never referred to—seemingly absent. Such a striking omission has lead more than one commentator to suggest that it doesn’t really belong in the Bible. But with all the wild cataclysmic comings and goings, the smitings, the devastations, the promises kept and promises broken, rules made and generations upon generations numbered, there are my mind no finer verses in the entire book. It calls out to us reminding us that when love is true, God need not be named for God is then unquestionably present. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. It is by such great longing for love that our new world will be found. We are not condemned to merely repeat what has gone one before. We can find hope even amidst desperation. Remember, always remember, Love is stronger than death! |
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