Flexible Bible

Flexible Bible

“Mary Cosby used to begin her New Testament class by bending her soft-cover Bible and saying she preferred a Bible that was flexible. Then she would say, ‘The Bible is not a manual for morality, but a mirror for identity.”’ Carol Martin, Bread of Life Church, “A Mirror for Identity,” Weekly Gospel Reflection, Inward Outward Together, InwardOutward.org, Church of the Saviour, July 15, 2018.

My first introduction to this deeper and more flexible Bible study was with a small group of people at St. Mark’s in Little Rock in the 1990’s with a leader named Dick Moore in a room above the children’s classrooms that we called “the upper room.”  As we studied the books of the Bible, Dick reminded us that the Bible was a roadmap not the destination. 

I think of old friends like Carole and Gary Kimmel who were in our class who now live on the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  I think of Brady and Betty Anderson who now may be in Charleston who went on to be Bible translators in Africa in Tanzania and later the American ambassador to that country. They all taught me so much. Together we saw new insights that we had never seen before in the Bible.

As we saw God at work in the lives of people in the Bible who were just like us with gifts and faults, we also became more aware of God, the Holy Spirit, at work in  our own lives and those of people we encountered. We began to see that the relationship of the Holy Spirit did not stop with first and second century Christians, but the Spirit is still leading us today. If we only believe a strict literal translation of the Bible we are denying the continued presence of the Holy Spirit working in our lives today and telling us more good news.

I am thinking of the Bible I received from my bishop seventeen years ago at my ordination. It as well is flexible.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

23 Psalm and the Gender of Shepherds

23 Psalm and  Who Are the Shepherds

“The Lord is my shepherd.” Psalm 23

Malinda Elizabeth Berry reminds us in a recent article, “Who is my Shepherd,” in the online  The Christian Century’s Sunday Coming, July 22, Year B. Christiancentury.org, July 19, 2018  about a frequent misconception about the gender of shepherds. In biblical times shepherding was often done by young girls as well as boys and men. She reminds us that beautiful Rachel was tending her father Laban’s sheep when Jacob first saw her and fell in love with her. (Genesis 29: 9-10) Zipporah and her sisters were trying to water their father’s sheep when Moses drove away some other shepherds who were bothering them. (Exodus 2:16)

 We may also imply from this that these young and fair maidens were also just as  masterful with a sling shot  as young David!

 Berry asks us if we have ever seen  any bible story pictures or paintings with girls as shepherds? Indeed, I could only find a few, this one by Hungarian painter,  Marko Andrea (1887) called Shepherd Girl. Berry then challenges us to consider having girls as well as boys dressed up as shepherds in this year’s Christmas pageant! (At our staff meeting, Luke, our Family Ministries Coordinator at St. Mark’s, also reminded me that  unknown to me, St. Mark’s  had been having girl shepherds for years!)  

For myself, this is one more example of a tradition that shepherds should be only boys or men that does not ring true with historical facts. It makes me wonder why I didn’t think of girls as shepherds even after  having read the stories of Rachel and Zipporah more times than I can remember. Now it is so obvious.

I hope you can share my excitement with  Berry’s new information about  stories we thought we knew so well. It reminds us not to gloss over old Bible stories but rather hope to see new insights each time we read them. This also encourages us to keep reading what others are discovering in their journeys  as well through the Bible.  It is a  reminder  that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and  continually teaching us new things and new insights in old stories.

Joanna joannaseibert.com 

The Righteous Gentiles

The Righteous Gentiles of World War II

“Lord of the Exodus, who delivers your people with a strong hand and a mighty arm: Strengthen your Church with the examples of the righteous Gentiles of World War II to defy oppression for the rescue of the innocent; through Jesus Christ..” Collect of the day: The Righteous Gentiles, July 16, Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, Church Publishing 2019.

Lutz in bombed garden of British legation

Holy Women, Holy Men is a trial expanded calendar of commemorations of saints authorized by the 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church that includes many modern people of faith and apostolic action. The people remembered on July 16  are the thousands of Christians and people of faith who saved Jews from the Holocaust. One of them was Carl Lutz, an Evangelical Christian who was a Swiss Vice-Council in Budapest  who negotiated with the Nazis for the deportation of more than 60,000 Jews to Palestine, probably saving more lives than any other.

Lutz had gained permission to issue emigration papers for 8000 Jews to Palestine. He interpreted  it as for 8000 families, saving thousands more.  There is a 2014 American film that tells of  Lutz’s work with Pinchas Rosenbaum in Budapest during German occupation of Hungry called Walking with the Enemy. Lutz also established seventy-six safe houses in Budapest where Jews were hidden including the now famous Glass House, all of which the diplomat declared as Swiss territory. There is also a documentary about Lutz called The Forgotten Hero.

I honestly believe we each are given many moments to make a difference in the lives of others. The moments may not be as dangerous or risky as Lutz’s on the international scene, but in our own environment they may still carry risks. It is good for us to see how people who came before us were creative in making changes and finding loopholes where there seemed to be no way out as they worked around systems that were awful beyond words. I can only believe this was the work of the Holy Spirit in the worst of times. I know that same Holy Spirit is working in us today.

Carl Lutz, International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation www.raoulwallenberg.net

Joanna joannaseibert.com