Swaddling and Sore

The biblical scholar in me knows better.

The King James Version of our sacred canon is rife with problems, too many to count really.

In fact, I wasn't even raised on it too much. The Revised Standard Version was the text my father used with great zeal, not unlike how I have sought to champion the newer translations of our time.

But there are some texts that, while my head knows and can exegete them one way, my heart knows them another.

One is Psalm 23. It is a remarkably pastoral psalm, and I can teach it from the NRSV perspective with great confidence (thanks to Walter Harrelson, my Hebrew Bible professor, otherwise lovingly and fearfully known as "Yahweh"), but when my heart is broken, or in need of care, or, when I'm with those who are unsure if they will even have a tomorrow, there is only one version emerging from the heart -

Psalm 23
1The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.2He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.3He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his names sake.4Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.5Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The same can be said of the Christmas Story found in Luke 2. Yes, I know the textual problems. But what my heart learned as a boy, and what the text says in the more contemporary settings are too divergent.

For this particular Advent, and, as it transitions into Christmas, my heart leans toward ancient words. And, even if problematic, I get it. I understand the problems, but that does not negate the overall truth.

The NRSV reading of Luke 2.7-9 says:

Luke 2.7-9
7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 8In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

The King James -

7And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.8And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.9And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

Whatever it is you think or feel about these texts, I wonder what being "sore afraid" in the presence of God looks like anymore. See, the Good News of Jesus birth was good news only for those who longed to be set free - from oppression, from their sin, from the principalities and powers that marginalized.

But the Gospel is bad news for everyone else.

The time from reckoning has come. The Realm of God is begun, and it has in all things, a helpless child born to a young, unmarried woman, in Bethlehem.

Bethlehem? Are you kidding me? Can anything good come from there?

One of the great problems we have with Christmas is that we've lost our capacity to be "sore afraid," as were the shepherds, until - the first Christmas greeting was offered by the angelic hosts, "Do not be afraid."

The collision of the Divine with the world should make us quake in our boots still.

Does it for you?

Does the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes still make you sore afraid?

The day it doesn't anymore, I'm in trouble.

Of Hearts and Treasures

But, in the present state of mankind, it [money] is an excellent gift of God, answering the noblest ends. In the hands of his children, it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked: It gives to the traveller and the stranger where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place of an husband to the widow, and of a father to the fatherless. We maybe a defence for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain; it may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame; yea, a lifter up from the gates of death! John Wesley "The Use of Money"

Today I preached about a biased God, and this is a passage from Wesley's sermon on the role of money in the lives of Christians.

A God whose preference for the poor is undisputed. 3000 verses deal with the poor. Even for the literalists among us, that's a number that can't be ignored.

Stack those up against the verses demanding obligations of following restrictive doctrines, or what Jesus says about being gay (not a damn thing). Stack what ever it is you use to put "moral" issues on the forefront of the agenda (especially in an election year), and bring them to the table.

Please, stack all those up and bring them to me and then lay them alongside God's concern for the widowed and orphaned.

Please. I dare you.

And what you'll find is a real moral issue -

A God, who, through the prophets, reminds us again and again that the measure of how faithful the people of God are can be tested against how it treats the least among us.

A God, who through Jesus, made it clear that the least and the last hold the place of honor in the Realm of God.

The temptation for any of us is to think that if God is biased toward the poor, and I'm not poor (and most of us in this country are remarkably rich by world standards), does that mean that somehow God does not love me in the same way?

Today I commented that I believe it to be true that God accepts us just as we are. But once accepted, God expects us to take upon ourselves the things that matters most to the Divine.

The reading from James for this day talks about faith being dead without works. It also talks about the distinctions we make on our sisters and brothers relative to their perceived wealth.

Too often we water all this down to "poor in spirit." I think that's a cop out. Is there poverty of spirit? Sure.

But what Scriptures indicate the issue is focuses upon the abuses of power we exert over the other with the common resources of creation. That power base is directly related to our accumulation of those resources. We make commodities to be traded and hoarded of those resources we all need in order to live well, and our financial capacity to by in and "own" trumps our Divine obligation to share what is, by all accounts, not really ours in the first place.

Maybe that's why we spend far too much time on a false morality because if left to follow the one that God has laid out for us, it may exact more of what we think is "ours" than we'd like to admit.

So, if God is biased, should not that bias become our own?