The Ninevites and the Al Qaeda

The Ninevites and the Al Qaeda:
Contemporary Lessons of the Book of Jonah

Shay Robertson
May 2, 2011
In the biblical book of Jonah, a man who is the victim of a violent crime is asked by God to offer the hand of peace and salvation to the very people who committed the crime against him. Jonah is understandably unwilling.  The Ninevites are criminals in Jonah’s experience.  If they convert to the religion of YHWH, they will be Ninevites all the same.  And, Jonah fears, God will show them mercy, forgiveness that Jonah does not believe they deserve, salvation to which he does not wish to be a party.
It is very much the same quandary that presents itself to Christians this week following the death of Osama bin Laden. Here is a man who has committed a heinous crime against the United States. We as a country and a culture have hunted him down and sought our own retribution in kind. What remains are his people, Al Qaeda, our sworn enemies. And we as Christians are called by God to love our enemies, to hold out the hand of peace and salvation to the very people who committed the crime against us.  But even if we reach out to them in compassion as bearers of God’s love, they will be Al Qaeda all the same. Jonah hoped for the destruction of the Ninevites, he feared that God would let them live.  Can we, as emissaries of a God of love, find it in ourselves to pray that God’s will be done to our enemies, even if it means that Al Qaeda goes unpunished?
The book of Jonah offers us an opportunity to examine our internal conflict in the context of Scripture.  Jonah is a character in very much the same situation.  He struggles with setting aside his own opinions and fulfilling the call of the Lord.  Scholarly criticism frequently interprets Jonah as a character as representing the people of Israel, God’s people.   They tend to interpret the story as instructional, though they disagree as to what the lesson may be.  In any case, for generations, Jonah has been held up as an instructional narrative.  This work attempts to explore how Jonah as a literary character speaks to us today, as the people of God in light of current events.
The Book of Jonah
The book of Jonah is to some degree an unknown quantity.  There is relatively little in the text to suggest a firm date of authorship beyond a very general “late exilic or post exilic period.”    There is some debate over the composition of the text: it may be a composite of various pre-existing elements and it certainly embodies a long standing folkloric tradition (Limburg, 1993).    The ambiguity of the intended audience at once confounds some scholars, and delights others,  as it opens the door to broader and more radial hermeneutical application. It is this aspect of the Jonah story which I will exploit in this examination.
While the story’s historical context is uncertain, its setting is solid: the Jonah mentioned in the books is evidently the same Jonah as appears in 2 Kings 14:25 and is there identified as a prophet. As is common to biblical narrative, Jonah’s name may hold some clues as to what we are to think of him.  Jonah, the Hebrew word for “dove” might hold the same connotation to its contemporary audience as it would to modern ears: he is an emissary of peace, an extended olive branch following an act of violence (See Genesis 8:6-12).  Further, the dove as an image would very likely have communicated to the text’s intended audience that Jonah was meant to represent the people of Israel.   “Ben Amittai” translates to “son of the faithful one”(Trible 1998) perhaps indicating that he comes from a tradition of piety.  For our purposes, it bears repeating: Jonah ben Amittai is a messenger of peace, a symbol of Israel and of a long tradition of faithfulness to YHWH.
According to 2 Kings, Jonah of Amittai lived during the reign of Jeroboam, II (785-744BCE).   Accepting that date, Jonah had very good reason to resist any contact with the people of Nineveh:
During the reign of King Menahem ben-Gadi, shortly after Jeroboam II's reign and before the conquest of 722 B.C.E. the King of Assyria imposed his rule over the land, making Menahem a vassal ruler who paid allegiance and taxes to Assyria. Assuming that political events do not happen in a vacuum, we can assume that during Jonah's lifetime, the Assyrians were already seen as a grave threat to the Northern Kingdom. We can then further assume that in those days Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria could stand for an arch-enemy poised for the destruction of Israel.
Nineveh’s reputation in other books of the Bible is no more flattering:
Woe to the bloody city,
All full of lies and booty… (Nahum 3:1)

It is to this horrible place, to these reprehensible people, that Jonah ben Amittai is sent on an errand of the Lord.
Also important to our application is the idea that Jonah might be considered a parable (Trible 1998, 469). A parable is a literary device which uses hyperbolic or exaggerated characters, events or language in the context of a narrative.    It frequently incorporates irony to enable the audience to perceive the absurdity and incorporate the lesson or objective of the story. As rule, parables are used in biblical narrative in order to communicate moral or ethical guidance and/or social correction (for example, 2 Samuel 12, in which Nathan relates the parable of the rich man and the lamb as a corrective to King David). If we look at the story of Jonah as a parable, as a satire of traditional prophetic literature (Trible 1998, 474), then we must ask ourselves with whom we are meant to identify in the text.  As Jonah seems to have been intended to personify Israel, that is the “us” in this text, we are, inescapably, meant to identify with Jonah (Trible 1998, 467).
Looking at Jonah
Having established his narrative and literary context, let us take a closer look at Jonah as a character.
Jonah is not a prophet. The text begins with a word from God (1:1).  As a rule, prophets who are told by the Almighty to jump, ask “how high?” Jonah runs the other way: “Go at once to Nineveh…But Jonah set out to flee” (Jonah 1:2-3). Much has been made of the fact that Jonah’s behavior is unconventional for a biblical prophet.   However, in the book of Jonah, there is no mention of Jonah as a prophet, it is only in reference to 2 Kings and where commentators have perceived the Jonah story to be midrash on 2 Kings, that his role as a prophet is explicit (Trible 1998, 472).    As a matter of fact, Jonah bears very little resemblance to a traditional biblical prophet.  Biblical prophets tend to speak to Israelites (the exception is Elijah who prophecies to foreigners) (Trible 1998, 481), their prophecies are more specific about what kind if sinning is happening and what consequences lie ahead if we proceed down that road and as a rule prophets are pleased at the success of their prophecy, whereas Jonah is decidedly not (4:5). Thus, while Jonah ben Amittai may be a prophet in 2 Kings, in the book of Jonah he is not acting like one.
It is the overwhelming irony of the story of Jonah that, despite his departure from the prophetic type and his utter lack effort, he manages to convert everyone he comes in contact with.  By the time he departs the ship, the sailors are converted: “Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows” (1:16).  With one phrase uttered on the outskirts of town, every Ninevite down to his donkey is converted (3:9).
Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’(Jonah 3:6-9)
Jonah is insincere. Jonah is confronted with a task he does not wish to perform, so he runs away, he flees the “presence of the Lord” (1:3). Now, he knows this is an exercise in futility. He describes God as sovereign over all Creation (1:9), but that doesn’t stop him.  He hires a ship with a pagan crew and goes the opposite way from Nineveh (1:4). If Jonah were a stereotypical prophet, he might get onto the pagan ship and start shouting the praises of the Lord, but instead the sailors on the ship are the first to mention YHWH and must call on the prophet to speak to the god for whom he theoretically is the mouth piece:
The captain came and said to him, ‘What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.’ (1:6)
But alas, Jonah is no more inclined toward typical prophetic behavior now that he’s had a storm thrown at him.
The message with which Jonah is charged is significant, as well.  “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2, 3:2).  We are not told in this verse exactly what Jonah is to say. It is not altogether clear that YHWH has the destruction of Nineveh in mind until 3:10: “God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.” Upon arriving in Nineveh, and creeping in a few feet, his prophecy is a mere 8 words long (5 in Hebrew), a half a verse in our modern translations. He doesn’t tell the Ninevites what to change, how or even to repent of evil, and he doesn’t even mention YHWH at all: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4b).
It is interesting to note that Jonah is almost as averse to being proactive as he is to the commission he has been given.  He is called on to perform a task for his Lord and, having flagrantly headed in the wrong direction, proceeds to take a nap.  When something has to be done to end the storm and save the lives of the sailors, Jonah is picked up and thrown into the sea (1:15). It is the sailors who take action that might enable Jonah to complete his mission (1:13). Jonah asks twice for God to take his life (4:3, 8).  He doesn’t take any initiative himself, he just begs for death. Even when finally driven to complete his task, Jonah fails to measure up to our expectations as a representative of God.  Despite the city’s being “a three days walk across” (3:3), Jonah walks only part of the way in – a day’s walk (3:4).
Jonah is not angry at Nineveh. It is significant that the book of Jonah does not end with Nineveh complying.  The story is not about Nineveh, after all.  It is about Jonah, about Jonah’s relationship with God and himself.  It is for this reason that the last chapter of the book, and indeed the last verses, are among the most compelling of the entire work. We learn in the fourth chapter why Jonah fled from his duty as a servant of YHWH. Jonah is not angry at Nineveh after all.  He is angry at YHWH:
He prayed to the LORD and said, ‘O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. (Jonah 4:2)
These words echo a description of the attributes of God, a formula which appears in a number of places in the Hebrew Bible (Dozeman 1989).  But here he turns the recitation of praise into an accusation.  These divine qualities praised elsewhere in the Bible, are supremely frustrating for Jonah.
It is at this point that God asks Jonah the pivotal question of this text: “Is it right to be angry?” Initially, he asks the more general question, after he has apparently made a decision about Nineveh.  The second instance, however, follows his provision and then destruction of a plant to shade Jonah.  He asks specifically if it is appropriate for Jonah to be angry “about the plant.”
God’s action and question served to reinforce Jonah’s anger at divine justice.  Now Jonah’s own experience with destruction as the hands of God has convinced him that God is not just.
In Chapter 1, Jonah knew YHWH created all the earth and sea and still sought to “get away from” him.  Now, Jonah, knowing and loving God for the attributes he names here, is still unable to keep from resenting him for those very reasons.
Jonah was committed to a God of strict justice and was scandalized by God’s compassion for those he considered to be wicked and due for severe punishment – the justice/mercy conflict. (Magonet 1992, 941)

Jonah is not a paragon. Finally, it is critical to note that the weight of scholarship thinks of Jonah “whose values are the inverse of those of the real prophets” as a parody (Magonet 1992). Parody depends on the audience knowing what is expected in a certain context and being surprised when they find the reverse.  By exaggerating certain characteristics, parody enables the audience to perceive the absurdity of a situation or character.  As mentioned above, Jonah can be thought of as representing the people of Israel and his absurdities, therefore, are subject to the scrutiny of, and hopefully be modified by, the text’s intended audience. Jonah is not a paragon, then, but a parody, a character with whose foibles and flaws the reader is intended to identify… and consequently reject.
What we are not asked to do.
Let us look at Jonah, then, as a cautionary character.  He has been called to offer forgiveness to his enemies; he has spoken God’s truth to them through clenched teeth and thereby become the unwilling vehicle of their salvation.  Jonah is now faced with the very conflict that confronts us as Americans and Christians this week.
In the wake of our righteousness, we, like Jonah, have been given a task by God. And, we, like Jonah, are asked to do what is painful to us. We are asked to be the faces and hands of God’s peace in relationship with an enemy we have learned to despise. Jonah offers us a lens with which to examine what are and are not asked to do as we live out this calling.
We are not asked to be prophets.  Nowhere in our text is Jonah called a prophet and, as pointed out above, nowhere in our text does he act like one.  Neither should we.  Unless we have been chosen, we are not in the business of predicting outcomes in the name of the Lord.  We should not be tempted to predict dire consequences and ascribe them to the Almighty.  We should not be on a mission unless we are sent on that mission.
We are not asked to be martyred.  Jonah’s life was never in danger. Jonah repeatedly begged for death (2:12, 4:3, 8) but God did not permit it. Even when Jonah was tossed overboard like so much ballast, God sent a great fish for his rescue.  Our own destruction is not a part of the salvation of our enemies.  In this case at least, what is necessary for the healing of what is broken in creation is not self-sacrifice.  It may be self-examination, it is certainly self-discipline, but it is not martyrdom.
We are not asked to convert anyone.  Note that Jonah was not asked to convert anyone in Nineveh.  He was asked to give them God’s message and while we don’t know exactly what that was, the words Jonah spoke were not evangelistic:  ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ It was left to the Holy Spirit to do the rest and because Jonah didn’t get in the way, it all went down with amazing smoothness.  From the beginning of the text of Jonah to the end, there is no indication that God wanted their fealty.  He wanted them to “give up their wickedness.”  God never spoke of converting them to Yahwism. It may have been in his mind, it may just have been gravy, but in any case, the conversion of the Ninevites was not part of Jonah’s prophetic call.  Jonah was called to do as he was asked, God was sovereign over the rest. We would do well to remember that.
We are not asked to decide the fate of our enemies.  The overarching lesson of Jonah is that God is sovereign: “Deliverance belongs to the Lord” (2:9b). We can lie down and go to sleep and God will get the work done.  We can run as fast as we can in the other direction, and God will get it done.  We can argue and threaten and pout and God will get the job done.  And he may even use us against our will to get the job done, as he did with Jonah, but ultimately our will is not the operant force in the process.
What we are asked to do.
Just as it did to Jonah, the word of the Lord came to us.  We, like Jonah, have been given a task: to “love God with all our hearts, our minds and our souls and to love our neighbors as ourselves” (Matt 7:12). That is our calling, simple but not easy, short but not sweet. Jonah was asked by God to take a message of tenderness to people he despised with all his heart and he tried to escape the calling. He fled, but he failed.  God was with him in the depths of his despair and in the belly of the Great fish (2:10).  There is no depth to which we can sink from which God cannot rescue us. With this confidence we are asked by God to perform one and only one task:  To love God with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We are asked to love God with our whole heart. Whenever we go into the world, we are emissaries of the Word. It is a kind of incidental evangelism.  We are loving because we are loved by God.  We are righteous because we have a righteous God. We are compassionate because we have a compassionate God.  We are created in the image of God and we try to live that out daily.  Even when meeting the enemy face to face.  Even when speaking in public about the enemy, even when filled with rage that “burns” like the rage in Jonah (Trible 1998, 517). Even then we are the face of God to others and we must embody that evangelism responsibly.
We are asked to love God with our whole mind.  We believe that man is made in God’s image.  Even members of al Qaeda. We may be furious and hurt, we may need consolation and desire justice, but we cannot forget that God created all men, all men, in his image and what we do or say to our fellow man; we do or say to God and his creation.
We are asked to love God with our whole soul. We are asked to show mercy and to offer compassion.  We are asked to give generously to those who have taken from us, simply because they have need.  We are asked to look at the children of Al Qaeda and see only children of God.
And we are asked to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We love ourselves even though we know the ugly truth about ourselves.  We are sometimes cowardly (1:3), we are sometimes petty (2:8), and we are insincere (3:4) and resentful (4:2).  But the book of Jonah gives us an opportunity to see those weaknesses for what they are and to address them. We get up every morning and look in the mirror at a flawed person; we forgive that person and try to begin again in a new day. That is how we love ourselves, one day at a time, one sin at a time, with chagrin, humility and faith.  That is how we are asked to love our neighbor.
Even the neighbor we hate.
The book of Jonah asks many difficult questions: Why do good things happen to bad people? Is God arbitrary or unjust?  And finally: Are we right to be angry at God for being compassionate to those whom we despise? It asks these questions, but it does not answer them:  “the ultimate fate of its principle characters is undetermined.”  This is perhaps the most telling fact of all about the book of Jonah.
I am not sorry that Osama bin Laden is dead.  But I am not glad.  I am not willing to call back the forces deployed to protect my children from terrorist attacks, but I do not want them to drop another bomb on a village in Iraq.  I have not forgotten the people I loved and lost on September 11, 2001 and I have not forgiven their murderers.  And so, though I have scoured the text and read the commentaries and searched my heart, I confess, I still have no answer to the questions put to us in the book of Jonah.
Perhaps that is why the book of Jonah ends on a question mark.

Resurrection is New Year's Day

Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. (John 2:19-21)

Outside my study window this morning more than the usual number of warmly dressed and determined runners are fulfilling their New Year's resolutions.  With a show of hands, all across our great country, it would be interesting to know how many people are resolving in some way to alter the condition of their bodies.

In this portion of John's gospel, Jesus has found the Temple of the Lord in bad shape.  It has been ill-used (to his mind: historically, commercial transaction there might arguably have been acceptable) and let fall into decay.  The he people present ask him who he thinks he is to tell them how to care for their temple. He responds, "tear it down and I could build it back up in three days."  The Scripture tells us that he is talking about his body.

We all know that our bodies are our temples, and by extension that our lives are edifices of our existence.  I am, it so happens, forty six years old and my body bears a horrible and shocking likeness to the temple in question. Over the course of 46 years, I have not laid every brick with loving care.  I have had periods where I knowingly used construction materials that were inferior, in fact harmful, to the structure as a whole.  I have gone through times where my attention to detail, let alone artistry, was lacking or entirely absent.  And the result is that there are places in my temple which are weak, there are flaws in the foundation and there are places that got so bad that they were unsafe and had to be removed.

And what have I been doing in this progressively less pure and wonderful temple?  Like the Jews  in the text, I have not always conducted myself as befits imago dei.  I have hurt people, destroyed things I could not rebuild, been capricious and ruthless and "done trade where I shoulda done prayed."

This is my favorite holiday - not for the drinking, though I am almost an exclusively champagne drinking kind of gal - but the new beginnings, the fresh journals and open calendars and the suspenseful potential for organization, self discipline and brighter days that have not yet been squashed by a lack of time or energy or the cruel reality of mediocrity. I make resolutions every year, though I should really just photocopy them from year to year, about losing weight or getting fit or not chewing my nails or solving some nagging problem with my foot. We all do, don't we? Hope for self-discipline? Hope to realize the potential of a new beginning in ourselves, now, once and for all?

When Jesus said he could raise the temple - even if they utterly destroyed it - in three days, the Scripture tells us the Jews knew he was speaking of his body.  Commentary tells us he was speaking of resurrection.  But perhaps he was also talking about New Year's Day.

What if I told you that no matter what you've done to your body - even if you've been doing it for all forty six or however many years of your life - it can be returned to its previous perfection in a ridiculously short period of time, in the course of an unbelievably simple resolution and with the result of miraculous transformation. All you have to do is dial 1-800 - ha-ha, no just kidding. All you have to do is make the right resolution.

Resurrection is New Year's Day: resolve to let the Holy Spirit do her work in you.

Remember and Do Not Forget (Exodus 32:1, 7-14)

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."

The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, `These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation."

But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, `It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, `I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Exodus 32:1,7-14

The Golden Calf episode (Exod 32:4) is a pivotal text in our history.  The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt. Now, it is important to note that they weren’t slaves the way you and I think of slaves. It wasn’t the depraved and incomprehensible atrocity enacted on African slaves in the United States; “Hebrews” in Egypt lived with their families, had livestock, etc.  But it was no picnic either.  Before they left Egypt they were cruelly worked and punished by their masters and threatened with genocide.  So, God intervened, Moses led them and they fled into the desert.

Today’s portion takes place forty days later.  Moses has gone up the mountain to have a confab with God and the “Israelites” have been left at the foot of the mountain to eat manna and wait. 

How long does it take lose faith? For the Israelites, evidently something less than forty days, because after forty days, they turn to Aaron, their erstwhile leader, and say, “What the heck are we doing? Back in Egypt, we had jobs and homes and regular meals. Now we’re out here in the desert living tents on manna.  Back in Egypt we knew our gods and how to worship them. Now, we don’t know what to do with the God of Moses and where is Moses anyway?  Let’s just build an idol, we know how to do that, and go back to worshiping the way we know how to do it.”

God looks down from the mountain and sees what the Israelites are doing and says, understandably, “Go down there and fix that or I will.”

Now there is a lot of interesting language in this text.  First of all, God says to Moses, these are “your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt.” Well, wait a minute, didn’t God bring them out of Egypt?  Or didn’t He at least give the marching orders?  They are not Moses’ people, are they?  They are God’s people, aren’t they?  


In making an idol and mistaking it for the god that freed them, the people of Israel appear to have chosen not to be the people of God.  They are now just a group of metal cow worshiping vagrants following a very embarrassed and absent prophet. And as such, God need have no compunction in wiping them out.

But Moses intervenes. We learned in the story of Abraham that God listens when we talk to Him, that He seeks to make Himself understood.  But unlike Abraham, Moses’ argument does not turn on who the people are, but on who God is.  He doesn’t even try to make a case for the Israelites, which is doubtless very prudent indeed.  Rather, he turns the focus on God because, I think, that is the point of the passage.

The Israelites lost sight of God.  They had all these signs and miracles at the beginning, but now it’s been a while since they saw any real evidence of God.  They have had to go along on faith, in the absence even of their prophet.  Their faith faded, their resolve diminished, and they lost sight of (or turned their stiff necks away from) God.

Moses resolves the issue by focusing on God. He says, “I know you to be the one and only, the merciful and just God of the Israelites.  But there are people who don’t know you. There are even those who those who suspect you. If you lose your temper and smite your own people, they will never see you for what you are, indeed they may hide their eyes from you in fear.”  Now, Moses knows, and God knows, and you and I know that God does not want us to fear Him and that His greatest pleasure comes when we turn our eyes and lift our voices and open our hearts to Him.  Clearly, Moses has a point.

And he pressed that point to the limits of chutzpah.  Moses goes on to say, “Also, you know us for who we are: weak and sinful, and dependant on you.  You have always guided us and you have promised always to guide us. You swore by your own self! If you destroy us now,” Moses seems to be saying, “Which of us would be turning away?”

Now, whatever you believe about how the Bible came into being, there is no doubt that there was a moment in time when it was determined that this was a story worth re-telling.  Why is that, do you think? I mean, it doesn’t reflect well on God, really, He looks a little hot tempered.  And Moses comes off looking like the captain of the debate team, which is less classically heroic than one might expect.  So what is in it for us?

Well, for me, today, this morning, it holds a frightfully urgent message.  Recently there have been those among the broad brotherhood of mankind who have lost sight of God.  They created for themselves an image of worship that was false and their pursuit of it threatened the unity of God’s creation, the peace He so earnestly desires, the efforts we all make at healing the wounds of the world, and potentially put at risk the lives of innocent and brave men and women whom I personally know and love.

Now, this morning, before dawn and the morning news breaks over the horizon, it looks as if that particular conflagration of sin has been averted. And what I take from this text this morning, is that I must forgive.  I may not reach out wrathfully.  I may not take my anger out in print or in deed.  I have been the object of God’s mercy, I have read the lesson of God’s grace. And I have been told: “Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place.” (Deut 9:7)

I must move on from here, grateful that they have seen and hopeful that I have seen, the true nature of a just and forgiving God.

Now, I would be a poor lecturer indeed if I neglected to tell you that as our story proceeds from this point, Moses himself goes down and opens up a can of whuppass on those idol worshipers… but that is a story for another time.

Caution: Student Driver

Amos 6:17, 1 Timothy 6:11-19, Luke 16:19-31, Psalm 146 1-9

The Scripture reading this week is full of prophecy and it affords us a brilliant opportunity to explore what prophecy is and what it is not.  Prophecy is not Edgar Cayce seeing a fixed, predestined future. Iit is not Professor Trelawney reading an imminent and unavoidable grim into a tea cup. It is Bob Dylan warning that if we don’t change our ways, a hard rain is gonna fall.  Like Scrooge in the final moments of his Christmas Eve dream, in prophecy we see the shades of things that might be, not things that will be.* If we mend our ways and “wake a new man” as Scrooge does, then our future is not set.

It is vitally important that we remember that distinction whenever we read prophecy in Scripture.  Fortunetelling is a promise, not a threat.  Prophecy is a threat, not a promise.

My eldest child is learning to drive this summer.  It will come as a relief to some of you to hear that it is not as stressful a process as you imagine.  In the initial stages, when she was learning the rules of the road and getting in the habit of rolling on her heel from the accelerator to the break, we drove around a cemetery and empty parking lots.  On those occasions I would say things like, “Okay, slow down around the curve” and “start to unwind your turn a little earlier…”  Initially I was training her to drive.  Now, I am training her to be the driver. 

Now that she has a clear idea of what to do, she drives to places, on errands and etc.  This process requires a very different set of instructions from me: “If you don’t want to drive down streets packed with parallel parked cars, how should we go” and “There is construction up ahead there, how will that impact you?”  In those first lessons I was helping her to learn how to be a driver. Now she’s the driver and I have to ask her whether she has thought about where she’s going.

Our Scripture this week does very much the same thing.

I can totally relate to Amos in this text. He’s sitting next to his readers in the passenger seat, his arms crossed over his chest, his lips pressed together with all his power.  When he does speak, its with considered resignation, he knows he’s going to be late at the least and there may be a five point turn in a parking lot in his near future.  “Are you sure you want to go this way?” he’s asking.  “Because I can see down this road and I know that if you miss the turn onto Niles Center you’ll end up at the Golf Course.” He shrugs helplessly and maybe even whispers, “I’m just sayin’.”

The authors of the letter to Timothy are in a similar place.  Timothy is in charge of a new church at Ephesus and this letter is written to give him guidance from knowledgable people who are, however, not actually in the car with him. It’s the next step in the evolution of the driver - one I have not yet made. The driver is left to her own devices and all that can be said is, “You know how to do it, just think about it before you do.” The authors of the letter are pretty good parents, to my mind, they express confidence, they promise goodness. And they place the burden of the outcome on the driver with the most important instruction that can be given, the one that was given by Christ with every parable: “You know how to do the right thing, just think before you act.” 

It may seem that I am avoiding the obvious meaning of this week’s readings, they are clearly about wealth, privilege and charity.  (We hate these passages, don’t we? The ones that point right as us and make us cringe?) I will tell you that I am never comfortable telling other people how to spend their money, or their time. I hate unsolicited advice and I avoid giving it at all costs.  I do not know, after all, who among my friends are wealthy and who are upside down in their mortgage.  I do not know who is generous with their time and talents and who is jealous of them.  I do not know these things, I cannot judge them, therefore I do not tell them how they should act.

But I know that they know. They know what God expects of them as regards their fellow man. They know who the Lazarus is at their doorstep and they know what they could do for him.  They know who in their lives has spoken a word of warning to them about their habits, about their reputation, about the path they are on.  And they are able to choose for themselves to heed or not to heed those prophets in their midst. This is, I think what is meant by the parable of the wealthy man.  He knows but he does not do. And when his actions lead to his inevitable demise and he pleads for another intercession for his brothers on earth he is told, “They haven’t believed anything they’ve heard so far, what difference could it possibly make to send another?”  This seems to be particularly pertinent in the 21^st Century. Having ignored good advice your entire life, would you suddenly be convinced by a zombie in your office suite? Was Scrooge convinced by Marley, jangling the chains he forged in life?  Or by the prophetic spirits who illuminated the path before him?

The day may come when my daughter acts rashly or stupidly and breaks the law in a car. God willing, no one will be injured. God willing, the accident will be minor.  But in the moment that the police officer pulls her over, in the moment when the ticket is issued, in the moment when she stands before the judge and hears the age-old adage that “ignorance of the law is o excuse,” God willing she will remember that she knows the right path.  And God willing she will elect to follow it from there on out.

We are always encouraged to put our faith in God. But, I think it is just as important to remember that God has put his faith in us, first. He knows we can do it, he knows we are good drivers and capable of making safe and smart choices on the road.  Because he is a good and loving parent and, like all parents, wants only the best for his children.

You may think my metaphor, of the parent teaching her child to drive, is a silly one, but clearly I think it is apt.  Not the least because clearly the writer of the Psalm for today is praying like the Dickens that the God in whose hands he has put his life, or the life of his child, is a good and faithful and kind one.  Clearly, this is the prayer of a parent watching a child drive away for the first time.  But I also think the metaphor works because the stakes are the same.  When your child gets behind the wheel of a car they take their own life in their hands.  And potentially the lives of others.  You have to trust in them, believe in them, know you have done every possible thing to prepare them and then you have to let them make their way.  

God and God in Christ does the same for his children.  He offers us the rules of the road, he’s given us the best driving instructor we could possibly imagine, and he vests us with boundless and unyielding love. But it is for us to decide whether to steer ourselves along the road he has paved for us, or to depart from it, and pay the price with our souls.

*For this reference and analogy I am indebted to “Prophecy and Apocalypse,” a brilliant chapter of Barbara R. Rossing’s, The Rapture Exposed: The Messages of Hope in the Book of Revelation, (Oxford: Westview Press, 2004), 80-102.

Genesis 15:1-6: Disappointed (מאוכזב )

The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir." But the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir." He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

One of my favorite movies is A Fish Called Wanda.  It's completely dated and pointlessly vulgar.  Right up my alley.  And my memory of this movie is mercifully vague.  But as I recall, at one point, Kevin Kline is trying to steal diamonds from a safe.  He painstakingly breaks into the and when he finally opens the safe door, it is entirely empty.  He pants, calmly and then yells, "Disappointed!"

In our portion this week it seems to me that Abram is doing about the same thing.  Not stealing diamonds from a safe, obviously.  Not doing anything illegal or immoral or even funny.  And he certainly doesn't cuss up a storm as is the case in this movie.  But he has worked toward a goal, he is operating on faith that if he does the work, takes his time, is patient and diligent, that God will deliver on the goods.

But in this moment, Abram doesn't see any evidence of the goods.  Abram has done everything God has asked of him so far: dragged himself and his family into the desert; pitched battles; made odd sacrifices and acted generally irrationally in the eyes of the people around him. In exchange, God has promised to make his descendants numerous and blessed. But right in this moment, Abram doesn't see it.  He thinks everything he has worked for is going to someone barely related to him. He seems presciently to know about Ishmael and to despair of leaving him any legacy.  He is, shall we say, in a snit about it, and he is giving God a piece of his mind.

Which is kind of a lovely thing, really.

It says, "the word of the Lord came to Abram."  Abram is so in touch with the Lord that he is open at any given moment to receiving God's words of instruction.  God can speak to Abram and Abram can hear Him.  And Abram can, immediately and with full throated emotion, answer back. Abram and God are so closely entwined with one another that they can have a dialog. Further, God is so present for Abram that they can actually move around together.  God "takes Abram outside" and "shows him" something.  God is present for Abram and so Abram can hear Him and talk to Him and even fell Him.

Here's an adage for you: the path between the houses of neighbors who are friends is more easily trod than the road to a stranger, even a loving one. The conduit of communication is more easily traveled when we are open and frequent in prayer.

Readers of my blog will know that my Grandmother was a very formative person for me. And she was a person in perpetual prayer. When she wasn't singing a hymn, she was conversing with God about the candles she was dipping or the beans she was snapping. I still see her sitting on the stoop of her back door, a big old collie sitting placidly beside her, telling me about how well she and God understood each other: "God gave me curly hair because He knew I'd never get myself a perm.

And she had plenty of reason to toss her hands up into the air and yell "Disappointed!" at God. She was one of millions of barely-getting-by farmers in the middle west in the early parts of the 20th Century.  They were hungry, desperate, they had five kids, severe health problems and they were always only day away from the poor farm.  In his seventies, with advanced Parkinsons Disease, you could give my Dad a year - any year between 1932 and 1945 - and he could tell you how much his family owed the store in town. Her family was bifurcated over the Klan, her children suffered severe burns and epilepsy, her daughter was widowed within weeks of her marriage. Pedro was an icky pig, her real estate classes were a waste of time and the "pond garden" never ever worked out. And she survived her husband. She had plenty to be disappointed about.

Like Abram - like Sara, she walked in faith when there was no hope left. She praised God at gravesides and bedsides, over stacks of dishes and in the face of blazing fire. I know there were times when she appealed to God and He could not offer her the words she wanted to hear.  And I know she threw her hands up at God and yelled at Him. WHAT was He thinking?  HOW was this helping? Sometimes we pray and there is no consolation, but we must continue to keep the conduit open.

And that is what I take from today's portion.  We are aloud, in fact expected, to take our disappointment to God. We are aloud to question Him, to have moments of doubt and anger and fear.  In those moments we have not lost our faith, indeed, our faith is not even tested.  Any more than God's faith in us is tested when we disappoint Him. Because above all things the most important is not always feeling happy with God, it is not always to be blindly accepting.  Above all things the most important is to keep the conduit open.

So that God can hear you.
So that you can hear God.
So that God can be with you.
So that He can show you the stars.

The Kenotic Qohelet

Ecclesiastes 1:12-14; 2:(1-7,11)18-23

I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

[I said to myself, "Come now, I will make a test of pleasure; enjoy yourself." But again, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, "It is mad," and of pleasure, "What use is it?" I searched with my mind how to cheer my body with wine-- my mind still guiding me with wisdom-- and how to lay hold on folly, until I might see what was good for mortals to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works; I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house; I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.

Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.]

I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me -- and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

An emotion, a sensation, a sentiment, a smell, all of these things can be described, but they are not communicated with bare description.  Really good writing brings its subject into the experience of the reader.  When the reader says, “Yes!  I know!” the work is done. If the reader says, “Yes! I know!” without having had the experience themselves, it is genius. Qohelet, the “Teacher” in our text this week, is not such a writer. Usually. (I frankly have almost no use for Ecclesiastes, except for the charming memory of being in an Intro to OT class where I, one colleague and the professor were the only ones who knew who Pete Seeger was….)

In this case, though, he’s managed to capture a moment, a fleeting and very “non-verbal” instant that occurs in the mind, or perhaps the heart, of the person who suddenly believes. In seminary we call this a “conversion” moment, but I dislike that term. It sounds like the person was “persuaded” or worn down under questioning by a really great attorney.  If that were the case, I can think of at least two people who, enduring daily training under just such an attorney, will never be worn into submission or conversion. “Coming out” is a vastly better term, I think. Becoming a believer in God is a little like coming out: it’s the public acknowledgment of a truth that has resided inside for a while. But I think an awful lot of born-again people would be uncomfortable with “coming out” and so they don’t deserve to get to use it. 

In any case, the moment Qohelet is describing here is the moment before the “conversion” and the moment before the “coming out.” It’s the moment before the truth becomes clear.  It’s the pre-conversion moment that has no name, can’t be described, but is as tangible and coherent as can possibly be imagined. It is helpful to know, as we read it, that the “vanity” he is describing here is not vain, but in vain.  It is not the Carly Simon “You almost think this song is about you” vanity, rather it is Mr. Darcy’s “In vain have I struggled” vanity.  A good translation from English into English might be “to no avail.”

In today’s text, Qoholet describes a person who has aspired to great happiness and utterly failed.  He has had a brilliant academic career. It did not make him happy.  He has been a party animal. It did not make him happy.  He has been a brilliant businessman, built an empire, achieved great things.  And yet he is not happy. All that work, he tells us, was in vain.

It would be easy, here to say, “Well, that’s because none of those things gives pleasure.”  Easy and wrong.  All those things bring pleasure.  Education is the light that fills my life.  Partying must give pleasure, or we wouldn’t have New Years Eve. Successes in business, accomplishments, even wealth certainly do give pleasure, satisfaction and happiness, just as their opposites give disquiet, displeasure and sadness. So there is pleasure to be had through these methods, and yet Qohelet whinges on.  He isn’t satisfied, he isn’t content, he is still restless in search for meaning in his life. None of the things that were on offer in his world give him the rest and completion he desires. He finds all those aspirations are in vain.

I think it is interesting to look his language here.  He uses active verbs: “applied my mind,” “searched out by wisdom,””lay hold of,” “made,” “planted,””bought.”  Clearly he was hard at work trying to figure out how to be happy, trying to accomplish satisfaction, trying to acquire contentment.  And where does he end?

“All is vanity and chasing after wind.”

And here my point may shock you. I, who ardently embrace the dissection and criticism of Scripture, I, who feel that the first responsibility of faith is skepticism, I here acknowledge that the only remedy for this kind thoroughgoing angst… is resignation.

Because it is in resigning our feigned authority that we are brought under the wing of divine protection.  It is in acknowledgement of our ignorance that we are given to understand. It is by embracing our humility that we begin to comprehend His greatness.  Qohelet throws up his hands and stops trying to understand it, to obtain it, to bend it to his will:  I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

Luke Timothy Johnson is famous for his dislike of polarities.  And I concur.  Most of our experience of life takes place on a continuum: of faith, of gender, of race, of power.  But there is one place that I can think of where absolutes apply: humility.  We must become entirely vacant in order for the Holy Spirit to enter. We must acknowledge our utter powerlessness in order to comprehend divine grace.  We must admit that ultimately all that we can do is vanity and chasing after wind.

It is called, elsewhere (and with great pretention): kenosis, the emptying out.

In the moment right after we do that, when the ghastly and gaping hole of insecurity threatens to engulf us, then, and maybe only then, can we begin the process that we call “reconciliation” or “conversion” or “salvation.” Regardless of what you call it, it begins now, right after the then. The then that Qohelet so admirably depicts.

NB:      Qohelet will go on, in this text, and complain about how others benefit from the fruits of his labors. He will gripe on forever about how some young whipper-snapper with an MBA is going to run his business into the ground when he’s gone. In answer, the Gospel of Luke reminds us that our earthly treasures are insignificant… but the genius of the Lectionary writers this week is in Colossians: 

            But now you must get rid of all such things-- anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth…. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Paul is telling us, in the nicest possible terms, “Here’s another chance to use resignation as a tool: Don’t let Qohelet’s complaining get to you.  Just smile and move on. Remember, you are an idiot sometimes, too. 

A Lesson in Transparency: Abraham and God at Sodom

¹⁷The Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, ¹⁸seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? ¹⁹No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.’ ²⁰Then the Lord said, ‘How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! ²¹I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know.’

Then Abraham came near and said, ‘Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?²⁴Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?²⁵Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ ²⁶And the Lord said, ‘If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.’

²⁷Abraham answered, ‘Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. ²⁸Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?’ And he said, ‘I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.’ ²⁹Again he spoke to him, ‘Suppose forty are found there.’ He answered, ‘For the sake of forty I will not do it.’ ³⁰Then he said, ‘Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.’ He answered, ‘I will not do it, if I find thirty there.’ ³¹He said, ‘Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.’ He answered, ‘For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.’ ³²Then he said, ‘Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.’ He answered, ‘For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.’ 

(Gen 18:17-33)

In reading and commenting on this particular passage, I think we sometimes get off the track a little, thinking that this is an example of Abraham negotiating with God, that he is changing God’s mind. That would present us with a pretty frightening idea of God as someone who can be persuaded, influenced by flawed and fallen humanity. That would be terrifying indeed.  But, I don’t see evidence of that here at all. Rather, I see this as a passage in which God is instructing us, intentionally trying to teach us how to be in community with Him and with one another. God is teaching us to be transparent with one another by means of a very transparent narrative.  It behooves us to look at it closely.

Let us remember that this story takes place relatively early in God’s relationship with Abraham.  They are learning how to be with one another, the way we do when the patterns of friendships are forming.  And God is aware that he is teaching Abraham, who will teach everyone who follows him, how to be in a relationship with God.

¹⁷The Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, ¹⁸seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?

God could very easily have just done what he was going to do with Sodom. He did not need to consult Abraham or give him advance warning.  He can just say, “This is what I am doing,” that would be vastly easier, I should think. Why open the floor to discussion?

¹⁹No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.’ 

Aha! So that he may instruct Abraham in how to “keep the way of the Lord” in order to bring Abraham the great joy of relationship with God and so that Abraham in turn, can teach all of us who follow and wish to partake of that joy. So God is telling us – quite transparently, I think – “here is how you should act to me and by extension to one another.”

The next line begins with the word u·iamr “And He said.”  As a result of his reasoning in the sentence above, He makes the gesture to Abraham. He opens himself to Abraham deliberately. Importantly, He explains what He is going to do and it isn’t destroy Sodom.  He is going to go down and look things over and see what is needed. This is why I think the hullaballoo about Abraham negotiating with God is in error, God has not made up His mind, and Abraham did not change it. God did, however, admit Abraham to the wholeness of His experience.  This, I think, is the first lesson of how to be in loving relationship:  opening up to sharing in the experience: transparency.

It’s not an easy thing.  The person to whom you open may be critical, may ridicule or demean what you have shown them.  Or he may question you incessantly about it, which is what Abraham does.

Then Abraham came near and said, ‘Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

Note that Abraham never implies that he intends to change God’s mind.  He only wishes to understand what God is doing?  He operates from a position of humility and love, thus: “I know you are just and righteous” and “I know that I can’t possibly understand it all” so help me understand.  Despite the inherent chutzpah of the act, Abraham is trying to understand God: what is the minimum number?  Where is the line where your wrath becomes mercy? Abraham never says the Hebrew equivalent of “Let’s make a deal” and God never says the Biblical equivalent of “Oy!  You’re right, Abraham!  I’ll change my mind.” Abraham is asking: “Let me understand you” and God is answering “Yes, you are welcome to ask and to try to understand and I for my part, will try to remain open to you and let you come in and understand me.” 

The next part of the lesson is in how Abraham responds:

²⁷Abraham answered, ‘Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.

Humility is the essential ingredient in entering into relationship: “I cannot know, I do not know, therefore I ask, explain to me.”  Humility, you may know, means “from the earth” or for our purposes, from the ground up.  There is also present in this humility, a presumption of love. 

²⁵Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’

That is, we have no earlier baggage that causes us to suspect one another.  I believe you to be a good and honest person, I know you do not mean to be unfair - let me understand you.  I know you are a good person - let me understand how this happened. I love you and I know if you let me in, I will find inside you even more to love.

This, I believe is residue from an earlier broken relationship (Gen 8:9): we are our brother’s keepers.  You see none of us really thinks we are bad or evil inside, we think, “If only they knew my real motivation, they would not judge me harshly” or something like it.  Here is the chance, indeed the obligation, to open oneself to the understanding of your brother – and to expect to be met with loving kindness. Empathy emerges from understanding.

Implicit in this description is the implication that we should be able to question God. It is important to remember that to question is not the same thing as to doubt.  I believe questions are elemental to faith. We know God is great and trustworthy and ultimately good, and so we pursue an understanding of God with that certainty in mind, knowing that we will find that in the end. We do this because we love our God with all our hearts and all our minds. We must engage critical faculties to understand God – a famous theologian once said (roughly) “God did not bless me with intellectual powers and then expect me not to use them.”  Indeed, in this passage, God seems to be calling on Abraham to use them. And there is a tradition of questioning God in our Scripture.  Rachel, laments the death of her children (Jer 31:15) and God is called to account for what had transpired. And so we are called upon to ask and, like Abraham in this passage, to keep on asking.

It is not, you see, God's job to explain God to us.  It is our job to pursue an understanding of God.  If we wish to know God we must use our faculties and we must ask and ask and ask questions, down the last minutia, until we are at risk of getting on God's very last nerve.  That is what Abraham does here and guess what?  God is patient with him, God answers every question.  God does not jump ahead and answer more than Abraham asks, God never snaps at Abraham for being persistent in his pursuit.  In order for Abraham to lead his people into an understanding of God, he must ask and ask and ask. And here we see that God will answer and answer and answer. This, I believe, is the next step in the lesson on relationship: patience.

When our loved ones want to probe us, we must be willing to answer the questions that are asked, patiently, lovingly.  Because in so doing we open ourselves to understanding, to empathy and to love.  We must be guided by God’s gesture of openness to us. For if we are not, we risk being mysterious, unpredictable and ultimately alone.  

And when we want to ask the questions of someone else, to be able to understand and therefore to love them, we must keep asking the questions. We must risk irritation, redundancy, nagging, boring and being nosey. However, we must be lead by Abraham's example as well: we must operate from a position of love.  

It is a terrifying prospect for all involved: to expose one's self, to open oneself to questioning; and also to question a loved one and risk rejection. It is frightening to be vulnerable, it is frightening to be questioned, it is frightening to ask to be admitted into someone's heart.  It takes courage to be in relationship, with God or our fellow human being.  But it is, it seems to me, that courageous vulnerability is what God wants from us.  

But here is my post script, as well.  I said in the outset that this passage occurs early in the relationship of Abraham and God.  They learn to be in relationship with one another and their transparency and willingness to be vulnerable to one another leads them to an almost ideal intimacy. But what then?  Later in their relationship, God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son – the Akeda, the binding of Isaac (Gen 22).  In that text, Abraham does not ask anything of God.  He does as he is explicitly commanded – the polar opposite of this passage.

Perhaps Abraham participates willingly I the binding of Isaac because of this earlier experience with God. Perhaps God has the emotional currency with Abraham to be able to ask anything of him without question. We could argue that the kind of transparency we learn in this passage enables us to endure trials like the Akeda in our lives and relationships.

And yet that does not satisfy me. Because of the relationship of Abraham and God after the Akeda.  Never again does God speak directly to Abraham.  Never again does Abraham speak to God.  Can it be that in that moment -God by not opening up to Abraham and Abraham by not seeking transparency with God - they lost hold of the divine intimacy that they knew at Sodom?  I can’t help but wonder if Abraham had raised his voice at the Akeda, as he does here at Sodom, would his relationship with God have ended differently?