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? 

Mary, Martha and Me

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 

She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying.  

But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me."But the Lord answered her, " Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many tings; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken from her.   (Luke 10:38-42)

The story of Mary and Martha, like so much of Scripture, has changed in meaning for me over the years. That's the beauty of Scripture, I think,that is it timeless. It can speak to us over and over again, continues to be relevant and contemporary, personal and corrective. It continues, indeed, to be needed. 

Occasionally, as a mother of three with a house and a yard and all kinds of driving to do, I am Martha. I keep everything and everyone clean, fed and put away. I do not get to read, go to the movies or get my run in.   I do (here imagine me closing me eyes and holding the back of my wrist to my forehead) what is needed for my family at my own expense. It is possible to read this passage as permission to be the martyred and under valued stereo-typical stay at home mom. 

On better days, I am Mary as Martha. Or maybe, Martha with an attitude adjustment. Martha did, after all, invite Jesus in. She knew there would be some work related to that kind of entertaining, she knew what needed to be done and she did it. I read this as permission to throw a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday party, plan elaborate and nutritious meals no on would eat, don a proverbial cocktail apron and putter around the house with a hot glue gun and colorful ribbon (after all, it says it is Martha's house). Jesus doesn't tell Martha to drop what she's doing, she's not doing anything wrong. I am doing what I needs to do at this moment. I needed to nurture my family.

But most days, a mother of three in graduate school for Bible and with other ambitions outside the home, I read this text in a whole new way. Martha and Mary. I am Mary: I want to be at the feet of the master, I desperately want six more hours of study time in a day, I would love to go to that conference in Fall...I am Martha who knows that the laundry, if let lie on the basement floor will get moldy and spidery and no one will have anything to wear.... and I know that I have a paper due on August 6th... and all the time that grass is growing and growing, higher and wilder.... 

But the text reads, "You are distracted by many things. There is need of only one thing."

Recently, my 8 year old daughter was sitting in the back yard with nothing to do, no camp, no summer school, no chores or lessons.  She said, "Mom, if time were money, I'd be rich."  I answered, "If time were money there would be no "rich." We all get the same amount of time."

My mother, who made her living writing fiction, would occasionally be told by a neighbor or friend, "I could write a novel if I just had the time."  She would answer, "I get 24 hours in a day. How many do you get?"

Her house, by the way, was always just one dust bunny shy of actual squalor and she was an absurdly contented person.

 "There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

We all have a certain amount of time and we all have to "spend" it on what is needed.  If we spend it doing something that we think isn't "needed," then we are wasting our time, our time is "taken away from us." 

Now it is important to note that "needed" is not the same as "valued" or "enjoyable."   It may be working a job that sucks but pays the bills, it may be having a PhD but sticking your hand in a clogged sink drain. And there are certainly times when very urgent and horrible things are happening in the playroom, when what I need is to shut the door to the kitchen and sing "Praise to the Lord Almighty" very loudly. 

The point is, needed comes from within. Only you know what is really needed in any moment. 

The question is not "What do I want?' or "What do I deserve?" but rather what, in this moment in time, in this context in my life, do I need to do.  

As long as we know in our hearts that what we are doing is "what is needed"  and not a "distraction" then our time is not "taken away from us" and we are "choosing the better part."  

In my mind's eye, verse 10:43 has Martha walking back into the kitchen and saying, "I need to know that these dishes are soaking. I will need to make Mary wash them later."  Then she walks back in and sits down at the feet of the Master, beside Mary and nothing taken away from either of them.

 

 

Bad Catholic/Good Christian

This week Sister Margaret McBride, a hospital administrator in Arizona who authorized an abortion in order to save the life of the mother, was excommunicated by the Catholic Church.  The press has made much of the double standard of justice in the Catholic Church and the perennial debate about abortion. Let me say at the outset that this essay is NOT about abortion. It is about a much more profound and far reaching issue in the church today: are we expected to be obedient to the doctrines of the church, or the teaching of Christ?

What is at issue here is what the Nun did and what the Church did.  The Church knew its doctrine and acted with swift and sure justice based on that premise.  The Nun knew her Bible and acted with unflinching courage and mercy, based on the truth of Scripture.  Faced with the prospect of letting a baby die or letting a mother die, she followed the advice of competent doctors, the ethical guidelines of the church and the wishes of the mother.  Most importantly, she followed the example of Christ.

You see, Jesus of Nazareth was confronted with just such a quandary in Mark 3:1-6.  He knew the constraints of the prevailing doctrine.  As an observant Jew, he was prohibited from performing work on the Sabbath.  And yet he healed an ailing man, asking not about the letter of the law but its intent:  “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or evil?” 

As Christians and moral people, we throw around the word “obedience,” but what does it really mean to be obedient?  To obey means to hear, to really listen, not to the words, but to the message.   When my teenager is told not to go out after dark, and she goes out an hour before dark and stays out after dark, she is clearly not obedient. Similarly, when the Pharisees asked Jesus how he could heal on the Sabbath, they took the word but not the spirit of the commandment to heart.  Jesus was really listening to the commandment. Jesus was obedient. 

Similarly, Sister Margaret McBride violated the doctrine of the church (though it is important to note that she did not believe that she was at the time).  However, she obeyed the lesson of the Lord.  She was truly able to “hear” the  gospel  in this case. In the coming days her religious order may find that she is a bad Catholic. To my mind, and in my reading of the Scripture, she is, never the less, a good Christian.

On Humus and Humility

Last year I put a lawn in from seed. A whole lawn. It was a terrible idea, don’t do it. It is far better to grow healthy children than a healthy lawn.  That said, this spring when my lawn came in, I had a gardening epiphany.

As part of the process of setting the seed, I turned out the decomposed material from my composter, sowed it into the soil as far as it would go and set the rest of the seed in chemical fertilizer. You can very easily tell by looking which parts of my yard had humus from the composter worked into them and which were chemically fertilized. The part that looks like Eden and needs to be mown all the time but never weeded, that’s the compost section, the spindly “hair club for men” section with the dandelions, not so much.

I have a composter still and I use it almost every day when I make meals for myself and my family and friends. I load it with the ends of things: the stems of zucchini and the rotted places on peppers.  I put in apple cores and tons and tons of egg shells.  I pile it high with steaming coffee grounds and all the things that don’t make it onto the table.  These are the bits and pieces of things that were not good enough. They are things that would have changed the taste or altered the texture in a way I did not want.  Sometimes all they are is not pretty.  Sometimes they have been let get actually toxic.  They have sat in a container in my fridge until I had to confront them.  They have molded while awaiting my determination to make the dish I bought them for. They are the by-products of the end product, the trash that didn’t make the table.

My composter sits at the far end of my yard, out of sight, in theory, and away from where the smell might bother people, though if you’re doing it right, this process shouldn’t bother anyone else. I have to load up a bowl and walk out, sometimes through snow, across a dark and untrustworthy lawn to put things into it.  And then when I open the lid it is frequently smelly and gross.  And it’s hot in there, even in winter, cooking and steamy and revolting.

Now, compost is not an easy pet to keep. It has to be turned. You have to get out with a spade every once in a while and dig it up and turn it over all the time bifurcating worms and not inhaling gnats and trying to keep the gagging to a minimum. One year I discovered a family of mice living in a space in my compost and I had to work around them all summer to keep from killing them… so they could grow big and strong and move out into my cupboards where I could self-righteously poison them.

And then the time comes to turn out the decomposed material.  It is not technically humus, but that is what we call it. Out it comes, black and stinky and sweaty and strange.  You spread it out in the sun for a day to let it “cure.” The sun dries it a little, the breeze carries its delightful stench into the neighbor’s yard. And then you work it into the dirt and the effect is magical. While it isn’t actually soil, humus is “the life-force” of soil that enables soil to hold water effectively and drain easily, to make nutrients available for growing plants, to help decaying material to decompose. Humus, from the Latin word humilis meaning “low” or “humble,” is also the root of the word “humility.”

It makes perfect sense, really.  Humility is anthropological humus.  When we go out into the world, we try to present the best possible version of ourselves.  We try to avoid those aspects of our personality that won’t constructively contribute to the whole.  We cut away the bruises to our egos, we trim off the unsightly failures and leave off the sour words of recrimination and the moldy hurts we’ve let fester over the years.  These things are not suited for public consumption.  Now, we can, if we choose, put them down a garbage disposal and have them rush away with the sewage.  Or we can toss them into the garbage to build up with the commercial baggage of our time in a giant landfill somewhere.

 

Or we can force ourselves to load them into a bowl.  We can troop out, even in the snow, and dump them into a pit with all the other leavings of our lives, to sit and stew and break down into elemental pieces.  We might have to work it, once in a while to confront the stink and the pestilence that it has wrought.  But over time, if we are diligent, those by-products of our world worthy self will break down into their elements. And then, if we are willing, we can pull it out, expose it to the light of day and see, once and for all, that all those experiences, all those feelings, all those aspects of ourselves that were so totally not going into the salad, have become something infinitely more useful. Those ends and pieces are the starting point for new lettuce and new strawberries, new strengths and healthy places that one day, if all goes well, will end up as the true fruits of our labors:  beautiful and fragrant, healthy and entirely organic.

Who Else?” A Mother’s Midrash On 1 Samuel 5-12

Shay Robertson

A Mother's Midrash

2009

You shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son, for he will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others.

Deuteronomy 7:3-4.(NSRV)

The Law tells us that the faith of the Chosen People must pass from mother to daughter. And it tells us why.  But G-D, rarely gives us a law without giving us an example to remind us of His reasons. Deuteronomy tells us what to do, or not to do.  That is the Law. But it is in 1Samuel, that the Holy One, Blessed be He, tells us why: that is Love.”

This is a story that does not reflect well on the Philistines, not that there are many that do.  They have taken possession of the Ark of the Covenant.  It is, you remember, an elaborate golden box that contains the fragments of the word of G-D to his people Israel, as it was handed down to us at Sinai.  The Philistines have taken it as a spoil of war.

They took it home with them, first to Ashdod.  Now Ashdod was a major Philistine town, which sat a few miles from the sea east of Jerusalem.  In this town they had a large statue of a god named Dagon.  He was a Canaanite god of grain who had been adopted by the Philistines as their own.[1] Already, you see the Philistines are looking pretty silly; you may remember what they clearly forgot:  the God of Israel has not historically been very keen on sacrifices of grain (Gen 4:5). So, the Philistines placed the Ark in the temple next to the statue and went to bed.  When they woke, the statue had been tipped over and was face down in the dirt in front of the Ark.  It must have looked to everyone as if Dagon were worshiping the God of Israel. Embarrassed, they righted Dagon but the next morning, there he was again, this time his head had fallen off and his hands were broken away. This was sufficiently repulsive a sight to have discouraged anyone from stepping on the threshold there again.[2]  But that was just the beginning of what the Ark was to bring to the Philistines.  Almost immediately, there erupted among the people of Ashdod, a plague of boils that they were helpless to heal.[3] They threw up their hands in dismay and began to run wild with fear and panic.  Like Dagon, they had lost the usefulness of their hands and their heads.  Finally, the people of Ashdod shipped the Ark to another Philistine city.

The Ark travelled from one city to the next, five great cities in all. One after another, the Philistine cities were struck with boils, panic and death with the arrival of the Ark.  Finally, the Philistines called out to their lords to get rid of the Ark of the God of Israel because it was killing them (1 Sam 5:11)!

And so the lords of the Philistines assemble, along with priests and diviners. These lords and intellectual elite were not the proletariat screaming for release.  No, indeed, they have a prize in the Ark and they are not in any hurry to give it back if there is no reason to do so.  Someone must prove that the source of the plague on their people is the Ark.  But how to do that?  It is a scene one can easily imagine:

"We've all be struck with boils and chaos and death whenever we take possession of the Ark of the Covenant," some one of them must have said.

"Likely that is just a coincidence," says another.

"Oohhhh…," says one of the diviners, "I think the God of Israelites wants his box back."

The lords cross their arms over their chests and look around skeptically. "What if we don't want to give back the Ark?"

Here the diviners and the priests shake their heads. "Remember what became of Pharaoh when he negotiated with the God of Israel.  He was stubborn, he was made to look a fool and ultimately, he lost."

"Weren't there boils in that case, too,” one asks.

Another nods, "Bears a striking resemblance…."

The first priest shrugs and says, "You can see how G-d would use it again, after all, it worked the first time…"

The lords hear these words and look from one to another: "So, if we give back the box, the plague will cease?"

"I think so," says the diviner. “I think so….”

But nothing is easy between the Philistines and the God of Israel.  The lords lean back in their chairs and say, "Prove it."

 Here's where things get a little silly, and when things get silly, that's when we should begin to ask ourselves just exactly why. The priests are assigned to make a test to see if the God of Israel really, really wants his Ark back.[4] Their test, therefore, should incorporate as many obstacles as it possibly can.  These are the instructions of the priests; the men who were expected to best understand and know how to please G-D:

 "Make a new cart and load it with the Ark and guilt offering."[5]

The Philistines made a guilt offering: gold "tumors" representing the boils with which the Philistines had been cursed, and "mice" representing the damage done to the land under the Philistines. There were five of each of these, one for each of the cities to which the Ark had travelled.[6]  The Ark, as we have said, is golden, very heavy and elaborate.  Further, it contains pieces of stone slabs.  Who knows what something like that weighs?  This, all this gold, all these articles, plus the Ark and the tablets, all of this, they loaded into the cart.

"Get two milk cows."

Why two? Remember that these are men devising this test; they believe that the two cows will argue, fight and pull away from one another.

"These cows should never have known a yoke."

A cow who has never pulled a cart will not know what to do, will balk and fight in its traces.

"And put away their calves where they cannot see them." 

Here we see what the priests are really about.  What mother could stand to pull away from her dependent child?  What mother can embark on a journey not knowing where her child is or that it is in safety?[7] The weight of the contents, the power of gravity, this only holds the cart in place.  It is the urgency of the mothers to return to their calves which will turn the cart backward from its path. Here is the coups de gras for the priests; the greatest of all the obstacles they have dreamed up.  The only force that they can imagine more powerful than the will of G-D must be the maternal instinct.

"If the cows can take the cart all the way to Bethshemesh without turning off the path, then we will know that it is G-D's will to return the Ark and the curse will be lifted."

We have to pause to wonder what would have happened if the test had not worked.  Imagine the priests and diviners standing with the lords covered in boils and watching attentively while two milch cows pulled a heavy cart off the road and meandered aimlessly into a field.  However amusing that sight might have been to G-D, it was not what occurred.

All was done just as the priests prescribed and the cows walked the long, straight road to Bethshemesh.  It says in the text that they were crying (6:12). To be sure those mother cows were crying, but they arrived, never having left the path, never having turned back.  When they arrived in the field at Bethshemesh, the people of Israel rejoiced, burned the cart and sacrificed the cows.

 So, when we ask why “the faith of our fathers” passes through the mother, I have only one reasonable answer to give: “Who else?”

The Philistines took two mother cows; they separated them from their calves and took those calves out of their protective sight.  They yoked these cows together; they hitched them to a heavy cart and set them an impossible task.  One cow alone could never have moved that cart.  But these are two cows, they were women pulling together; the yoke, the work, the two, together. They would have to have faith in one another and in the community of their companionship.  They would have to have faith in G-D, for it is written that among women:

Where you go, I will go;
   where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
   and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—
   there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
   and more as well,
if even death parts me from you! (Ruth 1:16)

They left behind their suckling calves.  Their children would be hungry unless another mother was found for them.  There was no assurance that they would ever see their children again, or that their children would survive. Still, they leaned into their burden, and into one another, depending on the maternal instinct in others to protect their young.  And they depended on G-D, just as Jochebed trusted that her only son would be protected by whoever plucked him from the river:

When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him. (Exod 2:3).

They cried on the path as they walked away from their children as everything in them cried out to return to their young.  But the path had been set before them by G-d; they would have to have faith to walk it.  They would have to have the faith of Hagar:

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, ‘Do not let me look on the death of the child.’ And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.’ Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink

(Gen 21:15-19).

In the end, they arrive at Bethshemesh, having completed the task they were set at great personal cost, and they are sacrificed. They are killed, right there and their essence rises up to heaven as a prayer. The mission of motherhood is one of sacrifice:

Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, and she had a difficult labour. When she was in her difficult labour, the midwife said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; for now you will have another son.’ As her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Ben-oni, but his father called him Benjamin. So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar at her grave; it is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day.(Gen 35:16-20)

This story is sometimes called “the Exodus story of the Ark.”[8]  Let me ask you something, when you think of the Exodus, you imagine Moses and Pharaoh, but who packed those houses and children to be ready at a moment’s notice? Who kept kosher in the dessert for forty years?  Who bred, bore and buried the people of G-D all that time?  Mothers: anonymous, insignificant, and utterly reliable. 

Why hitch the cart to cows? Any other animal could have pulled the cart. If He were desperate, if the only way to return the Ark to the people was penguins, G-D would have worked it out. But G-D is never desperate, and He always a poet.  He chose milch cows: mothers.

Our faith passes through mothers because this is the preferred method of G-D for insuring that the covenant is carried from one generation to the next. Mothers, grandmothers and sisters, a community of people uniquely endowed with those qualities that are required to keep a faith community alive:

Together overcoming the laws of nature,

Trusting their welfare to one another,

Cleaving together in suffering,

And sacrificing themselves in the end,

As an act of worship and as an act of love.

When G-D wished to pass is Word on to His Chosen people, who could he trust with the task?  The answer, it seems to me, came to Him with a shrug: “Who else?”

Works Referenced

Birch, Bruce, C., “The First and Second Books of Samuel” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume II (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998) 110-114, “Birch.”

“Rashi’s Commentaries,”cv. Shmuel 1, Chabad.Org, http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15835/showrashi/true (accessed 4/24/09), “Rashi.”

The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 4 (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2009), s.v. “Mother,” Patricia K. Tull, ed., “Tull.”

The New Oxford Annotated Study Bible, Third Edition, “Oxford.”

---

[1] Oxford, 406.

[2]  Oxford, 406

[3]  Very likely the tumors were bubonic plague, which was common on the coast and frequently associated with the expression “the heavy hand of God” (Birch).

[4] Rashi tells us: “This is for the test. Since these cows are not capable of pulling a load, and furthermore, they will low after their young, if the Ark will have the power to enable them to pull it by themselves, we shall know that He wrought this upon us” (Rashi).

[5] This would be in keeping with the requirement that an offering be new and unblemished (Tull).

[6]  V. 18 indicates that there were more than five, that there were enough to represent “all of the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords.”

[7] “The portrayal of mothers in biblical narrative is complex... unlike men, women are depicted as without ambivalence toward their parental roles… “ (Tull, 155)

[8] There is a prevalence of Exodus language and imagery in these verses which supports the interpretation of this episode as an “Exodus Story” for the Ark:  the priests determine that the Ark can’t be sent back “empty handed” (Exodus 3:21); the seven months during which the Philistines possessed the Ark are reminiscent of the 7 days of the first plague against Egypt (Exodus 7:25); the plan to return the Ark is meant to “give glory to God” (6:5b) which parallels the “gaining glory” in Exodus 14:4. (Birch)

Sarah Laughed

Mother’s Day Missal

2008

Then the Lord said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah your wife will have a son."
    Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years and Sarah was past the age of child bearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old will I now have this pleasure?"
    Then the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really have a child, now that I am old?' Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son." 
    Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, "I did not laugh." 
    But he said, "Yes, you did laugh."

Genesis 18:10 – 18:15


When I was 37, I was training for a marathon. My husband and I had worked very hard five years before to have our beloved children, a boy and a girl, five and six years old, respectively. When our son, Sam, was born we knew our family was complete and we never again tried to have children. Now, because we had struggled with infertility, we did not have to work very hard to keep from having more. In fact, in those intervening five years, we enjoyed that special privilege that only infertile couples enjoy. It was a free and wanton lifestyle, I admit and we took it for granted. Then, that infamous fall, a few weeks after 911, I began to feel unwell. I went to the doctor and explained that my racing times were slowing down and asked if I was overtraining. She said: "Pee in this cup.”

At first I was confused but then it dawned on me. I shook my head, blocked the cup with the palm of my hand and said, "No. No no no no no. I can't get pregnant. I'm infertile." I said that. And then I laughed.

The next trip to the doctor was to a specialist. I was not entirely clear on why I needed to see a specialist but it didn't really matter, it was near the Dunkin Donuts where my Dad and Sam and I had coffee on no-school days and so it was no biggie. Until I got into the gown and into the room and the nice young man in a doctor's coat – the man who still had acne and a high voice but managed to scribble the words MD after his name, that man- came in and explained to me that I was a high risk pregnancy. 

"Why am I a high risk pregnancy?" I asked. I was in perfect shape, I didn't smoke or drink, I had never been promiscuous, I hadn't conceived on the full moon or pulled a Scarlet O'Hara on horseback.

            "Because of your age," he said gently. "You are 37 years old."
            I did not laugh. I snarled. "You're saying I am too old to have a healthy pregnancy?"
            “I'm saying being this close to forty, you are a high risk."
            I sat there for a while, letting my blood pressure rise to pre-ecclamptic levels and then hissed, "One of us is as risk, Doogie, but if I were you I'd mind my manners in the presence of my elders."

Being the "older mother", the "non-standard" mother, the "experienced mother" is not all it’s cracked up to be. My mother was forty-two when I was born and she only made appearances at school on Halloween so she could show off her cackle and make everyone think I lived with my grandmother. 

But I, I was never that woman. I was a slender, attractive mother of two, active at school and well respected in the community. I was my husband's child bride and we had "rich man's family" with the prospect of the two children, close in age, liking the same rides at Disney World and going off to college and leaving us in peace while we still had our hearing. Now, I was an "at risk pregnancy" because I did not get knocked up at prom.

Telling my Dad was the hardest part. He was himself thirty six when I was born, so to him I must have seemed ready to be a grandmother. My husband told him several days after we found out. I wasn't saying the words, yet. I was in denial. When I had to leave Disney on Ice (Toy Story) to throw up in the bathroom, it was because the show was that bad, it was not morning-all-day-sickness. But not my husband. Dave was a balding, almost forty, vibrant man who knocked up his wife – again – ha HA!

And my Dad's response was, "No." Like he could just say it and it wouldn't be so. Like we were asking him if I could be pregnant. He was decisive, he was firm and he was openly shocked. My step-mother laughed.

Over the years, the strangest kinds of things have occurred as the result of the late baby. I have had to tell my eldest daughter about her menstrual cycle while poking mashed bananas past perma-sealed lips. I have stood with Dave's grandmother touring a Senior Care Center with a baby in a stroller. I have had one child in the diving pool, one in the 6foot pool and one in the wading pool for three years in a row. And I have not had a good night's sleep since Bill Clinton's first administration. 

Now, forty three years old, a year older than my mother was when I was born, I begin to get the point. I am still very active at the elementary school, I am now, always have been and seemingly always will be training for a marathon, and I am still my husband's child bride, but things are a little different for me now.

For one thing, orientation at school? That should only be attempted after one large margarita. Because first grade teachers, bless them, are WAY too enthusiastic. And we have seen it all. All the other mothers who are dolled up for Orientation in cute little cropped sweaters and snazzy shoes are all a-twitter about the innovative way the children will be learning the denominations of money. I'm sitting in the back thinking, "Oh, no, please not "buying recess" again!" They are all about "what should my child be reading in summer to prepare for first grade?" I groaned, I actually groaned out loud. My goal for the summer is to keep Betsy from eating so much sand that she gets worms. Again. 

"Tell me, Mrs. Foster, may I come in and just watch little Cooper in class on occasion? I just love to watch him learn. It's such a magical time." 

Mrs. Foster patiently gives the detailed parameters for parent involvement in class… I'm picking my cuticles thinking: because if you come every day you'll screw up his life! Get a JOB, a HOBBY, a HABIT for goodness sake! Find a modifier for your name tag that is not "Cooper's Mommy."

 "Oh, and if you have any questions, you can ask Mrs. Robertson, she is your room mom and she is a veteran at these things."

A veteran. Now I'm a veteran. Because anyone who has seen my eldest knows I've been in the trenches. Because aside from the obvious emotional and intellectual toll it takes on a person to bring three other humans safely and sanely into the world, my body very closely resembles a battle scarred war vehicle. My feet are two sizes bigger, at any rate. And yet, if I were a veteran, I would have free healthcare. Gee, I guess that's not accurate then, is it?

But I smiled. Indeed, yes, it is true, I laughed. Do you know why? Because I could not see it at the time, but just as surely as Abraham and Sarah were given a gift from God, so was I. Just as Isaac was the beginning of something his parents could not know, so my little last lamb is the start of something new.

She can sing the entire Patty Page Songbook. She knows how to call her older sister "stupid" in American Sign Language. She can run so fast that her "colors run together" and every day when I sing, "Whoa, whoa, hey, hey," she answers, "I love you more than I can say."

At forty three when I had envisioned myself working at NPR and wearing Anne Taylor suits, I am now giving up coloring my hair, because who has time for that and when the mail comes I sing the Mail Song from Blues Clues. And while the mothers of middle schoolers I know have pop songs for their ring tones, mine plays the Wonder Pets Theme Song: "The phone! The phone is ringing! There's an animal in trouble somewhere." 

But unlike Sarah, I have companions. There are two other moms in the kindergarten class who have children in middle school as well. And we are old and grey and young and stupid together. We sit in our cars and laugh and try to figure out how to handle our eldest child's first crush. We sit at the dining room after dinner and laugh as we are confronted with pre-algebra, a blank map of the continent of Africa to be filled in, and a book-in-a-bag about circles. It's okay, we laughingly tell one another, to spill wine in the "Sound Jar" and to sign the report card in green crayon. Even at Winter Program when our children sing the dirty lyrics to the Carols because their older siblings taught them to, even then we giggle and snort behind our hands. 

So, here is how I envision the whole Genesis 18 thing coming down: Abraham is out there with the three visitors and they tell him he will have a son with Sarah in a year. She is inside, cleaning up, mind you, having just served an impromptu meal complete with fresh bread to these guys, while Abe is out there shooting the breeze. She hears the prediction that they make and – no doubt about it – she laughed. "I'm way past it," she says, "And Abraham is older than me!" She snorted, you know she did, but to herself. It says "to herself." A girl is not even aloud to laugh to herself! And the Lord gives her the old evil eye and she waves her hands, trying to suffocate the laughter in her throat and says, "No, I wasn't laughing!" 

Then he says, because even the Bible can read like a Seinfeld script sometimes: "Yes, you did! You laughed!"

See, it's her laughter that does her in. It’s not that she doesn't believe or that she's incredulous at the proposition. She does herself in because she has laughter. God knows in that moment that she has the key ingredient to being a mother in your older years. She can laugh, even in her "advanced age" and so God feels confident giving her a child to raise.

So, a year later when she is a new mom, and ten years later when she is older than dirt and still a mom, in fact, long after everyone else has begat and moved on to other chapters, Sarah and her friends are still raising children. And they are still laughing. 

And thank God for that.

 

Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter everyone who hears will laugh with me.”  Genesis, 21:6