How I read: a meditation on certain passages from Job 38

 “Who makes provision for the raven

when his little ones cry out to God

craning their necks in search of food?”

--Job 38:41

This morning as I read chapter 38 in the book of Job, I was struck by a few things and they made me reflect on how I read and why.  The first thing that I underlined was this passage above.  I found that image of the baby ravens, the “little ones,” crying “out to God” very delightful.  The idea that the birds are calling out to God, singing to God, delights me.  In the context of the book of Job, this is the voice of God calling out to Job from the whirlwind, and challenging him to a kind of duel; or to a reconsideration of his complaint, his position in the grand scheme of things.  God keeps asking Job these wonderful intensely primal questions:

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

What supports its pillars at their bases?

Who laid its cornerstone?

Who pent up the sea?

Have you ever given orders to the morning?

Which is the way to the home of the light?

Where does darkness live?

Have you visited the place where the snow is stored?

(cf. 38:1-22ff)

Questions that Job clearly cannot answer.  And yet God continues.  And in the midst of all this there is this wonderful question about the ravens and their “little ones [who] cry out to God...”  I don’t have any deep insight into this, only the urge to pause and ponder it.  The little ones of the raven cry out to God.  It reminds me of a line from Wallace Stevens’s wonderful “Sunday Morning.”   

“I am content when wakened birds,

Before they fly, test the reality

Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings...”

I love that idea: the birds testing the reality of the morning or crying out to God for food.  It feels true to me. I believe in the truth of those birds crying out to God and anxiously testing the reality of the dawn... That makes sense to me.  It is how I read not only a book or a poem, but the world.  I don’t know why this is, but I think that all my life I have read with eyes that are constantly looking for God.  And finding Him –everywhere.

Here are two more passages that caught my eye; and not for any spiritual reason, but because they gave me pause.  First was verse 30.  I read:

“when the waters grow hard as stone

and the surface of the deep congeals...”

And I had to stop and wonder: Does Israel ever freeze? What parts of the Middle East experience this kind of cold; where a lake or a body of water would freeze over “hard as stone?”  I checked the Internet and there are occasions when Israel experienced deep cold snaps and had snow storms, but no mention of ponds or lakes freezing over.  So, then I wondered: does this detail give scholars some geographical clue about the author’s homeland? Clearly he or she was aware of such weather phenomenon’s as a hard freeze. Hmmm...  makes me wonder.

Second, I was curious about 38:31-33:

“Can you fasten the harness of the Pleiades,

or untie Orion’s bands?

Can you guide the Crown season by season

and show the Bear and its cubs which way to go?

Have you grasped the celestial laws?”

This little celestial moment gave me a brief thrill.  And it was especially that reference to the bear and her cubs.  According to the footnotes, the bear the author refers to is Ursa Major and her main cub is Ursa Minor.   Reading that got me wondering about ancient peoples and the stars, and my first thought was to wonder if this “bear” was an imposition of the translator. Did the ancient author actually refer to the constellation as a "bear?" (Biblehub.com is a good place to look for answers to questions like that. Find your verse, and click on the interlinear translation link. In this case the word translated as "the bear" is a feminine noun that could mean a female bear, but not necessarily. Much is being derived from the context.) Also, how do we know what ancient people saw in those constellations?   But when I did a little research I learned that several ancient cultures actually did see in this constellation the shape of a bear[1].  Which, of course, gave me to wonder about Orion, the hunter.  Anyway, it was kind of fun to research weather and constellations during my Bible study this morning. To follow the text wherever it leads... And to ponder the cooing of the doves in my backyard, and the cawing of the blue jays and to hear in them not random instinctive sounds, but an early morning office; a call to prayer; a reminder that we are all dependent upon that same beautiful love that laid the foundations for the earth, that fills the storehouse of the snow and knows the home of the light and where the darkness lives.  Those little ones crying out to God remind me that I should get down on my knees this beautiful quiet morning and do the same –even if it is just to say a simple thank you, because I have hot coffee and cold toast and a quiet house.  And a “good book” to read.

And of course, tonight, when I go for a walk and gaze up at the stars I will feel a new kinship with the world, even with a Hebrew poet who lived perhaps 3000 years ago.  Anyway, that’s how I read...  How about you?

---

[1] Although some also saw in it a crustacean, among other things. For more information click here.

Why pray? thoughts for the fifth Sunday of Easter

“If you remain in Me and

My words remain in you,

ask for whatever you want

and it will be done for you.”

–John 15:7

 Is it true?  This passage from John; is it true? If you think about it for any length of time, do you think: Yes. It is confirmed in my own experience. When I pray, I do get what I want! Or, are you like me.  How often have I prayed for strength, for peace, for help, for healing and yet still felt alone, weak, and broken?  How many innocent children have prayed sincerely and desperately for help yet never received it? Or the addict who prayed for help, for courage, even for a cure, but finds himself slipping back into drink, or drug, or self-destructive habit.  Or the parent who prayed for the suffering child? Isn’t even one, proof enough[1]? How many do we have to list to disprove this statement?

And so, I ask myself: Why pray? Why do you pray? Why do I pray? Why should we bother?

“…ask for whatever you want

and it will be done for you.”

            If it isn’t true, then it certainly makes me wonder: isn’t it evidence against itself? Evidence that either the scriptures or the Lord cannot be trusted?   Who can believe a word this “man” says?   

            Certainly, after any number of apparently unanswered prayers, one can understand why a person, even a Christian, would stop praying.  It ends up seeming like nothing more than “magical thinking,” as some atheists have called it.  And how often do we hear people say: Our thoughts and prayers are with you?  As if prayer were just a kind of thinking, equal to daydreaming or wishing or hoping for something.  Is it?  Are they the same?  Or is there more to this question of pray than meets the eye?

            If the Bible is the Word of God, and if –as Christian maintain—it is unerring, then what does it mean, what does Jesus mean when He says: “…ask for whatever you want, and it will be done for you?” So bold a statement, and one so easily disproved… what does it mean? And this isn’t just a weird promise found in John (cf. 14:13; 16:24). It also shows up in Matthew 21:22, and Mark 11:24, as well as passages in all 4 gospels that could easily be interpreted as promising the same (cf. Mt. 7:7; Lk 11:8-10).  Apparently, it was really part of the teachings of our Lord. And if we are supposed to believe it, then what is Jesus really saying? Why is Jesus so bold in His promises about the power of prayer and particularly prayer in His name?

            I can honestly say this: the vast majority of times when I have prayed for help or guidance or strength or will power or courage (this isn’t asking for a new electric football set, or a ninth inning homerun for Jimmy Wynne), I can honestly say that even after invoking the name of the Lord, at the minimum 99.9% of the time I feel no immediate consolation, no more hope or strength or courage or will-power --sometimes I even feel discouraged because nothing changed, nothing miraculous happened. 

            So, why do I continue to pray?

            Because prayer --for me—anymore—isn’t about getting what I ask for, it’s about getting what I need (which is almost always: less of myself).  I have come to believe that prayer isn’t even about getting, but about giving. I give myself to God; put myself in His hands, submit myself to His will; and in doing so, conform myself more to the body of Christ.

            If prayer is really only about getting what we want, and what we want is a new job, new car, easier life, healthier body, win the lottery, then perhaps it really is just magical thinking. Seen in that way God becomes a kind of magical or spiritual vending machine.  I put in my coin (my prayer) and turn the knob (cross myself and mention Jesus name), and out comes a healed wife, a happier child, a more obedient cat, or my name atop the Nobel Prize list[2]. 

But, in my life, that isn’t how prayer works –and not how God seems to work, either.  In my life, prayer changes me more than it changes God.  I have come to think of it like planting a garden; those first desperate pleas and prayers are seeds planted in the dark silent earth –the cold of the grave, one might say—but as with a garden, with time, with some attention and care and nurturing, even some neglect (perhaps most of all this)—little by little tendrils green begin to appear, a tender leaf unfolds, new life appears, and without realizing it suddenly one morning flowers are blooming.

This is why I keep praying –not to plant a seed in God, but that God might plant a seed in me. So, prayer is my way of turning the earth, preparing the soil, stirring in some compost. Ask any serious gardener --pulling weeds is a constant effort.

Instead of thinking of prayer as a vending machine, think of it as gardening; as the original “slow” movement. It’s the original alternative life style.

I’m struck by that image in Genesis: walking in the garden with the Lord in the cool of the evening…

And it was good…

That’s why I pray.  To find a piece of that – a peace like that—growing in the soil of my being. That, like the soil in that original garden, the soil we were first formed from, my soil, my being, might bring forth much life. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t pray for what I need, what I want, what I hope for.  I still get on my knees and bring it all to God. Every bit of it. The selfish and the selfless, The mundane and the miraculous, I still ask for it.  I give it all to Him.  It just means I can’t measure the results in a bank book or on a tally sheet.  In fact, I’m not sure I can measure them at all. What I can do, is watch for stirrings of green.  Signs of new life.  And celebrate each and every one.

Dear Lord,

You took a vine out of Egypt,

planted it, cleared the ground,

it took root and spread…

Give me the patience, Oh Lord

to wait for the precious fruit

of that vine, and the courage

to continue to pray, and to wait

like the farmer for the early and the late rains…

And let me walk beside You always

in the cool of the evening, in Your fruitful garden…

           

---

[1] I won’t mention the unsuccessful poet who prays for a poem to be accepted by the New Yorker or the beleaguered football fan who prays for the Oilers to go to the Super Bowl or the struggling student about to take a test…

[2] Or Bum Philips stays in Houston and Earl Campbell wins the Nobel Prize for football.

It runs in our blood --Jacob & the family trade

“…Joseph recognized his brothers…” –Genesis 42:8

I am still reading Genesis (for a librarian –I am a very slow reader, though there is also the excuse of new kittens in the house).  And, of course, this is the eternal word of God, so what’s the hurry.

Having just reached the story of Joseph, it intrigues me that the “trickster” theme continues in this part of the Jacob narrative.  It is as if the family business were tricking people and we see that “trade” played out again and again in these stories here at the end of Genesis.  First Jacob takes advantage of his brother’s hunger and careless way with words to steal Esau’s birthright, then Rebekah and Jacob trick Isaac into blessing him (masquerading as Esau), then Laban (Jacob’s uncle) tricks Jacob into marrying the wrong daughter (Leah) before giving him (also) the one he was promised (Rachel). Then Jacob tricks Laban and Esau (again), and now we see Jacob’s children employing the family trade in their treatment of each other.  The brothers plot against Joseph –who is carried off to be sold in Egypt-- and then trick their father into thinking he’s been killed by a wild animal. And now, this morning I am reading that Joseph (the sweet and wonderful and miraculously wise and chaste Joseph) is playing tricks on his brothers.  It is as if the family cannot help themselves. It is in their DNA.  Trickering runs in their blood.

When the brothers come to Egypt seeking food (because of the great famine), Joseph recognizes them, but they don’t recognize him and thus begins the great trick that will end with the saving of Israel as Jacob/Israel and all his people move to Egypt to live with Joseph. And, of course, we know how that story ends… Charlton Heston comes to the rescue!

                But, what interests me here is this: what lesson is God teaching us through these stories?  What lesson are we to derive from the story of this trickster family who play a key part in God’s plan?  God seems to dearly love this family that lies and steals and manipulates each other.  And through them He founds His people?  What does that tell us about our relationship to God? And what does it tell us about His relationship to us?  I think this is something I will need to wrestle with for a long time.