Category: Daily Bible Reading Blog

A blog following the daily readings from the Revised Common Lectionary.

It’s a Bad Idea to Try and Handle God (1 Samuel 6:1-18)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
A fresco of the Philistine captivity of the Ark of God, from the ancient Dura-Europos Synagogue, excavated in 1932

The Ark of the Lord remained in Philistine territory seven months in all. Then the Philistines called in their priests and diviners and asked them, “What should we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us how to return it to its own country.”

“Send the Ark of the God of Israel back with a gift,” they were told. “Send a guilt offering so the plague will stop. Then, if you are healed, you will know it was his hand that caused the plague.”

“What sort of guilt offering should we send?” they asked.

And they were told, “Since the plague has struck both you and your five rulers, make five gold tumors and five gold rats, just like those that have ravaged your land. Make these things to show honor to the God of Israel. Perhaps then he will stop afflicting you, your gods, and your land. Don’t be stubborn and rebellious as Pharaoh and the Egyptians were. By the time God was finished with them, they were eager to let Israel go.

“Now build a new cart, and find two cows that have just given birth to calves. Make sure the cows have never been yoked to a cart. Hitch the cows to the cart, but shut their calves away from them in a pen. Put the Ark of the Lord on the cart, and beside it place a chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors you are sending as a guilt offering. Then let the cows go wherever they want. If they cross the border of our land and go to Beth-shemesh, we will know it was the Lord who brought this great disaster upon us. If they don’t, we will know it was not his hand that caused the plague. It came simply by chance.”

So these instructions were carried out. Two cows were hitched to the cart, and their newborn calves were shut up in a pen. Then the Ark of the Lord and the chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors were placed on the cart. And sure enough, without veering off in other directions, the cows went straight along the road toward Beth-shemesh, lowing as they went. The Philistine rulers followed them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.

The people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley, and when they saw the Ark, they were overjoyed! The cart came into the field of a man named Joshua and stopped beside a large rock. So the people broke up the wood of the cart for a fire and killed the cows and sacrificed them to the Lord as a burnt offering. 

Several men of the tribe of Levi lifted the Ark of the Lord and the chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors from the cart and placed them on the large rock. Many sacrifices and burnt offerings were offered to the Lord that day by the people of Beth-shemesh. The five Philistine rulers watched all this and then returned to Ekron that same day.

The five gold tumors sent by the Philistines as a guilt offering to the Lord were gifts from the rulers of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. The five gold rats represented the five Philistine towns and their surrounding villages, which were controlled by the five rulers. The large rock at Beth-shemesh, where they set the Ark of the Lord, still stands in the field of Joshua as a witness to what happened there. (New Living Translation)

The Ark Sent Away from the Philistines, by James Tissot, 1902

Out of all the stories in the Bible, this is one of them. The Philistines and the Israelites were fighting military battles. The Israelites did not do so well. Therefore, they decided to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of God (the symbol of God’s presence) to the front lines in order to win the battle.

The plan backfired. Israel lost, and the Ark of God (think Raiders of the Lost Ark, and not Noah’s ark) was taken by the Philistines. However, the five cities of Philistia likely regretted ever doing this. Wherever the Ark was, the people were plagued with nasty tumors, so that they suffered grievously. And that’s when the Philistines decided to hatch their own plan for ridding themselves of the Ark, while preserving their cities.

For three chapters (1 Samuel 4-6) we get various humans who made plans for the Ark of the Covenant. Since the Ark is a symbol of God’s presence, engaging in these plans is akin to deciding how things are going to go with God.

Humanity doesn’t get to flip-flop who is in control, God as sovereign over humanity to humanity manipulating God for their own purposes. Trying to leverage the Lord into what we want is a bit like believing we can make the sun spin around the earth. In other words, it’s not going to happen, no matter how much effort and ingenuity you put into it.

It’s a bad idea to try and handle God, instead of letting God handle us.

At least the Philistines quickly figured out it was a fool’s errand in possessing God’s Ark. And they had enough sense to consult somebody before they acted in getting the Ark away. Eventually, we’re all going to either humble ourselves, or just get humiliated; it’s our choice.

Yes, it seems like a weird plan – making gold objects in the shape of tumors – and yet the Lord often cares much more about the humility behind a plan than the actual plan itself. Despite being worshipers of pagan gods, God was picking up what the Philistines were putting down, and graciously received the Ark back into Israel.

Turn anywhere in Holy Scripture, begin reading, and you will quickly find that God will not tolerate any person or group of people trying to use, leverage, or manipulate heaven for it’s own purposes. The Lord has made it clear what is important; it’s up to us to live into it.

Holy and almighty God, help us to walk humbly with You and one another. Let your holy Spirit guide us on the right path to truth and reconciliation with humility. Help us to hear each other, for we do not want to walk by pride or self-sufficiency. Amen.

Temporary vs. Permanent (2 Corinthians 5:1-5)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (New International Version)

Back in the day, when my kids were small, we did our fair share of camping. We had a large two room tent that we called “The Tabernacle.” But even that large tent could not compare to finally getting back home to our house.

We are all on something of a perpetual spiritual camping trip. It may or may not feel like one, but every person is living in a tent. 

One of the challenges of the biblical writers is that they worked to communicate hope and spiritual realities in concrete language. They often made use of metaphors to help us understand. So, when the Apostle Paul likens our current lives to being in a tent, he means that what we are experiencing now with our bodies is temporary. 

Compared to the permanent resurrected body that will be coming in the future, our existence now in this present life, in this body, is not very glorious.

We consider someone homeless if they live in a tent on a permanent basis. In many ways, the Christian is homeless; we are not completely at home in this present body, nor in this present world. So, it seems rather curious to me that many believers in Jesus can be ruthlessly attached to the trappings and stuff of this contemporary campground.

If we were to make a list of all the things we do and all the things we have that are extra-biblical, that is, not specifically mentioned in the Bible, it would not take long to discover that much of what we do on a day to day basis – not to mention religiously and through church ministry – is rather quite temporary. Yet, too many persons cling to their stuff and their ways as if all of it will endure forever.

In those times when we experience bereavement; in the situations that demonstrate that we are mortal; and, in the circumstances that occur in which we glimpse how fleeting this present life can be, we begin to understand that what we need to be living for is the permanence of relationships expressed through the ever-present Spirit of God. 

It is good for us to long for a better day when we will no longer groan in the tent of this body so that we will connect with the unseen God who goes before us, with us, after us.

Camping can be both fun and challenging. But if we had to make an actual tent our real home, I can easily imagine how much groaning would happen every day. We would certainly long for a more established residence. Paul gets at this exasperation, which a temporal finite existence can be, when writing to the Roman Christians:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:22-23, NIV)

Because we have the Spirit, we have help. The Spirit is our advocate. Sometimes, because of our situation, our prayers to God only come out as groans; words can seem far away from us. Yet, that is enough. The Spirit speaks groaning, and knows how to interpret it.

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27, NIV)

God has our back. We may not know what exactly we are going through, and why we are going through it, much less how to even pray about it. But the one thing we do know is that God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

With the Spirit alongside us, there is the continual assurance and reassurance that we belong to God. Our present existence may be temporary, but the presence and love of God are permanent and will never change.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39, NIV)

Our present circumstances will eventually pass; they are temporary. But the love of God has staying power; it is permanent and forever. Our bodies are always changing; someday we will die. Yet, because of Christ’s resurrection, believers shall be raised with a body fit for eternity. Our tent will be fashioned into a house.

Eternal God, who always has been and always will be, help me to so connect with your Holy Spirit that I can discern the difference between what is temporary and what is permanent. Guide me with your holy hand so that I can place my present efforts into the things that will make a difference for eternity, through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

A Plan That Backfired (1 Samuel 4:1-22)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Transporting the Ark of the Covenant, Cathedral of Sainte-Marie, Auch, France

Now the Israelites went out to fight against the Philistines. The Israelites camped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines at Aphek. The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield. When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the Lord bring defeat on us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Shiloh, so that he may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.”

So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim. And Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

When the ark of the Lord’s covenant came into the camp, all Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook. Hearing the uproar, the Philistines asked, “What’s all this shouting in the Hebrew camp?”

When they learned that the ark of the Lord had come into the camp, the Philistines were afraid. “A god has come into the camp,” they said. “Oh no! Nothing like this has happened before. We’re doomed! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? They are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness. Be strong, Philistines! Be men, or you will be subject to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Be men, and fight!”

So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

That same day a Benjamite ran from the battle line and went to Shiloh with his clothes torn and dust on his head. When he arrived, there was Eli sitting on his chair by the side of the road, watching, because his heart feared for the ark of God. When the man entered the town and told what had happened, the whole town sent up a cry.

Eli heard the outcry and asked, “What is the meaning of this uproar?”

The man hurried over to Eli,who was ninety-eight years old and whose eyes had failed so that he could not see. He told Eli, “I have just come from the battle line; I fled from it this very day.”

Eli asked, “What happened, my son?”

The man who brought the news replied, “Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured.”

When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man, and he was heavy. He had led Israel forty years.

His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and near the time of delivery. When she heard the news that the ark of God had been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went into labor and gave birth, but was overcome by her labor pains. As she was dying, the women attending her said, “Don’t despair; you have given birth to a son.” But she did not respond or pay any attention.

She named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The Glory has departed from Israel”—because of the capture of the ark of God and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband. She said, “The Glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.” (New International Version)

It was a really bad day. Yet, it wasn’t a day disconnected from other days. This particular day had been coming for quite some time.

The Philistines and the Israelites were continually going at each other. They had been enemies for a long time. But the Philistines were only the surface problem. The real issue had been building ever since Eli and his sons Hophni and Phineas were the priests in Israel.

They were tasked with the sacred responsibility of caring for the Tabernacle – the tent which housed the Ark of the Covenant – and attending to the people’s worship and sacrifices. But they had been terribly irresponsible in their work. As biblical readers, we are meant to feel the building tension of inevitable divine intervention of judgment against the injustice that was happening.

In one of the many military battles which took place against the Philistines, the Israelites suffered loss. So, someone had the bright idea of perhaps getting God involved. No one perceived, however, the involvement the Lord was planning. God was ready to deal with the wickedness in Israel.

The Ark of the Covenant was brought from Shiloh to the front lines. This, of course, meant that the persons who handled sacred objects, Hophni and Phineas, would have to be the ones who bring it. We sense as readers that in spite of the Ark’s symbolism of God’s presence with the Israelites, this move isn’t going to end well for Israel.

The story is leading us to an important point: Faithfulness to the invisible God is much more important and powerful than a visible sacred object. The Ark of the Covenant is a symbol of what is right and just; it is not a supernatural talisman to ward off a bad and stressful situation.

Many in Israel were faithful to the Lord. Israel’s leaders, however, were not. In an age old story that has kept repeating itself up to the present time, the people keep supporting a bad government which does not serve the common good of all persons; it only serves itself.

What is interesting here is that God neither fights against the Philistines, nor the Israelites. The Lord simply didn’t show up. God was absent and did not help Israel. The divine intervention turned out to be no intervention at all.

The entire Ark of the Covenant plan completely backfired. The Philistines, understanding the brevity of the situation, were emboldened to fight like never before – thus bringing devastation on the battlefield to Israel. The narrator takes note to let us know the impact this has on the old priest Eli, his two sons, and the rest of that family.

Superstition will get us nowhere – especially when we are looking for solutions to problems we created for ourselves by ignoring righteousness and justice. The hard work of doing what is right cannot be substituted with magic.

There is big difference between believing in God and becoming superstitious and wanting easy solutions to complex problems. God is not, cannot, and will not be contained in a box – even if it’s the Ark of the Covenant.

Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all people may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and forever. Amen.

What Will You Do with Jesus? (John 5:1-18)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Healing the Paralytic, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1670

Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. (New International Version)

Christ at the Pool of Bethesda, by Artus Wolffort, c. 1625

During one of the yearly Jewish festivals, on a Sabbath day, a miracle happened. Miracles of healing are typically accompanied by celebration and joy. But not so much with this one.

It’s one of those things about living in a messed up world of broken systems, that an invalid can start walking and there are people who have frowns and furrowed brows about it.

Granted, the man who was healed by Jesus may seem a bit hard to like in some ways. We don’t really know what he was into, but when Christ bestows healing on you, then says to stop sinning, it’s probably a significant sin to warrant the Lord’s exhortation.

Regardless of any sort of sin, the man appears to be paraplegic. Especially in the ancient world, this meant all sorts of problems had to be navigated – such as needing others to literally carry you around (no wheelchair or handicapped accessible anything), long periods of social isolation, lack of bodily control over your bowels and bladder, and the continual needs for cleanliness.

This made the man hard to like by many people just because he likely had strong body odors and had to crawl to get around if no one would help. He would not have been pleasant to look at. But he would have to make sure you did because, in the absence of any charity, the guy’s only option was to beg.

I’m glad there are greater forces in the world than indifference and dislike. There is grace – which is an act of bestowing honor and/or forgiveness to another person. It is not dependent upon whether one deserves it. Grace chooses not to hold something over or against another. It is a deep concern for others that comes from within and not from without.

“I do not understand at all the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

Anne Lamott

Another gracious act that Jesus did was to honor the man’s dignity by respecting him with a question. By asking a question, we don’t assume we know what’s best for another. Sincere questions acknowledge another’s basic humanity. “Do you want to get well?” Jesus asked.

In the life of being an invalid and having little control over much of anything, including one’s own body, being asked a question is to receive the gift of autonomy.

There are many times in my work as a hospital chaplain that I speak with patients who don’t have a lot of control in their lives. I go out of my way to ask questions such as, “May I come in?” “Is it alright with you if I pull up a chair and sit down?” “Would you be okay telling me about what is going on?” “May I pray with you?”

This is important, because there are too many other people in this world who would just barge into a room, act like they own the place, and talk at them, and not with them – hence reinforcing to the person that they’re nothing compared to others, that they don’t have any real say.

The man’s response to Jesus was to essentially say that he is alone. He has no one to help him. Even though the man is in a city, surrounded by hundreds and thousands of others, he is lonely.

Not anymore. Jesus saw him, even inquired about him and learned about the man. Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, cared about a non-descript invalid and was sincerely curious about him. In a world of everyone for himself, Jesus championed the lonely and the lost.

A simple command to obey was all. Christ told the man to pick up his mat and walk. That’s it. Just as words created the world, so a few words created a whole new life for the man. So, he got up, and he walked.

It’s interesting that the religious leaders never seemed to notice the man when he was lame, but now that he’s up and walking around, they pay attention to his apparent work on a Sabbath.

The invalid was validated by Jesus, but Jesus, the one validated by the Father, was invalidated by the religious leaders, who are the spiritual invalids.

It was against the (their) rules to carry something around. Apparently, it was okay for people to be lonely, not contribute to society in meaningful and dignifying ways, and to suffer; but it’s not okay to walk and carry a mat.

Even worse, is anyone who would heal on the Sabbath and tell the healed person to walk and carry a mat. It was so bad, apparently, that it warranted persecuting such a person. But that’s what happens when people are forced to serve rules, instead of the rules serving people.

On top of it all, Jesus was working; and he justified it by stating that his Father keeps working. This was dangerously close to blasphemy by likening himself to God. For the religious leaders, not only was Jesus unethical in breaking the law, but he was also theologically immoral; he claimed a special relation with God.

The more that laypeople get to know Jesus, the more compelling he becomes; they want to follow him. But the more that clergy discover Jesus, the more angry they become and want to do away with him.

Ultimately, it is Jesus we must contend with, and not the law and our interpretations of scripture. We need to decide what we are going to do with Jesus… what will you do?…