BibleWorm

Episode 449 SUMMER SERIES The Daughters of Zelophehad (Numbers 27:1-11 and 36:1-12)

This week BibleWorm continues our special summer series on the Women of the Hebrew Bible with the story of the daughters of Zelophehad as told in Numbers 27:1-11 and 36:1-12. We marvel at these five young women who stand before Moses and the whole people of Israel to advocate for their right to inherit property after their father died without any sons. When Moses takes their claim to God, God responds simply by saying, “The daughters of Zelophehad are right” and then modifying the Torah for all time so that women can inherit property if they have no brothers. We talk about the courage of these women to work within the system to advocate for themselves and for all women within the patriarchal society of ancient Israel. We discuss God’s unquestioning acceptance of their perspective and full acknowledgment of their interpretation of the Torah, even as they point out that God had overlooked some issues in the original giving of the Law. We also recognize that this text does not go as far as we might wish, as the system of inheritance in ancient Israel remains fully patriarchal, with this one minor modification in favor of women. But then, change is slow and never happens as quickly as we might like. In that sense, the daughters of Zelophehad give us encouragement to continue in the struggle for women’s equality even still today.

Episode 448 SUMMER SERIES Miriam (Exodus 2:1-10 and Numbers 12:1-16)

This week BibleWorm continues our special summer series on the Women of the Hebrew Bible with a look at the story of Moses’ sister Miriam as told in Exodus 2:1-10 and Numbers 12:1-16. First we talk about the story of Miriam as a young girl, saving her baby brother Moses by convincing the Pharaoh’s daughter to hire their own mother as her wet nurse. We talk about Miriam’s prophetic foresight and her ability to know what needs to happen to continue the story of God’s people, even at such a young age. We discuss the solidarity among women—Miriam, her mother, and the Pharaoh’s daughter—that works even across ethnic and political lines to protect life even when the men have commanded otherwise. Then we discuss a troubling story in Numbers 12:1-16 in which Miriam is punished for complaining against Moses while her brother Aaron gets off scot-free. We discuss the way Miriam’s forthrightness gets her into trouble here when she seems to step out of her proper place in a world controlled by men.

Episode 447 SUMMER SERIES Tamar (Genesis 38:1-26) REPLAY

BibleWorm continues our summer series on women in the Hebrew Bible with the story of Tamar in Genesis 38. We bristle immediately at the hypocrisy of the men in the story who only pretend to hold to the societal norms they impose on her, and in doing so leave Tamar stuck in a holding pattern after the death of her husband. We draw out the profoundly different experiences of the man and the woman who lose a spouse in this story, and think about the risk and lack of privacy that seems built into walking through the world with a body that can get pregnant. It is a story for our time indeed. But we would be remiss if we did not also raise up Tamar’s strategic thinking, profound loyalty, and courage.  

Episode 446 SUMMER SERIES Sarah and Hagar (Genesis 16:1-16 and 21:8-21)

Happy summer, y’all, and welcome to our summer series! We’ll spend the next six weeks looking at stories of women in the Hebrew Bible.And we start with doozy – the stories of Sarah and Hagar, which we find in Genesis chapters 16 and 21. It’s so tempting to read these as stories of two individuals – or 3 if you add Abraham in there - but what are the social forces at work here? How much agency do these women really have? As the power dynamics become increasingly twisted and the possibility of a peaceable ending for this family becomes ever smaller, we wonder - why doesn’t God just subvert the whole social structure and tell a different story? Well, that’s not what happens. BUT - through the pain and plain awfulness of these stories, we see clearly that blessing can be intermingled with injustice – and that it is a powerful thing and empowering thing to have a witness to our sufferings.

Episode 445 Longing for Redemption (Acts 2:1-4 and Romans 8:14-39)

This week BibleWorm concludes the regular Narrative Lectionary season with the Pentecost texts: Acts 2:1-4 and Romans 8:14-39. We talk about God’s desire for the redemption of all creation, which has suffered under human neglect since the time of Adam. Paul envisions the day we humans wake up and realize that we were created not to serve sin but to tend creation in order to restore the world around us. Until then creation, and we ourselves, groan with labor pains, Paul says, as we await redemption the redemption of our bodies. We can see the new life that is possible, but the pain and danger we are experiencing in the meantime is all too real. And so we live with hope for a world that we know is possible but one that we cannot yet see.

Episode 444 Baptized into Death (Romans 6:1-14)

Today BibleWorm reads Romans 6:1-14, a complicated text whose beauty took both of us for surprise in the end. What does it mean, really, to be dead to sin – to be dead to the world as you have always known it, and live into a different reality? How do we do the work of retraining the habits of our bodies and our spirits to move toward alignment - toward allegiance - to this newly discovered path? We have lots of ideas, surely none of them complete. 

Episode 443 Justified by Faith (Romans 3:28-30 and 5:1-11)

This week BibleWorm continues our study of Paul with Romans 3:28-30 and 5:1-11 in which Paul develops the idea that God loves us and justifies us even when we haven’t done anything to merit God’s love. We explore the possibility that Paul is critiquing the Empire’s merit system, in which we are asked to give up our lives for the people above us. But Christ is not like that. While we were yet sinners, Paul says, Christ died for us. Simply put: You are enough.

Episode 442 From Faith for Faith (Romans 1:1-17)

This week BibleWorm reads Romans 1:1-17 - Paul’s letter to a relatively small group of Jesus followers within the very large city of Rome. What does it take to carry out this work of spreading the gospel day after day? What do the people there need – and what does Paul need – and how can they support one another? Again and again, this text centered us in mutuality – and not only in the human community, but in our lives with God as well.

Episode 441 Paul and Barnabas in Lystra (Acts 13:1-3 and 14:8-18)

This week BibleWorm reads the story of Paul and Barnabas in Lystra as told in Acts 13:1-3 and 14:8-18. We talk about Paul’s public healing of a man who cannot walk and think about the mutual faith that is required between the man and Paul, to trust each other enough for a healing to take place. We discuss the confusion of the townspeople, who want to worship Paul and Barnabas as gods, and recognize the tendency of all humans, including ourselves, to confuse the power of holiness with the physical forms in which we experience it. And we notice Paul’s observation that God is constantly working miracles in subtler ways. If we’re impressed by a healing, how much more so should we be impressed that God gives us rain, harvest, food, and happiness. The miraculous is all around us, if only we have the faith to see it.

Episode 440 Peter and Cornelius (Acts 10:1-17 and 34-48)

This week BibleWorm moves on from the Gospel of Matthew to the Book of Acts, reading Acts 10:1-17 and 34-48. It’s the story of a God-fearing Roman solider and his welcome into the community of Jesus-followers. It raises up for us all kinds of questions about the complex interaction between our identities, ethnic and otherwise, and our faith, including this big one: What if God works outside of human categories altogether? What if God doesn’t use categories at all?