BibleWorm

Episode 546 CREATION CARE Covenant and Creation (Leviticus 26:3-32, 34-35, 40-45)

This week, BibleWorm continues our series on Creation Care, with Leviticus 26:3-22, 34-35, and 40-45.  It's a text that presses the question – what happens when we lose track of the fact that we are part of magnificently interconnected system, and begin to imagine that we can – or even that we must -- function on our own? How does the anxious productivity of humans impact the rest of creation? And once we realize the harm we have caused, how do we move toward healing? We wish this text didn’t feel as close to home as it does, but we are glad it’s here. 

Episode 545 CREATION CARE Bless the Lord, O My Soul (Psalm 104)

This week BibleWorm continues our summer series on creation care with Psalm 104, a profound text celebrating the magnificence of creation, which brings joy not only to the human heart but also to all creatures, from the birds in the trees to Leviathan in the deeps of the sea. We even see the celebratory nature of God, who whisks about on the clouds, wearing a fabulous cloak made of light and rejoicing in all that God has created. The psalm also reminds us of the harmonious relationship God intends for humans and animals, with humans working during the day and animals prowling at night so we can each live our lives fully, without being a danger to one another. All of this, the psalmist reminds us, should make us sing throughout our lives at the incomparable glory of creation. Bless the LORD, O my soul!

Episode 544 CREATION CARE God's Stream Full of Water (Psalm 65)

This BibleWorm continues our summer series on Creation Care with Psalm 65 and special attention to the water. This psalm brings together scenes of prayer and silence, of humans and of nature, and of a God who is the orientation point for all of it. It made us wonder: What if we could see ourselves, for a moment, as almost like a sibling to the water? Both of us oriented toward God, both of us in relationship to God, both calmed by God when we inevitably become a source of chaos? And it made us wonder: if we could quiet ourselves enough to offer silence as praise – if we could quiet our minds, and the voices of scarcity and acquisitiveness around us – what else in creation could be heard? What would it say – to us, and to our Maker? 

Episode 543 CREATION CARE From the Whirlwind (Job 38:1-38)

This week BibleWorm continues on in our summer series on creation care with Job 38:1-38 in which God speaks to Job from the whirlwind, reminding Job of the beauty, grandeur, and complexity of nature that is beyond human understanding. Where humans were said to have “dominion” over the world in Genesis 1, in Job 38 humans seem almost irrelevant—God guides the constellations; God nurtures the sea; God sends the lightning bolts on their courses, and they respond, “Here I am.” This text invites us to lean into our not-knowing, to relinquish our supposed mastery of the universe to revel in its complex beauty. More than that, it reminds us that, in a world often marked by suffering, we are not alone. There is a whole world before us and around us, alive with responsiveness to God. Truly a balm for the soul.

Episode 542 CREATION CARE In the Beginning (Genesis 1:1-2:4a)

This week BibleWorm begins our summer series on Creation Care with “the” Creation text, Genesis 1. For such a familiar text, it sure did open up a lot of questions for us. How should we think about our place so late in the proverbial line-up – what does it mean to us that God has already issued a commandment directly to the animals before we are here; that we are created on Friday afternoon as everyone is closing up shop for the Sabbath, instead of a busy Monday morning? And as we try to inhabit what it is to be created “in the image” of God, how might God’s disposition toward the created in the 5 ½ days before we arrived help us find our way?

Episode 541 The Gifts of the Spirit (Acts 2:1-4 & 1 Corinthians 12:1-13)

This week BibleWorm concludes the Narrative Lectionary cycle with the Pentecost readings, Acts 2:1-4 and 1 Corinthians 12:1-13. We talk about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, which empowers the original disciples to speak in languages they don’t know, calling them outward from the culturally homogenous group to enter into the cultures and languages of others. That same Spirit, Paul says, pours out on the Christians in Corinth—and on Christians today—empowering us with a diversity of gifts, from miraculous gifts like prophecy and speaking in tongues, to floppier gifts like wisdom and knowledge. Whatever our gifts, Paul says, the community needs them all. If we withhold our gifts, or if we fail to recognizes the diverse gifts of others, we fail to live up to God’s vision for us as the body of Christ.

Episode 540 The Resurrection of the Body (1 Corinthians 15:1-26 & 41-47)

Today BibleWorm reads from I Corinthians 15:1-26 & 51-57, a section of Paul’s letter that is focused unwaveringly on bodily resurrection. It seems this was one of harder aspects of the faith for the people of Corinth, and it is a tough one for many modern readers too. But Paul insists that you have to believe the impossible thing, the thing that goes against what you have seen with your own eyes. There is no hedging: You not only have to wholeheartedly believe the testimony of others, that Jesus was resurrected in body, but that it will happen again. It will happen for all Christians, and, Paul seems to say here, even universally. What happens when we shift from a shift from a spiritual orientation toward the idea of eternal life to an embodied one? Why is this body piece so important to Paul? What are people, anyway? 

Episode 539 The Greatest of These Is Love (1 Corinthians 13:1-13)

This week BibleWorm reads Paul’s famous discussion of love as given in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. It’s not every day that Bobby and Amy talk about Paul’s letters and find ourselves in full agreement that Paul is in fact right. But both our Jewish and Christian traditions can fully affirm what Paul says here—that love is the one undeconstructible reality, the most fundamental principle of the cosmos and, one might say, the very essence of God. The sort of love Paul calls us to in this passage is anti-imperial, the sort of soft love that seems foolish to those who live in a world where domination, control, and pride are the logic of the day. By contrast, Paul calls us to a softer way of inhabiting the world, characterized by patience, kindness, and yielding to others, trusting and hoping in the power of love toward which the world is ultimately moving.  

Episode 538 Unity in the Cross (Acts 18:1-14 & 1 Corinthians 1:10-18)

This week BibleWorm reads Acts 18:1-4 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-18, our introduction to the city of Corinth, a busy port city with all kinds of diversity and disparity ... almost like an ancient Las Vegas. And here in this city, Paul tasks the budding church with finding a way to profound unity. Speaking to a people that seem prone to latch on to the messenger instead of the message, as we humans like to do, Paul does whatever he can to sever that connection, even when that’s painful, in order to insist that his listeners find a common anchor point in something much bigger, something that unites them all: the cross itself, and only that. Is it possible for us humans to connect to something that big without holding onto the medium that gets us there? And how do we not lose the forest for the trees?

Episode 537 The Church in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9 and 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10)

Today BibleWorm reads from two different books in the New Testament. We hear about Paul’s visit to the community  in Thessalonica in Acts 17:1-9 and then read from his letter to that community in 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10. As we read about the struggle of those early days for that budding church community, we wonder, what does it take for someone to throw in their lot with a revolutionary movement and really stick with it through all the real risk and seemingly constant uncertainty? And how can we support one another in living that sort of courageous life today?