Written by E

Deep Immersion in the Bible

Who has time to blog in a pandemic? I’m sure there’s plenty that do. Ever read one of those food blogs that wax poetic about arugula when all you want is the damn recipe? I wonder if that’s a lucrative thing. Bless those bloggers and their poetry.

Anyway. The election happened. My candidate won. Ultra-nationalist white supremacists endorsed by the Republican Party attempted a coup. No one was held accountable…yet. I’ll never forget the horror of watching that unfold. It took me back to 9/11/01 in Psychology class at York Community High. The teacher was crying, the principal could barely keep it together on the overhead speaker. Only a few people died this time around, but as of writing this, over 520,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. The coup felt like a tragic but necessary visual to sum up the crisis of our culture. I could go on and on, right? A good shout into the void can certainly help for a few moments. But who has time to read more about disease? Both COVID and the rot in our culture? I’m so weary of it all. Yet I stay with it.

The last weekend of February, our Jewish siblings celebrated Purim. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a fascinating holiday. Costumes, masquerades, hamantaschen, telling stories, and so one. It was a holiday I never lifted up as a minister and so, the week before, I found myself immersed in the Book of Esther. All I can tell you is that it is a sublime book. It’s a story of the marginalized subverting hate. Of women both being impacted by patriarchy and dismantling it from within. It’s a story of finding joy from hard won battles. It’s also one of two books in the Bible that never once mention God.

I don’t quite know what to say, but that reading of Esther was transformative. What does that mean? Well, as a clergyman, it means discernment. Everything is discernment. I don’t have words to describe my relationship to the text of Esther just yet, but what I do know is that I am left with a question. What is my relationship to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures? The Bible?

In the tradition I serve, we don’t use the Bible often. Sometimes we even leave it out of our Christian or Jewish observances, opting for contemporary renderings of ancient holy days. I’m guilty of this at times. I realize I used “we” language just now and that will illicit proper scoldings. There’s always that one progressive minister out there that keeps tally of how many times they use the Bible. Good for them, I aim to have such a relationship with the text (not the tally).

So, I’ve been wondering about this volume of scripture. The average American has 4.4 Bibles in their home (the .4 is so Marcionite). The stories are steeped in our culture. The texts have been colonized time and time again. Well-worn tomes were flung high in clenched fists during the insurrection. The former President (that lost the election) defiantly held it outside of a church in a disgraceful display. The Bible is here to stay for now. And yet there are redeeming qualities to the text, still. Esther sings out in subtle defiance to oppression…and wins the day.

How can this book be reclaimed, de-colonized, and de-weaponized if it is not understood? And so, for myself, and maybe for one or two of you, I’m going to read it. I’m giving myself 45 days, dividing it up into humane chunks of text. Why 45? Well, I could joke that it is in honor of President Trump — a man who represents the devil’s bargain Evangelical Christianity made with power. But, no, it was a random number.

I’ll post highlights here for each chunk of reading. What I won’t do is revisit my undergraduate days of sitting in the basement of my college library, surrounded by commentaries — most of which were in German. I won’t return to parsing out Hebrew or Greek or Latin or Aramaic. No, I’ll read it as it is. I’ll read it as average people receive it in this country…without the commentaries and Hebrew. I also won’t aim to be exhaustive. If you want some great lengthier summaries, I recommend checking out The Path or The Good Book.

Anyway, in doing this, I’ll ask myself a few simple questions:

  1. What is my gut reaction after reading these words?
  2. What are a handful of highlights or things I noticed?
  3. If I had to sum this up in one word, what would that be?

I’ll see how this goes. It’s a discipline, which I sorely need these days. And I look forward to more Esther-moments in engaging this body of scripture. I have ideas of where this could go as far as personal spiritual discipline, but, I’ll revisit that on April 22nd 2021 when I post my final reflection on the Book of Revelation.

Here we go…In the beginning…oh, and here’s the general plan, with ballpark word counts (and eventual links to the posts):