In the language of "left brain, right brain"
constructs, the scriptures for the weeks of August call upon our
right-brain gifts. We leave the world of what we can see and
touch and document and enter a world of imagination and
creativity, a world of poetry and emotion.
We pass from the last vestiges of the wilderness and the
prophet of the wilderness, Samuel, to the courtly chronicler and
the beginning of the record of the Kings. We had begun such a
transition last month with the movement from the swift action and
immediacy of Mark to the leisurely contemplation of the meaning
of it all in John.
There is a world of human experiences in the scriptures and
many ways in which those experiences are shared. Let us be open
to them all. This is our Story. These are our spiritual ancestors
who are speaking to us. What can we hear from the Hebrew record,
from the gospel, from the epistle that will speak to us today so
that we can, in our own voice, pass the Story on?
August 7
Between Heaven and Earth
Psalm 130; 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33; Ephesians 4:25-5:2;
John 6:35, 41-51
The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children."
No more graphic example of that proverb is given than the
household of David the King. David, the winsome, fearless, gifted
shepherd boy grew up to be a powerful leader who could rule
kingdoms but not his sons or himself.
David did nothing to prevent the rape of his daughter Tamar by
one of his sons. But her brother, Absalom, the half brother of
the rapist, took his wretchedly used sister into his household
and for years plotted revenge. With revenge accomplished, he then
conspired against his father, making it necessary for David to
flee for his life. In pursuit, Absalom’s glorious hair was
caught in a tree, and he died as he had lived, hanging between
heaven and earth.
Our lectionary gives us the matchless Psalm 130 to express
David’s grief for his son, as it offered to express
David’s grief for Saul and Jonathan. But the words in the
book of Samuel have entered history as an eloquent expression of
a father’s grief: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son
Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my
son."
From that dark, tragic scene, it is a relief to turn to the
sixth chapter of John, where we will stay for the rest of the
month to meditate on one of John’s great "I am"
passages. John has Jesus identify himself as the bread of life
while speaking in a synagogue. He reminded the gathered learners
that their mothers and fathers had eaten manna in the wilderness
and had died. He offers them himself, which they can eat of and
not die. Understand-ably, they were confused. "How can this
man give us himself to eat?" they asked.
The epistle for the week describes the new life of the
eucharistic community, that, week by week, eats the bread and
drinks the wine and experiences the bread as flesh indeed and the
wine as blood indeed.
August 14
The Beginning of Wisdom
Psalm 111;1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14;Ephesians 5:15-20;John 6:51-58
The king is dead. Long live the king. We move to a new king
and a new court reporter. "So Solomon sat on the throne of
his father David, and his kingdom was firmly established."
Near the beginning of his reign, Solomon had a dream that God
had appeared to him and asked what Solomon should be given.
Solomon replied, "Give your servant an understanding mind to
govern your people" (New Revised Standard Version); "an
understanding heart" (King James); "a heart with skill
to listen" (New English Bible); "a hearing heart"
(American Standard Version).
What rich implications for the word wisdom! It’s not just
piles and piles of facts. It recalls, "The heart has reasons
of which reason has no knowledge."
There was a time in ancient Israel when this kind of
wisdom—a union of heart and head and will—was highly
valued. The responsive psalm chosen for this passage is Psalm
111, which contains the verse: "The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom." The word "fear" means the
attitude of worship that takes a first measure of who I am, that
I am creature not Creator. Walter Brueggemann, in his commentary
on the psalms, sees that fact as an occasion for doxology.
An easy transition this time to the Johannine Jesus and
Ephesians’ guidance for the new community of the Eucharist.
There is much repetition in the John passage; it has mesmerizing
effect. Prose cannot do it justice. The spirit longs to sing the
music that is so present there. Brian Wren has given us the
words, and an American folk melody has given us the tune:
I come with joy to meet my Lord/Forgiven, loved, and
free/In awe and wonder to recall/His life laid down for me.
I come with Christians far and near/To find as all are
fed/The new community of love/In Christ’s Communion bread.
As Christ breaks bread/And bids us share/Each proud
division ends/That love that made us makes us one/And strangers
now are friends.
And thus with joy we meet our Lord/His presence always
near/Is in such friendship better known!/We see and praise him
here?
Together met, together bound/We’ll go our different
ways/And as his people in the world/We’ll live and speak his
praise.
August 21
An Army of Equals
Psalm 84;1 Kings 8:(1, 6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43;Ephesians
6:10-20;John 6:56-69
These meditations may be difficult for us who are weary of
impressive monuments of stone and precious jewels built by slave
labor; who grow utterly weary of wars and rumors of wars, so that
even the armor of God may have little appeal. Then we hear a
wistful Jesus saying, "Will you also go away?" And we
hear Jesus in the garden, "Can you not watch one little
hour?" And we return to find what, in our haste to judge, we
may have missed.
All the elaborate work for the building of the temple is
finished and now all is made ready for the ceremony of
dedication. The temple had been made so that it was more
beautiful as you approached the place where the ark would rest.
Now it rested there in a place of thick darkness. And then the
amazing prayer of dedication—a house of prayer for all
people. Not only the prayer of the Israelite will be heard, but
"likewise the foreigner." The king prays that his
prayer will be heard "that all the peoples of the earth may
know your name." Such is the vision of this house.
"How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of
Hosts!" (Psalm 84:1). The Johannine meditation on the living
bread goes on, but it becomes too much for many and the report is
that because of it, many of his disciples turned back and no
longer went about with him. Jesus asked the Twelve, "Do you
also wish to go away?"
Peter, the spokesperson for us all, replies, "Lord, to
whom shall we go?"
Those who stayed are provided with the whole armor of God. The
talk of shields and swords and breastplates and helmets may not
be appealing to us who prefer the image of beating swords into
plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. But Marcus Barth, who
spent years working on the Anchor Bible commentary on Ephesians,
researched every item of equipment mentioned here and found that
every item was the equipment of an officer. There is no one of
low rank in God’s army. All God’s soldiers are equal!
August 28
Springtime Rhapsody!
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9;Song of Solomon 2:8-13;James 1:17-27;Mark
7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
The heading for this week’s meditation is from the New
Revised Standard Version’s Hebrew scripture passage.
The voice of my beloved!/Look, he comes/leaping upon the
mountains/bounding over the hills.
Look, there he stands/behind our wall/gazing in at window/
looking through the lattice.
—Song of Solomon 2:8, 9b
It’s wonderful and exciting poetry, pulsating with youth
and vigor. One wonders what form of denial was operating that
made the old King James version caption these exuberant frolics
of young love as "Church’s Love for Christ" and
"The Love of Christ and His Church." That Christ and
that church were hardly a part of human experience when these
wedding songs were written. The ancient Hebrews knew what they
were about when they acknowledged sexuality —the full range
of the body as worthy to be celebrated, a fit offering for God.
Perhaps a pale glimpse of this experience lingers in the
Havergal hymn we sang in Sunday school:
Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of thy love:
Take my heart, it is thine own
It shall be thy royal throne.
The responsive psalm is an ode for a royal wedding. The colors
and the odors excite.
The gospel passage shows the evangelist in a strangely
didactic mode that, though not intended, can give us food for
reflecting on how we have been reluctant to enjoy our bodies.
Jesus is calling into question the scrupulous tradition about
washing before eating. "Listen to me, all of you and
understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going in
can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
The Bard of Avon remembered that. There is "nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." n
VERNA J. DOZIER is an educator and lay theologian in
Washington, D.C. She is the author of The Dream of God: A
Call to Return (Cowley Publications) and The Authority of
the Laity (The Alban Institute).
Correction: In July’s "Living The Word," we
incorrectly listed the readings for July 31. The New Testament
readings are Ephesians 4:1-16 and John 6:24-35.
Read other articles by:
Dozier, Verna J.
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