Laugh-out-loud funny

Okay, so my intent with this blog is not to make a traditional online "diary" project. I don't want it to become virtual scrapbooking. (I find scrapbooking vaguely frightening, and I'm not sure why...) These first few posts are more diary-like because I'm still getting used to the whole blogging thing: what multiple posts look like, how the template works, how things are indexed, and so on. But my ultimate goal is to create posts that lead back to the Daily Office and from there back out into life again. I'm not quite ready to launch that concept yet, but when I read tonight's Lesson from Evening Prayer I simply couldn't resist giving it a try.

Who says the Bible isn't a funny book? In tonight's reading from Acts, Paul travels through many places that begin with the letter P and are completely unpronouncable. Finally settling down in Antioch (probably because it does not begin with P), he goes to the synagogue and basically recites the entire history of the Israelites in one paragraph. The greatest verse is when he says "God chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. For about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness." Hah! God didn't accompany them, he put up with them! Isn't the implication here that the Israelites were just a little bit of a pain in the ass to deal with? Really, they were always doing evil, needing correction, worshipping idols, breaking commanments, and lamenting. Lamenting a whole lot.

It's true that the Greek offers a different translation: "For about forty years he cared for them..." A kinder, gentler version. But I think Paul meant what he said. After all, look at Acts so far: there has been a great deal of preaching to Jews who just don't get it no matter now many times the message is repeated. It goes nicely with the Gospel of John, where for about ten days now each reading has Jesus saying "I am sent from my father, why don't you get that?!? Why don't you LISTEN to me?!?" The readings mesh so well that I have to admire whoever it was who put the lectionary together. He must have really known what he was doing. (Thank you, Thomas Cranmer.)

The broader message, I believe, is that we are all like the Israelites who hear the Word repeatedly and still don't get it. Jesus: "Okay, I just made that blind guy see. Do you believe me now?"

Pharisees: "Ahh, I'm not so sure. Maybe it was a trick. Do something else."

Jesus: (...Rolls his eyes...)

I suppose it makes sense to try to stop making sense of things, instead of doing what we do all the time, like the Pharisees were doing; and just try listening for a change. Be receptive to the message around us, really receptive, instead of trying to chisel reality down into familiar and comfortable shapes. That chiseling, of course, distorts the very reality that we are trying to experience. What a gift to be able to just be with things as they are, instead of how we require them to be.