Become A Blessing for All People
There’s an awful lot on the table this week. In one corner,
wearing the white trunks, we have Abram, Sarai, family members and people and
creatures they have accumulated leave it all behind to go where YHWH sends them.
They leave Ur of the Chaldees, in Sumer, a bustling metropolis. In many ways a
modern city and an extraordinary religious center! Abram was evidently part of
the huge Semitic minority that lived in this large Sumerian city-state. Ur had
hot and cold running water, a sewer system, multistory buildings, paved roads,
major temples, ornate furniture, and a variety of metal instruments. The
Sumerians developed a sexagesimal system that divided the hour into 60 minutes,
the minute into 60 seconds, and the circle into 360 degrees—a system that we
still use today. There were well developed law codes and a standard system of
weights and measures. It would be a significant city even by today’s standards.
All this made Ur part of the first empire history had ever
seen under King Sargon some 2,300 years before the time of Christ. It also
boasts being the home to the first named author and poet in history, Enheduana,
Sargon’s daughter and high priestess at the Temple of the moon god, Nana –
whose own daughter, Inana, was the goddess of love, war, fertility, divine law
and political power. Whenever Enheduana was in danger of being cast out of the
Temple by another pretender, it was Inana whom she would prod to destroy her
enemies, and substantial fragments of two great hymns to Inana survive to this
day: The Exaltation of Inana and a Hymn to Inana. Inana is pictured both as
pining after a young shepherd boy on one hand, and as a ruthless warrior
“grinding the skulls to dust and feeding on the corpses of her enemies.” [i]
In her hymns such modern-day concerns such as exile, social disruption,
gender-bending identities, the devastation of war, the terrifying forces of
nature, and the art of poetry are discussed along with the powers of Inana: “To
destroy and to create, to plant and to pluck out, are yours Inana. To turn men
into women, to turn women into men, are yours, Inana…To turn brutes into
weaklings and to make the powerful puny are yours, Inana. To reverse peaks and
plains, to raise up and to reduce are yours, Inana, to assign and allot the
crowns, throne, and staff of kings, are yours Inana.” [ii]
YHWH, Elohim, the God of Creation, says to Abram, “Go
from your country, you and your kindred and your father’s house to the land
that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you,
and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing … and in you all the
families of the earth shall be blessed.” [iii] Abram leaves all that Ur has to offer behind
on a promise to become a blessing to all the families of the earth. He leaves
all the wealth, all the social achievements of Ur, and all the idols of Nana
and Inana, as well as his parent’s home in Haran behind, and leaves for he
knows not where. That is a leap of faith. Thus, begins our story to become,
like Abram, a blessing to all the peoples of the Earth.
In the other corner, wearing black trunks, are some snooty
Pharisees who question just who sits at the table with Jesus. Jesus sees Matthew, a despised tax collector,
sitting at his tax table, and calls him, “Follow me.” Matthew eats with Jesus and other tax
collectors and sinners. Some Pharisees turn up their noses. To which Jesus
replies, these are the people you and I are to welcome and care for according
to Torah. Suddenly the narrative is interrupted when a man, a leader of a
synagogue, begs Jesus to help with his daughter who is at home dead. Jesus
leaves the meal, and on the way, unexpectedly, a woman who has suffered a flow
of blood for twelve years reaches out to touch the hem of Jesus’s garment.
Before she can, Jesus turns to her and says, “Take heart, daughter; your
faith has made you well.” – and suddenly she is healed. When he gets to the
home of the leader of the synagogue, the town’s professional mourners are
already tuning up their instruments and begin to wail. Jesus stops them and
says the girl is only sleeping. They laugh at him. Then Jesus takes the girl by
the hand – and suddenly, she rises! All in a day’s work for the Son of Man.
Word of all of this, we are told, “spread throughout the district.” [iv]
We’re not told how the Pharisees react to all of this. They
were good people, and very righteous in that they believed everyone ought to
follow the same purity rules that the priests in the Jerusalem Temple were
required to follow. They imagined that a country of “priests” would somehow
prod the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus to dismiss the dreaded Roman
Empire from their midst. They recognize Jesus as a “master,” as at least a
co-equal of themselves. And at the same time, they just cannot fathom why Jesus
would spend time with the hoi polloi off the streets: people they could not
imagine being on God’s radar, despite all of Torah and all the Prophets who repeatedly
point to the importance of caring for “the least” of our sisters and brothers –
including sinners, tax collectors, and a woman with a flow of blood for twelve
years. The good news: after the destruction of the Temple in 70ce (the common
era), the Pharisees reorganized Jewish life from being a sacrificial cult into
a people who seek justice, offer mercy to one and all, and walk humbly with
their God. That is, ultimately, they follow what Jesus was doing – even if they
did not formally become followers of his. It can be argued, if they were
wearing the black trunks at the beginning of their journey, eventually they became
a people who have been a blessing for people both inside and outside God’s
community. They live lives of faith, hope and charity, while wearing the white
trunks, and have been a blessing to others for at least the last two thousand
years.
During which time, we need to remember, the Church of Jesus
Christ morphed into becoming the Roman Empire that had crucified our master,
and spending more and more time accumulating more power, more money, and more
property for its self, desiring to become the very Empire they once resisted,
rather than servants of the world’s most needy people in the name of Jesus. Rather
than fulfilling God’s promise to be a blessing to all the peoples of the Earth
What we see is that some people, like the leader of the
synagogue and the woman with a flow of blood, reach out for Jesus. While
others, like Abram, like Matthew, and the fishermen James, John, Peter and
Andrew, are called by Jesus to “follow” him. Jesus welcomes and accepts them
all – even his social critics like the Pharisees. Like Abram, they all give up
a lot and leave behind a settled life for a new and unknown life with the Son
of God, Jesus, who lives a life of blessing for all people. Leaving us all to
ponder: just where are we in these stories that stretch back nearly 4,000 years
into the past? Are we reaching out? Are we being called to follow Jesusa who
shows truly what it means to wear the white trunks and become a blessing for
all the families and peoples of the Earth?
[i]
Helle, Shophus, The Complete Poems of Enheduana the world’s first author (Yale
University Press, New Haven: 2023) p. xi
[ii]
Ibid.
[iii]
Genesis 12:1-9.
[iv] Matthew
9:9-13, 18-26
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