The Israelites are in their 6th week of 40 years of wandering in the Wilderness after being liberated from slavery in Egypt. Exodus 16-17 begins a Wilderness cycle of crisis-grumbling-providence-gratitude. It begins with complaint. They ran out of food and complained bitterly, How long do you think it’ll be, Moses, before we […]
We are moving through the Book of Exodus this month as God breaks cycles of poverty, oppression, slavery. For Jews this story is the central claim of their faith. Out of hopeless slavery & death appears life and a future with Yahweh, their God. In these chapters we witness how God liberates an oppressed people, delivers them, […]
Last Sunday, we heard the story of how the Civil Disobedience and acts of resistance of a few women saved the life of Moses during the regime of an insecure Pharoah. Brian Bantum: Perhaps revolution has always been enacted through the small acts that refuse to accommodate the regimes of death that press in each […]
Exodus 1-2:1-10 The end of Genesis focused on the patriarchs – Jacob & his sons. The Book of Exodus begins with five courageous women: Shiphrah, Puah, Yocheved, Miriam, & Pharaoh’s daughter. It is a lesser known part of the story that sometimes is omitted in the retelling. But we need to know the story for […]
Genesis 41-50 This passage holds theologically complex understandings about reconciliation, forgiveness, and the question of God’s purpose and whether God ever causes bad things to happen so good can come of them. We are in the midst of complicated family dynamics and drama, with multiple character twists, missteps and eventual spiritual growth. Through jealousy and […]
Based on Genesis 37 & 39 I wonder how many of you have Andrew Lloyd Webber’s soundtrack of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat running through your head after opening my email yesterday about what the theme for worship would be today. One of the songs stuck in my head is – Go, go go […]
Based on Genesis 33 The struggle with right relationship and the age-old question of “why can’t we all just get along” has been a human theme from the beginning – crossing boundaries of time and geography all the way back to the ancient stories of our Judeo-Christian tradition. The stories in Genesis demonstrate epic, dysfunctional […]
Based on Genesis 32 There is a lot of drama in Jacob’s life, with deep family hostilities characterizing his life, much of it, his own doing. He has been on the run for the past 20 years, fleeing to his Uncle Laban’s home. The trickster Jacob, has met his match in his equally devious Uncle […]
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx9afm158VyhcKFa66SOQsvE7oDPm1pCl Jacob is running away from home to escape the wrath of his brother Esau whom he has just cheated out of his birthright and their father’s blessing. Esau is out for his brother’s blood. Jacob’s mother, Rebekah, covers up for him, making up an excuse to her husband that it would be a bad […]
Birthright Blessing In the fall of my freshman year of college at PLU, my brother came to take me to lunch. I was excited to see him and share all of my news. A few minutes in, he revealed the true reason he came to see me. He wanted to tell me that he […]