| The place and time of the storytelling of our God is quite important to how we see who God is to us - even today. This is often unsettling. YHWH as the God of Israel did not emerge in a vacuum, but in the old, rich theological tradition of the ancient Near East. It is clear that in its articulation of Israel, Israel both appropriated from that ancient Near Eastern tradition and transposed what it appropriated into its own distinctive articulation. The extent to which this was a process of borrowing or transporting depends upon one's view of the commonality of Israel's religion to its cultural context of one's conviction about the uniqueness of Israel's faith. While the data are not completely supple, the decisions about commonality or distinctiveness to some great extent depends upon the impulse of the interpretive and the milieu in which the interpreter works. In some ways this reminds me of the personal work all of must do during our lives. We must be willing to look at the baggage we carry. That is not always the easiest thing to go. Some things that are very near and dear to us - do us no good - and need to be tossed. That can be very formally or simply "bye!" Even when we say "bye" to that stuff, we learn something when we discard it. We learn who we are and how we came this way and how that 'way' is not always as wholesome and righteous and true as we thought it was. So it is with the stories of our God that we have from scripture. There is much baggage around the texts. There was a context in which the stories were told. The best way to tell a new story is to make a connection to that which is already known and understood and expected. Discussions of God - whatever that may have meant in the ancient Near East - included what we have in our 'books' and the images that were left behind but maintained as they were transposed (morphed) into the next story. In many ways, we must be willing to let go of material that had a place - once - and now must not be the parts that hold onto us. What is our God like when we are able to do that? Connection: It is fun to listen to what people bring to the table when talking about God. The images are ones we must be willing to call into question. The God who was and is and will be - is just that God. But the wrapping paper we put around that God may be - at times - stuff we can peel back and remove for the sake of viewing this Eternal One. O God, who was and is and is to be, draw us into your Reign - again. Amen. |
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