Lectionary Monday 2-20-23

 Deuteronomy 6:10-15 (CJB)

¹⁰ “When Adonai your God has brought you into the land he swore to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov, — cities great and prosperous, which you didn’t build; ¹¹ houses full of all sorts of good things, which you didn’t fill; water cisterns dug out, which you didn’t dig; vineyards and olive trees, which you didn’t plant — and you have eaten your fill; ¹² then be careful not to forget Adonai, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves. ¹³ You are to fear Adonai your God, serve him and swear by his name. 14 You are not to follow other gods, chosen from the gods of the peoples around you; ¹⁵ because Adonai, your God, who is here with you, is a jealous God. If you do, the anger of Adonai your God will flare up against you and he will destroy you from the face of the earth.

Paraphrase (from Hebrew Interlinear)

(Note for out-loud readers: substitute ‘Adonai’ or ‘Ha-Shem’ for the tetragrammaton ‘YWHW’)

When the time comes that YHWH your Elohim brings you into the sworn land they pledged to your forebears—to Avraham, Yitz’chak, and Ya’akov—giving you great cities, good cities, but not ones that you built; with houses filled with goods, but you didn’t fill them;  with brimming cisterns, but not ones that you dug yourselves; with vineyards and orchards that you never planted, but still you eat your fill— Guard yourselves!  That’s when it’s easy to forget YHWH, who called you away from Egypt, and out of the work-house. YHWH, your Elohim! Give them your awe and your service, and speak your vows in their name. Don’t follow other Elohim, the Elohim of the other people around you, unless you want that God-of-Jealousy (El-Kana) of yours, inside of you— YHWH, your Elohim— to be hot and angry within you, and wipe you off the faces of the earth.

  Hebrews 1:1-14 (CJB) (Bolded text represents quotations from Torah)

³ This Son is the radiance of the Sh’khinah, the very expression of God’s essence, upholding all that exists by his powerful word; and after he had, through himself, made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of HaG’dulah BaM’romim. (‘Greatest-in-the-Heights’)

⁷ Indeed, when speaking of angels, he says, “. . . who makes his angels winds and his servants fiery flames”;

¹⁰ and, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth;
heaven is the work of your hands. ¹¹ They will vanish, but you will remain;
like clothing, they will all grow old; ¹² and you will fold them up like a coat. Yes, they will be changed like clothing, but you remain the same, your years will never end.”

¹³ Moreover, to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?

¹⁴ Aren’t they all merely spirits who serve, sent out to help those whom God will deliver?

 

John 1:1-18 (CJB)

¹⁸ No one has ever seen God; but the only and unique Son, who is identical with God and is at the Father’s side — he has made him known.

 

 

Reflections:

Deuteronomy

In Egypt,  you were the ones who built the cities that other people lived in; you were the ones who labored to fill their houses with goods that you could never use; you dug the wells that you couldn’t drink from yourselves!

Now that the tables have turned, don’t become an oppressor yourself!  If you do, your innermost heart, where God dwells, will dry up and blow away—  a dust-devil whirling off of all the angry, stony faces of the Earth, into the hot and empty air.

Hebrews

(—“…sacred servant winds, sent out to help those whom God will deliver.”—)

 

Jesus Loved the Wind

 

What is it about the wind, anyway?

 

It comes and goes, like things you’ve missed out of the corner of your eye—

Like all the things you wish you hadn’t forgotten:

Things that weren’t there when you woke up in the night,

but you so wished they had been;

Things that once turned your heart upside down,

making you stop in your tracks for just one second;

Things that you laid to rest and walked away,

when it didn’t matter whether you looked back or not.

 

What is it about the wind anyway?

 

It cuts through the buttons on your coat, leaving the smell of wind in your clothes—

So that when you pass by, people pause for a moment without knowing why.

It bends things that have no choice but to bend,

or else they’ll break.

It breathes over the hill and down,

bringing a faint, thrilling breeze to where you sit, waiting.

It goes where you’ve never been,

and where you’ll never go again, blowing past all your regrets.

 

What is it about the wind anyway?

 

It brings the most momentous messages,

reminding you of all you know and all you never knew—

but always in a language you don’t understand.

 

What is it about the empty wind?

 

Why does it remember all the things that never came to be?

Why does it take all the truth you ever knew and sweep it away into the unfilled air?

Why does it chill the tears on your face, as if cold comfort is all it knows?

 

Why does it walk where it walks—

Down the turning years, and down the days of your life, always going past, never stopping?

 

It’s as if all the things we always knew

were still things that we needed to be told—

 

As if Love, riding hidden in the wind,

doesn’t care what we know and what we don’t.

 

John

(“No one has ever yet seen God. The Only-Born of G*d, who is G*d— the One who is in the bosom of the Source, has told us all we need to know.”)

 And here’s the earliest gospel (Mark) quoting what the Only-Born said:  

“The perfect time is Now and the realm of G*d is everywhere—   Change how you think,  and put your trust in this good news.”

 (Metanoia: literally “beyond thought.”)