Micah 2, Matthew 24, Psalm 119:113-144 OR 2 Maccabees 15
Before the battle, Judas sees visions of Onias, the high priest of his youth, and the great prophet Jeremiah.
Whose ghosts, echoes and examples inspire you to great things – either people you have known or people of whom you have read and heard stories told?
Jonah 4, Matthew 22, 119:33-72 OR 2 Maccabees 11-12
“I love you to the ends of the ocean.
I love you to the depths of the sea.
I love you to the belly of the whale and back.
I love you more than this tree.”
Happy Saturday.
Jonah 3, Matthew 21, Psalm 119:1-32 OR 1 Maccabees 9-10
Poetic justice is rarely pretty, is it?
Thinking about the contrast between Nineveh’s repentance and Antiochus’ apology and the vastly different outcomes: of course, the authors of either book is interpreting events theologically, but don’t we, then, get to do the same? Why do you think Nineveh escaped punishment and Antiochus did not? How does your thinking about these two ancient stories inform your hearing of the prophets of doom today?
Jonah 2, Matthew 20, Psalm 118 OR 2 Maccabees 7-8
No doubt, terrible tortures and trials were employed by conquering forces in places such as Jerusalem. The story of the seven brothers and their mother, however, may be legendary; the number seven is a holy number in Jewish accounting, even from the first seven days of creation. The seven brothers and their mother give up their lives and even their progeny to the hope that God is with them even in this destruction and death.
Even today, in Iraq for example, martyrs are made out of those who trust in God rather than the whims of tyrants. What would we do?
But, “Let this be enough, then, about … the extreme tortures.”
Jonah 1, Matthew 19, Psalm 117 OR 2 Maccabees 5-6
See Jonah run
Jonah runs to the sea
Jonah runs on a boat
Jonah runs in his sleep
(like a dreaming dog)
Jonah runs in the deep
Jonah runs into a fish
Jonah stops
Jonah prays in the dark
Jonah prays for an ark
Jonah prays on the beach
on his hands and sandy knees
Jonah says in the city
Repent
Jonah sees them rent
their clothes, Jonah vents
to the Lord
Jonah goes home.
Obadiah, Matthew 18, Psalm 116 OR 2 Maccabees 3-4
Obadiah is a brief little oracle against Edom, sometimes the cousin and sometimes the cudgel of the people of the Covenant. As Esau was to Jacob; his twin, his alter ego, his adversary and rival, his brother; so Edom is to Israel, too close for comfortable living together. Will the brothers ever find peace?
Amos 9, Matthew 17, Psalm 115 or 2 Maccabees 1-2
You have to love a book that comes with its own guide. The authors of 2 Maccabees humbly venture to offer a potted history of how they come to be at the purification of the temple today, in the wake of political upheavals, battles, alliances and intrigues. Excusing themselves from the painstaking work of the “historian,” these narrators are instead tellers of history, tellers of stories, “to please those who wish to read, to make it easy for those who are inclined to memorize, and to profit all readers.”
Would that all scripture were written this way (?)
Amos 7, Matthew 15, Psalm 113 Or 1 Maccabees 12-13
Tonight, no original words, but a link to the blog of a wise priest with a view of the plumb line of Amos:
http://thefunstons.com/?p=5648
Amos 6, Matthew 14, Psalm 112 OR 1 Maccabees 11
I wonder what a military historian would make of Maccabees. I have to admit, I find it difficult to follow the ins and outs, ups and downs of the different alliances and battles. At a certain point, my eyes glaze over. I would like to go and pull Josephus’ history off my bookshelf at home to compare notes; but I know that I would only get even more bewildered. Other minds will find these intrigues fascinating; I can only find myself kneeling with Jonathan in dust and ashes, tearing my clothes and begging God’s forgiveness for all that is undone, for all that will be done, for the death that we deal in the name of promoting life and health.
And Jonathan returned to Jerusalem…
Amos 4, Matthew 12, Psalm 110 OR 1 Maccabees 9
There is a lot of implied “lest” in Amos. Lest ye think God doesn’t notice, will not mind, looks away. Lest ye think you are so special that the rules do not apply. Lest ye think God doesn’t care.
Lest ye think that you have an excuse, not to know the mind of God:
“For lo the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals, makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth – the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!”
“My thoughts are not your thoughts,” says God elsewhere; and yet we are granted revelation, through our conscience, through our prayer, through the scriptures, through the gathered community of faith, the church.
Lest ye think that God would hide from us.
Epiphany's Bible Challenge 