Tag Archives: Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

2 Kings, Language, Teaching

2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a – A marriage made in heaven

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When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

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This is an optional Old Testament selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B 2018. In the numbering system that lists each Sunday in an ordinal fashion, this Sunday is referred to as Proper 13. It will next be read aloud in an Episcopal church by a reader on Sunday August 5, 2018. It is important because this tells more than of the punishment of sin, but of the self-imposed punishment of turning away from God after having been given all the blessings of God. This is the difference between sinning while believing there is God, and sinning after having come to know God personally.

In the tenth Sunday after Pentecost’s optional Old Testament interpretation (last week) that dealt with the sins of David, I delved into this reading.  It should be evident that the two are difficult to separate. It is important to see that David, as king, had no laws of Israel that he could break, when Israel had chosen to have a king to be like other nations. David, because he had been anointed by God, through Samuel, was the Law.  In that sense, Bathsheba is freed of sin because she was obeying the orders of the king. Uriah was then a willing sacrifice unto the king’s desires.

This links to that, meaning the whole sin sequence becomes a human reflection of how the Israelites were in a committed relationship with God, who was essentially their true King and husband.  The purity of David, as the reflection of God incarnate, made him appear divine, which made it possible for him to teach the nation of Israel to know that everyone should do only as God commands.  Such loving devotion meant the result would always be that one’s soul is cleansed free of sins against God. However, in this conclusion to that story, David becomes an example to the children of Israel as one who chose to serve a human king, rather than serve only God above.

The moral of the story is that souls become responsible for their sins that break the Law.  David was like Adam, before each experienced their original sins.  They disobeyed and were punished.  They tried to hide their sins, but were caught as cheaters.  Both cheated themselves by thinking they could do whatever they desired to do, without seeking God’s advice before their leaps of selfishness.

It is vital that Christians realize how the Israelites set themselves up for failure when they told Samuel to give them a human king.  Saul was a sinner king and his selfishness destroyed his reign.  David fell from grace, like Saul, because he reduced himself from divine king to a human king that broke his marriage vows to God.  This story then tells of an an unholy divorce from the One King, one which forced the Israelites to be remarried to a human being with human flaws.

The Covenant with the Israelites was a marriage contract with God that made every one of them (adult men and wives) His brides. That commitment was to live as priests for Yahweh.  When your husband is God Almighty, you do not want to file for divorce, simply because any other husband (used in a submissive sense, as whatever gods men and women choose to follow … like presidents, political parties, moolah, etc.) is a huge step down in class.

Marriage to God, ever since a guy named Jesus of Nazareth came along (the Christ or the Messiah of the Jews), has meant an exercise of the brain, such that one learned the Laws that pertained to that Holy Matrimony. God was the Father, David was the mother, and the Israelites were the children that were to be raised as holy before God.  The Law was kept in a box, but also written on the heart of Mother David.  With the Holy Mother running the household of Israel, the Law of David was one thing the Israelites feared to break.  They listened to their Mother and did what David said, because none of them ever wanted to hear mom say, “Just wait until your Father comes home!”

Because the Israelite children would lose respect for the Mother and no longer fear the Father, they would suffer greatly by the divorce that hit that marriage.  David’s failures in this story are why a written contract that is external to a couple can never again be the definition of “marriage to God.” It was then, beginning with this reading of God’s punishment set upon David (ergo Israel), no longer enough to simply say the words, “I do.” All trust was erased that a Law kept in a box, and no longer in their king’s heart, would be given anything more than lip-service.

Jesus would come to teach the scattered children of Israel how one must become one with God, in a holy union where He is in one’s heart, not elsewhere.  That love center is where His name is then written, “I Am that I Am” (YHWH).  A child of God must become an extension of God, through complete submission to God’s Will, so that the I of God become the I of God’s human wife (males and females). Two egos must merge into one, where one is dominant (the Husband) and one is submissive (the wife).  That marriage of soul-to-body IS the defining factor for Holy Matrimony. Therefore, there is nothing sacred about a verbal commitment, as actions speak louder than words.

Nothing lasting can come from the pageantry of a marriage between two humans (as was the celebrated marriage between David and the Israelites).  David was made their king and all was well; but then David lost his desire to do the same ole same ole – go do battle in the spring, like all kings did.  He had a ‘mid-life crisis’ and let his eyes wander.  While no one stood in holy robes, holding a holy book, saying the words, “Till death do you part,” the marriage of David as King to the Israelites was supposed to have that forever commitment, with a fairy tale ending.

It did not.  The condition was then “Till divorce do you part.”  The “death” was not only to the relationship between God and ex-wife David, but the destruction of the children of Israel.  They needed to fear the Father to maintain the Law.  Unfortunately, the disgrace that fell upon their Mother David meant all the threats about a belt in the Father’s closet were lies; because none of the children had the intimacy of a relationship with God as Husband, only that believing God was the Father.

The reality of divorce means the sanctimony of human marriage is suspect, at best.  Marriage between human is supposed to reflect an individual’s marriage to God above.  We like to think that means we are all born of the Father because we have a soul.  Unfortunately, David had a soul, just as Adam had a soul, and souls are more easily influenced by the whispers of Satan, than those of God.  Souls love to stroke egos, more than be self-sacrificing.  Souls love to play the field and be promiscuous.

This becomes a problem for all the church denominations of Christianity, as marriage (that between two human beings) is considered one of the sacraments (i.e.: “A rite believed to be a means of or visible form of grace.”). Unfortunately, that logic fails to be confirmed when David and Bathsheba became husband and wife (“she became his wife”).  This failure is realized in the text of the story; but the translation above, of the last verse in chapter eleven (2 Samuel 11:27b), has conveniently disappeared.

That ending omitted says: “But what David had done [including marry Bathsheba] was evil in the sight of Yahweh.” Feel free to look it up and see for yourself.

An evil union (reasons stated by Nathan to David above) cannot be blessed by a priest of Yahweh (God the Father of all Christians and Jews). Nathan flat out called David’s theft of Bathsheba a sin and he told David that God promised there would be nothing blessed in Israel, because of that unholy union. David admitted to Nathan (and thus confessed before his priest – another sacrament), “I have sinned against the Lord.”

Again, there has been all faith lost in human words of promise.  When one proves a lie was spoken when the words “I do” were uttered, thy then should anyone believe a confession that admits one is a liar?

It is important to take notice how Nathan did not bless David’s confession.  Nathan did not wrap motherly arms around David, to make his boo boo feel better.  God spoke through Nathan; and God was not telling Nathan to tell David how much David’s words of sorrow to God were heard and approved, so everything would all be okay. Nathan could talk to God as a prophet, because he too was married to God and knew better than to think that relationship gave him the right to start acting like God on earth. Nathan was not pretending to speak for God; and God had no blessing for David in this matter.  No matter what words David said (unwritten and otherwise) would save Israel from an unholy end, albeit and end that would come centuries later.

As unholy as David’s “marriage” was to Bathsheba, he was indeed married to her and she was officially David’s wife, once she moved into David’s house. This is how people today see marriage.  Jews, Gentiles, and Christian alike see “marriage” as moving in together.  However, the reality and sole defining act by Bathsheba that proved she was married to David was that she “bore him a son.”  That is the root meaning of “husband and wife.”  Two adults [of the opposite sex] come together to make babies.  Anything less than that is two children ‘playing house’ together [regardless of their neuter genders as children].

This birth of a son, although it would only live seven days (unread here), was the confirmation of the marriage. Bathsheba mourned the death of her husband Uriah first, and then she shacked up with David before the baby was born.  That togetherness made it look like sex before marriage was made right.  Shotgun weddings are descended from the same logic.  Lustful sex out of wedlock brings about a socially forced bonding, as father and mother, which are the titles given to parents of babies.  Those title changes are the epitome of being married.

That means understanding what marriage truly is.  Understanding that word, in my humble but strongly held opinion, yields the deep, underlying purpose for this reading on the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. Marriage is not about someone proclaiming two people can go happily out into the world, free to have sex before God, because that flimsy definition leads people towards understanding a physical act of procreation as marriage, not the raising of children that must follow.  It transforms “marriage” into a lessened meaning, where approval is given (blessing “marriage” as saintly) to a sin – that of worshiping the god of pleasure and delight.

A Hollywood image of happiness in sterility.

Man, as an animal, will always procreate because of natural urges. Some animals mate as set pairs for life, but some animals mate with any available mate, or with the one who wins one of those battles of spring.  Often, the animal mothers are left to raise the young alone or with the help of other ‘single moms’, other females and their young male and female children.  Only a few crazy people in California would bring in a priest to bless an animal mating union, which means animals generally do not have a “rite of marriage” that “blesses” their unions.  Therefore, all animals (including man) are “married” by their offspring – when the DNA of two parents are forever joined as one in the child (or in case of multiple births – children).

When Jesus encountered the Pharisees that wanted to trick Jesus into saying a man’s right to divorce his human wife was wrong (Matthew 19:1-14), Jesus said:

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

This statement dates back to the beginning of mankind (male and female He made them), when male and female human beings were harry animal-like creatures (caveman and cavewoman). Back then, they paired off to mate, without any religion existing. There were no priests or ministers to make any pairing official or legal tender. However, by stating, “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh,” the “one flesh” is a baby.”  Certainly, two newlyweds will try their hardest to stay cleaved together for as long as possible, but unlike the lore about the soft-rock star Sting, men and women spend much more time apart than joined.

The “wife” is the mother of that baby.  This means God Created males and females to become fathers and mothers, committed (a bond beginning with a live birth of a child) to raise their child(ren) until adulthood.

When Jesus said, “What God has joined together, let no one separate,” this is not God gently guiding a male and a female into a sexual act, patting them on the rear ends with a smile of His blessing. God does not work towards leading males and females to have sex. God made creatures so they would do that instinctively.  Sex happens regardless. However, once a male’s semen is swimming around a female’s egg, then God goes to work joining those two together.

That means God goes to work making all the necessary changes occur that develop an embryo into a fetus.  God’s handiwork in a woman’s womb is what readies a new mass of functioning flesh for receiving a soul.  That flesh takes possession of a life soul with its first breath after birth. Thus, “let no one separate” applies to anyone who would unnaturally abort a child in the womb or kill one after birth, before it can reach adulthood.

Keep in mind how Jesus only came for the Jews.  Jesus did not come to condemn any Gentile society that wants to kill its children.  Jesus never came to tell the Romans how to live as priests to Yahweh.  Jesus, as the Son of God, knew there was a world led by Satan to sin; but God sent His Son to make sure some true priests of the One God were available for all the lost souls on the planet.  Obviously, as Jesus listened to Pharisees not have any understanding of marriage, much less divorce, Jesus was not sent by God to change the illegitimate children of Israel into those that would become true priest of God, married to Him as His wives, knowing the love of God and fearing life without the Father always present.

Simply by being able to grasp how two adult human beings are married in the sight of God, by getting pregnant and preparing to raise that child together … until it becomes a responsible adult … makes it possible to see that marriage can only be Holy Matrimony when the union is between the Spiritual and the physical. God develops babies (as this is not some natural result of a living being’s will, absent of God), just as God develops His priests (as this is not some natural result of a living student’s will, absent of God).

When Jesus told the Pharisees, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,” that means that parents should teach their children the religious values that are based on the lessons of the Holy Bible.  That assumes the parent are both married to God.  Such a holy marriage raises holy children, which leads the adult children to leave their parents and cleave with the Word of God that promises them a Messiah. Once they find Jesus and are reborn as the Christ, they will have gained the kingdom of heaven.  Then, that formula is to be repeated, over and over.

This is what was lost by David’s sins, which led to a “shoot from the stump of Jesse” being Jesus Christ. Holy Matrimony can no longer be obtained by finding God through an external Law. One has to seek to become the child of God that is Jesus Christ reborn; and that comes by the union of a bride of the earth (physical males and females as unfertilized eggs) with the divine ‘semen’ of the Father’s Word being joined.  The consummation of that marriage yields another example of the Trinity being born.

In my interpretation of 2 Samuel 11 for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, I mentioned that David had never sinned until he saw Bathsheba naked, after he did not go out with the soldiers in spring to do battle. David was a virgin wife of God, given to the LORD at birth by Jesse. The baby God and David birthed was Israel – all of the Israelites – and together that pair of parents ( Spiritual joined with physical) would raise their child to be a holy nation of priests serving Yahweh. Then, when David sinned, he became a wife who had cheated on the husband by having sex with another human being – a mere mortal. The words of Nathan then need to be read as a divorce decree.

Sayeth the LORD, the husband of David:

“I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight?”

Does that not sound like a husband scorned by his wife? It states the grounds for divorce.  David cheated.  He coveted.  He forced Bathsheba into adultery.  He had Uriah unjustly killed, and made it look like an enemy could be blamed.  What God spoke through Nathan was like a husband who came home to find out his wife had slept with a neighbor, after getting drunk in a bar, then driving wildly through a school zone, killing multiple people in the process.  Not only was her infidelity an issue, she was going to prison, leaving the children without a mother to raise them!

Still, it was not poor little ole Bathsheba who lured David into sin. It was David choosing to please David, without one iota of thought to his husband above – God. Excuse me ladies out there, but it is a wife’s duty to be submissive to the husband, just as it is the husband’s duty to provide for his wives. Commitment works both ways and David had never wanted in his entire life.  [Keep in mind that human males and females are to become the wives of the LORD, so human gender does not remove the element of submission to God.  Humans of the world should reflect this arrangement if an earthly marriage is to be blessed.]

“The LORD is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Ye though I walk through the shadow of death, I shall fear no enemy, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” (Psalm 23, KJV)

David wrote that song. It came from his heart for his LORD and Master. It is a love song that admits, “What more could a religious guy want from a heavenly husband?”  It is a love song all should sing to God.

Now we read that David had sinned egregiously. God told Nathan to write down in the divorce decree what David gets to take with him in the split.

[Also, notice how Nathan – a true prophet – handled this divorce. No lawyer was called in.  It would later be something the lawyer types in the temple would administer; so much so that now the law demands one have a lawyer to get divorced.  No one directly quotes God these days.]

The LORD said, “I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.”

So much for God being the influence David needed to raise the baby that had been a stubborn people ever since Moses was married to God. The Israelites would slowly forget about the Father, who they saw shine on the face of their true King. Now, after the divorce, David became just another king … like those of other nations. The children began to run wild without the threat of the Father’s belt.

Still, like a good ex-husband, the child support checks arrived in the mail, as Solomon would turn Israel into one of the wealthiest nations in the known world. But, without Solomon being a good wife to God (he did love his human wives and concubines), the children would squabble so much over their inheritance that they would rip the nation in two, letting just about anyone lord over their lives (and ruin their religious devotion to Yahweh).

That end was stated in Nathan’s parable to David, where Israel was the poor man with nothing but a little ewe lamb to his name. That stands for the Israelites and the Law, which is impossible to understand without God; but the Law was warm and fuzzy and sounded sweet to the ears, so much that a bond of love made the poor feel like they had something special. Then, that Law was broken by the rich man (David), who had everything (as king). Without just cause, the rich man killed and cooked the Law (the little ewe lamb) and served it up to some guest. The guest was Bathsheba, but she represented any foreign nation (Gentile pagans with worship to lesser gods) that could dance a sexy dance and whisper sweet nothing into a king’s ear.  Bathsheba would become Jezebel, who would see Israel’s Law (the little ewe lamb) as the distraction that kept a nation from being rich.

David killed the Law, just like Moses slammed down the holy tablets when he saw the Israelites had built an idol to Ba’al and were appeasing that guest.  God purged the wayward Israelites from those who would be redeemed.  Moses got a second chance set of tablets.  David and Israel were the last straw on that camel’s back.

David’s divorce from God meant there would be no more kings of Israel acting as His wives. Only a living vine of prophets would keep the poor man and his little ewe lamb alive in Spirit, until God would send His next virgin bride to Jerusalem, named Jesus of Nazareth. God and Jesus would marry and beget the child known as Christianity, named after the union that is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, christened Jesus Christ. Those who fall in love with God and marry, so His Law is then written on the hearts of individuals, can give life again to the poor man and his little ewe lamb, watched over by the Good Shepherd.

As an optional reading selection for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s personal ministry to the LORD should be underway – married to God and dutifully bringing up the children to Jesus Christ – the lesson is the fidelity demanded in Holy Matrimony. The message of this story, as told the Sunday prior, was responsibility, which is not much different than the “faithfulness to obligations, duties, or observances,” which defines “fidelity. Still, the intent now is on the commitment to intimacy, for the purpose of yielding Jesus Christ resurrected, and tending forever to that most holy child.

A minister to the LORD is able to see the truth of marriage, because the ‘other nation’ view, the Big Brain thought of Gentiles who have no love of God, is to tear down the idol that false shepherds have created – the sacrament of the love between a man and a woman. That is not holy matrimony, even if it tries to mirror it. Legal marriage is not holy, when it is making sex between two human beings the lesson taught to children.

A minister knows sexual desires have been around since the beginning of time, and when sex is called love (an emotion of sudden urge), then all forms of that kind of “love” destroy the truth of love.  Perverse forms of “love” began long, long ago, soon after the first male and female ever mated. They say prostitution is the world’s oldest profession.  In the words of God to Nathan, what mankind considers “love” often displeases the Lord and is evil in his sight.

That does not men God wants anyone to stop doing perverse physical acts, or cease justifying them in the name of “love”. It means those who do evil acts do not have God’s blessing. Man (males and females) is as free to do whatever man (males and females) wants to do to man (males and females), in any combination(s) thereof; and, man (males and females) is free to have it all forms of “love” be glorified by pagan priests (those serving gods like Ba’al) or have none be glorified, using the logic that sex is what animals naturally do.  What man (males and females) does without God is evidence of a lost soul, one destined to forever wander the face of the earth, with no chance of eternal redemption.

Worldly ways must feel guilt.  Guilt must lead to repentance.  Repentance must lead to a marriage to God, leaving the world and all its lures behind.  Without ministers of the LORD to help that recovery, man will only find snakes in the grass whispering bad ideas.

It is without a doubt that a minister of the LORD knows – as Jesus Christ reborn and as a bride of the Father (males and females) – that God’s hand-guides a baby’s development in the womb. The ancients used to smash unwanted babies (usually females) on the rocks below a cliff, using the excuse that the unwed mother (or very young couple) was too poor to afford a child. Female babies are still killed in some countries today, using the poverty angle as the justice. In America, women march in protest about men writing laws that take away their rights to abort a baby, regardless of the reasoning.  They march without caring that the majority of women aborting babies are of minority races.

A woman’s rights assumes a leadership role within a “marriage,” or the lack of willingness to submit to anyone in union.  If they deny a man’s rights, where is the equality sought?  Sexual freedom begat “the pill,” which does not do away with the need for abortion, because poor people can’t always afford medications that prevent pregnancy.  With all that to consider, there have been times in modern history when ethnic cleansing became medical sterilization that was forced upon certain classes of people.  Jesus spoke of forced eunuchs way back then; but now the popularity of same-sex couples is like waving a wand over a group of people and convincing them they want to be sterilized … without any need for force.

The institution that has been called “marriage” is unpopular with children today.  Many come from split homes, many forced to know multiple parents that want to be called mom or dad.  Children detest their being torn asunder in this way, knowing they only have one father and one mother.  There is nothing setting a good example for marriage, much less having children.  Children raised in broken homes are less likely to want to share the personal pain they know with a child of their own, especially when the economy is weak, the family unit is weaker, and religious values are at their weakest in history.  No one trusts that commitment is permanent anymore.  It is just a meaningless word used without deep thought.

Jesus spoke of these issues when he talked to the Pharisees about divorce. A minister of the LORD can see that the world of man is free to act like animals, so the only thing one can do is stay committed to what one’s heavenly husband says to do. Commitment is an individual relationship with God, where one’s rights are what God says, without argument and without complain.  Commitment founded in God’s love is forever lasting.  Therefore, bring the child in you to Jesus Christ and give that child the opportunity to gain the kingdom of heaven.

The lesson of David is then the virgin state one is given by God, when one sacrifices one’s own Big Brain and lets the selfishness of ego turn to total submission to the Holy Husband’s commands. An Apostle-Saint is like David in that sense, as David, prior to his sins surrounding his lustful sex with Bathsheba, was like Jesus – pure as the driven snow. Thus, David shows what happens to a wife that cheats on her Holy Husband. It is an emptiness that is greater than that felt by Judas Iscariot, when he too realized, “I have sinned against the Lord.” It is a return to the agony of a sinful existence, prior to finding the love of God and a heartfelt desire for redemption.

David still had God by his side after divorce, because he was a ‘first-time offender’, much like the parable Jesus told, of the father who still loved his prodigal son. Unfortunately, to have lived as a sinner first, then found God and became Jesus Christ, only to have God throw one out in divorce, the Law is clear. Moses wrote that you can never be taken back.

That divorce by God means all the subsequent “husbands” (lower-g god worship) make it impossible to go back to the LORD. Moses wrote, as the laws of divorce, those which the Pharisees tried to trick Jesus on, “then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 24:4)

Food for thought.

A minister of the LORD knows that, lives it willingly out of love of God, and raises any children that have been sent to Jesus Christ for teaching to follow the same written Law. All one can do is follow the Father’s commands and not fear. Even in today’s world, where the children are as wild as were those leading Israel and Judah to ruin, a minister to the LORD stands tall amid persecution … and smiles.

The truth whispered by God is much more pleasurable and lasting that human sex can ever be.

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Exodus, Language, Teaching

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 – The test of manna

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The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.

Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’“ And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. The Lord spoke to Moses and said, “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’“

In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”

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This is an optional Old Testament selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B 2018. In the numbering system that lists each Sunday in an ordinal fashion, this Sunday is referred to as Proper 13. It will next be read aloud in an Episcopal church by a reader on Sunday August 5, 2018. It is important because it tells how God will sustain His people in a world (an environment) that is barren of God’s guidance.

In the interpretations that I presented for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, where Elisha and his company of prophets ate from the first fruits and Jesus fed the multitude, I referenced this reading from Exodus, where God fed the Israelites with manna. My same conclusion that “spiritual food” is unlimited in how many it can feed, with manna being “spiritual food” still applies here. Forty years of living on the same foodstuff, day and night, would seem tiresome and boring; but the spiritual aspect of food from heaven makes manna become the inner drive to thrive on minimal external needs. Therefore, this reading selection tells how spiritual food feeds the mind, so the soul opens and God is able to reside in one’s heart.  This view is above and beyond what the filling of a stomach with physical bread and meat can do.

As a stand-alone reading selection, which is without linkage to all subsequent history, I believe it is important to grasp how the exit of the Israelites from Egypt mirrors their initial entrance there, some two hundred fifteen years prior (430 since their entrance into Canaan). Their sojourn began from hunger and is now beginning a new phase in their journey with the threat of death from lack of food. A widespread seven-year famine was in its second year when Jacob took his family from the hills of Gilead to Egypt, where his son Joseph had advised Pharaoh to stockpile grain in years of plenty, and in preparation for a foreseen drought and famine coming.

Egypt then offered the illusion of being a land of plenty; but had it not been for God, working through His servant Joseph, Egypt would have been suffering equally from lack of food.  We read here today of that Egyptian mirage of plenty was making a return to slavery seem like a good idea.  However, God would again bring nourishment to the children of Israel.

If the Israelites were a group of educated adults then, possessing excellent memories, they would easily recall what had recently happened to them. Most recently, they had visited an oasis named Elim, where they had fresh spring water and a variety of fruits from palm trees (“seventy palm trees” means a variety of fruit offerings). Prior to that, the sea had opened and closed, so the Israelites could safely cross, while angry Egyptian soldiers would no longer be chasing them. Prior to that, an angel of death had not cause the first born males in any of their families to die, which was when they were last close by a “flesh pot” in Egypt. Prior to that, there had been a series of plagues that befell Egypt, which meant not many people sat around flesh pots and had bread that wasn’t swarmed by flies, amid the stench of death from rotting fish and frogs. Don’t forget, also, the locust had come destructively on Egypt, making good meal for bread difficult to find. So, the grumbling Israelites were not speaking as adults in this reading, ones that remembered God was leading them in a pillar of smoke.

This shows that human beings, at heart, are all complainers, bellyachers, crybabies, and whiners when things do not go their way.

The Israelites were chosen by God, because of an agreement made with Abraham; but they were called “children” because they were just like babies taking their first screaming breath into a new world. Babies do not have brains that function like adults, so they cannot understand languages, nor can they talk. All the miracles they lived through were like shadows passing before a baby’s still developing eyes.

When it is feeding time, a baby cries to let its keepers know it is hungry. A baby can only know selfishness, because without that instinctual demand for attention a baby’s life is at risk.  Therefore, this story is setting up Moses, Aaron and God as if they were all first-time parents and the Israelites were their baby needing food.

Seeing the Israelites as an infant that was born after Moses pulled them through the birth canal that was the parting of the Red (or reed) Sea, their entire history can be seen (on a grand symbolic scale) as the growth of a child, from infant to teens, to young adulthood. By seeing them in this light, one is able to see that every human being on earth is just as flawed as the Israelites were then; such that the Jews as a people reflect the young son that squandered his inheritance, obtained in advance. Christianity then represents the prodigal son’s return to the Father, all grown up and ready to receive the Holy Spirit.

By having this broader view of what the stories coming from the books of the Holy Bible, one is then more enabled to see those stories become personally relative.  Rather than think the Old and New Testaments are showing two peoples and two sides of God, it is best to see God as the Father that had two sons. God is the constant that never changes; but His sons reflect the duality of humanity on earth, where some stay selfish babies all their lives, and others sacrifice everything to serve the Father.

We all come into this world as babies that only know that crying states a personal need and expectation, and every time those needs and expectations are met, we all learn to perfect the arts of complaining and selfishness. The more one’s cries bear fruit, the more one learns to fake crying when all else fails.  Still, when hunger is the reason for complaint, it does not matter where it comes from.

The bread of all nations is fleeting.  This is because satiated hunger only means the next day brings another need for more bread.  While just beginning their trek into the wilderness, the worry was all those future days ahead was being addressed.  We know from hindsight that need would stretch forty years.  This means the manna from heaven (and quail on occasion) would last as long as the Israelites accepted God as the Father.

In my interpretation of Jesus feeding the five thousand, along with Elisha and his company of one hundred prophets making an omer of first fruits easily feed everyone, I compared it to the manna in the wilderness.  One would think that Moses and the Israelites came across many travelers over their forty year trek, simply because of trade routes. I wrote before about hos Jewish scholars said manna would slip from the hands of Gentiles, because it was not food that could be consumed by other peoples. One would think that opinion comes from the ancient texts indicating the Israelites encountered nomadic tribesmen and attempted to trade manna for more exotic foods, only to have the Gentiles unable to gather it.

Such a possibility, given forty years of wandering, shows how manna was not for anyone.  The bread of other nations, made from grains that grow abundantly in fertile regions of the Middle East, was limited in the way it only met physical wants and needs.  This says the Israelites were not in need for bread of that kind, as normal bread could do nothing to satisfy spiritual needs. Therefore, God was not feeding the Israelites quail and manna as food for physical sustenance.  He would not have freed them from Egypt without physical food being covered.

One thing that seems contradictory in the Exodus story, which I have touched on in previous writings, is the Israelites took livestock with them. Goats can give milk and goat milk can yield cheese.  Certainly livestock, especially chickens, could provide meat and eggs.  Thus, the physical needs of the Israelites were not in danger at this point in their journey.

This means the grumbling is less about being starved for food and wishing they were back in Egypt and more about them crying out for another feeding of inspiration and desire to be alone in the wilderness, with Moses and Aaron leading them.  Again, they were crying like babies; but their cries came from their souls, not their stomachs.

The Israelites (according to verse 8 – unread in this selection) were not actually complaining about Moses and Aaron, even though Moses and Aaron heard all the complaints in a personal sense. God told Moses that the grumbling was not against them, but against Him. Simply by that statement, one can see that the complaints were about not having any way of knowing God was there and leading them.  God set Moses straight, by telling him the Israelites were calling out to God, while standing before a guy with one mighty staff.

Its not you! I just need to get this off my chest!

The grumbling of the Israelites is not exclusive to them (or their later descendants, the Jews). This is exactly how Christians complain against God, when they are forced into being responsible for their souls, being told they have to act on faith. The bellyaching meant they were so starved of the nutrients that feed faith (learning what the words of the Holy Bible truly mean) that they were too weak to do anything but grumble. While it is always a human being that is put into a position of authority, where Moses and Aaron were like prophet and high priest, just like the denominations of Christianity place priests, ministers, and pastors so they are available to the followers of God, the people always beat their chests in anguish when they hunger for spiritual knowledge and no one is giving it to them. They complain to human beings, but they blame God for not hearing their cries.

God answers those cries with spiritual food, not packages of surplus cheese or peanut butter mailed by governments (or stamps that can be redeemed for food, alcohol, and/or tobacco). Still, when figurative babies are the ones crying for spiritual direction, one needs to see manna as baby food falling from the sky. It is tasty, spiritually fulfilling, and stores easily for a day or two. This means manna is easy to swallow and easy to digest food that keeps the baby content and cooing for forty years, when the time for solid food would come around.

The quail were not a daily fare, which makes their appearance at twilight symbolize that time when the sun has dropped below the horizon, but there is still light. This timing is that link between day and night, or the symbolic link between life and death. All that is physical has life due to the presence of the soul, and death from the absence thereof. Thus, the quail were food for the soul (according to several metaphysical sites I explored); and in that line of thought, there are those who say quails symbolize spiritual needs for the soul. Because quails stay close together, protecting one another by their closeness, the element of family is also a symbolic aspect of quails. Therefore, God sent a migrating flock of quails to fill the souls of the children of Israel, to protect the oneness of their soul, through the solitude in the wilderness that would stretch over forty years.

When God was talking to Moses, He said, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.” This says that God does test his servants, in the same way that parents test their children.

All good Fathers and mothers test their children to see if they follow instructions. It is irresponsible for a parent not to prepare their children to know why they have been told to do certain things, after they have proven they have listened and obeyed, because they have complete trust in their parents.  The growth of a child is in steps and stages; and parents learn to test a child to go beyond one point of growth to the next.  Therefore, God tested the children of Israel to prepare them for the next phase of their saga.

Finally, the word “manna” is not a noun, but a question. It says, “What?!?!” According to the etymology of “manna” (from “man”), it is written: “Most probably [it means] ‘What is it?’ the question being intended as a popular etymology of מָן ‘manna,’ based upon the late Aramaic word meaning What?” (Brown – Driver – Briggs)

This means the food that appeared covering the ground each morning (after the dew lifted) was not something the Israelites had ever seen before, as they had no word for it. That says the “fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground” was not of this world. It was of heavenly origin, although with physical properties. It fell like the rain falls to the earth, which has the effect of springing the earth to life. As such, God rained life sustaining essence onto the Israelites.

As the optional Old Testament selection for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s personal ministry for the LORD should be underway – willingly being tested by God – the message should be seen as the infancy required to reach the full state of Apostle. The Israelites were descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but none of them had ever talked to God. The had as much chance of becoming a priest for Yahweh as any Egyptian (any and all Gentiles), without Moses and Aaron knowing God personally and being instructed so they could teach them how to grow into priests.

As far as I have had others in the Episcopal Church explain to me (laypeople and priests), the Sacrament of the Eucharist means to them that physical wafers are transformed into spiritual food (like manna).  This is done by a prayer that calls the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ down to earth (where he falls like rain) onto the wafers that a priest then places on a member’s palm or tongue. Swallowing the wafer is then consuming the Christ Spirit.

Because some of this “host” (a word from Latin, hostia, meaning the sacrificial lamb) is left over until the next service, the leftovers are then placed in a “tabernacle” that is locked. I have been told that the reason one bows before entering a pew is because Jesus is inside the tabernacle, on leftover wafers, which are near the altar.  We do not bow to a cross of stained glass window, but to Jesus in the box.

Such little-known tidbits of information are expected to be taught the children of the Episcopal Church, where “cradle-to-grave Episcopalians” might know these details; but anyone converting to the Anglican Church from some other religion (or having no religious schooling prior) is left out in the cold. People do wonder why things are said or done, but newcomers are afraid of rejection if they ask questions.  Of course, answering questions can put others on the spot, so silence is a theme when in a church.

While there are certainly classes one can take to get brushed up on all the ins and outs of any denomination of Christianity, no expectations are set and few ask questions. All of this is like God testing His children, to see if they have learned the rules and how well they follow them once known.  God wants people to know all the whos, whats, whens, wheres, whys, and hows.  Those who know should welcome (if not go offering) those seeking to know.

When one sees manna as the Pablum (trademark name, but from the Latin word pabulum meaning “foodstuff”) of spiritual nourishment, manna is designed for those not yet in possession of teeth and mature digestive systems. Just as children are to be taught what they must believe, just as they must also be taught why belief is more than listening to someone telling them to believe.  Children need to how to become one of faith, by learning who they must become reborn in soul.  This means learning when they can know everything they have ever been told is the truth … the Gospel.

Being an adult eating a wafer of spiritual food one day a week is like a baby (still) that is starving for spiritual nourishment.

That realization then leads to the question that asks, “Why are such “Christians” not complaining in the wilderness of their lives, because whoever led them to be at retirement age and still eating spiritual baby crackers in pews, “brought [them] out into [their] wilderness to kill [the] whole assembly [of Christianity] with hunger.”  When all an adult knows is the details of Bible stories taught in Sunday School, that adult is severely malnourished spiritually.

A minister of the LORD must have the real spiritual food that is needed to feed the congregations. It too comes from heaven, as the insight of the Christ Mind, brought by the Holy Spirit. The real food is the meaning of the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible, as translated and as naturally read by those fluent in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin is nothing more than words that scream out, “What!?!? What is that to me? What does it mean?”

The Word of God is manna.

Beginning with Jesus and continued through every Apostle that has been reborn as Jesus Christ, the Word of God has been explained so it becomes real food – the TRUTH OF GOD. Ever since Jesus began preaching this holy wisdom, people have been so touched by that knowledge that they have begun doing the same. A minister of the LORD carries on this holy lineage, as brothers and sisters of the Son of God the Father. All have given God’s instructions to seekers, and the seekers who passed the test that demands His servants follow His instructions to a T, they have been rewarded with redemption and eternal salvation.

The story of the children of Israel says they were a stubborn lot, often refusing to follow instructions. Many have failed the test and failed God. Ministers of the LORD are like teachers who want all their students to pass all their tests. By speaking God’s TRUTH, the students have the spiritual nourishment to put in the time and effort to learn.  A minister of the LORD plants the seeds that grow into a desire to learn and a love of personal discovery.

Ephesians, Language, Teaching

Ephesians 4:1-16 – Sheltering from the hurricanes of philosophy

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I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said,

“When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.”

(When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

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This is the Epistle selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B 2018. In the numbering system that lists each Sunday in an ordinal fashion, this Sunday is referred to as Proper 13. It will next be read aloud in an Episcopal church by a reader on Sunday August 5, 2018. It is important because Paul (once again) clearly stated one’s complete sacrifice to God allows one to be reborn as Jesus Christ.

To cherry-pick a few words written by Paul to analyze (rather than turn 316 words of Paul into a short book on the meaning of these sixteen verses), the word translated as “prisoner” is “desmios.” This word certainly says “prisoner,” but equally says, “one bound, one in bonds, and one captive,” where “prisoner” can imply judgment and/or force to make one go where one would not choose freely to go – a prison. However, this prison is “in [the] Lord,” where “Kyriō” means “one who has control of, as the master,” which makes “the Lord” like a prison warden.

That is not the case at all, as Paul (and the Christians of Ephesus) were servants (not prisoners) to “the sovereign, prince, or chief” – the Lord. While one can assume “the Lord” means Jesus Christ, the reality is God is the ultimate LORD. When one is in the Lord, then one is one with God and Christ. When that oneness is seen as being “bound in,” as “captive within,” one is under the control of God, which then emanates as one being “in Jesus Christ,” as Jesus of Nazareth reborn.

Jesus Christ is captive in my flesh. I will not set him free because he came to me!

This is the meaning of Paul writing, “There is one body and one Spirit.” It is important to grasp each individual’s captivity in this way. Each Apostle is captivated by love of God and God’s love in return, through oneness. Paul wrote to other individuals who were just as one with God and Christ, so “one body and one Spirit” equally means a church or assembly, where all members of that body are the individual resurrections of the Son of God. However, to jump to that meaning without realizing the individual must be one body and one Spirit first, one is putting the cart before the horse and there is no equation to a church body of ordinary people who all agree they believe Jesus (one body) was one who was the Son of God (one Spirit).

When Paul wrote, “Just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,” this has nothing to do with some external ritual that fell under Roman Church discretion, three hundred years later. Each individual has become captive by one Lord of their physical bodies and spiritual souls – Jesus Christ. Each individual has personal experience of what oneness with Jesus Christ is, so belief (external words written or spoken) has transformed to faith – the knowledge of the Christ Mind. Each individual has had his or her soul washed clean of all past sins by the Holy Spirit – not bathed by water. Finally, each individual has to be adopted by God above as His Son, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so God then truly becomes one’s Father – the Father of all like individuals who have each been adopted in the same way.

When Paul then wrote, “Each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift,” one cannot envision Jesus Christ being some external Spirit standing like a woman on All Hallows Eve, passing out free candy to those stopping by.

The Greek word “charis” is translated as “grace” so often that few know what that means. The word means “favor, gratitude, and thanks,” which comes from God above, the LORD. As thanks for one’s sacrifice of self-ego (each individual’s), God gives the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are duplications of those talents possessed (also gifted by God) by Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, all gifts are facets of Jesus’ powers on earth, which Paul measured as seven in total.

When Paul wrote (as a quote), “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive,” the Greek words “ēchmalōteusen aichmalōsian” are better stated as, “he held captive a multitude of captives.” Again, this element of captivity is the oneness of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ with a multitude of individuals who have become changed into Jesus of Nazareth reborn. Jesus of Nazareth was himself captive to God’s Holy Spirit, which made him the most holy Son of God; but it was his death (the rising of his soul spirit to heaven) that created the possibility for many others to become the same most holy Son of God on earth.

To grasp Paul’s writing, “he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth,” this is not solely meaning Jesus’s Holy Spirit went to Sheol and looked at all the souls who had died, freeing them to go to heaven. God IS the Father of all souls, so God decides who comes to heaven, who gets recycled back into a new human body, and who gets eternally banished from ever returning to heaven. This means Paul said Jesus of Nazareth was dead as a human being, after three days of death. However, that death was with purpose, so Jesus Christ could descend upon the sinners of the world who were living (dead as mortals destined to die and be reincarnated) and cleanse their souls for eternal life with the Father.

When Paul then wrote, “The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ,” this long series states God’s gifts to those reborn as His Son. Take note that the Greek word “hagiōn” (translated as “saints”) is a basic identification of Christians, as all apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are ministers as Saints – those “set apart by God as holy and sacred.” The gifts of God’s Christ are not given to special people who will lead the ignorant masses, but only to Saints, for the purpose of creating more Saints.

This means that no Christians are without these gifts of God that build up “the body of Christ” (individually and collectively) in faith and knowledge, as that held by Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. It means that all Christians are required to be Saints, worthy of heavenly gifts.  So, one cannot call oneself Christian if one is not a Saint, without belittling what a true Christian is.

When Paul then wrote, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming,” this means maturity is the measure of “the full stature of Christ.”  This means growing up spiritually, which usually takes (minimally) decades of belief and study.  However, maturity means no longer requiring someone external to oneself to tell him or her what to do and what to believe.

In this regard, I recommend reading the accompanying Proper 13 interpretation that I published, about the optional Old Testament reading from Exodus, where manna is spiritual baby food. Growing up means taking responsibility for one’s own spiritual soul, requiring faith and knowledge that can only come through being reborn as Jesus Christ. Without that sacrifice, one is blown by the wind of Big Brain philosophies, which are never going to reward the masses with anything more than misery, and are always going to reward the cheaters and deceivers with worldly gains and the eternal frustrations of death.

Finally, when Paul wrote, “Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love,” this states one’s commitment to God. One must fall in love with God and show God one’s willingness to be fully submitted to His Will, where one becomes one with God through a marriage in one’s heart (in love).

The consummation of that marriage replaces the Big Brain of self motivations with the Mind of Christ. The immersion of one’s soul with the Holy Spirit then allows all parts of one’s body to become outlets for the gifts of Christ – his touch, his voice, and his presence. This build-up in the individual then spreads to others, who then also experience individual growth in their bodies, with the whole body (assembly or congregation) also growing as one.

As the Epistle selection for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s personal ministry to the LORD should be underway – an individual reborn as Jesus Christ in support of a collective of individuals likewise reborn – the message is being captivated by God’s love. A minister of the LORD projects the thrill and joy of being led by the Mind of Christ to know the experience of Jesus Christ reborn. This projection becomes the aura depicted in paintings around the heads of Saints; and that is not to signify personal achievement, but the radiant attractiveness surrounding one from the Holy Spirit, that acts as a magnet to others.

The natural way this began, when the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (on the first day of the week – Sunday), twelve Apostolic priests held twelve church services at once in the same place, with each in a different language and with each telling the truth of the Word that Jews from many nations had heard before, but never known. They believed the words of Scripture; but they had never had faith overwhelm them, because of the stories in the Torah only seemed historical. Hearing the Word of truth converted three thousand Jews into true Christians, because the spirituality of truth hit their hearts. This, then, is the true power of a sermon preached.

So, you know by telling the truth you are helping God?

Paul continued this preaching of the Good News – the Euaggelion – the Announcement of the Truth. Paul then wrote to those whom he converted to Christianity, to further speak the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to those likewise filled with the Holy Spirit. All the Apostles, explained the Prophets, as Prophets. They were Evangelists because they sought out Jews and scattered Israelites who might not yet have heard that the Messiah had come. It was the truth of the Word that turned those believers into practitioners of faith, as Jesus Christ reborn. All then became pastors of flocks and teachers of their families and neighbors, with none ever going to a school to be taught classes in sermon writing and oration.  None ever interviewed for a position as official priest of Yahweh.

Then, relatively suddenly, that way of Christ’s voice, touch, and presence became silenced by an empirical Church.  The collapsed Roman Empire, led by Constantine, saw profit to be made from forcing religious belief on pagans that followed lesser gods. Regardless of the thought processes involved, they were doctrinal, from Big Brains, and not from the Christ Mind.  The system God created (which works perfectly still) was scrapped for the organizational expertise of Rome.

The weathering that change, from reborn Jesus Saints coming from low-level devotees to systemic practices spoken in Latin by men in big hats, reverted back to beliefs, away from true faith.  Over the next fifteen hundred years, that wind of philosophy has left the flag of Christianity torn and tattered, “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” Simply by foretelling that future, Paul was gifted the talent of prophecy, proved when the words he wrote came true.

In these dangerous times, when people sit in pews, separated by an aisle that puts the goats to the left and sheep to the right, the Word of God is read aloud and then a political oration takes place. The brevity of an Episcopal “sermon” is the only goodness served up now days, often only pretending to be the Gospel. The ministers of the LORD are given fewer and fewer flocks to pastor, leaving them without an easy ability to replenish the Christian population.

With fewer Apostles and Saints in the world, the more dangerous the world becomes. The leaders of the world (those currently in power and the ones subverting those in power, so they can scratch and claw on top) are less the cause of the destruction of Christianity, than they are the result of it.  The people who idly sit by and allow this devolution to happen are who own the lion’s share of responsibility in this demise. Still, all is not lost as long as God keeps the torch of truth alive.

God wants His children back from waywardness. Jesus Christ wants the truth be told. Saints risk persecution so God and Christ are pleased, through their willful obedience. The only thing missing is seekers of the truth. The world can be saved when they get on board.

John, Language, Teaching

John 6:24-35 – Becoming the bread of life

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The next day, when the people who remained after the feeding of the five thousand saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

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This is the Gospel selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B 2018. In the numbering system that lists each Sunday in an ordinal fashion, this Sunday is referred to as Proper 13. It will next be read aloud in an Episcopal church by a priest on Sunday August 5, 2018. It is important because Jesus scolds the pilgrims for being idol worshipers, rather than being him.

In this translation above, we read, “The next day, when the people who remained after the feeding of the five thousand saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there,” this is an incorrect paraphrase that acts to misdirect the reader from what was really stated. The Interlinear Bible for John 6:24 shows:

“when therefore saw the crowd that Jesus not is there  ,  nor the disciples of him  ,  they entered themselves into the boats  ,  and came to Capernaum  ,  seeking the [one] Jesus  .”

From the real words written (maintaining the ordering and segmenting of them), one can see that “The next day” is an addition that was stated in verse 22, for the purpose of separating this reading selection and letting the reader know when this story is focused, relative to the event of feeding five thousand. Verse 24 does not state this setting, as it should be understood from the overall context. However, following that setting, the grouping of “neither Jesus nor his disciples” as one collective view of scope makes it appear that those pilgrims still in the area were looking for some theater troupe, whose act had moved to another town.

By seeing the segments as written and knowing that the punctuation of the Interlinear shows where one should pause and absorb a segment of words, before attempting to join other segments into one’s understanding process, reading, “therefore saw the crowd that Jesus not is there” has significant impact. That is a statement that a fraction of the five thousand awoke and found “Jesus is not there” in them. Then, seeing that meaning be revealed, “nor the disciples of him” can be read differently (using the same words written) as, “not the disciples of him.”  The focus is not placed on some of the five thousand men, who had not been reborn as Jesus Christ, so they were not his disciples sent out into the world.

There were still some who took part in the miracle of spiritual food being dispensed that had not been transformed into Apostles. Again, referring to the word written in the unread verse 22, the word translated as “crowd” is the Greek word “ochlos.” That word does mean “crowd,” which bears the most common meaning that says, “A large number of persons gathered together; a throng.” When one sees that translation in context with “the feeding of the five thousand,” one is misled to envision the vast majority of that number getting “into the boats.”

The number can be seen as much fewer when the word “ochlos” can simply mean “the common people,” which is an acceptable definition coming from the word “crowd.” Thus, “the people who remained” were “the common people,” those whose “perception” of the world was “not [that of] a disciple of Jesus,” because “Jesus was not there” within them (… like he was there in the disciples who handed out bread and fish).

Simply by being able to focus one’s sight on that absence of Jesus Christ in a handful of those who were reborn as him by the Holy Spirit, from being fed spiritual food, one is not confused by the question and answer that follows. The question: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” is actually a statement that says, “Because we have not been reborn as you, not knowing where the external Jesus is at all times, we have come to see another one of your miracle shows.” Jesus’ answer then addresses their lack of faith, while seeing their belief as reason to want to be near to Jesus, but not make the sacrifices necessary to be Jesus reborn.

Jesus saying, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you,” says he understood not everyone would receive the Spirit. Those folk were too much into their intellect, and too little into opening their hearts.

They loved the sermon Jesus gave to the five thousand. They wanted to hear more. They had eaten their fill of physical bread; but even though the hearts and minds of most of the five thousand immediately opened wide to the divinity that just a small morsel contained, these common people missed that boat. All of the pilgrims that came to Judah and Galilee for the coming Passover obligation were looking for their Messiah. Most of the five thousand (plus family that were women and children) found that Jesus was the Christ that became them. The miracle of five loaves and two fish was unknown to them, thus signs did not transform them into the earliest Christians. Most of the five thousand had become the Son of Man, still feeding on the “food that endures for eternal life.” A small “crowd” of them (maybe those served by Judas Iscariot … or one-twelfth of them [5000/12=417]) wanted Jesus to repeat what he had done the day before.

Before any more analysis can be presented on this reading, I want you to think about the prophecy of this exchange between those Jews-Israelites and Jesus. They wanted to come sit on the grass on a regular basis and listen to Jesus teach some encouraging things about Scripture. Then, they wanted to be given some tiny morsel of physical food, which would last them until the next time visiting Jesus.

Can you not see this foretelling of the lackadaisical state of Judaism and Christianity, where no one is ever filled with the Holy Spirit, thus transformed into an active minister of the LORD as Jesus Christ reborn?  Both Christians and Jews just sit there and enjoy the signs of pageantry that expresses to their brains, “Aren’t I special?” However, they keep their hearts closed to God and their minds heavily guarding the almighty self-ego and all the physical ‘bread’ that common spirit brings.

Back again?

It becomes important to grasp that most of the pilgrims who received the spiritual food that was passed out by disciples, who were themselves the projections of Jesus Christ [the essence of a true Apostle-Priest-Saint], were not jumping on boats and setting sail to Capernaum. They were out passing on what Jesus had given to them, even if that meant they were just as poorly received as was Jesus. It was the rejects that kept following Jesus around, where “rejects” is defined as: “Those who reject becoming Jesus Christ, via marriage to the One God – the Father – and baptized of sin by the Holy Spirit.”

With that said, look how those rejects then questioned Jesus, asking: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” This question, which was asked in the conditional voice – “that we might perform” – is on the level of intellect. It is like those who want to know the conditions of this “new agreement” Jesus was proposing, when the Jews and Israelites had spent a lot of time memorizing (intellectualizing) the Covenant made between God and Moses. This question wanted to know how many more external, written rules were necessary to confess belief in, in order to be able to say they were doing the works of God. After all, were not Jews doing the works of God just by being Jews?

Let that concept settle into the reader’s mind now.

Ask oneself if Christians are not similarly asking Jesus for the steps to righteousness. Is it not enough to be doing the works of God simply by going to church, paying tithes, donating to charities, voting for political candidates that say they believe in God, and doing (of course) the Ten Commandments … for the most part?

Can you see how this question implies asking, “If I score a 75% on the Christian test, then that means I go to heaven, right?”  How would you feel if you hired a lawyer with those credentials?  Or, a doctor that graduated last in his or her class?

Jesus responded to that question by saying, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

That brings up the “belief” word, which is misleading. It is like when the young rich Pharisee (probably Nicodemus) went to Jesus and asked how he could be assured of going to heaven. Jesus said, “Well there is the Law,” to which the rich man said, “Every day I uphold the Law!” Then Jesus said, “Okay. Now sell what you have, give it to the poor, and become me.” “Belief” means more than just following some steps written on a piece of paper (that is always locked away in a box).

The Greek word that is translated as “believe” is “pisteuó.” In the response by Jesus, John wrote “pisteuēte,” which stated the conditional, “you should believe.” Still, the word has more meaning when translated as, “you should have faith,” such that faith implies a stronger level of “belief,” just as one being assured of going to heaven requires a stronger path in obedience to God than those stated in Law. That faith is only possible when it come from being “in whom [God] has sent.” That means faith is becoming Jesus Christ reborn, because that is the only way to do the work of God.

Maybe Jesus was on a pier and Peter could not see that in the dark, filled with fear?

[Reminder: Every time the disciples cried out in fear, they believed in Jesus; but Jesus would say, “Oh you of little faith.”]

The rejects (obviously) did not understand what Jesus just said to them, which is the same reaction most Christians have when they read this selection as well. They heard the words, but they flew way over their heads … because Jesus was not there in them. So, in an argumentative spirit they said, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

The word translated as “sign” is “sēmeion,” which also means, “miracle, indication, mark, and token.” These rejects asked for a sign worthy of belief, after the great majority of the five thousand were given the “mark of Christ” when they were fed spiritual food. Those immediately acted from the faith of personal experience with the Holy Spirit and God, just as Jesus of Nazareth was then doing in Capernaum.

Still, by seeing the feeding of a multitude with five loaves and two fish as a miracle, there were some common people who believed that was a magic trick. Because it could have been good theatrics, they needed to get more than an “all you can eat” buffet of physical bread. After all, Moses did work a miracle of God that lasted forty years in the wilderness … which none of them witnessed personally, but they believed. Jesus, a relative unknown, needed to do a verifiable miracle before their eyes, or those common rejects were not about to stay his fans much longer.

Jesus responded to their challenge by saying, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Jesus straightened out the facts of the Exodus story of the manna, saying God rained bread from heaven, such that Moses only told the Israelites what to expect from God. Still, the manna was spiritual food, which afforded the Israelites life in a wilderness that had little life to offer human beings. Still, when Jesus said, “It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven,” Jesus just restated, “The work of God” is “life to the world,” and, that when “you believe in him whom [my Father] has sent,” then you become “the true bread of heaven” that never stops feeding the soul.  Eternity is a greater feat than forty years.

*Cue the sounds of a flock of ducks flying overhead, because the rejects heard “bread” and could only think in physical terms.*

I don’t get it.

They said to Jesus, “Sir, give us this bread always.”’

They were still expecting everything to be handed to them, without any work of God performed. Just like some Masoretic scholars believe about God’s gift of manna – that some Israelites lazily laid on the ground outside their tent and caught the manna as it drifted down to earth from heaven – they wanted Jesus to make it rain bread. They said this to Jesus as if the only way he could prove he was sent from their God, was to hand out free bread for the rest of their lives, like God did when they complained to Moses.  They wanted to be given that gift then, on the spot.

Tongue in cheek, perhaps.  I think they expected Jesus to actually deliver on that demand, about as much as hurricane disaster victims actually expects FEMA to give out $100 Walmart gift cards forever.

First come, first served. Only 500 available.

Since Jesus was fully able to read the hearts and brains of the reject doubters, being always filled with the Holy Spirit and the Mind of Christ, he made this statement: “I am the bread of life.”’ Jesus affirmed that he was the manna sent from God, but this time the “bread” was “of life,” not simply for staying alive in a wilderness. Life meant staying awake and vigilant, as an escape of mortal death and the reincarnation that follows a soul’s sleep state. It meant the hands, lips, teeth, esophagus, stomach, and intestines had nothing to do with consumption of Jesus bread. Only the heart could take in God’s gift of love.

When Jesus said, “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” the same problem with having a low expectation of the meaning stated in “come to me” and “belief in me” is why Christians go to church on Sundays, but would never ever dare to tell someone, “I think I am Jesus Christ reborn.” Humans are always hungry and thirsty; but souls hunger for hope and salvation and thirst for redemption and promise. As such, “come to me” means being reborn as Jesus Christ, so one can perform the same miracles of faith that are only possible in Jesus Christ.

As the Gospel selection for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s personal ministry for the LORD should be underway – filled with the bread of life – the message is to face up to the rejection of doubters. Just as the young rich Pharisee walked away from Jesus when told, “Oh, there is much more than external rules to learn. You have to become the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which means self-sacrifice and works!” … many do not want to hear that message because they know they are too weak to do that.

A minister of the LORD knows the sacrifices demanded. The vast majority of those who are cleansed by the Holy Spirit and adopted by the Father as His Son (regardless of human gender), reached the bottom, in one way or another, and cried out for God’s help. Hope becomes the beginning of a spiritual rise from that depth, with hope the inspiration that comes as the spiritual food one needs to find life in service to God. A minister to the LORD knows this path to salvation and is ready to assist one who seeks to find the value of that service’s reward of heaven and eternal life.

Paul wrote about hope and said anyone who hopes for what one already knows, then that is not true hope. People know worldly riches and goals, whether or not they have achieved them. True hope is desiring that which cannot be seen in this world. The common people who could not see themselves as Jesus, who followed Jesus to Capernaum, they could not understand that proof of Jesus being the bread of life is impossible in a worldly state. Only within one’s heart and mind can one prove that to oneself. Only from one’s soul can one know this truth.  Therefore, no minister of the LORD can prove what only faith can prove … not simply belief.

If one studies the Gospels just a little, one finds that Jesus answered more questions with other questions, rather than state concrete answers that can be judged as true or false, based on the powers of observation and physical measurements. When one hears Jesus ask a question, in response to a personal question, the Holy Spirit is whispering guidance. Those who test that guidance find their own answers, and that personal experience changes belief into faith that is personally proved. A minister of the LORD can treat seekers as disciples, and give more explanation, just as Jesus privately told his devoted students. Still, it is ultimately up to the student to prove to him or herself what it is the teacher is teaching.

When the pilgrim rejects said to Jesus, ‘Sir, give us this bread always,” this is like kneeling by one’s bed as a child and praying, “Lord, please let me be a doctor when I grow up.” (Or lawyer, or professional actor, or movie star, or some wealthy professional.)

God does answer those prayers. He says one must learn that science, craft, or art until one has ownership of it (mastered it completely). The problems come when people who pray for such dreams are not willing to listen to advice and do what it takes.

Some advice now: It is easier to get what you want in the physical world than it is to get what you want spiritually … if you do everything alone and without help. Some people are actually self-made millionaires (breaking many laws along that journey). However, no one has ever reached heaven by selfish means.

2 Samuel, Language, Teaching

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 – A head caught between heaven and earth

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The king, David, ordered Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.” And all the people heard when the king gave orders to all the commanders concerning Absalom. So the army went out into the field against Israel; and the battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim. The men of Israel were defeated there by the servants of David, and the slaughter there was great on that day, twenty thousand men. The battle spread over the face of all the country; and the forest claimed more victims that day than the sword. Absalom happened to meet the servants of David.

Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak. His head caught fast in the oak, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him went on.

And ten young men, Joab’s armor-bearers, surrounded Absalom and struck him, and killed him.

Then the Cushite came; and the Cushite said, “Good tidings for my lord the king! For the Lord has vindicated you this day, delivering you from the power of all who rose up against you.” The king said to the Cushite, “Is it well with the young man Absalom?” The Cushite answered, “May the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up to do you harm, be like that young man.”

The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

——————–

This is the Track 1 Old Testament optional reading for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 14], Year B, according to the lectionary for the Episcopal Church. If chosen, this will be accompanied by a reading from Psalm 130, which sings, “Out of the depths have I called to you Yahweh; adonay hear my voice; let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.” Those will be followed by the Epistle reading from Ephesians, where Paul wrote, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.” All will accompany the Gospel reading from John, where Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets.”

I wrote about this and published my thoughts in 2018. That commentary can be found by searching this site. I offer background insight, which is valuable; but I see how my view of David and the division of Israel was not properly presented. I will offer new insights that have come to me recently, leaving the insights of 2018 as still valid. I welcome all readers to read what I offered for consumption three years ago.

Last Sunday Yahweh spoke through Nathan, who told David, “I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun.” All of this would come to be through David’s third son, Absalom, whose mother was Maacah, the daughter of the King of Geshur.

This is the meaning of those names:

Absalom means “King of Peace.”

Maacah means “Oppression,” “Squeezed,” or “Crushed.”

Geshur means “Stronghold” or “Fortress.”

Talmai [the name of the father of Maacah, King of Geshur] means “Plowman” or “Furrowman”

There is some report of Jewish insight, which says David was cursed by taking a non-Jewish wife, when he married Maacah. They use symbolism that says one bad deed brings about another; and, they equate David’s plight to this marriage out of his ‘race-religion,’ which did not exist at that time [i.e.: that opinion is hogwash]. The marriage between David and Maacah must be seen as led by Yahweh, for a specific purpose. That purpose was broken when David sinned. Therefore, one punishment would be the loss of a wife, with her given to David’s neighbor.

Geshur means “Stronghold,” which was the place taken by David, named Jebus. The land that was called Geshur is that area east of the Sea of Galilee, which was where Jesus fed the five thousand spiritual food. The name of the king’s daughter being Maacah should be seen as a word meaning to crush grapes, in order to make wine. Her name should not be seen as a slave captured by David taking a conquest, as the Geshurites were like the Jebusites, as peoples never able to be overcome by the people of the Tribe of Manasseh. Thus, the King of Geshur gave his daughter to David to unite the Israelites to the Geshurites, it was a symbolic marriage between soul and Spirit, as the metaphor of David being an elohim of Yahweh. Maacah represented the blood of the Spirit mixed with the blood of David in their offspring. The third child of that marriage was named for David, as he was then a “King Of Peace.”

When Nathan spoke for Yahweh, saying, “I will take your wives,” the removal of Maacah becomes a divorce that ceased that divine union that made David a judge of Israel and Judah, reducing him to just a man. The trouble that befell his house would destroy all his children of that divine marriage.

In the story of Absalom, he declared that he should become the judge of Israel. That says David was the judge sent by Yahweh, who the people of Israel and Judah chose to be their king. As the judge of the people, the people followed the divinity of the judge. When David sinned and was punished by Yahweh, that divinity as the judge of Israel vanished. With that, so did the divine influence over the hearts and souls of the people. That led Absalom to begin natural human lusts for power and influence; and, that human drive won him the hearts and souls of both Israel and Judah. It was so strong that David was forced to abandon his kingdom.

David went back to where he lived, when Saul was trying to kill him. Absalom is then symbolic of a fallen king of Israel being resurrected. That failure would be the way of Israel and Judah, until both collapsed in ruin. David found his closest allies with him in Gath. It was Gath where David went and preached the divinity of Yahweh to the Philistines, so two hundred soldiers willingly converted to faith in Yahweh and allowed themselves to be circumcised. David took their foreskins to Saul, claiming his right to royalty, which came through his marriage to Michal [the promised benefit of the foreskins being delivered]. While David had followers who knew his soul was still filled with Yahweh’s Spirit, there were those who were allied to David because of hatred for Absalom.

Because Yahweh was still spiritually with David, with David knowing his kingdom was doomed, Yahweh would not allow a return to a Saul-like ruler. The symbolism of Absalom being caught in the branches of “a tenebenth” tree [“hā·’ê·lāh,” or “elah”], which is not truly an “oak tree,” but more like a “turpentine tree.”

The metaphor from reading, “His head caught fast in the tenebenth, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth,” says the “branches” of Israel’s paths would not allow the “head” of a fool-sinner overrun one anointed by Samuel, married divinely to Yahweh. Absalom became “suspended between heaven and earth” as a pretender to the throne. His rise was not fully to the top; and, his fall was not fully to the bottom. Absalom becomes the Song of the Bow revisited, while being an example that all who live by the sword will die by the sword, in the sense that Yahweh said through Nathan that Uriah was killed by the “swords of Ammon,” so too would sword would cut David’s house. Absalom becomes a reflection of the “sword” of battle between enemies.

Th element of armor bearers being the ones depicted in this ‘cut and paste’ reading as the killers of Absalom needs to be seen as a reflection of David having been of the same age when he slew Goliath. This makes Absalom the reflection of the true line of David having become an ugly monster that then hung from the branches of the Promised Land. That turpentine tree becomes metaphor for the vast number of peoples, all who sought to destroy the invading Israelites, so Absalom became the giant that was the tree, whose head hanging was like the head of Goliath, where David’s stone sunk in. The young boys did not throw the three spears or javelins into the chest of Absalom; but they finished him off, much like the bodies of Saul and his son Jonathan [and another] were mutilated after death.

David gave a clear instruction about the defeat of Israel’s army under the lead of Absalom, saying: “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.” The reality of what David said [“lə·’aṭ-lî lan·na·‘ar lə·’aḇ·šā·lō·wm”] is this: “gentleness of me is in this young man Absalom.” That is David explaining the “Father of Peace” was built into the name of Absalom, as he was born of David when his soul-flesh was at peace with Yahweh and Israel and Judah were divinely led by David. This means what David said metaphorically was, “The gentleness of my soul rests on this young man Absalom.” That said, if Absalom dies, I die with him. It is a prophecy, more than a request to take it easy on Absalom.

The character that is Joab is enigmatic. He always seems to play ‘devil’s advocate,” as he is routinely shown to be behind evil acts, whether necessary or not. Joab is the nephew of David, the son of David’s sister. He would be condemned by David, when David lay on his deathbed, and executed by Solomon; so, he is not a hero figure in Israelite history. Still, Joab becomes a reflection of what Freud called the “Id” and Jung called the “Shadow.” In this way Joab becomes the character David would have been, had he not been married to Yahweh, submitting his soul to the Will of God. By David not condemning Joab much sooner, while having access to the Mind of Yahweh [with appointed prophets to advise him], this says David was no different than his predecessor Saul. By seeing that connection symbolically, Joab killing Absalom with javelins was an act condoned by David.

When David weeps and bemoans the death of Absalom, he is actually crying over his own death as the King of Israel. His plan was to have Absalom take his place, even though Absalom had committed similar crimes as had David. The sorrow David felt for a wicked son says David was no different than was Eli or Samuel, both holy men whose sons were nothing like them. David was not looking at his young son Solomon as his replacement, because he knew Solomon was the product of his wicked self. The death of Absalom was like the death of Jonathan in reverse, as Jonathan was the good son of an evil king.

Solomon would not be a great King of Israel, as the nation would split after his death. The whole element of sons and birthrights and inheritances must be seen as a flawed system, because the only system that leads a soul to eternal life is that when a soul is led to marry Yahweh and submit fully to His Will. All who do that cannot make any other soul do likewise; and, the more likely scenario is the codling of an offspring spoils that soul and drives it away from divine marriage. Thus, no human can ever become a king of anything other than failure.

As a reading for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s own personal ministry to Yahweh should be well underway, the lesson is to see how powerless one is to make things happen in the world. While victories can be planned and arranged, they will never come without some form of loss accompanying the gains. The loss of Absalom must be seen as the part of each self-soul, which is always seen as some form of reserve to self-ego and self-will. This is the symbolism of a Big Brain, as our heads always get tangled up in the branches. The hair of one’s head is then the flowing mane of a king lion – king of the jungle that is a deadly world. If we do not totally release our souls in submission to Yahweh, there will always be a chink in the armor that will be one’s downfall. Absalom reflected the Achilles heel of David, where he thought some gentle form of self could survive. David then reflects the wails over self-sacrifice.

1 Kings, Language, Teaching

1 Kings 19:4-8 – Death under a Juniper tree

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Elijah went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, Yahweh, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of Yahweh came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount ha-elohim.

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This is the Track 2 optional Old Testament reading for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 14], Year B, according to the lectionary for the Episcopal Church. If chosen, it will be paired with a selection of Psalm 34, which sings, “The angel of Yahweh encompasses those who fear him, and he will deliver them.” That set will be presented prior to the Epistle reading from Ephesians, where Paul wrote, “do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.” All will accompany the Gospel reading from John, where Jesus said to the crowd, “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

I wrote about this reading and published those thoughts back in 2018, the last time it came up in the reading cycle. I welcome all to view that commentary by searching this site. I include some background details that place these five verses in historical context; and, what I wrote then is still valid conclusions today. I offered that I saw this reading as symbolic, perhaps a dream; but I will now offer new insights, which do more to highlight why the ‘elders’ chose these verses as an option to the other Old Testament reading from Second Samuel.

The clear connection between a reading about the death of Absalom and this episode of Elijah telling Yahweh to “take away my life” is a tree setting. Absalom’s troops of Israel were routed in the forest [“bə·ya·‘ar” – also “thickets, woods”] of Ephraim, but he himself became entangled in one of the “tenrebinth” [“ḇā·’ê·lāh” – “elah”] or “turpentine trees.”. This becomes the similarity here, as Elijah “sat down under a solitary broom tree” [“rō·ṯem”], which means a “juniper tree.” While the differences in tree species can lend additional symbolism to each story, the commonality of “tree” is it is a trunk coming from roots, with a myriad of branches that make both trees uninviting to human presence. Thus, the tree symbolism in both cases needs to be seen as metaphor for the history of Israel being planted into the Promised Land.

Broom tree or Juniper.

In both stories the ‘victims’ found under a tree were running away from danger. Absalom’s army had lost twenty thousand men, many to the branches of the turpentine trees that created a thicket that was difficult to navigate swiftly. Those who did not slow down when they reached the thicket in Ephraim were killed by swords, arrows and spears. Those who attempted to rush through the branches were beheaded or pierced by tree limbs. Absalom’s hair became entangled in a branch, which left him hanging (still alive) “between heaven and earth.” Isaiah was likewise running away from the threat upon his life, ordered by Ahab and Jezebel. As Elijah sat down under a “broom tree,” he too was suspended between heaven and earth in a figurative way.

In the case of Absalom (the verses selected to be read), he was hanging still alive, after Joab had come upon him and [not read], “(Joab) took three spears in his hand, and thrust them into the heart of Absalom.” For this not to have killed Absalom, the fact that Joab had “armor bearers” with him says Absalom most likely also wore armor which kept the act by Joab from killing him. The “three spears” can be seen as one spear with three points – a trident. The “heart” can then be read as the chest of Absalom, where there was enough penetration to strike at the “will” [alternate translation of “bə·lêḇ”], so Absalom was still alive, but unconscious and utterly defenseless. He had been reduced to the state of incapacitation that ten children could then strike his body and kill him.

This is a three-pronged fork [mazleg], which was used as an altar tool for uplifting and turning large portions of sacrificial meat. If Joab took one into battle with him, it would be for symbolically using it on enemies representing sacrificial beasts.

In that story [mostly unread aloud in church], Joab represented Ahab and Jezebel (the evil influence behind the king), with Absalom being seen the same way Elijah was seen by his pursuers. Absalom had risen to become a king of Israel and Judah; so, his head became one worthy of being transcribed in the history books [like First Kings is], which David ordered the Song of the Bow be written into the Book of Jasher [the history of leaders the Philistines remembered]. Absalom was just another human being who rose to be a king, but then fell back to the earth, in the arc and trajectory of self-importance. He lived by the sword and he died by the sword. The end.

Elijah, on the other hand, sat down under a tree of branches, of his own free will. Instead of his head being caught up in self-importance he welcomed death. He invited Yahweh to take his life. When the NRSV translation says, “ He asked that he might die,” it must be realized that Elijah was “asking” this of Yahweh, so the Hebrew word “way·yiš·’al” [“shaal”] can be read as “he prayed.” One can imagine that Absalom’s ego had him trying to free himself the whole time he hung on the branch, trying to free himself to live another day as a threat to his father. Elijah, on the other hand, represents a willing sacrifice to Yahweh, praying: “It is enough; now, Yahweh, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”

In that translation, the Hebrew word “mê·’ă·ḇō·ṯāy” is translated generically as “ancestors.” The core word in that [“ab”] means “fathers.” This relates Elijah to a lineage of prophets, where the “fathers” – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – were not to be confused with the masses that ascribed blood relationships, but only those whose souls were related through marriage to Yahweh. The prayer then meant with his being condemned to death by Ahab, Elijah’s acts proving the divinity of Yahweh as the God of Israel was over. There was nothing more Elijah could do, after he had Yahweh ignite his altar wood and burn his sacrificial cow, which then led to the slaughter of four hundred fifty priests of Ba’al. Rather than try to save himself from being killed by Ahab, Elijah was offering his soul into Yahweh’s hands.

Now, the reason a “broom tree” is called that is because the branches grow straight, with prickly small leaves at the end. They are said to be capable of providing shade for one person, with little room for covering more. All of that becomes metaphor for Elijah being a singular prophet of note in the history of the “fathers” of those peoples. The symbolism of a Juniper tree is as a protector of evil spirits. [Ref.] That acts as how the divine “ancestors” of Yahweh protected the laws [the marriage vows] of Moses from corruption. Thus, Elijah was one broom of Yahweh, which was sent to sweep out the evil presence [the grime and filth] that had dirtied the Northern Kingdom.

The aspect of Elijah going to sleep must be seen as his death. Minimally, his soul left his body of flesh, which means Yahweh granted his prayer; but, unlike the death of Absalom, where children came to hack his body to pieces, Elijah was attended to by an angel. More than a dream Elijah had while asleep, the angel bringing bead and water must be seen as his soul being cared for, protecting Elijah from evil. If one sees Elijah physically dying under a tree, just as Absalom died under a tree, one can begin to equate everything written about his subsequent life as the equivalent of Jesus’ resurrection from death, whereby no second physical death would be necessary before his ascension to heaven before witnesses [divine replacements].

When this physical death is seen, to read “there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water,” the aspect of “by his head” [“mə·ra·’ă·šō·ṯāw,” rooted in “meraashoth”] needs to be seen as parallel to Absalom’s head being “suspended between heaven and earth.” The presence of bread and water by Elijah’s “head” says his ego was replaced with spiritual food [bread cooked on coals] and everlasting water [a jar of water]. Because Elijah was “touched by an angel,” his soul had become joined divinely. When death is seen at the point of that touch, being told “Get up and eat” – the actual command is “arise” [from “qūm”], meaning leave the body of flesh and enter the heavenly realm – Elijah was commanded to partake of the offerings of Yahweh.

When we then read that Elijah “ate and drank, and lay down again,” rather than see Elijah as being very tired [after only a day’s journey], one needs to see the duality of two. When one means death, two means the resurrection, as “again” returning to life in the body of flesh. This then means the soul of Elijah “lay down again” in the body of flesh that was dead. When we then read, “The angel of Yahweh came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you,”’ this becomes Elijah being resurrected from death. In the same way that Jesus told Jarius “give her [his risen daughter] something to eat” there is a need for spiritual food to feed the soul returned to the body of flesh. This is not a need for physical food, as resurrection from death is not about the physical flesh but for the soul to be strengthened.

We then read, “He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount ha-elohim,” where I have corrected the translation to show the Hebrew “ha-elohim.” The plural number that says “of the gods” [rather than “of God”] becomes a statement that Elijah’s eternal soul had been joined with the “angel of Yahweh” [“mal·’aḵ Yah-weh”], which clearly is a non-human, spiritual entity of eternal life. Simply from two eternal entities joining as one, the result is an “elohim.” This is not to say that Elijah was not also an “elohim” while a living prophet, as the fact that he was a prophet who called upon Yahweh says Elijah was a soul married to Yahweh’s Spirit [another “angel” – “malak”]. The distinction now says the resurrected body of flesh that was Elijah is no longer necessary for Elijah to carry around. Thus, “the forty days and forty nights to Horeb” was impossible in a physical body of flesh.

In my 2018 commentary, I speak of the similarity of Moses, Elijah and Jesus spending forty days in the wilderness, where that was s link that had them all appear together in the Transfiguration. More than that being a statement of time [although it can be that too], the purpose here is to say that Elijah was in a state of being that no longer required a physical body. When Mount Horeb is seen as a place of union with Yahweh, so Elijah did not need to travel to a distant land and climb up a mountain, Elijah was divinely elevated to a state of being that parallels Moses and Jesus. The cave in which Elijah would go [another Sunday’s reading] is his tomb, which makes that parallel to the tomb in which Jesus’ body was placed after his death from crucifixion. No longer needing a physical body, as his body could be seen as an angel can be seen, the second helping of bread and water was to feed this presence.

Again, returning to the comparison of the Absalom head caught in a turpentine tree branch, where he was incapable of avoiding his pending death, Elijah becomes the precursor of Jesus, in the sense that he willingly sacrificed his body of flesh so his soul could be resurrected as an angel walking the face of the land. Absalom would be mutilated and disgraced, which became a reflection of the kingship that David had used to lead the Israelites to serve Yahweh as their king. Absalom’s death ended all thought of the mangled tree of Israel ever producing a worthy king. Elijah was not sent to be a prophet of Israel for the purpose of overthrowing a king. He sacrificed his body of flesh so that an “elohim of Yahweh” could be preserved.

As an optional reading for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s own personal ministry for Yahweh should already be well underway, the lesson of this reading is to see the fear of death as a selfish quest for power that can never be obtained. One must sacrifice one’s life through marriage to Yahweh. One must die and then be reborn by the marriage that sends an angel to be one with one’s soul. Today, Christians know that angel by the name of Jesus – a name that means Yahweh Will Save. To have one’s soul saved by Yahweh, one must die of self-ego and self-will and be resurrected as Jesus, the Son of man reborn.

Jesus then becomes the bread baked on coals and the jar of water that nourishes one’s soul. This makes this reading option fit the Gospel reading from John, where it is repeated that Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” The bread of life is set by one’s head, when one’s head has been emptied of self-ego. Otherwise, one hangs suspended between heaven and earth, trying to figure a way to save one’s life, when that is an impossibility. Elijah shows us the true quest should be to save one’s soul; and, that means telling Yahweh, “This is enough. Take my life.”

Ephesians, Language, Teaching

Ephesians 4:25-5:2 – Transitioning from good person to Saint

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Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

——————–

This is the Epistle reading selection that will be read aloud on the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 14], Year B, according to the lectionary of the Episcopal Church. It will be preceded by one of the two sets of optional readings, which are a Track 1 or a Track 2 Old Testament and Psalm pairing. Track one places focus on the death of David’s son Absalom, while Track two places focus on the prophet Elijah going to sleep under a broom tree. The two songs offer supporting prayers of lament and praise. All will accompany a reading from John’s Gospel, where Jesus said, “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”

I wrote about this reading selection and published my thoughts in 2018, the last time it came up in the reading cycle. That commentary can be viewed by searching this site. Because the Epistles are all so much deeper than the surface translations make appear, I broke this reading down minutely, by segments of words, where I delved into the Greek text. This is how all the Epistles should be read; and, it is why they appear so confusing when they are read aloud (without pause for reflection). The confusion is why so little is preached correctly about the Epistles; but the truth contained in the Epistles explains the true meaning of Christianity, which is meaning that has been lost from modern grasps. I welcome all to read what I offered in 2018, as it is still valid today. However, at this time I will veer away from such depth of analysis and offer new insights that have come to me.

Transformation

When this reading is taken alone, without any context, it speaks the truth as Paul saying becoming a Christian means a transformation occurs within oneself. Paul tells that these changes will make one cease lying to others, to cease uncontrollable anger that acts against others, to cease stealing, and to cease gossip and slander towards others. The confusion of this reading comes from pulling in the first verse of the following chapter, which implies all this transformation can come from pretending to be Christian. It makes a lovey-dovey ‘kumbaya’ touchy-feely magic be seen as the way to make oneself change. That is wrong.

When the context of this Epistle is seen as a thread that connects this insight to the insight coming from Absalom being caught in the branch of an oak tree, his death soon to come, with Elijah also found dying under a tree of a different kind, while Jesus confronts Jewish pilgrims who struggle with how a man can be the bread of heaven, the two chapters combined into one reading need to be seen as together in support of one another. This aspect is hard to see, when there is no line that marks the woulda-coulda of chapter four and the peace that comes in chapter five. The transition from one chapter to the next must be seen as the transformation from life to death and from death to resurrection. One cannot pretend – cannot imitate – death and resurrection.

When one sees the death of Absalom as reflecting the death all human beings are bound to face, Absalom reflects a human’s natural drive to lie, cheat, steal, and use violent force against others, in order to get one’s way. That lifestyle always gets one’s soul hung up in the tangle of the evil that human lives weave. When one is caught hanging by the head “between heaven and earth,” then the time to confess one’s sins and beg God for forgiveness is long past. One can expect Yahweh to send someone like Joab to pierce one’s heart with an altar spear, leaving the carcass to be destroyed by children taught the same disrespect for human life one’s soul promoted by one’s actions in the flesh.

When one sees how Elisha did not go to sleep, but in fact did die, sacrificing his life to Yahweh – ala Jesus – he shows how self-sacrifice is the way to resurrection. The first touch by the angel of Yahweh removed his soul from his flesh, which was the death of self-sacrifice that was as peaceful as sleep. The second touch by the angel of Yahweh returned the soul to the flesh as the resurrection of Christ. This is the transition from Paul’s fourth chapter to his fifth. Elijah was not an “imitator of God,” but an elohim of Yahweh that was His Son reborn, from a death symbolizing the marriage of his soul to Yahweh’s Spirit – a union of love.

When the Gospel reading from John shows a confrontation between Jesus and the pilgrims, who include those who knew Jesus as the son of Joseph in Nazareth, this parallels the approach of Absalom by Joab and his armor bearers. The children were raised to attack foes, so as adults they have learned all the ‘tricks of the trade,’ which is lying, stealing, and violent force. When Jesus said he was the “bread of heaven,” that was the bread cooked on hot coals that was beside Elijah’s head, which fed him in the transition from death to resurrection. The first loaf was to become the changed person Paul wrote of. The second loaf was to transition to eternal being risen without the limits of a body of flesh.

As a reading selection set aside for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s own personal ministry for Yahweh should already be well underway, the lesson Paul sent is to sacrifice self-ego for the Will of the Father. One must not try to deal with the world alone, or one will find oneself all tangled up in the messes one has made, unable to wrestle one’s soul free to repent in time to change. A soul must submit to Yahweh so it’s body of flesh can make the necessary changes WITH GOD’S HELP. If it were a simple matter of changing from liar to truth-teller, from thief to honest person, from angry striker to loving embracer, then there would be no real need for religion on earth. The problem is (of course) this is an unobtainable goal by human beings. The world is like the forest of Ephraim, a thicket awaiting one’s ego to find.

When Paul wrote, “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God,” that change of chapters says one has to serve Yahweh as a priest or prophet and do all Yahweh demands of His bridesmaids – His fiancées awaiting marriage. The transition from one chapter to another is the transition of death, when one ceases being a self of importance and one begins acting as Jesus reborn in the flesh. Pretending to be a good person can only work for so long. For that reason, one must die of self and be reborn as Jesus, also a Christ, also a Son of man [human gender irrelevant].

John, Language, Teaching

John 6:35, 41-51 – Coming to Jesus means being drawn by the Father

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Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

——————–

This is the Gospel reading that will be read aloud by a priest on the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 14], Year B, according to the lectionary for the Episcopal Church. It will follow either a Track 1 or Track 2 pairing of Old Testament and Psalm readings. Track 1 places focus on the death of David’s son Absalom, while Track 2 tells of Elijah falling asleep under a broom tree. The sons that accompany them are lamentations and praises, accordingly. All will be presented with a reading from Ephesians, where Paul wrote, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

I wrote about this reading and published it in 2018, when it last came up in the lectionary cycle. That commentary can be read by searching this site. I welcome all to read that posting, as it is still valid today. However, I will add comments now that direct the focus of this reading towards the thread that connects all the readings grouped with it on this Sunday after Pentecost.

Before I go in that direction, as an act designed to see the importance of the capitalized words written by John in Greek, I found more evidence of the divinity of Scripture, which is remarkable. I did this two Sundays back, with the Paul letter to the Ephesians. Simply by reading the capitalized words, a supporting statement appeared that guided the other text to a point of focus. The same thing appears in the capitalized Greek words in this selection (verses 41-51). Here is the list of the capitalized words and their translations into English:

“Egongyzon” – “were Grumbling” – “I whisper, murmur, grumble (generally of smoldering discontent).”

“Ioudaioi” – “Jews” or “Judeans”

“Egō” – “I” [Jesus]

“Ouch” – “Not” – the Jews against Jesus as heavenly

“Iōsēph” – “Joseph” A name meaning “Increaser” or “May He Add”

“Ek” – “From, From out of” – A question of where

“Apekrithē” – “Answered” “Replied, Took up the conversation” – Jesus responding

“Iēsous” – “Jesus”

“Mē” – “not” to grumble, said Jesus

“Patēr” – “Father”

“Kai” – importance to follow

“Theou” – “of God”

“Patera” – “of Father”

“Theou” – “of God”

“Patera” – “of Father”

“Amēn” – “Truly”

When these words are stated as a divine statement of Yahweh, who was guiding the mind and the pen of John, it becomes an intentional use of capitalization, which John could never have planned from a simple human brain. It shows the source as divine. Here is the statement made by these words (in their order of appearance in these eleven verses):

“Were Grumbling Jews – I Not Joseph From – Answered Jesus – Not Father – * – of God of Father – of God of Father.”

Where I have placed an asterisk ( * ), this is where the capitalized word “Kai” would be found. Rather than a word translated as “And,” the word is a marker of importance that must be grasped to follow. When this word is capitalized, it brings about greater importance, of a divine level of meaning. The words that follow “Kai” need to then be seen as most important in this series of capitalized words, such that they should be found as a strong statement about what “Not Father” means. That following statement says this:

“they will exist all taught of God,” which leads to the following capitalized word “of God.”

This then places great importance on “all” who “will be” [a statement of future being] “taught.” That important focus explains who can truly claim Yahweh as the “Father.” The grumbling Jews all saw themselves as the children of God, but because none of them had ever be “taught” how to be a Son of Yahweh and live righteously, none of them could make that claim. Thus, their focus on Joseph says their fathers were all human, not spiritually taught to teach their children to likewise be taught. The importance of this is then Jesus saying the Jews were lost and could only be found by becoming true children of Yahweh.

Seeing this arise from the capitalized words is not what I planned to write, although this adds support to the commentary I am about to present. The theme that runs through all the readings on this Sunday is one of children of the Father. In the Second Samuel reading, Absalom is the son of David, his human father. Paul wrote in the beginning of his fifth chapter to the Ephesians, “be imitators of God, as beloved children,” where the word translated as “imitator” is better translated as “emulator.” John wrote of Jesus saying, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets.”

It is more difficult to see this Father-Son relationship in the short optional reading from First Kings; but it is there. When we read of the “angel of Yahweh” [not written “the Lord”], it is the voice of Yahweh that says, “Get up and eat.” This is the soul of Elijah being taught by Yahweh. It is the truth of what Jesus said to the Jews.

When that is seen, the bread given to Elijah for him to eat is then the spiritual food that made him the Son of Yahweh. It is the bread that feeds one’s soul the goodness of Yahweh that grants one eternal life. It is how Jesus said, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died,” because manna is spiritual food for a day.” Daily consumption leads to the death of the body, when the soul separates. When manna is seen as Scripture, the bread given by the angel of Yahweh to Elijah is the bread that transforms one into the Son, with Yahweh the Father. Jesus was that angel speaking to the disgruntled Jews. He was telling them, “Arise and eat.”

In the two Old Testament readings the heavy thread that connects them both is that of a tree. The oak branches that caught Absalom [a name that means “Father Of Peace”], one must see the history of Israel. The shade of the broom tree that covered Elijah must be seen as the prophets and judges of Israel, with the oak tree for the kings and tribal patriarchs. That element is now stated by John when he addressed the “Jews,” which was a capitalized word. They had become the stump of Jesse, as there no longer was any tree their history could be written in. Jesus was the new shoot from which the “Jews” who were not disgruntled could become the new branches, all as saints. Jesus represented the mustard seed from which would grow the largest tree in the garden.

As the Gospel selection for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s own personal ministry to Yahweh should already be well underway, the lesson here is to listen to Jesus when he says, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me.”

Today’s Christians see Jesus as a co-equal to Yahweh, like the new name for God. So often Christians say, “You have to believe in Jesus,” when in reality one has to believe in Yahweh [not some generic Lord or God]. One has to believe Yahweh has offered believers His hand in marriage; but, to take hold of that hand, one must submit oneself fully and completely to Yahweh, as His wife. Without that marriage of one’s soul to Yahweh’s Spirit, there can be no belief in Jesus, because Jesus is not external to anyone. Jesus is the product of one’s marriage to Yahweh.

Jesus is the Son of man, as the soul-spirit of repentant Adam, the only Son of Yahweh. The name “Jesus” means “Yah[weh] Will Save.” The only way to receive eternal life is through becoming the Son resurrected within one’s soul-flesh being. Studying Scripture and being led to see its meaning does not make one Jesus reborn. One has to reach that broom tree and beg Yahweh to let one’s self die, so one can be reborn as the Son. The bread one must eat is Jesus. One must consume the life-giving Spirit of Jesus to gain eternal life. The only way to be able to call Yahweh the Father is by eating the bread of life and them emulating the Son in the flesh again.

Ministry with being Jesus is being a child, playing church. Absalom was the son-king of a holy man who had sinned against Yahweh. As the son of a man, Absalom was as great a sinner as was his father. Absalom was conceived when his Father Was At Peace with Yahweh, but being born of a holy man does not make one a holy man. Each soul is separate; each soul is the property of Yahweh. No soul can return to the Father without consuming the bread of life and being reborn as His Son. Anything short of that is pretense and self-worship.

Language, Psalms, Teaching

Psalm 130 as a prayer for the bread of life as one’s Lord

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1 Out of the depths have I called to you, Yahweh;

adonay, hear my voice; *

let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2 If you, Yah[weh], were to note what is done amiss, *

adonay, who could stand?

3 For there is forgiveness with you; *

therefore you shall be feared.

4 I wait for Yahweh; my soul waits for him; *

in his word is my hope.

5 My soul waits for adonay,

more than watchmen for the morning, *

more than watchmen for the morning.

6 O Israel, wait for Yahweh, *

for with Yahweh there is mercy;

7 With him there is plenteous redemption, *

and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

——————–

I last posted a commentary about this Psalm on May 27th of 2021. It was the song of praise that accompanied the presentation of David’s Song of the Bow, after Saul died (along with Jonathan). The same breakdown of each of these seven verses applies now, when Absalom has likewise reached his peak of human achievement and fallen back down hard, can be found by searching this site. I will simply offer now a short adjustment to the accompanying readings for the Proper 14 reading selections.

As a Psalm that fits well with the Epistle reading from Paul’s letter to the true Christians of Ephesus, the chapter four verses about how one needs to transform oneself [a “self” always equates to a “soul”], away from cheating, towards commitment, away from lying, towards the truth, away from theft, towards giving, and away from violence, towards peace, the only way for one to make such drastic changes is to make Yahweh one’s salvation. The truth of the Hebrew word “adonay,” is it means “lords” [the plural number of “adon”]. The body of “self” has many “lords” that rule over it. They are everything that is external to one’s soul, including one’s body of flesh. The only way those “lords” that lead one to cheat, lie, steal, and hurt can be overcome is through marriage to Yahweh and the union of His Spirit with one’s soul.

The Old Testament reading from First Kings [which has its own Psalm connected to it] speaks of the bread and water set by Elisha’s head, after he lay down and fell asleep. The metaphor of sleep is death. Elijah surrendered his soul to Yahweh, much in the same way David’s Psalm 130 sings of calling upon Yahweh for help. This Psalm is then like manna from heaven, as Yahweh strengthening David’s resolve to defeat his “lords” and gain forgiveness. Elijah, on the other hand, died of self and was fed the spiritual food of rebirth. Elijah would be reborn as the Son of Yahweh.

In the Gospel reading from John, Jesus is announcing he is the fulfillment of David’s prayer in song. He is the “lord” of the Jews; but he cannot be an external king that lords over them. For Jesus to become their “adonay” [one soul ruling many soul-body combos, each individually], they have to sacrifice their heads [self-egos] and die of self, to arise and eat the bred of life that will transform them into Jesus.

“and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones”

As a song asking for the help of salvation, one a day when so many big brains hang suspended in the web of branches, born from their sinful pasts, the lesson so often sung in Psalm 130 is to marry Yahweh and stop sinning. A marriage to Yahweh takes one beyond the daily strength one helping of manna will bring. It brings the bread of life and the everlasting waters of an eternal presence with Yahweh as one’s wedding gift. Only by turning one’s back to the “lords” of sin can Yahweh bring the “Lord” of a soul into one’s being. The whole purpose of ministry is to become Jesus resurrected in the flesh, so others can know Yahweh offers them the same opportunity for salvation.

Language, Psalms, Teaching

Psalm 34:1-8 – Being saved from fears

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1 I will bless Yahweh at all times; *

his praise shall ever be in my mouth.

2 I will glory in Yahweh; *

let the humble hear and rejoice.

3 Proclaim with me the greatness of Yahweh; *

let us exalt his Name together.

4 I sought Yahweh, and he answered me *

and delivered me out of all my terror.

5 Look upon him and be radiant, *

and let not your faces be ashamed.

6 I called in my affliction and Yahweh heard me *

and saved me from all my troubles.

7 The angel of Yahweh encompasses those who fear him, *

and he will deliver them.

8 Taste and see that Yahweh is good; *

happy are they who trust in him!

——————–

This is the accompanying Psalm to the First Kings reading selection that tells of Elijah falling asleep under a broom tree [when “sleep” equates to “death”]. If Track 2 is chosen for Year B, then this pair will be read along with the Ephesians reading, where Paul wrote, “do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.” All will join with the Gospel reading from John, where Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Today’s verses from Psalm 34 will present eight of the twenty-two that compose this song of praise. Next Sunday a second set of verses from Psalm 34 will be read. A Sunday later a third set will present every verse in this Psalm, with some parts read again on three other occasions; so, this is a Psalm that gets much attention.

One will note that I have taken the NRSV translations [others do the same] that call Yahweh by the generic name “Lord.” Please, feel free to call upon some generic Lord all you want. David specifically named Yahweh and the Jews who ‘assist’ Christians with translations that say “O Lord” have as close a relationship with some “Lord” as do the Christians who happily dance along behind people who barely believe in God, much less ever dare to say His name. David wrote a song of praise to the specific God named Yahweh; and, I have placed that name back into the translation.

Missing from the Episcopal Church’s presentation of verse 1 is the words that the NRSV has spliced out and turned into the ‘header’ of this son. Their translation states: “[A Psalm] Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.” According to my research into Abimelech, the popular opinion is the name is actually Ahimelech, who was the only priest with a name similar that David encountered. He was the high priest of Nob [a place near the border of Judah and Benjamin, close to Jerusalem], where the Tabernacle was kept during Saul’s reign.

When David was fleeing Saul, along with his devoted soldiers, David entered the Tabernacle in Nob and convinced Ahimelech that he was on a mission ordered by Saul, David convinced the high priest to give David five loaves of showbread [which routinely was only to be consumed by priests, but Ahimelech saw hunger and need the reason to give those loave away to David, to feed his troops]. This story would make the ‘title’ be less about David faking madness and transform it into saying, “David went beyond normal protocols by presenting the face of poor judgment to Ahimelech, who saw that face of David as a demon that he cast out of David, sending him away healed [with five loaves of showbread].”

In what David wrote in verse one [as the ‘introduction’], the Hebrew word “lip̄·nê” is rooted in “paneh” or “face.” Whenever “paneh” or “panim” is used in Hebrew Scripture, it needs to be read as the “face” one wears to the world, which is either the “face” of Yahweh [a righteous soul-body] or the “face” of a lesser god [like self]. When one sees how David showed his “face” to Ahimelech, he was fearful, due to Saul pursuing him, wanting to kill him.

While the Spirit of Yahweh had been poured out upon David’s soul, David was seeking some form of asylum within the lands of the Israelites; and, he entered the Tabernacle unjustly. David would have to find refuge in Gath, under Philistine protection; but fear of killing Saul drove him to the Tabernacle, which could be considered a form of madness. Either way, Ahimelech played a role for Yahweh, where the face of fear was removed from David, so David could continue to evade Saul, without worry about Saul being killed by David. This fortunate encounter should be seen as Yahweh’s blessing of David guiding him, beyond the loyalty of David’s body of flesh; and, that becomes the motivation for this song of praise.

Verse one [according to the translation read aloud] is then a statement that no other faces will be worn by David again. He will give Yahweh the praise of his body and voice by only wearing the face of God to lead others.

Verse two sings that the face David will wear will come from the marriage of his soul to Yahweh. Verse two sings the word “nap̄·šî,” which is rooted in “nephesh,” meaning “a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion.” The NRSV translation seems to have translated this as “glory,” when in reality David said his “soul” would be “humbled” by having married Yahweh. This will lead to a sense of joy and gladness that comes from his soul, no longer afraid of anything.

The aspect of verse three that leads the NRSV to translate “Name” as a capitalized word [meaning the name of Yahweh], becomes affirmation of this spiritual marriage. The word written is “šə·mōw,” rooted in “shem,” which means “name.” David was singing that his soul would wear the face of Yahweh as His wife, completely in willing submission to the Will of Yahweh. A wife routinely takes on the “name” of her husband; and, David’s body of flesh was feminine to the masculinity of the Spirit. Here, one must see the absurdity of one taking on the “Name” of one’s Husband, and being to idiotic to call that Husband by His Name [instead wallowing around the bush, saying “Lord”].

Verse four is then where the ‘heading’ can be found to make sense, as it was the ‘madness’ or “judgment” that was led by “fear” that was driven out of David by Ahimelech. The translation by the NRSV that says, “I sought Yahweh, and he answered me and delivered me out of all my terror,” takes “mə·ḡū·rō·w·ṯay” and states it as “my terror.” The root word, “megurah” or “magur” means both “storehouse” and “fear.” As such, David’s body acted like a silo that filled up with fear, as that was the crop being harvested by Saul’s madness over the land. David sought the help of a high priest to be “delivered,” where “hiṣ·ṣî·lā·nî” [rooted in “natsal”] meant having the storehouse “stripped clear” or emptied. Thus, David’s fears were “cast out.”

Verse five is then the only verse in this sequence that does not directly name Yahweh. Instead, David speaks in the plural, as “their faces,” which “were not ashamed.” This speaks of Ahimelech and the other tabernacle priests at Nob, who were not shaken by the fears David brought into their presence. The face of Yahweh was worn by them all, as the “radiance” of Yahweh glowed as “their faces.”

Verse six is David’s confession that he was lacking the wealth of faith, as he proclaimed he was “a poor man [“‘ā·nî”] who cried out” from “troubles.” Yahweh heard his pleas, so He led David to the tabernacle in Nob.

In verse seven, David wrote that “the angel of Yahweh encamps all around those who fear Him.” This is the angel that is one with one’s soul, making that soul be elevated to an elohim. David had that angel within his being; but his fears had crippled that presence. Therefore, David was divinely led to enter a presence where the “radiance of Yahweh” could ease the fears and Ahimelech could cast out his demons.

Verse eight then speaks of Ahimelech “tasting” the fear that overwhelmed David, with David likewise “tasting the good” that was in Nob. Yahweh was with Ahimelech and also with David, so the fear was cast out of David and that place.

As a reading selection that accompanies the story of Elijah asking Yahweh to take his life, he too was afraid of Ahab, who had promised Elijah’s death, after he heard Elijah had killed four hundred fifty priests of Ba’al. While David found the angel of Yahweh in Ahimelech, Yahweh sent an angel of transition to Elijah, which made it impossible for Ahab to kill that which was already self-sacrificed to Yahweh. Elijah experienced the same casting out of fear while under the broom tree. Thus, the lesson here is to recognize fear cannot lead one to righteousness. One must be purged of fear, so the only fear that remains is the fear of Yahweh and losing eternity with His presence.