​Welcome! Just before Thanksgiving, the class on Wisdom Literature ended. I had asked the class members to do a survey following the three one hour class sessions. Here are the results:
 

1. What's  your favorite book?
   1. Ruth-7
   2. Ecclesiastes-4
   3. Psalms-2
   4. Proverbs-1
   5. Esther-1
2. Which Illustration was your favorite?
   1. Jonah Children's Story-6
   2. Song of Solomon sermon
   3. When Ruth stayed with Naomi
   4. Strength of the women for these books
3. What was the most important thing you got from the course?
   1. Scholarly information
   2. Increased knowledge of scripture and how it can apply to modern day living
   3. New appreciation for wisdom literature
   4. How the books relate to modern times
   5. Each of the wisdom books has a lesson for us today
   6. The handout
   7. Knowledge by the instructor in depths of books and various interpretations
4. Length of class sessions and spacing
   1. Just right-13
   2. Too short-4
      1. Needed more sessions
      2. One more week or 1/2 hour longer in each of the 3 sessions

 
One person said the instructor did not ask very clear questions to promote discussion, and that was very helpful. I found myself agreeing with that evaluation, and I'm going to work at that.
My thanks to the class for their interest and participation. This made it a real pleasure to be part of a learning process, and I learned a lot more than I knew before.

Monday, November 19, 2018
7:36 PM
Welcome! How does The Song of Solomon make sense to the preacher? He digs into the rest of scripture, and to the basic description of God-a God of steadfast love. That, he says is what makes this love poetry make sense, and this is from the female poet reflecting on God. (Remember that Wisdom personified is female.)
 
It's the overriding summary that keeps the various strains of the Old Testament working together. What's that?
"Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself."
 
One cannot read Wisdom Literature without understanding that it is the Creator God found at the beginning of the Book of Genesis that underlies the whole thing even if God is not explicitly named  in every other verse. God looks at all God has made and proclaims it good. Humans are made in the very image of God. This is not an ambivalent and detached God, but a God who loves to a degree that goes beyond rational sense to mystery.
 
Next week I'll try to share some of the insights from the class at NIACC as we conclude. They have been a great group!

​Welcome! The class on Wisdom literature started on Wednesday of this week, and continues  for two weeks. Some of the members of the course may attend, and we are glad to have them participating .
 
I am sharing some views of how to understand Jonah.
 

1. A satire in which Jonah finally says the right things, but his actions belie his words
2. OR an extended Parable.
3. The people of Israel should remain separate, and satire drives that view of things.
4. An indightment of the failure of the prophets.
5. The justice of God. Why isn't God just and so destroy Ninevah?
6.  A  God of justice and mercy. The chesid of God- a God of grace.

 
What's your favorite?
 
How do we become a part of the Book of Jonah?  In what way are WE Jonah?
There's no ending to the Book. Do we furnish an ending?

​Welcome! Here are some final observations and questions about the book of Jonah.
 
This book is not finished. There is no conclusion. There are no directions. It strikes me that every person who hears this elaborate parable understands that we are like Jonah at the end, but there is no ending to the book. Are we to finish the book in our time? Peace making is hard work, and often not rewarded. Israeli premier Yitzak Rabin observed that we do not make peace with our friends, but make peace with our enemies, and after signing a peace agreement with Egypt, was assassinated  by a radical party of Jews. We find parallels in Christianity and Islam.
 
How is God involved? The one who created is the one who loves who and what he creates. Here are important recurring phrases from the three Abrahamic faiths:
 
Judaism-The God of Steadfast Love
Islam-Allah the merciful and Compassionate
Christianity-God so loved the World that he gave his only son
 
We are encouraged to see others as God sees them, as those created in the image of God. I suppose we would like God to be on our side and make our enemies God's enemies. God is apparently not interested in that.
 
The book ends with some gentle humor and pokes some fun at the Ninevites, and at us. God talks of the people of the city "who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals." Jonah has been grieving over a plant that gave shade to him, and Jonah valued it more than the great city. It's so easy to make things of little consequence very important, and not to see things through God's eyes.
 
The antidote to hatred and fear is love-God's love. There is no need to flee it.

​Welcome! We are working on some reflections on Jonah. I'm going to be sharing input from some classes this fall  in life-long learning at North Iowa Area Community. From the White Rage class:
 
Following the Civil War, Hatred of Yankees, followed by hatred of black slaves, commenced. From Chapter 1 of the book "White Rage: "As one South Carolinian explained in 1865, The Yankees had left him 'one inestimable privilege… and that was to hate 'em.' 'I get up at half past four in the morning' he said, ' and sit up to twelve midnight to hate 'em.'…The visceral contempt, however, extended far beyond the Yankees to encompass the formerly enslaved." The result was a reign of terror that lasted over 100 years. The results have shown up now in a new onslaught of racism in America.
 
From the course on Islam; a history of conflict between minority absolutists, and the mainstream moderates. That is very much like The book of Jonah disagreement between Ezra and Nehemiah and the command to love enemies from Jonah. Conservatives in the Roman Catholic Church are calling for the resignation of a moderate Pope. Disagreements within religious faiths are often seen as against enemies. But does Jonah do that? He instead insists that the people created in God's image whom he loves be considered. This understanding is common to all three faiths.
 
My reading of the book of Jonah Is that this scripture comes alive now, and is a profound challenge to hatred and division. What do you think? 
 

​Welcome! There are some for whom the Bible is  Black and White, but here is a disagreement about  people who have been enemies. The introduction in the Lutheran Study Bible sets the context as follows:
 
"The story is making a clear point about God's love extending even to Israel's enemies. This is not common among the books of the prophets. This message also contrasts with the attitude that fueled religious and social reforms found in such books as Ezra and Nehemiah. Those books describe life for Israel in the time following the exile in Babylon after 539 BCE, when God's people returned to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. Ezra's religious reforms called for strict measures, such as Israelite men divorcing foreign wives. The religious community was especially concerned about being influenced by other religions, and this made them less open to those who did not live according to Jewish law and worship Israel's God. For this reason, many scholars think the story of Jonah was written sometime after the exile in Babylon ended, and long after Nineveh's reign of terror ended. Nineveh itself was defeated and destroyed in 612 BCE. Another hint about when this story may have been written relates to that date. Jonah 3:3 states that Nineveh was a great city, perhaps signaling that at the time the story was written, Nineveh had already been destroyed."
 
The preservation of enemy status forever has great religious perils. I am thinking about Christians and Jews, and that many Christians have indulged in long-term hatred over a period of over two centuries. The holocost, pograms, and discrimination have injured both Jews and Christians. I am remembering a conversation I had in Mason City with an old German man with a lifetime hatred of Jews. He thought that he was a Christian because of how he regarded Jews, and wanted nothing to do with a Church that no longer taught what he believed.
 
Jonah pays a great personal cost from his hatred. He avoids God  and endangers the sailors who are innocent: He almost dies: He wishes to die when the Ninevites repent, and He opposes a God who forgives: He cannot love, and is bitter. The implicit question for us who hear the story is; how are we like Jonah and what costs do we bear?

​Welcome! I have been offline due to some vacation and family events. I have been asking for comments and reactions because I will be teaching an introductory course on Wisdom literature in the Old Testament. The three short books we will be looking at are: Ruth, Jonah, and Esther, and then we will look at some passages from Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesisastes, and Song of Soloman. We have finished with Ruth, and we are now moving to Jonah. The introduction I am sharing today comes from the Lutheran Study Bible.
 
 
"Jonah is unique among the prophetic books of the Bible. While the others are mostly made up prophetic speeches, Jonah contains only one short prophetic speech. The rest of the book is about Jonah himself. Jonah openly disobeys God's command to go to Nineveh. He tries to run far away from God. God pursues in and causes a great fish to swallow him. Jonah calls out to God and recognizes God as his deliverer. After God has the fish and vomit Jonah out, he then goes to Nineveh as God first asked him to do. But when is prophetic message causes the people to repent, Jonah has becomes so angry that he wishes for death. Why? That's the plot twist that is key to understanding story and why it was written.
 
The Lord calls Jonah to speak a prophetic word of judgment to the powerful city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. Assyria had been a feared enemy of the people of Israel. In 722BCD, it defeated the northern kingdom of Israel and forced to many of its people to leave their homes. So when God called Jonah to deliver his message to the hated Syrians in Nineveh, Jonah wanted no part of it. He runs away, not because he is afraid to do what he is called to do, but because he knows what might really happen. He knew that "the Lord is a gracious God and merciful slow to anger, and ready to relent from punishing."  In other words, he knew that if he warned the Ninevites to repent, God was likely to forgive them." 
What I have been thinking about his week from Jonah is the effect of having an enemy, and the difficulty of moving on. I remember the Cold War from my childhood, when people saw Russia as our enemy, and then looked everywhere among our own people to find traitors. It was an awful time.  Nine Eleven brought a new enemy from insurgents in the Middle East, and we have had real difficulties with identifying who our enemies really are. This is really important for us so that we do not see our neighbors  as our enemies. But Jonah pushes us beyond identification to see our enemies as God sees them, and that is disquieting.
 
What I am requesting is that you read the book of Jonah this week. It is only four chapters long, and is located at the very end of The Old Testament. Only two short books, Micah and Nahum, follow it. We'll talk together more about Jonah  next week.
 
 

​Welcome! We are working on Ruth Chapter 4.
 
In Chapter 3, the marriage contract was worked out on the threshing floor between Ruth and Boaz. Ruth pledged loyalty to Boaz in terms like that of her pledge to Naomi, and Boaz accepted and gave his blessing. He gave a gift of barley to Naomi as a wedding payment and Ruth took that to Naomi.
 
However, the matter of the legal wedding had to be worked out by Boaz. He protected Ruth's reputation by having her leave the threshing floor while it was still dark. Naomi said Boaz would act the next day.
 
Chapter 4 resolves this in public with the community and the elders giving witness to the wedding of Boaz and Ruth as legitimate in law and in agreement.
 
The encounter with Boaz and the next-of-kin is comical. One of the commentators I read said it was burlesque. The next- of-kin is eager to get the inheritance, but when he finds out he has to marry Ruth to get it, he declines. The public way of declining was to take off a sandal and give it to the other. Boaz declares he has acquired from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Naomi's deceased husband and sons, and in marriage to Ruth, preserved the name of the dead.
 
Boaz and Ruth are married, and have a son. The women give a blessing to God for Naomi, for the daughter-in-law who  loves Naomi, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne a child who is a restorer of life to Naomi. Naomi becomes  his nurse, and the women give the child the name of Obed, and declare, "A son has been given to Naomi."
 
The last paragraph is a genealogy, and the last verse is "Obed of Jesse, and Jesse of David."
 
The first use of the law is "to establish justice, preserve peace, set boundaries to evil doing, and protect those in society who are marginal and vulnerable." (note on 4:5 from the Lutheran Study Bible.) But the law only works when the community respects the laws for a just purpose. The witnesses do that, and Boaz uses the law on behalf of Naomi and Ruth. Why is it often so hard for that to happen?
 
What laws are used to defeat the purpose of the law in our time? What laws uphold the purpose of the law? Can you give an example of each?
 
Naomi has recognized the hand of God in the actions of Ruth and Boaz, and has gone from emptiness to fulness. When our emptiness goes toward fulness, do we see the hand of God? Do we credit God for the kindness of people?
 
Blessings are pronounced time after time after time in the book of Ruth. Can we learn to bless and receive blessings more than we usually do?
 
Boaz is listed in the genealogy as the ancestor of King David , as is Ruth through their son Obed. The foreign woman is directly related to the king who is the pattern for kings. Do foreigners often enrich the country they come to? Does this have something to do with the hand of God?
 
But in the genealogy in the beginning of Matthew, Ruth is listed as a forbearer of Jesus along with Boaz. How long and how patiently does God work?

​Welcome! I'm late this week, hampered by a bad foot which finally seems to be healing. Again, it would be very helpful at the end of this session if you would check the like button and make a comment, which will be visible to everyone who reads this blog, and we will be a group who can communicate with each other.
 
Naomi, who has described herself as Mara (bitterness), begins the chapter by telling Ruth she is going  to provide security for Ruth. Naomi is moving from emptiness to fulness, and her caring for her daughter is part of that process.
 
A continuing surprise for us is that caring and acting for others is a blessing for us, not a heavy burden. Isn't  
It almost always an unexpected grace rather than a reward for being or doing good?
 
The rest of the chapter is a study in ambiguity. Is Boaz being manipulated or given a chance to do what he wants to do? Is the Hebrew word for feet about feet or the male sexual organ? Did the couple sleep or make love? Are the six measures of barley to Naomi the marriage price? The story engages the hearer and in  sense teases the hearer. The resolution takes place in chapter 4.
 
The blessing in this chapter is again from Boaz in verse 10. "He said, 'May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter; this last instance of your loyalty is better than the first; you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich."
Now the pledge give to Naomi is extended to Boaz, and this becomes Ruth's wedding pledge.   
 
Boaz calls Ruth a worthy woman, and that is a common description of the role and value of women in Wisdom Literature. The old testament is not exclusively patriarchal or matriarchal, but there is an interplay that involves both men and women. It is very clearly an affirmation of Ruth.
 
The roles of both men and women are a present concern in our society and churches. Does mutual respect provide a setting for our interplay with each other?

Welcome! We are working our way through the book of Ruth, the second chapter. I appreciate comments, because I am working on a presentation on Wisdom literature for today from the Old Testament, and this short book is a great illustration of some of the features of those writings. Thanks for your help.
 
In this chapter, Ruth meets Boaz , a rich landowner who is related to Naomi, and gleans in his fields. He takes special notice of her, and makes sure that she is given special consideration and protection. When Ruth asks him why he is doing this, because she is a foreigner, Boaz says he has heard of what she has done for her mother-in-law, and gives her a blessing as a refugee, and the blessing is from the God of Israel.
 
I'm reminded of Martin Luther King's hope that people will be regarded for the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. How do we judge others? How do we regard those who are strangers because of language, culture, and place of origin? The choice for Boaz was kindness.
 
When Ruth tells Naomi about Boaz, she gives thanks to God for his kindness, and her lament turns to blessing. In verse 20, Naomi says about Boaz, "Blessed be he by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!"
 
Do we see good things as good luck or as blessings?  For Naomi, emptiness is beginning to be replaced by fullness. This is a wise woman, and her wisdom and initiative are shortly to be seen as she looks after her daughter-in-law.
 
Wisdom Literature is about religion in daily life, and the story comes alive in our stories. How is that working for you as you reflect on this story?