A naked preacher?

My lovely friend Anna posted a vulnerable, self-aware and in-process piece on theological writing just the other day.  It made my soul smile.

It echoed the thoughts of Billy Coffee's one-time lecturer on the subject of writing, who said of writers:

“Don’t simply tell me that faith saves you, tell me how it almost failed you, too. Don’t tell me about love, speak of your passion. Don’t tell me you’re hurt, let me see your heart breaking. I don’t want to see your talent on the page, I want to see your blood. Dare to be naked before your readers. Because that is writing, and everything else is worthless crap.”

And for writing, I agree.  Writers who genuinely say something say what they mean.  Which is what they deeply and utterly believe.  And so are naked before those who would laugh, mock and critique that.

Thus, genuine writers:

“People write because they must. Because there is a story inside them that is meant to be shared with the world. But having that story inside you doesn’t make you a writer. How you tell that story does. And you tell it through honesty.”

A question for me, then, is to what extent preaching is 'writing' in this sense?  For we do not tell our own story, though that story is equally "inside us and meant to be shared with the world".

On the side of the naked preacher, I would say that if the person doesn't preach, but only the text is preached, then the duty of plunging the sword of the spirit into oneself before plunging it, with your own blood still afresh on it, into your hearers has been neglected.

On the other hand, when does the preacher's nudity become a distraction from the preacher's work of exposing the naked word of God, in all its glory and implications, to the congregation?  For even if we have a story to tell in Christ, a sermon is not a testimony.  It is the story of Another,

Of course, the answer is not a blank yes or no. (sorry if that's what you were going to say.  Let me introduce you to Graeme Goldsworthy if you were.)  But I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the field of "in what sense ought the preacher be naked, and in what sense ought no-one be looking at the preacher to have noticed?"

Your thoughts?  I'd value them dearly.

Grasping in Genesis #4

I've been blogging through Genesis since finishing my project, and it's been fascinating seeing some themes emerge so strongly.  Particularly, seeing that Gen 3 isn't the only place where find a character grasping at something God's already given or promised them.

So, we're up to chapter 27, and the theme reappears.  But first, some background:

Isaac prayed to Yhwh on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. Yhwh answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, "Why is this happening to me?" So she went to inquire of Yhwh. Yhwh said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older[Esau] will serve the younger[Jacob]."

 Rebekah came to love her younger son, Jacob.  Isaac came to love the older son (and the meat he hunted), Esau.  Now Rebekah is in a fantastic position here, because she's had a direct word from Yhwh that her favoured son will end up on top.  He'll rule over Esau, so there's no reason for her to fear losing contact with her son.  She already has, in promise form, what she's come to desire.  And so when she hears Isaac promising this same thing to Esau instead of Jacob, she fails to trust God's word and decides to take matters into her own hands.

"Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves. And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies."

The context gives us a whole bunch of clues that we should be thinking of Genesis 3.  Firstly, the great desire for food is once again present.  (as it is at the end of chapter 25, to which we'll return; it's heaps interesting)  Second, the repetition of competing voices which ask to be obeyed ("heard").  Third, the dichotomy of blessing and cursing, as Rebekah (willingly) brings curse on herself.  Fourth, the sending away of Jacob out of the presence of Isaaac for fear of death, as Adam and Eve were from the presence of Yhwh (the phrase is repeated so you don't miss it).  Fifthly, the repetition of the covering with animal skins.

And lastly, of course, the very thing she wanted, and had, she ended up losing.  She sends her son away for fear he might die.  In effect, she loses both her sons. (cf. 27:45)

There are a few more connections, of varying strength.

Of course, as striking as the similarities of the scenes are the distinctions between them.  This is the art of Hebrew narrative, as expectations are set up and then twisted, added to or totally subverted.  A subtlety often foreign to the characteristically one-dimensional storytelling of Hollywood.

Ultimately, what happened?

Rebekah saw what she wanted.  She already possessed a promise from Yhwh that she would have that thing.  She took action designed to get it.  And, though God subverts the previous paradigm by keeping his promise to bless Jacob, Rebekah herself loses that which she grasped for.

 Thus Isaac sent Jacob away. (Gen 28:5 ESV)

And she never saw her son again.

Hard yakka

It requires far more courage, energy and sometimes unusual circumstances to face yourself than is commonly admitted.

Genesis intratextuality

I started out a set of observations from my reading through Genesis here and here.  The idea is essentially this:

There's a pattern emerging through Genesis where certain characters grasp at something that they already have, whether in actuality or by promise of Yhwh.  The result of the grasping tends to be the loss or spoiling of that which they have grasped for.  The prevailing theme is faith, or lack of faith, that Yhwh has given them that good thing.

For Eve, that was the knowledge of good and evil. Though she possessed it, she was tricked into thinking God had been stingy and so she grasped for it, and lost it, in the eating of the fruit of the tree.


For Sarah, it was having a son.  Though Abraham had received the promise of a son, she grasped at it by giving Hagar to Abraham, and ended up causing Isaac and his descendants the problem of their relationship with Hagar's son, Ishmael.

Now we come to Genesis 22 and the great test of Abraham's faith.  Will he give his only son back to God?  The one through whom God's blessings were promised to flow?  Or will he grasp at him, attempting to keep that which God has said he must give up?

It seems utterly impossible for Abraham to believe that Yhwh will provide for him an heir through Isaac.  The very act that Yhwh asks of him inherently destroys any hope of this.  Yet in a complete reversal of our previous scenes, Abraham trusts Yhwh in the impossible situation.  He freely gives up that which Yhwh had given him and in whom the rest of Yhwh's promises will stand or fall.  He entrusts himself to Yhwh's goodness in spite of all human logic.  (It thus makes sense that Hebrews 11:19 ascribes to him a divine wisdom that affronts all human experience and common sense.)

This scene is the ultimate example of trust in the providence of Yhwh, against all his human experience of possibility.  It is also the polar opposite of the actions of Eve and Sarah in grasping at that of which Yhwh had already assured them.  It is an anti-type-scene in every conceivable way.

The author sets Abraham's insane trust in the providence of Yhwh against the grasping of Eve and Sarah, whose lack of trust had varying degrees of "understandability".

There is so much pastoral application in these chapters that is really huge for our generation.  No time for it here, but perhaps I'll rant about it in another post.  This series is about establishing a pattern of scenes in Genesis, which in turn may enhance the case for my project's slant on Genesis 3.

Next stop, Genesis 27, where the scene reverts to type...

Intertextuality #2: the fun part

I posited here an argument for a strong thematic connection between Genesis 3 and Genesis 16.  While that's fun in itself, it was the possibilities that this connection unearthed that began to pique my interest.

I have suggested in some detail here that Genesis 3 is perhaps best understood as Eve grasping for something that she already possessed.  If this is right, then might that pattern also be repeated later in Genesis?

Indeed, it's worth asking why women are the focus in so much of the, if you'll excuse the pun, patriarchal narratives.

Genesis 16 is a case in point.  In what sense could Sarai be described as having grasped at that which she already had?

Well, if we understand Yhwh's promise that Abram would have countless descendants in its most natural sense (ie, that he would bear them through his wife), then in effect Sarai had already received the child she was grasping for: by promise.  The thematic links are strengthened somewhat in perceiving that lack of trust in God's word is a key operative in both cases.

Eve failed to trust that God had been good to her in what he had spoken to her.  Could we perhaps suggest that Sarai did the same?

The journey through Genesis should be interesting.  I'm holding out some hope that these intertextual links will provide some support for my reading of Genesis 3.



NB.  Feminists, don't get too agitated too quickly about where I'm going with this.  We'll get to Tamar who provides some narrative counter-balance and nuance.

Is there an 'inter' in this texuality?

I'm reading through the Bible cover to cover at the moment (much closer to one cover than the other) and am noticing some interesting things upon reading Genesis afresh.  For example, Genesis 16 seems to follow a familiar pattern.

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said to Abram, "Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her." And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
 3 So, after Abram ahad lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.
 5 And Sarai said to Abram, "May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May athe LORD judge between you and me!"
 6 But Abram said to Sarai, "Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please." Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. (Gen 16:1-6 ESV)

Seeing anything yet?

The driving tension involves a husband, a wife and Yhwh.  The tension is brought to a head as the wife becomes convinced that Yhwh is stingy and has short-changed her.  This is stated in a way that contains a certain amount of factual truth, while misrepresenting the character of Yhwh's actions.
The wife perceives a means by which she may gain that which Yhwh has allegedly withheld from her.  This course of action seems good to her, despite seeming obviously flawed to the reader.  And so the wife takes, and gives to her husband.  The husband, passively and without a reported word, listens to his wife and receives that which is offered.

Then the negative consequences become all too apparent to the man and wife.  Each party shifts responsibility for the situation to the other.  The final result, is that someone becomes an exile.

Sound familiar?  If there isn't significant reference to patterns set up in Genesis 3 I'll eat my exegetical hat.  Which is easy.  Because it's imaginary.  Unless you buy me a real one.

Implications for exegesis?  Probably lots, I'd have to think about it.  Or get you guys to tell me.  It really casts the Genesis 16 event in terms of the nature of Adam and Eve's sin.  It proceeds again from a wrong view of God and ends in a failure to trust his predictive word.

Now something that is also interesting to me is the fact that there are, perhaps, particular resonances with Genesis 3 when read as I have in my project.  I'll post on that soon, God willing.

Public link to my project

Does what it says on the tin.

Title: Why do we still believe the snake?
Subtitle: What happened when Adam and Eve ate.

Link: PDF