She tells us to "play dress up" with the parables. Think of the ones who aren't at the center of the story -- not the prodigal son but the envious older brother; not the person who sells his property to buy the field with its hidden treasure, but the one "who sells the field without a second thought."
Reading how Herod responds to John, she puts herself in his place, too. He's scared. And so have history's most horrible tyrants been.
She remembers liking an evangelical rock group's song about rejecting "this world." She has come to realize how wrong-headed that was, when this is God's creation, with so much to love.
I'm planning to use her idea of "dress up" and "put yourself in" for a presentation to a group at my church on the theme of Reading the Bible as Literature." When we read "God's word" as if God wrote it, we miss the human experience of God and the world that inspired the writers. Understand the shifts in the writer's thoughts and feelings. Most scriptures were written to be read aloud. Read like an actor. Another way to say it: Let the Word be Flesh and dwell among us!
This woman shares a wealth of memorable anecdotes and characters. She conjures even the people she didn't know personally in ways that intensify passages from the daily Scriptures.
Her elders repeated themselves often, telling her about their greats and great-greats in slavery and Jim Crow. She thinks of their urgency when she reads 2 Peter 1-12a, "I intend to keep reminding you."
She tells how, when very young, she used to make animal noises in the hall when her dad would take a shower after work. "Who's there? a cat? a horse?" he would always say, and she would laugh at his guesses. Only one time, it wasn't her. Only after he dressed did he realize that a couple of burglars in the house had been scared off by his voice. This is her response to "The day of the Lord will come like a thief." She has more: "I hope to meet that unexpected coming as my father did, with a well-practiced, loving response."
A phrase from Hebrews 10:39 about "those who shrink back" reminds her of a story of American soldiers held prisoner late in World War II. Anxious guards demanded that the sergeant order all his Jewish soldiers to step forward. Instead, he ordered all 1000 men to do so. "We're all Jews," he said, saving some 300 soldiers in his company. The example, I hope, would give me courage if I ever face "the time of trial."
She names Thaer Khalid al-Rahal, a young father who risked and lost his life on an overcrowded boat from Syria to Europe trying to find work to pay for his child's medical treatment. Zechariah's order not to oppress "the widow, the orphan, the alien, the poor" takes power from being remembered by name.
A boy's shame over his dirty clothes kept him from engaging in her church's after-school program. Everything changed when a parishioner donated a washing machine to the boy's school. The story humanizes the angelic vision of Zechariah 3:4, "Take off those dirty clothes."
Her uncle reprimanded the foreign-born workers in his field for allowing one of their own community to gather fruit for his family. She wonders, did the uncle feel betrayed by his workers? Did he ever regret his hardness of heart to the poor father? The author says, "Sometimes we are the owner of the vineyard [in the parable] and sometimes we are the tenants. In all, we seek to do Christ's will."
A blended family had lived together many years when they learned that the father's ex-wife had died in childbirth. No one else was there to take care of the baby. Without hesitation, the family adopted the little girl. "Imitate what is good," says 3 John 11.
The Bishop's final entry is on New Year's Eve, which she remembers for being "Watch Night" in Black churches. Members would gather waiting to commemorate the first minute of 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. Its promise was limited and even after full civil rights were recognized, those rights were not enforced. She suggests reviving the tradition "as a reminder of our patiently awaiting the day of God's justice for all of God's people." A fitting response to James 5:7, "Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord."
He notes that Elijah performed miracles, confronted authorities, and defeated fifty false prophets, but was still hiding, afraid and sick of not being listened to (1 Kings 19.11). He hears God between these contradictions, as in the silence between earthquake, wind, fire.
All the characters who witness the emergence of Lazarus from the tomb are "bound" by grief and worry. "Unbind him," Jesus says to all of us, and unbind ourselves. (This reminds me of Ken Medema's song "Moses" about the rod that God commanded him to throw down. Medema writes, What do you hold in your hand today? To what or to whom are you bound? Are you willing to give it go God right now? Give it up, let it go, throw it down?)
The proof that baby Jesus is our Savior isn't in the gifts of the Magi, but in the fact that, after seeing him, they "go home another way," changing the course of their lives. Sibley asks, "How does your life witness to receiving the unconditional favor of the living God?"
Tracing the story of Nicodemus from the leader's cautious meeting in darkness, embarrassment at not grasping what Jesus says to him, bewilderment at leaving him, but then speaking up in council, being ridiculed, then bringing costly ointments to entomb Jesus properly. God works through our own stories in similar ways.
"Original sin has never been about apples and snakes; it is a description of hyman nature. We have never been able to will ourselves to perfection."
Jesus asks Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter answers, the Messiah. Sibley says we all have different answers as our lives shift: Creator of All, God in a Manger, Mourner for a Friend, Healer of the Sick, Forgiver of Sins, Companion in Pain and Suffering, the One who Rises from the Dead.
He points out that, unlike his neighborhood covenant with the H.O.A. that expects duties in return for upkeep, God's covenant with Noah goes just one way. "Salvation comes not from our own hands but from God's magnificent grace."
The woman at the well is bad news to her society. She comes to the well in the heat of the day, presumably to avoid the disdain of the women who gather earlier. She must rely on men for support, and she keeps getting dumped. Then, she's also beneath contempt for the Apostles, good Jews from Jerusalem who despise Samaritans. If this woman can hear God speak to her (and be the first person in the Gospel to hear Jesus make an "I am" statement, echo of the "I am who I am" from the burning bush), why shouldn't we be able to hear God speak to us, also?
