BibleWorm

This week Bobby and Amy discuss the story of Jesus calling his first disciples in Luke 5:1-11. We think about Jesus, teaching outside the synagogue and surrounded by the crowds, looking for a familiar face to accompany him in his ministry. We marvel at the response of Simon, James, and John, who set aside their tiredness and their obvious technical expertise to respond to the call of Jesus to go b...

This week, BibleWorm reads Luke 4:11-30, the story of Jesus’ visit to his hometown of Nazareth. We revel in the moments where everything is good -- where the people are enthusiastically with him -- before things fall apart terribly. Did the people of Nazareth have unreasonable expectations? Did Jesus kind of pick a fight? And really, why is it that with all the healing he’s got planned, none of it...

This week BibleWorm discusses the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus’s baptism as told in Luke 3:1-22. We explore John’s vision of repentance, which balances individual responsibility with commitment to the most vulnerable in the community. We wrestle with John’s insistence that no one should have excess—not just among the ultra-rich but also in the middle class, being pinched from both sides....

This week, BibleWorm reads Luke chapter 2:41-52, the story of Jesus as a 12 year old, sitting in the Temple and learning with the community leaders. We shower Luke with love for including this story of adolescence, this awkward time in between the passivity and infinite possibility of babyhood and the full strength and differentiation of adulthood. We watch the tween Jesus push away from Mary and...

This BibleWorm follows Mary and Joseph as they bring the infant Jesus from the pastures of Bethlehem to the Jerusalem temple in Luke 2:21-38. There we encounter the righteous man, Simeon, and the prophet Anna, both of whom have been waiting patiently for the messiah. We marvel at the persistent years of seemingly mundane religious practice that have prepared these two for this moment, wrestle with...

In this special Christmas eve episode, we read Luke 2:1-20. We imagine ourselves with the shepherds in the field, taking in the mindblowing magnitude of their theophany in the field, and wondering who are the proverbial shepherds in our society today. We see not only the theological but the political revolution bubbling up in the story. And we wonder -- though the text is silent on this point -- w...

This week we find ourselves in Luke 1:26-56, the story of Mary receiving the good news of Jesus’s birth from the angel Gabriel. We talk about the remarkable composure of the young Mary, who boldly takes up her role among the matriarchs and prophets of Israel. We relish the tale of Mary’s visit with her cousin Elizabeth, two women profoundly blessed and empowered by the Spirit. And we wrestle with...

This week BibleWorm reads the short but radiant chapter Isa 61, where the text walks with us incrementally from the indignities of captivity - whether economic, spiritual, or deep in our own bodies - through freedom and clear into glory and splendor. We imagine a jubilee that can reset the ever-growing avalanche of injustices in our world, and envision ourselves as the people who serve those who h...

This week BibleWorm turns to the prophet Joel 2:12-29. There we find Joel prophesying to a people suffering from a plague of locusts, promising that God is about to restore them if only they will return to God with their whole hearts. We wrestle with Joel’s call to “rend our hearts” and ask what it means to tear open the pain, sorrow, and regret we carry deep inside. We relish Joel’s description o...

This week BibleWorm reads Daniel 6:1-28, where we revisit the ever-complex power triangle between king, people, and God. How do we make decisions about loyalty when the points of that triangle appear to be in tension?  And to put more a finer point on that question, there’s a lion in a pit who is eagerly awaiting your decision.

This week BibleWorm turns to Jeremiah 36 and 31, in which God commands Jeremiah to write a scroll of prophecy and yet promises to write a new covenant directly on the hearts of the people. We think about the king’s attempt to suppress the truth by burning it, and the irrepressible power of the word set free among the people. Also, we talk more than we probably should about the Spice Girls. Zig-azi...

This BibleWorm reads Isaiah chapter 6. We step into the incredible sense of awe Isaiah describes as he stands among the skirts of God’s robe and witnesses the angelic liturgy. We understand why, standing there, he would feel lost and out of place -- and see a God whose angels both recognize Isaiah’s human inadequacies and help him address them rather than sending him away. And we wrestle a little...

This week BibleWorm turns to the book of Jonah, chapters 1, 3, and 4, where we meet God’s most reluctant prophet. We wrestle with why Jonah runs away from God and why he would seemingly rather die than go to the land of his enemies to prophesy. We think about who counts as “God’s people” and what it means that sometimes the people most responsive to God’s call are the ones we think of as outsiders...

This week we meet the prophet Elijah. We discuss his increasingly vulnerable existence through a period of drought, and his ultimate reliance on another paradigmatically vulnerable character -- a widow and her child who are already unable to take care of themselves. We talk about the idea of God’s care during the hardest of times, and the pairing in this story of a miraculous healing with the more...

This week BibleWorm turns to the story of God’s covenant with David in Second Samuel 7:1-17. We talk about gift giving, both with God and with each other, and the tendency to give others what we think they want rather than listening to what they ask of us. We wrestle with the significance of a God who dwells in tents versus as God who lives in a Temple and the ways God can be invoked to legitimate...

This week BibleWorm reads the story of Hannah, expanding the Narrative Lectionary a little bit to I Samuel 1:1-20 and  2:1-10. We step into a scene that reads like the worst Thanksgiving meal ever, complete with taunting, sulking, and refusals of food. We discuss the nature and impact of prayer on God and on ourselves, and connect the experience of triumph over obstacles in our own lives with hope...

This week BibleWorm looks at the story of Aaron and the Golden Calf in Exodus 32:1-14. We wonder about the unrealistic expectations that the people could wait in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights without getting anxious, and struggle with the decisions Aaron makes to keep the people from rebelling. We try to parse the difference between worshiping false gods and worshiping God falsely, and...

In this special extended episode, BibleWorm discusses the original Passover ritual described in Exodus 12-13. We think about the mix of urgency and powerlessness that the Israelites may have felt, each in their own homes, just as we may feel today. We consider the ways in which ritual can form us and prepare us for what’s next, even when we can’t see around the pike. And we call out the losses and...

This week BibleWorm discusses the original Passover ritual described in Exodus 12-13. We think about the mix of urgency and powerlessness that the Israelites may have felt, each in their own homes, just as we may feel today. We consider the ways in which ritual can form us and prepare us for what’s next, even when we can’t see around the pike. And we call out the losses and sorrows that accompany...

This week BibleWorm turns to the Joseph story in Genesis chapters 37 and 50, exploring the complicated family dynamics of Jacob and his eleven sons. We discuss how a sense of scarcity, whether of grain or of a father’s love, can create divisions in families and among peoples who would otherwise get along. We discuss the idea that God can turn even evil plans toward good outcomes if only we can lea...

On this special extended episode, BibleWorm turns to the Joseph story in Genesis chapters 37 and 50, exploring the complicated family dynamics of Jacob and his eleven sons. We discuss how a sense of scarcity, whether of grain or of a father’s love, can create divisions in families and among peoples who would otherwise get along. We discuss the idea that God can turn even evil plans toward good out...

In this special extended episode, BibleWorm discusses Genesis 15:1-6 -- God’s covenant with Abraham. We talk about the honest, holy mess of it, the sussing each other out, and the early days in a relationship when everything feels fragile and trust goes an especially long way. We talk about waiting, and the anxiety of waiting when we don’t have access to the full plan. And we talk a surprising amo...

This week, BibleWorm discusses Genesis 15:1-6 -- God’s covenant with Abraham. We talk about the honest, holy mess of it, the sussing each other out, and the early days in a relationship when everything feels fragile and trust goes an especially long way. We talk about waiting, and the anxiety of waiting when we don’t have access to the full plan. And we talk a surprising amount about the time-spac...

This week BibleWorm returns to our study of the Narrative Lectionary by going allll the way back to the creation story in Genesis 2 and 3. We discuss what it means that human beings are made of dust and breath and ponder our relationship to plants, animals, and the earth. We wrestle with the tree of knowledge of good and evil and why it is that such knowledge is so troubling for humankind. We wond...

In this special extended episode, BibleWorm returns to our study of the Narrative Lectionary by going allll the way back to the creation story in Genesis 2 and 3. We discuss what it means that human beings are made of dust and breath and ponder our relationship to plants, animals, and the earth. We wrestle with the tree of knowledge of good and evil and why it is that such knowledge is so troublin...