BibleWorm

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...

This week BibleWorm meets Queen Esther, winner of some biblical version of The Bachelor. We learn about the blood feud between the people of Haman and the people of Mordecai, and see the all too familiar trope that Jews - or anyone deemed an “outsider,” really - is a danger to the kingdom. We see loyalty without uniformity in action. And we see all kinds of different models for standing up to the...

This week BibleWorm continues our summer series on the Forgotten Books of the Bible with a look at Esther 1:1-22, the story of the Persian Queen Vashti and her refusal to appear before the king. We discuss the fragile egos of the king and his courtiers who fear the capacity of women to say no. We talk about the power of the patriarchy and the lengths it will go to to suppress voices of dissent. We...

This week BibleWorm explores Ruth chapters 1 and 3, trying to imagine Ruth’s own perspective and calling out some of the ways that the book portrays painful parts of the immigrant experience. We see how the scene at the threshing floor plays on the worst stereotypes of Moabite women, and how Ruth’s beautiful statement of loyalty to Naomi also carries with it an erasure of her own heritage. We try...

This week BibleWorm continues our summer series on the Forgotten Books of the Bible, with a look at the book of Ruth 2:1-20 and 4:9-17. We look at the way the book of Ruth challenges anti-immigrant sentiment in the time of Ezra-Nehemiah and in our own day. We discuss how the book lifts up the foundational contributions of Ruth the Moabite, whose persistence saves the family line of King David, wit...

This week BibleWorm continues our study of the Song of Songs, learning more about the awesome and fearsome passion of our young lovers, and seeing the jarring ways in which the world around them - well, to be more specific, the men around them - seeks to control that passion. And in case you weren’t sufficiently challenged to read this as both erotic poetry and an allegory about our relationship w...

This week BibleWorm continues our summer series on the Forgotten Books of the Bible, turning our attention to Song of Songs 1:12-2:6 and 7:1-13. We wonder at the presence of erotic love poetry in the biblical canon and wrestle what it means for our understanding of bodies, sexuality, and God. We explore themes of sexual empowerment, invitation and consent, and the joy of sex. We think about how th...

This week BibleWorm continues our study of Lamentations, meeting an individual survivor in chapter 3 and hearing the voice of the community in chapter 5. We raise up the differences between this individual man’s relationship to his suffering compared to what we heard from Daughter Zion last episode, and look expectantly to the communal voice to tell us which perspective is the better on to adopt....

This week BibleWorm continues our summer series on the Forgotten Books of the Bible with Lamentations 1:8-22 and 2:10-22. Written in the wake of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, Lamentations presents the community’s response to trauma given in multiple voices. This week we look at the voice of the funeral singer, a bystander who has witnessed the trauma but not experienced it, a...

This week BibleWorm continues our look at Ecclesiastes, aka Qohelet, focusing on 1:4-11 and 3:1-11. We ask ourselves—is it really true there is nothing new under the sun. We look at that most famous poem “To everything there is a season,” and see exactly why you’d best not look at only the net total of life’s experiences. And we wonder what Qohelet might say about issues of justice in our time.