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Archive for the ‘textures’ Category

Zion’s export(s): Isaiah 36–37

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The Assyrian emissary Rab-Shekah casts public doubt on all that Jerusalemites have learned to believe about themselves, their city, and their guardian deity. Moreover, he refuses to deliver his message in the dulcet tones of diplomatic Aramaic, choosing instead to stop the hearts of the common people on the wall by elaborating his terrifying ultimatum in the common Judahite dialect.

It is a moment when hearts shake like the leaves of wind-blown trees. Nervous glances are cast in the direction of the king’s palace and the prophet’s house. (more…)

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drenching the desert: Isaiah 34-35

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 6, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The language of the landscape rejoicing is particularly powerful because one normally thinks of the ground beneath our feet as a stage, not a performer. It is inert, the platform and the background of the interesting and significant activities of those who appear upon it. (more…)

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inclinations: Isaiah 31–33

Posted in textures on October 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Isaiah’s recurring concern with trust shows itself in the metaphor of leaning. Like the stitching on an old pair of Doc Martens, this language weaves its visible path through the multiple layers of this complex book. The image captures the need of an inferior to depend for sustenance and protection upon the powers of a superior. Isaiah is persistent in his warnings that no geopolitical presence has the credentialed trustworthiness that imperiled Judah seeks. Only YHWH is worthy of this nation’s leaning, her trust, her inclination. (more…)

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militancy: Ephesians 6

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 4, 2007| 1 Comment »

Paul might be accused of possessing a rather egregious blind spot when it comes to matters of what we blithely label ‘social justice’. In this final chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, he counsels submission and a posture that is easily misconstrued as passivity in the face of the regnant social stratifications of Greco-Roman society.

‘Stay where you are’ is—prima facie—about as radical a statement as his social conscious is able to produce. (more…)

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the apostolic paradox: Ephesians 3

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 3, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Paul, who with a purist’s zeal plundered the lives and networks of the earliest Christians, remains in his apostolic career deeply aware of how his actions had stripped him of all credentials based in status or achievement. Something akin to guilt with its barb removed presses him to describe himself with self-deprecating clauses like ‘the greatest of sinners’ or—as here in Ephesians 3—’the very least of all the saints’. (more…)

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all and nothing: Ephesians 2

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 3, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Pauline phrases reverberate in literal translation through hearts and minds that have been attuned to the apostle’s vocabulary and cadence. Take, for example, the alliterative spotlight that Paul casts upon divine life with a clause that anchors human destiny to the motor that is divine love: ‘out of the great love with which he loved us’. (more…)

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great expectations: Ephesians 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 29, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Were Paul the misanthropic curmudgeon he is often taken for, we would not have lines like this:

In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.

People bogged down in what is wrong—or will be if so-and-so is left to run things—do not make statements like this. These words and the lines that surround them are full to bursting with hope for those whom ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ has called. Indeed they speak about placing hope in Christ so that Paul and the Ephesians might grow into the rather large stature that it is their vocation to realize. (more…)

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high-minded: Isaiah 10-12

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 27, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The moral architecture of the book of Isaiah is one of its sustaining threads, holding together deep complexity by the persistence of a singular theme. With its recurrent promise that ‘YHWH alone shall be exalted on that day’, the book establishes that when things are as they should be, YHWH is lifted up and all his creatures stand below him in proper submission. Indeed, chapter six’s vision tells us that the view from the heavenly throne room is just this way. Only matters on earth have gone temporarily akilter. (more…)

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double edge: Isaiah 7-9

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »

YHWH’s proximity is an inconvenient wealth.

The Lord’s covenanting labors with Israel in the desert before Sinai are paradigmatic of the demanding consolation that his presence brings to a people with whom he chooses to live in close quarters. Rightfully, the Israelites of the Exodus narrative have a difficult time deciding whether this is precisely what they wanted. (more…)

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exasperation: Isaiah 4-6

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 25, 2007| Leave a Comment »

In spite of its structural intricacy, the Song of the Vineyard in the book of Isaiah’s fifth chapter comes across with formidable blunt force. As parables go, it is brief. One surmises that the prophet led his listeners along the path of a well-told tale, then hit them in the gut with its damning burden. (more…)

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