On audacious dreams, advocacy, and wrestling with the Divine

Friends,

What does the biblical book of Genesis mean to you? How do you read it these days? Do its stories hold meaning, still, for those of us who have re-thought so many things?

I recently had the chance to write four reflections for The Christian Century on a couple passages from the lectionary—which is just a churchy word for the set of biblical texts that a lot of churches follow in their preaching over a three-year cycle.

(Side note: I remember once, in college, a friend from my Christian fellowship group was quite sure God was speaking directly to them because they went to one church that preached from a particular Bible chapter—and then another church that, miracle of miracles, preached on the exact same Bible chapter.

At the time, neither of us knew what a lectionary was. We didn’t know that lots of churches preach from the same set of passages in a given week. I’m not saying God wasn’t speaking to my friend. Just that perhaps this Bible chapter came up in the lectionary and both churches were following along.)

The passages from Genesis that came up in the lectionary on my assigned weeks were fascinating to me.

In the first one, Genesis 32:21-31, Jacob, in a place of deep uncertainty, is surprised by a stranger in the wilderness who wrestles with him all night and dislocates his hip. (Relatable. Well, mostly the hip issue part.)

As far as Jacob’s story goes:

• In one reflection, I get into what it looks like to wrestle with the Divine in a world where we are not guaranteed that things will turn out well. I think about our times of uncertainty, especially those where our personal worlds and political world meet. I hope the reflection feels realistic but not devoid of hope.

• In a second reflection, I focus more on some of the particular ways our times of wrestling might change us. Maybe, for example, our view of the Divine is expanded. Maybe this is painful but also good.

The second passage, Genesis 37:1-4 and 12-28, is a nasty story about a whole slew of older brothers who sell their younger brother into enslavement.

For no good reason. (Not that there ever would be a good reason.) Or maybe, for a few reasons, some of which we might relate to more than we would hope.

For this passage:

• In one reflection, I thought about what lies behind this kind of violence, and how we might uproot its origins where we find them in ourselves. And I thought about the people who dream audacious dreams of justice and flourishing in our world today and how the rest of us might listen to them.

• In a second reflection, I got interested in Reuben’s advocacy for Joseph, imperfect as it is. What can we learn? How might we do better?

Heads up that I was instructed to assume that people had read the Bible passages before reading these pieces. So that’s what I did.

If you do give the Bible stories a read, I’d love to hear what they get you thinking about, whether that’s similar to what they got me thinking about or totally different.

I hope something in one (or more) of these pieces resonates with you. If you’re in a place where nothing remotely Bible-y feels remotely appealing, that’s cool too, and I hope you’ll skip all this and come back here another time when I’m writing about something less Bible-y.

Regardless—as always, in this with you.

Liz

ps. If you’re into this sort of thing—open-minded, justice-minded, different-from-the-traditional-evangelical interpretations of Genesis, that is—Liz Charlotte Grant wrote a whole book along these lines, and it’s a good one. Here’s the book, and here’s the Q&A she did with me about it.