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BIBLEWORM

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Getting to the core of the biblical text.


EPISODES

5 days ago





EPISODE 513 HOPE AGAINST HOPE (JEREMIAH 33:1-18)

5 days ago

5 days ago

This week BibleWorm enters the Christian season of Advent with a reading from
Jeremiah 33. The text given to us by the Narrative Lectionary is Jeremiah
33:14–18, a lovely text about a righteous king from the house of David who will
restore Jerusalem. But the hope offered by that short text seems naïve in the
context of the rest of Jeremiah 33, which takes place against the backdrop of
the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, with Jeremiah in prison, anticipating the
destruction of the city yet to come. In that context, the passage speaks a word
of hope, but one muted by the pain and suffering that must yet be endured for an
unjust world to be dismantled and for a righteous one to take its place. We
struggle with this text, to be honest, and for the first time ever one of us has
added a postscript to the podcast after mulling over it for a day or two.
Welcome to advent y’all. This text is painful, but it is also beautiful.



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Sunday Nov 19, 2023





EPISODE 512 FINDING THE TORAH (2 KINGS 22:1-20 AND 23:1-3)

Sunday Nov 19, 2023

Sunday Nov 19, 2023

This week, BibleWorm reads 2 Kings 22:1-20 and 23:1-3– the story of King Josiah
finding the scroll of the Teaching that seems to have been lost for a good while
now. After a string of really disastrous kingships, we finally get a good egg in
Josiah, and he is heartbroken to see all the ways that even he has not been
living up to this teaching that was buried in a Temple storage room somewhere.
Of course he will change their ways now, but in a system where punishment can
come generations after the offending sin, is it too late? What does it mean for
Josiah to choose to re-commit himself and his kingdom to God’s teachings,
regardless of whether it can impact the fate of his generation?



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Sunday Nov 12, 2023





EPISODE 511 THE SONG OF THE VINEYARD AND THE STUMP OF JESSE (ISAIAH 5:1-7 AND
11:1-9)

Sunday Nov 12, 2023

Sunday Nov 12, 2023

This week BibleWorm reads two texts from Isaiah that are not normally read
together: the song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7 and the description of the
ideal king in Isaiah 11:1-9. In the first text, we find God making an accusation
against Israel and Judah, the vineyard that God planted to produce justice and
righteousness but which has instead produced violence and oppression. As a
result, God removes the hedge around the vineyard, leaving it vulnerable to
destruction. Yet in Isaiah 11 we find a description of a sprout emerging from
the stump of Jesse, signaling hope for the future. The sprout represents an
ideal leader who is not swayed by what he sees and hears but by reverence for
God, producing the justice and equity that God seeks. We relate Isaiah 11 to
King Hezekiah of Judah, to the hoped-for messiah, and to we ourselves, who are
called to live non-violently in a world of predation.



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Sunday Nov 05, 2023





EPISODE 510 GOD AS PARENT (HOSEA 11:1-9)

Sunday Nov 05, 2023

Sunday Nov 05, 2023

This week, BibleWorm reads Hosea 11:1-9, and we dive deep into the metaphor the
text gives us: the rich, complex, sometimes beautiful and sometimes painful
world of parenting. We encounter here a God who is pouring out the biggest of
feelings – a mix of love, jealousy, nostalgia, compassion, and suffering that
can seem impossible to hold together. Feelings that are not unfamiliar to the
experience of many parents, actually. And though God plainly states at the end
of our reading that there is a difference between Godself and humans, we found
here a beautiful and honest depiction of some of the most beloved and fraught
relationships in the human realm, and maybe even a model for moving through
them.



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Sunday Oct 29, 2023





EPISODE 509 ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS OF BAAL (1 KINGS 18:17-39)

Sunday Oct 29, 2023

Sunday Oct 29, 2023

This week BibleWorm reads the story of the contest between Elijah and the
prophets of Baal as told in 1 Kings 18:17-39. We find Elijah demanding that the
people make a choice between God and Baal, insisting that they cannot serve
both. Elijah then engages in an elaborate contest with the prophets of Baal,
calling down fire from heaven to demonstrate that the God of Israel is truly
God. Only after seeing the fire do the people finally confess, “The Lord is God!
The Lord is God!” We think of the ways that we, too, are called to make a choice
between the God of the Bible and the gods of the dominant ideologies of
militarism and consumer capitalism. But we must make the choice without the
benefit of fire coming down from heaven. We are asked to make the choice on
slimmer evidence, given in symbol and ritual and prayer. That must suffice for
us to confess “The Lord is God! The Lord is God!”



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Sunday Oct 22, 2023





EPISODE 508 THE DIVISION OF THE KINGDOM (1 KINGS 12:1-17, 25-29)

Sunday Oct 22, 2023

Sunday Oct 22, 2023

This week BibleWorm reads I Kings 12:1-17 and 25-29. We are just a couple of
generations after King David, and boy howdy, kingship in Israel is not going
great. As David’s grandson Reheboam steps to the throne, we see parallels with
the stories of Pharaoh in Egypt: a king who uses forced labor to control people,
and who seeks power and dominance above all else, even when that is politically
impractical. And then we meet Jeroboam, who seems to smartly identify a real
vulnerability for his community, but then tries to patch it with a sort of quick
fix borrowed from another religious culture - definitely a no-no. Both kings
consult advisors, but neither consult God. This is pretty much exactly what the
deuteronomistic history warned about.



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Sunday Oct 15, 2023





EPISODE 507 PRAISING THE LORD (2 SAMUEL 5:1-5, 6:1-15, AND PSALM 150)

Sunday Oct 15, 2023

Sunday Oct 15, 2023

This week BibleWorm reads a selection of texts about David’s praise of God in 2
Samuel 5:1-5 and 6:1-15 as well as Psalm 150. We talk about what it means for
everything that has breath to praise the Lord and ponder the unification of all
creatures that is possible when we recognize the breath within us that wishes to
return to God in praise. We also pay attention to the ways David approaches
praise, sometimes as a genuine reverence for God but sometimes as an apparent
manipulation that seeks to coopt God into his own political and military agenda.
And we discuss the story of poor Uzza, who is struck dead for trying to steady
the ark of the covenant, concluding that God does not need to be protected and
will not tolerate being treated carelessly. When we come into God’s presence
with praise, we do something that is dangerous and powerful, and that can bring
us extraordinary blessing.



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Sunday Oct 08, 2023





EPISODE 506 WHERE YOU GO I WILL GO (RUTH 1:1-17 AND 4:13-16)

Sunday Oct 08, 2023

Sunday Oct 08, 2023

This week BibleWorm reads Ruth 1:1-17 and 4:13-17 – just the opening and closing
of a book that turns all kinds of social norms on their head. That famous line
“your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God” – the one that so
many people use today in weddings, is not from a wedding at all – but from the
mouth of Ruth, who is refusing Naomi’s plea to go find herself a husband, and
committing herself instead to her deceased husband’s mother. This text asks us –
what, really, is family? And what is peoplehood? Following a theme we are seeing
a lot this season, Ruth decides to just care for the life in front of her,
whatever that may mean for her future. And this act, as it trickles through the
generations, means very good things.



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Sunday Oct 01, 2023





EPISODE 505 LISTEN, O ISRAEL! (DEUTERONOMY 5:1-21& 6:4-9)

Sunday Oct 01, 2023

Sunday Oct 01, 2023

This week BibleWorm reads two of the foundational texts of the Hebrew Bible—the
Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:1-21 and the text known as the Shema in the
Jewish tradition in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. We discuss the way that the Shema cuts
across the cacophony of voices vying for our attention with a resounding
“Listen, O Israel!,” calling us away from the voice of Pharaoh and focusing us
on the one God who set us free from bondage in Egypt. We discuss the urgency of
the Ten Commandments as the framework for an alternative way of life as God’s
people, who love God with heart, mind, and soul and protect the integrity of the
community. And we notice the repeated emphasis in this text on sharing the story
across multiple generations, paying attention both to those who came before and
those who will come after as we remind ourselves of what it means to truly be
the people of God in the world.



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Sunday Sep 24, 2023





EPISODE 504 RESPONDING TO THE CALL (EXODUS 1:8-2:10 AND 3:1-15)

Sunday Sep 24, 2023

Sunday Sep 24, 2023

This week BibleWorm reads Exodus 1:8-2:10 and 3:1-15, a text that seemed to ask
us again and again – what is capturing your attention? We see just how little it
takes for the situation to turn bad for the Israelites in Egypt. And in this
newly roaring sea of people and power that are bent against them, we read
stories of individual people who manage to incline their attention somewhere
else – who manage to look at the one human being right in front of them and
respond in that moment with care. Is it enough, to save that one life when it
seems the world is on fire?  We can’t be the judge of that. But we sure do get
the sense that what they did was urgently important. 



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