Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘genealogy’

Lot’s Legacy

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

YouAreHereInTheGalaxyAccording to scripture, Lot was Abraham’s nephew and although he traveled with his Uncle Abraham from Haran to Egypt and then on to the Negev. At some point, both men grew in wealth and decided to part ways. Abraham gave Lot the choice of land, and Lot choice the plain of Jordan to the East, well-watered, and dotted with large cities (among them Sodom and Gomorrah).

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” . . . He [the angel] said to him [Lot], “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town [Zoar] you speak of. But flee there quickly, . . .  Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.  [Genesis 19:15, 21-22, 30]

Freed by the angels of God, generally negotiated by Uncle Abraham, Lot and his family are given the opportunity to start over. But Lot was a bit of a selfish man and appears to look for the easier way. He chooses the better land when he and his uncle part ways, he chooses to live in the city, he chooses to flee to a closer place than the mountains, and in the end, he even looks the other way when his daughters are impregnated by his drunken self. Moab and Bel-Ammi, are the children born by this incest and they become the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites whose story is intertwined with Abraham’s line through Israel and Judah, but generally it’s a bitter relationship dotted with bloodshed.

This, because of Lot’s choices or passivity. This, because Lot took the way that seemed right to him alone.

From one story after another, whether fairy tale or movie or book, we are reminded that any one of our choices can set huge events in motion. In chaos theory, it is called the Butterfly Effect. But it’s not that hard to look at our own individual lives, so many left and right turns, families made and lost, love seeded and buried, by a single choice, a single conversation, a single word (yes or no).

I wonder if this hasn’t bred the meteoric rise of interest in genealogy. Why, we even have reality television traveling back into the lives of celebrities, church denominations building ancient libraries of such histories, and websites dedicated to helping people go back in time.

How did I get here? We want to know.

I supposed that’s all find and good. But I can’t help but wonder if we shouldn’t be putting more energy into the now. For whatever happened before we are living it. We cannot go back, only forward.

It is for us to respond, to act, to embrace. Whether it was our choices or the choices of our parents or grandparents or great-greats, this is where we have landed. This is where I am, with this family, with these gifts, with this personality, with this day.

And God is here with me. And anything can happen next.

Read Full Post »

Genealogy of Noah

Posted in Christmas Through Epiphany, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Art by Gil Bruvel

Art by Gil Bruvel

I tried to do a cursory read of some of the commentaries on the three sons of Noah (Shem, Ham, & Japheth) and immediately realized I could never cover all of this controversy in a single post. It’s a big deal, the descendants of these three and the curse that Noah placed on Ham’s son Canaan (specifically) due to some kind of drunken episode (verses 20-27). The theories are many, the results undeniable, if genealogy is indeed the culprit, that, and a popular term of today: “generational sin.”

The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth. (Genesis 9:18-19, NIV)

The oldest is actually Japheth and his name means opened. And a quick look in chapter ten shows that his descendents appear to be the great travelers who spread humanity the furthest. And then, the middle son, is Shem and to him is attributed the line of Abraham, David, and the Christ through Mary (Luke 3). And so, they were known as Semites, which became another way to refer to the Israelites and Jews of later days. And lastly, there is Ham, whose son was Canaan (among others) and who received the curse which many attribute to the seemingly endless animosities between those generations and all other peoples. Is it so? I really don’t know. There are even scholars who have credited the various races and skin color to those three family lines (which seems a little ridiculous to me).

But then, is it really necessary to “explain away” our current world tensions by marching back in time through scripture to put the whole thing down to a younger brother seeing or possibly engaging his naked father in some way? Really? I think generations of transgressions and the human tendency toward self-preservation and righteous indignation have done enough damage along the way, with or without the curse.

Genealogies are good for hindsight I suppose. It’s fun to go back, using a 20-20 lens to see what happened and how each person/choice turned the wheel of time. And one day, I suppose, our own descendants will look back on our now as well. “What were they thinking?” They’ll never understand our choices anymore than we understand the choices of our own ancestors. Lessons could be learned, since it is said, again and again, (thank you George Santayana), “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But do we?

In reality, we change history all the time. In fact, our individual histories are more fiction than truth. We remember what we want to remember and fill in the rest. “Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives.” (Isable Allende.) [For more on this topic, read Luc Sante in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, March 12, 2010.]

So many people are on the genealogical bandwagon. Even celebrities have joined in the foray, looking for lines of descent as though this might explain who they have become outside of mere circumstances or serendipity, or simply God’s will and hand moving through Spirit.

We can study and we can ponder what has been or could have been, but the moment of greatest concern should be now, for it is our response to the events and knowledge of today that will turn the world (both the microcosm and the macrocosm).

Read Full Post »

Burial Ground

Posted in Advent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

ancient tomb    The whole point of buying the field and the cave from Ephron was to avoid burying Sarah on or in foreign soil. Once purchased, the land became an oasis of Abrahamic land, a place and purchase that took him and his household out of “stranger” status (vs. 4). And although he might continue to lead a somewhat nomadic life, this place would root him to that area by the very same laws of the Canaanites. It was a serious transaction.

Genesis 23:12-13Again Abraham bowed down before the people of the landand he said to Ephron in their hearing, “Listen to me, if you will. I will pay the price of the field. Accept it from me so I can bury my dead there.”

Austrian Cemetery

Austrian Cemetery

I am sure other people in Abraham’s household had died in the thirty-plus years that had lived, worked, and traveled the Negev desert. But, when his own Sarah died, she was almost royalty to those who lived in that time period. Abraham was considered a “prince” because of his great wealth and tribe and herds. To stop and lay down his wife in that place was huge to his household as well as the Canaanites. What Abraham created here was the family burial ground. This would be sacred ground from that time forward and their direct descendants would be expected to be buried there.

german-cemetary

German Cemetary

In modern times, we have lost some of this respect for the burial ground. In Ancient Israel, burning of the body was forbidden (this form of burial was considered to be a punishment for idols and enemies. I am not saying we should not do this in our world, but I do think it’s interesting, this difference in cultural norms.

But in the United States, even those who are buried are not respected. While in many German and Eastern European cemeteries, it is the family joy and obligation to care for the family burial plot, to beautify it, to make it a place one would desire to go and spend time. They are like a series of mini-parks, each plotted area touched by the uniqueness of the family. The burial ground is part of the cycle of life and death. But not here.

New York cemetery

New York Cemetery

In our world, we have relegated the dead to sweeping greens where  paid workers run lawn mowers and weed whackers. In some cases, we we might see  long-lasting plastic flowers jammed into the ground or perhaps an artificial wreath. What is the point? Who is blessed by these? Neither the dead or the living.

Polish cemetery

Polish Cemetary

In my life, I have no burial grounds anywhere. My mother cremated my father and requested the same for herself. They now share an urn which I have in my possession and although it has a small shelf with pictures, I do not think about them much anymore. There are stories that erupt every now and again, but there is no sense of place for them. My husband has asked to be donated to science and then, as far as he is concerned, the body can be cremated and disposed of, like a family pet whose ashes were not saved. For him, it is the soul that continues and has no need for the corporeal flesh. He is probably right.

But I keep thinking about this idea of a selected place, different from today’s norEarthm, but more like ancient times, a place for family to extend itself in memory. Sometimes I think the Japanese and other orientals have it right, their nurture of the ancestors.

And yet, I know, Jesus left the tomb. He was not buried with his family. There was not talk of transferring the body after the Sabbath. Joseph of Arimathea embraced Jesus as family by giving him space in that tomb. Jesus left it and in essence, his departure also said that no single place could embody him. He was of the entire Earth.

Read Full Post »

Table of Nations

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

This is one of those chapters that lists a bunch of names. In Matthew, it used to be known as the “begats” a King James word for breed, multiply, or father (as a verb). It was a list of descendants, who were in the line of Noah. Whereas Matthew’s genealogy [1:1-16] recites the names from Abraham to Jesus (through Mary), Luke’s genealogy [3:23-38] goes through Joseph.

Genesis 10:32
These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

It is Matthew’s genealogy that lists not only the men, but five unique and controversial women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. They are suspect either by birth or by circumstances, Rahab who seduced her father-in-law; Rahab, a traitor, who helped the Israelites; Ruth, a Moabitess (a heathen religion that practiced human sacrifice); Bathsheba, an adulteress; and finally Mary, though holy to us, from the perspective of those around her, was pregnant out of wedlock. I discovered the richness of these stories many years ago and had a one-woman performance piece called Pente that I toured in Georgia and Mid-Atlantic for many years.

It is often difficult to discover something worthwhile in the seemingly didactic lists.

But in these I found some information through a commentary that I did not know before. Specifically, I didn’t know that the word “sons” as in the “sons of Shem, Ham & Japheth” could also be translated as “nations.” Therefore, the individual names listed could represent people groups. It’s a much bigger story then. This was the distribution of a civilization, a second time around, a re-do. And yet, this version was equally fraught with error through human foibles (the story of Noah being sexually exposed and mocked by his son, Ham). Eventually, it is the descendants of Ham who begat the notorious cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

One of Newton’s laws of physics was that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Like sowing and reaping, our actions produce reactions. The Bible takes it one step further to state that an action may have more than an equal reaction, but a 30, 60, or even a 100 times the initial action: not equal but multiplied.

My actions create a ripple effect in my children and undoubtedly in my children’s children.

I am living in many ways in response to my parents’ choices, attitudes, and influence. Some good and valuable: some not. I am still eating their fruit on one level or another. I am growing and producing fruit as well. A cycle. A genealogy. A table of nations, just as surely as Noah.

Read Full Post »

Fourteen Generations

Posted in Random Thoughts, tagged , , , , , , on July 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Looking for something to consider and meditate upon in the first twenty verses or so of Matthew is not easy. Many years ago, I created a performance piece that illustrated the lives of the five women of this genealogy, but it is only now that I discover that there is controversy over this list. In other places in scripture and Jewish history, the generations are not equally fourteen by fourteen by fourteen. What gives?

Matthew 1:17
Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.

If anyone is interested in a discussion of this discrepancy, there is a good (although somewhat dense) article in the Harvard Theological Review by George F. Moore. Most of it appears to be the need for synchronicity in the expectation of the coming Messiah. It’s a case of cycles. In a world where cycles were seen each year and marked with feasts and worshipful sacrifices, they were critical. We experience cycles in our own world, but, perhaps more dependent on one’s lifestyle or geography. After all, not every area of our country or world experiences the four seasons, some only have three (cold, hot, and rain). Others maybe two, warm and snow. Or what about the other cycles we’ve arbitrarily created? How many of us, because of the beginning of school in the fall, start something new at that same time of year? And there are those who follow the church calendar, another kind of cycle. And still others, follow the monthly cycles of their bodies.

Cycles help us give meaning to the changes in our lives. It is a wheel of time, if you will. I believe time is the most critical of all dimensions for human. We can do nothing to change the march of time (although there may be some extraordinary humans who have discovered a way to break the skin of time and have entered another dimension . . . and still others who have traveled space and played tricks with time). But most of us are slaves to cycles of time.

Even now, I keep glancing at the clock in the lower right hand corner of my screen. Time is marching and I must go to work. I’m late.

In recent years, many people have hungered for knowledge of their personal genealogies. They are looking back. They want to count their generations. Where are each one of us in the cycle of our generations? Where is the beginning point? And where might we be heading?

I am the accumulation of my generations past. I am a contributor to the generations of my future, whether biological or not. I am a point in time. Or an exclamation mark. Or a question. I am a breath. I am a color, a sound, a mark.

Read Full Post »

Power of an Indestructible Life

Posted in Eastertide, Time Up to Pentecost, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 28, 2011| 2 Comments »

This is another place where modern Human trips up. An indestructible life smacks of Superman and other “super heroes.” Miracles in general are not the food of modernity. We are all about logic and facts and evidence. But, I can only ask those who cannot fathom the miraculous, what if?

Hebrews 7:14-16
For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life.

What if there was that indestructible one who wielded enough power to sustain life (and that crosses all dimensions of living), forever?

In these mid-range chapters that I am studying in Hebrews, the writer (and personally, I don’t hear the voice of St. Paul at all), the whole point is to examine the believability of Law changing because the priesthood was changed forever with the coming Messiah. That Jesus, as Messiah, was of another tribe (Judah) and like Melchizedek (who is mentioned several times in Hebrews 7), the ancestry does not line up with the law of the time. Melchizedek had an unknown genealogy while Jesus was affiliated by his birth mother to the wrong one and the next leap is Jesus’s true genealogy as divine.

It’s funny really, the ancient peoples struggled with Jesus’s genealogy while modern people struggle with the supernatural. The people of Israel had a history of miracles; this they could accept, but his lineage was a huge problem if he was to be their true priest-king with the authority to change their laws, the foundation of their faith. While today, that’s a more insignificant problem, it’s all the other stuff: virgin birth, bringing dead people to life, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and of course, resurrection.

But, I say again, what if that kind of power did exist? What would we do in the face of an indestructible life, that is, directed, perpetual energy?

Read Full Post »

Without Genealogy

Posted in Eastertide, Time Up to Pentecost, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2011| 2 Comments »

A good portion of Hebrews 7 is devoted to the mysterious Melchizedek, the priest-king to whom Abraham tithed “10% of everything.” One of the great wonders to the believers of that time was his lack of genealogy. Who was this guy? Many theories, but no one really knows. Nevertheless, he had the authority to bless, even the patriarch, Abraham.

Hebrews 7:2b-3
“. . . First, the name Melchizedek means “king of righteousness”; then also, “king of Salem” means “king of peace.” Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.”

Questions that can send silent shudders up a librarian’s spine are from the amateur genealogists seeking out their family line. They are an enthusiastic bunch and quick to tell of their latest discoveries. The librarian nods her head and smiles while the genealogist explains the depth of his or her line. There is great pride in sleuthing out names and dates and long lost relatives that go back to the American Revolution or even earlier.

But in Jewish history, the genealogical line was even more important. People were rooted in their community or accepted into a new community by the veracity of their genealogical line. In modern times, this is sometimes mirrored in small communities where being “from” there requires the person to be “born there.” And certainly, in the Mormon church, genealogy is critical to leadership. Most of the best genealogical records of modern times have been stored and digitized by that group.

But here is Melchizedek, apparently quite powerful and respected which is reflected in the 10% of all “booty” that Abraham and his men give to him after defeating the kings of Sodom. We know so little of his story that he has become the subject of much speculation, particularly among various teachers and rabbi’s. Some claim he was divine which explains his lack of lineage while others say he was simply an anointed king of the era.

I am captivated by this story because of its mystery. The Bible has many such characters who appear briefly and then are heard of no more. There is usually significance in their appearances, but I’m not sure what it is.

Today, I am simply struck by the idea that there is always someone higher than us. No matter how much fame or fortune or power we attain, there is always someone who has more. God places each of us in that continuum, in some cases, it is we ourselves who are the “higher one,” perhaps by income or status or position at work. We are inside the sandwich of authority.

Melchizedek blessed Abraham first and then the gift was given willingly. Isn’t it important for me to bless those around me who are in a different part of the sandwich. It’s so important to speak blessings to everyone in our circle of influence, but even moreso to those who have less than we do. A blessing calls on God to fill in where human cannot.

The trick is not to envy or become jealous of the blessings, for some will be called to the higher table at the banquet.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

%d bloggers like this: