Most of us do it, one time or another.

But how does prayer work?

Some people think of an elderly white man with flowing beard, hair, and robes who listens to and hears every prayer and makes decisions such as yes, no, or wait.  

Others argue that God must have a large warehouse filled with accounting type clerks that process all incoming prayers, catalog, process, and examine each prayer for contrasting appeals.  Prayers like,  let my football team win today, are immediately sent to the round file never to be seen again.  And then there are prayers for personal wealth and bargains like, God let me win the lottery and I will split it 50-50 with you.  Those are cast aside too.   Then the clerks have to decide between two conflicting prayers from one person.  That person might pray that a neighbor be damned and then on Sunday pray for blessing for his or her neighbors.  Those kinds of prayer cancel each other out.  Its a big job.

Luckily after much prayer and study and reflection I have figured out how prayer works. As we know God is a spirit of godliness that fills the universe not just our own neighborhood our country or our planet.  The Spirit of God fills the entire universe with a powerful compassion and love and goodness that is beyond our ability to comprehend.  

Every person that connects to God in any religion, faith or belief in anyway is connected to the limitless passion, the Spirit of God.  Furthermore we are all connected to each other in that same enormous invisible cloud of spirituality.  When we pray at our kitchen table our neighbor down the street or a world away does not know that we are praying or what we are praying for.  We are connected to the Spirit by our faith and desire to do all the good we can all the time we can.  If our prayers are in keeping with the Spirit that entire universe of good and positive energy connects to make positive things happen.  

So when our child or parent or spouse or friend and even ourselves need help the power of that Spirituality moves in unison to answer that prayer.  The Apostle Paul wrote that we should be in prayer constantly.  He was a bright bloke and did not mean we are to be on our knees night and day, but to be connected to God constantly.  We all fall short of that with human weaknesses like temper and lust and selfishness to name a few failings but we come to our senses, ask forgiveness and resume or place with the Spirit.  Sometimes it takes a lot of prayer by many people to make things work.  But it is not necessary.  One person praying and living the prayer works too.  

The thing most of us do not do is pray and listen.  The listening part is just as important as the praying part.  I have found at just the right time God will answer sometimes in a voice you can hear as if it was next to you.  That's quite startling let me tell you and for me is rare.  Mostly I here God in a whisper in my head and it comes quickly and is very short.   I was frustrated with parishioners and lifted my face to God and asked. "God how can you love these people?"  God answered very quickly, "It is yours to love them."  Usually the answer is not what I wanted to here but there it is.  The exact right answer.  Another time I asked, "Why do I have to deal with these people."  Again the answer I did not want came quickly and clearly, "It is to these that I have sent you."   One time I was questioning why God did things the way he did.  I struggled with the question for years.  Finally God spoke to me in audible voice behind me.  "You have worked on this long enough.  I have something else for you to do."  That led me to the ministry.  

Prayer sometimes takes a long time.  We grow weary but if we don't interfere and try to take over for God, God will work things out.  I believe too that if we are truly wronged God has said, "Revenge is mine, I will repay."  It may take years but I have found God does repay in God's time.   

It is important to be aligned and harmony with God's will for all creation.  Self centered and selfish and vindictive attitudes do not keep us connected to the Spirit.   It takes introspection and meditation to expect answer to prayer.  

Any questions? 

Tower of Babel, stupid story? You be the judge.

Babel comes from ancient languages meaning to confuse or jumble or both.   There are many sources of opinion on the Tower of Babel.  Generally speaking the story found in Genesis 11. 1-9 is an explanation story.  Throughout the ancient Middle East there were remnants of large buildings.  These buildings may have been built by leaders for their own glory.  Just as today, societies and leaders came and go and towns were built and abandoned and fell into decay.   Examples today are Flint and Detroit Michigan, Chicago, and parts of many large cities.   So there were two separate campfire questions: (1) why are there towers and buildings that no one inhabits, why are they there, who built them, why are they abandoned, and (2) the totally separate question of why are there so many different people and speaking so many different languages.   There were trade caravans traveling through the Middle East from Europe to Africa and back as well as other parts of the known world.  Those caravans traveled from the northern end of modern Israel through that which is called the fertile crescent along the Mediterranean 

  Sea north an south to Egypt, Africa, north to Europe and all the areas in between.  So the Holy Land in those times was not isolated.  There was a lot of traffic with a lot of different looking and sounding people coming and going.

The oral stories formed around the abandoned structures and the many languages.  In the story humans spoke the same language and begin building a tower to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the whole earth (Gen 11.4 NIV).  Apparently God had other ideas and wanted a variety of people and wanted them scattered over the earth.  So God figured that as long as they spoke the same language and were all the same they would do things for their own glory and not be a spiritual people with God as their king, (Gen 11.5-7 NIV).  So God came down, (God comes to us to be active in our lives for our own good you see) and confused the language and scattered the people over the entire earth (or the earth a the story tellers knew it).  

There is a slight conflict.  Going back to Noah and the table of nations Genesis 10.5 says that the descendants of Noah spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with their own language (NIV).   In ancient language "nations" meant races of people.  

This is just an example of how things were explained by the early Hebrews by different people commingling stories that were established by different people over a periods of time and eventually written down and then edited into the final form for canonization* into the Holy Scriptures.   

There is a constant belief among humans and chickens that everyone should be like us especially when it comes to religion.  Wars have always been fought and are still being fought between people of differing faiths.  (Believe what I believe or die).  If a chicken in a flock has a spot of blood on it it is pecked to death by the other chickens.   Maybe a spot of blood represents and different faith like a Methodist among Southern Baptists.  Just saying.   So in a world of conflict the question may have been why did God not create us all the same as in, like me?  And the answer is if we are all the same and there is no conflict we don't need God. Your guess is as good as mine.  

Noah. No fish were harmed in the telling of this story.

Most ancient cultures have flood stories because most places on earth experienced floods. So people needed to create explanations for the floods that took lives and damaged villages.  It is suggested that the early Hebrews had flood stories but when they were in exile from 587 to 538 B.C.E.  they molded their flood stories into one that followed very closely the Mesopotamian story called the Gilgamesh Epic dated 2500 years B.C.E.  I maintain the story of Noah would have been finalized during the exile period or shortly thereafter. 

We know there is combined sources for the Noah story.  Priestly: sin, punishment, and animals on the ark for sacrifice.   Elohist, Elohim the powerful God of mercy: "the sons of God..." (Gen 6.2 NIV).  "Then the LORD (Yahweh the eternal God of Justice) said, 'my spirit will not contend with men forever'..." Gen 6.3 NIV).  

Don't think to much about Nephilim.  Scholars do not agree on its meaning.  It might be giants which would lend itself to myth stories, or it might mean men that have fallen away from Godly ways, thus, "The daughters of men..." (Gen 6.4b NIV).

The LORD saw how wicked humans had become but Noah found favor with the LORD.  "I have found you righteous in this generation." (Gen 7.1b NIV).  Noah was not pure or perfect but was evidently the most righteous of his generation.  Chapter 6.9 has Elohim the powerful God of Mercy speaks to Noah.  In chapter 6.19 Noah is instructed to take two of every kind of animal and bird into the ark. 

When chapter 7 starts we have a priestly source using the name Yahweh the eternal God of Justice to take 7 of every kind of clean animal and two of every kind of unclean animal.   Some of the 7 clean animals and birds would be sacrificed.  The difference in the instructions in chapter 6 and the beginning of chapter 7 is an example of how the differing sources are co-mingled by later editors forming the Old Testament and that dovetailing of sources makes the Bible a dickens to understand for those of us reading it 2500 years after it was put together.  

When the flood was over Noah built an altar to the LORD and sacrificed some of the clean animals.  So you ask, why bring some unclean animals?  I suppose by the time this was written after the exile there were by Jewish standards, unclean animals on the earth so there had to be a reason unclean animals survived the flood.  Don't give it to much thought.  

Chapter 9 brings the story to a climax with the Noahide Laws.  Seven laws that make up a covenant between God and all the humans on the earth that are descended from Noah.  It is said that non-Jews that keep these laws can be in a relationship with God and have access to the afterlife.  The laws in chapter 9.1-7: a prohibition against (1) idolatry, (2) murder, (3) theft, (4) sexual immorality, (5) blasphemy, (6) eating flesh from an animal while it is still alive, (7) the requirement to have laws and courts and establish legal recourse.  

Then Noah planted grapes and made wine.  He was over 600 years old and was not accustomed to wine and became intoxicated.  What happened next makes no sense and scholars debate the details and there is no consensus on why or what it means.  Ham, the youngest son saw his father drunk and naked.  That can mean what it says therefore to see your parent naked was sinful.  Or it could mean he had sexual relations with his passed out father.  We just do not know what it means.  When Noah awoke he cursed Ham's son Canaan.  Why not Ham?  Perhaps is is the cursing of the decedents of Ham.   Sadly Christians throughout early history used these verses to justify slavery.  

Cain knew his wife.

We know this story is from the priestly source because there is sacrifice, there is sin, there is swift punishment.   Cain worked the soil and Able kept flocks.   It came time to bring a sacrifice to the LORD, yhwh   Cain brought "some" if his crops while Able brought the prime fat pieces of the firstborn of his livestock.  So the LORD looked with favor upon Able's sacrifice and not Cains so he was bummed out.  Yhwh said when you sin you are not accepted, you do what is right and everything is cool.  Meaning Cain's attitude was to casual, he just brought some of his crop.   So naturally Cain Killed Able.  You've heard of sibling rivalry but this is ridiculous.  These verses show God wants to be in relationship with us.  He walks with Adam and Eve and talks with them after their sin and does the same with Cain, and he wants to walk and talk with us as well.  God talks to us but we don't always listen for his voice.  Yhwh drove Cain out of the garden and now growing crops would be difficult for all humankind as punishment.  Thanks a lot Cain.   Cain went to the land of Nod and lay with his wife, or knew his wife as the case may be.  I was asked in youth group if God just made Adam and Eve and they had Cain and Able where did Cain find his wife?  Well, they  were quite an item in third grade.   Just kidding.  We have to skip ahead to Chapter 5. 1 of Genesis.  Keep in mind all the oral stores and traditions told out in the fields and around camp fires were collated into the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. The ancient Hebrews were not interested in details like how Cain would meet his wife and they were not interested in chronological order.  They were interested in making a point.  The point typically is sin is punished, faithfulness is rewarded.  So back to Gen 5.1, "When God (Elohim the powerful god of mercy) created man (humans) he made him in the likeness of God.  He created them male and female and blessed them and when they were created he called them man (humans). 

So that is the story of Cain and Able in a nutshell.  And I hope this has been a good lesson to you.  

Lets take a look at another misunderstood story.  Gen 38.   Judah and his daughter in law, Tamar and the twins.

This is a chapter set in the the middle of the story of Joseph.  Joseph was sold to the Egyptians then suddenly comes the story of Judah and Tamar.   So some years must have gone by because Judah, Joseph's older brother was married and had three sons, two of marrying age.  The oldest son Er, was married to Tamar.  But Er was wicked in the LORDs site (notice all caps which means Yawh, the eternal God of justice).  For his wicked ways God killed Er.  Now lets think about that.  If God bumped off all the wicked people there would not be a lot of people around and those that were left would be smart enough to toe the line.  

Now in those days if a married man died and left no children then his next youngest brother was the kinsman redeemer and had to take in the widow and provide her with children.  In this case the kinsman redeemer was the younger brother Onan.  So we will say Onan was married to Betty.  It does not say this in the story but we can take some latitude here.  Onan and Betty had children and so and children Onan and Tamar would be considered Er's sons but Onan would be responsible for them and they would be Onan and Betty's heirs.  Onan did not want to have responsibility for children that would be considered his dead brother's children.  It was a grave sin to allow a married man to die without having produced children and his wife would be thought to be sinful and out of favor with God for being barren.  She could not go to worship and was considered then cut off from God and thus dead.  Whenever Onan slept with Tamar he spilled his seed on the ground.  So naturally God killed Onan.  Notice the swift justice here.  The third son was a little boy and his name was Shelah.   Judah had seen enough.  His sons were dropping like flies around Tamar so he sent her to her father's home to live as a widow until Shelah grew up.  Judah had no intention of risking another son.

Long story short, Tamar needed a baby to fulfill her obligation to provide Er with a son.  So she disguised herself as a prostitute and when Juduh saw her he had sex with her.  What is a guy to do.  You see a working girl and you have to help out.  Three months later Tamar was showing and so was thought to be a prostitute and so Judah said burn her to death.  Swift judgement again.  Tamar proved that judah was the father and he declared Tamar to be more righteous than myself because she found a way to have a baby that was part of the family thereby redeeming Er's honor to have son.  Got to be a son you know.

She had twin boys, Perez and Zerah.  You are way ahead of me because you know that Perez is in the linage that leads to Jesus.  

We also know that this must be a priestly source.  The punishment of Yawh is swift  and deadly.  We also know the sin that killed Onan was not spilling his seed on the ground as many puritans believe but failure to honor his dead brothers requirement to leave an heir as prescribed by the law.  And Tamar was blessed with twin boys for she was the most righteous of all.   If spilling one's seed on the ground was punishable by death there would not be a lot of people around and that would defeat the "be fruitful and multiply" rule.

Then the scriptures jump right back into the story of Joseph.  This is an example of how all the sources JEPD were dove tailed into one another.  Often the coalition meant verses were intermixed into one another making for confusing reading.

The beginning.

Impressum

Five years of Seminary, three educational trips to the Holy Land, 15 years as a United Methodist pastor and United Methodist youth pastor.

    Introduction

I am not intending to disrespect your church or beliefs. When I became a United Methodist Pastor I saw the church in a much different light than when I was a member. As a member I had a circle of friends and everything was joyous and wonderful. After being a pastor I saw evil in the church and I saw it was a club run by the money people to promote their agenda for their club and not the agenda of God.

 
Two of my favorite verses in the Bible are from Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy 30:19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and love God in the land I am giving you.
And Deut 1.6 The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. 7 Break camp and advance.
Choose life and advance. If church and church teachings make no sense to you this might be a way to understand what the scriptures meant when written and why they were written and how to apply them to your life then this might be up your alley. In my opinion, much of the history of the Old Testament was written as a response to the Jewish exile in Babylon between the years 586 B.C.E. and 533 B.C.E. In exile the Jews asked, "How did this happen, our city and temple are totally alienated and we are all carried off to Babylon for not paying monetary tribute to King Nebakanezer. The answer came in oral stories refined and then written down that explained all the things they and done wrong and what to do to avoid those mistakes in the future. They showed God's anger in punishing their wrong doing. Thus the Old Testament God comes across as being miffed all the time. In the beginning of the beginning of the Holy Bible, known by some Jews as the Holy Scriptures or by Christian as the Old Testament we see evidence that the Scriptures were written by four sources, or schools as it were with similar but differing agendas. There is always an agenda. God's pure message comes to us as pure light but it goes through the human being like pure light through a bottle. Humans puts our own twist on the message. God does the best God can with that intervention. See:http://www.theopedia.com/JEDP_theory. J. is German Y English. Jehovah in German, Yahweh in English and yhwh in Hebrew. J Refers to the eternal God of Justice. It is rendered LORD, all caps, in much of the Old Testament and of course in Genesis 2. The stories and writings are from c 960 B.C.E. (Before the common Era or the year 0) in the southern Kingdom of Judah. Yhwh is good, generous. all knowing, and also our judge. Yhwh brings punishment as in Exodus in plagues and killing the first born of all living things including Egyptians and punishment of Sodom. Which I will discuss later and has nothing to do with homosexuality. That is one of the many grossly misunderstood stories in scripture.

E. Elohist is for Elohim and has it origins c. 850 B.C.E in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. E. refers to the supreme God who is mighty and shows mercy. Elohim is plural form and in my opinion does not point at the Trinity as many believe but was given that designation from respect of all powerful nature of Elohim. As in Elohim the all powerful God of Mercy created everything including humans in as God or in the image of God. This means humans share power over all the earth with God not that we are gods or god like. But God has given us power use all the earth without exploiting it. We use it as God would use it. Or we should anyway. Elohim gives of all the good things of the earth to eat. Think of the variety of the waters teaming with fishes, and plants and vegitables and fruits and nuts and hamburger joints. Just seeing if you are paying attention. God gives us an indescribable variety of foods. A bounty we cannot comprehend. 

D is for Dueteronomist writers and is primarily confined, but not totally to The Book Of Deuteronomy c. 600 Jerusalem during religious reform.    High Priest Hilkiah was rummaging  around in the Temple tyding things up when of all things he came upon a scroll he called Deuteronomy which means, Second Telling. Hilkiah quickly told good King Josiah of his find.  Methinks the High Priest wrote it himself.  Be that as it may the book described the evil wrongdoings of the people and the terrible vengeance of the Lord.   The king tore his clothes (luckily he was wearing a light summer gown) and cried out "Woe is us.  We must put on sack cloth and ashes and repent.  And the word went forth to all the people, "knock off the sinning or get the royal foot up your behinds.   Thus came the religious reform. 

P is for Priestly sources c. 600 - 400 B.C.E.   This source of many priests emphasis the important role of priests and that God message be relayed though the High Priest and not the kind.   It focuses on ceremony like circumcision (gasp) sacrifice, P includes many lists (especially genealogies), dates, numbers and laws. Portrayals of God viewed as distant and unmerciful are ascribed to P. P partly duplicates J and E, but alters details to stress the importance of the priesthood. P consists of about a fifth of Genesis (including its famous first chapter), substantial portions of Exodus and Numbers, and almost all of Leviticus.  P has a low level of literary style.

    Do you need to know and remember all that?  No.

Gen 1 and 2 are both creation stories.We need to understand that the God we know, and we typically use the name God, Is not a vengeful killer. He is portrayed that way to scare Hebrews in ancient times to toe the mark. They had no way of knowing their work would be read thousands of years in the future by a bazillion people over a world they could not comprehend.

While reading today's Bible we can appreciate how hard it was in the middle ages to translated it from Hebrew and Greek into Latin and then English and a multitude of other languages. Originally in the Old Testament an entire book would be written without spaces, vowels, and punctuation. so gdsnwhr could be translated, God is now here or God is no where. Imagine the entire Book of Genesis written liket that. The translators filled in a lot just by what sounded correct or seemed to fit.

The ancient story tellers and writers were very clever. Adam means man in ancient Hebrew. Adamah is ground. So Adam was made from Adamah. Translated to Latin it would be humans came from the humus.

Take the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is metaphor not history. Think about it. Adam and Eve did not have a written language. Heck, they didn't even have pencil and paper. While humans were made as God or in the image of God, and God knew they would get wise to the fact that humans could be capable of doing fun things that were not in keeping with the purity of the Creator God's perfect creation. Humans did not eat from a forbidden tree. Humans, the Creator God's greatest creation learned quickly and they introduced bad things into their environment. That is the nature of humans. The so called serpent is the temptation of being naughty. The ancients described temptation as naked, smooth, unprotected, vulnerable. The whole fall from grace thing is a way to explain why an all powerful God, (Elohim) would have imperfection in God's perfect creation.