Tour of the Old Testament: Poetry Books

Old Testament: Ruth

Today we’re going to finish talking about the five scrolls, which are Esther, Ruth, Lamentations, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. You’ll remember that Esther is about Esther, our Jewish Heroine who saves her people from Xerxes the jerksy and his awful advisor Haman. Lamentations is a book of laments, in the form of acrostic poetry. Song of Songs is the other scroll besides Esther that doesn’t mention God. Song of Songs is mostly about kisses and things related to kisses. And Ecclesiastes is the wisdom of someone named Kohelot. The five scrolls are short and beautiful, and in a minute we’re going to start talking about my favorite of the five, Ruth. But first, before we do, a word on organization of the Bible overall, and of these books In particular. Ruth, the eponymous hero of Ruth, is the great grandmother of King David. So when Christians were sorting books, instead of putting it with the other writings, it was kind of organized chronologically. That is to say, it’s sandwiched between the book of Judges, which chronicles the period before Israel had Kings, and the book of I Samuel, in which we meet the first and kings of Israel, Saul, and David, and learn of their interactions with Samuel, who anoints both of them. So in terms of overall organization, we have the Torah or the Law, which is the period from Adam and Eve through Moses. Moses brings everyone out of Egypt, but never enters Canaan, he hands off the reins to Joshua, who takes the Hebrews into Canaan, don’t worry we’ll learn more about this later, but after they enter the land, there’s a period where there are judges but no kings, described in the book of Judges. So the Torah or the Law are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Then Joshua, Judges, Ruth, like Lyle Lovett’s fourth album. That makes Ruth the eighth book in the Bible as we typically count it. Chronologically, it puts Ruth right on the edge between the period when Israel is governed by Judges, and when it’s governed by Kings. Samuel is the final Judge, and Ruth’s great grandson David is the second king, who’s just a boy when he begins his journey. The point there being that Ruth and Samuel are probably about the same vintage. Does that all make sense? Thematically this scroll is part of the writings, but we put it chronologically sandwiched in with the prophets between the judges and the kings. Hopefully the way we’ve approached this doesn’t cause confusion, but I think it’s more fun to encounter the scrolls somewhat together even though they’re all different in chronology and style. So what kind of a scroll is Ruth? Well for starters the story is set hundreds of years before Esther, but they were probably actually written pretty close to one another. in her story, Esther is a Jewish woman in Persia. Ruth is also a foreigner, but the opposite kind - a non-Jew in ancient Israel, and at the beginning of her story, instead of having just ascended to be queen, she’s just become destitute. In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion.They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died,and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. Strong start, right? I told Dan’l earlier that it would be a feminist story, certainly all the main characters are women and most of the men in the story die in those first two paragraphs But it’s also a feminist story set in a culture where women don’t have a great deal of autonomy. Which I suppose is why the author would have killed off all the men. The story has a few elements that are interesting to consider. It features the marriage of a Jew and a non-Jew, which might have been controversial when it was written. Same as Esther, actually. But Ruth is also a beautiful story of friendship. The other sister-in-law is named Orpah and here’s her brief but lovely story: Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons—would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!” At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. Ruth clung to her. Here’s one brief side note about the story of Orpah, her name is spelled O-R-P-A-H, just like Oprah, except with the p and the r reversed. The funny thing is that Oprah Winfrey’s birth certificate actually says Orpah, but people just pronounced it the other way and eventually she settled on it. So Orpah goes back to Moab, and Ruth clings to Naomi. Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. We’re not going to read the rest of the story today, because that’s your homework for next week. It’s very short and very lovely, and it will be an introduction to the next thing we’re going to go through together, which is that we’re going to trace through a timeline of the events of the Old Testament, as narrated in the Old Testament, which is understandably somewhat different than the timeline of the same or closely related events from other sources. Before we head back, let’s review, though. We’ve lightly covered eight books so far. Three poetry books, which are smack in the middle, Job, Psalms, and Proverbs. And these scrolls, which are mostly arranged around the poetry books, so the order in the Christian bible is Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs. Lamentations, the acrostic lament poems, is attributed to Jeremiah and is usually placed right next to the book of Jeremiah, which we’ll get to when we start talking about prophets. And then today, we talked about Ruth, which as I explained earlier, is situated chronologically in the Christian Bible, right after Joshua and Judges, and right before we start talking about the last judge Samuel, and the first kings, Saul and David. There are three or four other books that the Hebrew Bible counts as writings, which we’re going to read in chronological order instead, even though we didn’t do that with Ruth. I love you all very much, and I’m really enjoying our tour of the Old Testament together. Read Ruth chapters 2, 3, and 4 this week, and next week, to quote Inigo Montoya, we’ll go back to the beginning. But for today let’s light our candles and consider the beautiful friendship between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notesformeeting.substack.com [https://notesformeeting.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Old Testament Tour: Poetry, Continued

My darlings, I’m so enjoying our whirlwind tour through the Bible. As a reminder, we’re currently talking about the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, which we divide into three chunks: the law, the prophets, and the writings. We started our tour in the very middle, with three of the writing books that are written in poetry, Job, Psalms, and Proverbs. And this week, you all read Job chapters 1, 2, and 42 in preparation for diving into the characters a little bit. We’re not doing a quiz or anything, but you should all remember by now that Job, Psalms, and Proverbs are smack in the middle of the sixty-six books of the Bible that most Christians consider canon. Psalms is filled with psalms, Proverbs is filled with proverbs, but Job is not filled with jobs, instead it’s filled with the character Job, along with other characters who fill very different roles. From your pre-reading, you’ll all recall that Satan is one of the main characters, and due to some conversations between Satan and the Lord, Job is rather badly smitten at the outset of our story. By the very end of chapter two, the five main characters are introduced: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, of course Job, and the Lord. What follows is a back-and-forth between these five characters, and you already know how it ends, because you read chapter 42, but let’s dig in to some of the meaty bits of the poetry. After the introduction in the first two chapters, Job opens the poetry with a lament. It’s the saddest of sad poems, and it’s beautifully constructed. Job’s lament ends with these lines: What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.” When I was in college, I took a class called Job and the Joban Tradition, it was taught by Peter Machinist, and one of the things we learned in that class is that Job is a theodicy. It grapples with the question of why do bad things happen to good people? This term, theodicy, incidentally, was coined by Gottfried von Leibniz, the inventor of calculus, who in addition to being interested in infinitesimals, was also interested in the problem of evil. How can there be evil if God is all powerful. The first response to Job is by Eliphaz the Temanite, whom I will remind you, sat on the ground without eating or speaking for a week, just to be with his friend Job. None of these characters are slouches as friends. The overall structure of Job is that Eliphaz speaks and then Job responds, then Bildad the Shuhite, then Job, then Zophar the Naamathite, then Job. This repeats three times, and for the most part the friends are pretty supportive, although Eliphaz does get a bit grumpy toward the end. Even though the whole plot is that Job never sins, Eliphaz feels the need to judge. Here’s a snippet of it: “Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored: If you remove wickedness far from your tent We don’t have time to read all of the back and forth, but what we find is that everyone who starts out consoling Job eventually does the same thing as Eliphaz. Bildad and Zophar both get a bit accusatory, and then Job is forced to respond. “As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made my life bitter, as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not say anything wicked, and my tongue will not utter lies. I will never admit you are in the right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my innocence and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live. You get the point here. Job is like, nah bro, it’s not like that. There’s a somewhat strange interlude in chapter 28, which almost feels like a standalone song or poem, but that is also beautiful. It’s not attributed to any of the characters, and it’s asking a question: Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding dwell? It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing, concealed even from the birds in the sky. Following this is another long poem by Job, and then we get a surprise! A character who wasn’t introduced in the beginning steps out of the crowd, and he gives a rousing speech that begins like this: “I am young in years, and you are old; that is why I was fearful, not daring to tell you what I know. I thought, ‘Age should speak; advanced years should teach wisdom.’ But it is the spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty, that gives them understanding. It is not only the old who are wise, not only the aged who understand what is right. He makes a good point, but he also brings it home in a way that’s like ten times more judgmental than the three friends, which is looking pretty grim for Job. But don’t worry, the Lord arrives on stage now, and I’m going to switch to the King James version, which you remember is an older translation, but this is some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible, and it’s a more beautiful translation. It’s so beautiful it’s hard to know where to stop, and I’d encourage you all to read it all on your own if you like what you hear. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Eep! Now you already know that in the end of the story, Job and the Lord are cool, but I do want to point out a couple quick little nuggets. The first is that only his daughters are mentioned by name, and Job gives his daughters an inheritance with their brothers. That’s pretty cool The second is that the end of the story is one of my favorite endings: Job died, being old and full of days. I hope that’s how my story ends, although without the middle part, ideally, where Satan and the Lord collude against me. Okay, it’s been a slightly longer Meeting than usual, but one more quick piece of business. The three books of poetry are only part of the writings. There’s no assignment for pre-reading for next week, but we’re going to introduce five short books that are easy reading, and if you wanted to read ahead, the one we’re going to focus on is the book of Esther. The book of Esther is interesting for a bunch of reasons, but one of the reasons it’s most interesting to me is that it actually contains no mention of God, which is, you know, somewhat unusual for being in the Bible. I love you all so very much, and I can’t wait to continue our tour next week. For now let’s light our candles and think about what the Lord might say to each of us if he called us out of the whirlwind. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notesformeeting.substack.com [https://notesformeeting.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Tour of the Old Testament: Poetry Books

After some discussion with everyone during Lent, we’re going to start a tour of the Old Testament in Meeting today. There seemed to be some general agreement among all the Bruntons-east that having an overall sense of it could be fun and interesting. Today we’re going to do a quick orientation, and then we’re going to start exactly in the middle with the poetic books, mostly because I like them and I think they’re a fun starting place. So first it’s worth noting that when Jesus talked about scripture, and when he quoted from scripture, what he was quoting was what we call the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible. You’ll be unsurprised to hear that it was all written in Hebrew, whereas the New Testament was written mostly in Greek. Remember that Jesus grew up in Second Temple Judaism, which we’ll come back to later, but one way you can think of the Christian religion is that it’s an offshoot of Second Temple Judaism, and the reason we say “Old Testament” and “New Testament” is that we inherited the Old Testament from our Jewish roots, and the New Testament was all written after the time of Jesus. There are some theological implications about calling the two parts of the Bible the Old Testament and New Testament, but it’s still a convenient way to group the books, and it’s been a grouping for a long time. In Judaism, the grouping is called the Miqra, or the Tanakh. The Tanakh is a convenient name because it’s actually an initialism of three words, Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim. The Torah is the first five books, the Nevi’im are the prophets, and the Ketuvim are the writings. We’re going to come back to the writings in a minute. But get that in your head for a minute. There are five books at the beginning that we group together called the Torah or the Pentateuch, or the Law. The story of the creation of the world is there, and the flood, and the story of Moses leading the Hebrew children out of Egypt. The story of Moses receiving the ten commandments on stone tablets is in there, and a lot of additional rules that weren’t on the tablets, but cropped up along the way. You might remember that Jesus says “Do not think that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets” - when he says “the law” there, he’s talking at least in part about the Torah, and when he says “the prophets” he’s talking about the next broad division of books. When you think about prophets, you might think about Jonah who got swallowed by a whale and barfed out in Ninevah, or Isaiah who unknowingly wrote most of Handel’s Messiah a few thousand years before Handel was born, or you might think about Elijah who fasted for forty days and who at the end of his life ascended into heaven in a chariot of fire. We’re going to talk about the prophets later, but that’s another broad division of the Old Testament, you’ve got the law and the prophets. When we talk about the prophets, we’re going to talk mostly about characters, because that’s how I think of them, but we’ll also talk a bit about what prophecy means. The third and final broad category is called the writings, or the Ketuvim, and this is eleven books that are all wonderful. The eleven books include many of my favorite parts of the Bible, in part because we sing them and recite them more than other parts. In particular, there are three books in the middle of the writings that are books of poetry and that’s where we’re going to look today. But first, one more quick recap. Law, that’s the first five books. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The Torah and the Pentateuch are two other names for it. Prophets, that’s a big chunk of the Old Testament, and when we come back to talk about the prophets, we’re going to talk about a lot of individual characters like Jonah and Elijah. And the writings. In the Christian Bible, the poetry is exactly in the middle, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, those three books, and because of that they’re also easy to find. My recollection is that if you calculate the exact center of the Christian Bible that Protestants use, it’s in Psalm number 117. There are 150 psalms, and every single one is a beautiful poem or series of poems. In many Christian denominations, it’s traditional to have a psalm sung or spoken in every single service. You might remember that the very first book published in North America was the Bay Psalm Book, which you can think of as kind of a hymnal. Psalms have been set to music many thousands of times throughout the past several millenia, and many of my own favorite hymns are Psalms translated into English and set to music. Some Psalms are long, some are short, and they’re surprisingly varied as poetry, and they’re the part of the Hebrew scriptures that has most made me want to learn more Hebrew. Proverbs is the book right after Psalms. Since Psalms is full of psalms, you won’t be surprised to hear that Proverbs is full of proverbs. Aphorisms for living, and you have undoubtedly heard many proverbs from the book of Proverbs recited by people you know. They often have two parts, the this is like this, but the that is like that. My own favorite proverb from Proverbs is, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones,” and it’s sort of what I think about when I’m proceeding through hard times with good cheer. “Iron sharpeneth iron” is another good one from Proverbs, the second half of that one is, “so one person sharpens another.” We’re glossing over Psalms and Proverbs a little bit, but not because they’re not awesome. They’re awesome, but you just don’t need much orientation to them. Open the book of Psalms and start reading, and you’ll probably like it. Open the book of Proverbs and put your finger on something, and it will probably sound like a proverb. Both books are extremely approachable. Job is the other book of poetry in the Bible. Don’t get me wrong, there are other poems, but Job is the third book that’s dedicated to it, and unlike Psalms and Proverbs, it’s actually framed as a story about a guy, and you’ll be unsurprised to hear that the guy’s name is Job. Job is spelled just exactly the same as the word job, but it’s pronounced Job with a long o. Unlike in previous meetings, this week we’re going to make a short reading assignment, it’s not the whole book of Job, but it’s a little at the beginning and a little at the end. Next week, we’ll do a slightly deeper dive into the book of Job, and we’ll read some of the poetry in the middle. The part of the story I’d like everyone to read is the first and second chapters, it will take about five minutes, they’re really short chapters. Then skip to the very end, and read chapter 42 starting at verse seven until the end. These two parts of Job are sort of a prologue and an epilogue of a conversation between Job, his three friends, and the almighty, which is written in verse. Next week we’ll read some of the verses together, but you’ll understand it all better with a bit of the story in your mind. Okay, before we light our candles, just one more quick repetition. The law, that’s the first five books. The prophets, that’s actually most of the other books. The writings, that’s eleven books total, but the three we talked about today are the poetry books that are smack in the middle, Job, Psalms, and Proverbs. You’re going to read the first, second, and forty-second chapters of Job this week, and if you find yourself wanting to read something else, just turn to a random Psalm, or a non-random one and just read the Twenty-Third Psalm. I love you all so much, and I’m very tickled at this idea. My current thinking is that we’ll spend eight or ten weeks on a whirlwind tour of the Old Testament, and then maybe we’ll go back to our regularly scheduled programming, or maybe someone will want to do something different and they’ll tell me! For now let’s light our candles and think about poetry. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notesformeeting.substack.com [https://notesformeeting.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Palm Sunday

We’re going to keep reading about the final days of Jesus from the Gospel of John today. One of the reasons I like reading the Gospels is that they each have a different take on what happened that week, but the accounts of Palm Sunday and the events of that week are all reasonably well synched up - unlike the dinner we were reading about last week where three accounts are about the wine and the bread but the account in John is about dirty feet. The rough sketch of the story is that Jesus and his friends are in Bethany, which is a couple miles outside of Jerusalem. A side note, the Tomb of Lazarus in Bethany is still a place of pilgrimage for Christians and Muslims. There are at least two churches and a mosque there, and it’s the place where Jesus went from hometown hero to seriously famous miracle worker just before his crucifixion. We’ve talked about the story of Lazarus a few times. The story in the book of John assumes we know about it - “Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.” The premise of John’s story that this is what catapulted Jesus to fame, and to the attention of the authorities. If you’ve ever looked closely at a depiction of Jesus on the cross, there will sometimes be a sign above it that says I-N-R-I, which is an initialism for “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum” - Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. This is a reference from the Gospel of John: Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Many read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. There’s a whole argument depicted there in the Gospel of John, where Pilate seemingly would rather not crucify Jesus, but the religious authorities insist on the crucifixion because Jesus claimed to be both the King and the Son of God. They tell him, “We have no king but Caesar.” Pilate didn’t have jurisdiction over their religious objections, but they kind of paint him into a corner over the political point. An interesting little side note that relates to a conversation Dan’l and I had earlier in the week - this is actually the only mention of Latin in the whole Bible. Lots of Aramaic, lots of Greek, but Latin occurs only in this notice. Okay, so back to the story of Palm Sunday The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!” Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him. It’s worth noting at this point that Jesus doesn’t claim to be a king during his discussion with Pontius Pilate. The crowd had called him king of the Jews, and of course we have the much earlier record in the Gospel of Matthew where the Magi ask where they can find the King of the Jews, but during the discussion with Pilate Jesus doesn’t actually cop to it. When Pilate asks him about it, his response is ““Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?” As depicted in the Gospel of John, it’s a bad week for Jesus, and it includes a lot of people wanting him dead for either claiming to be the Son of God or claiming to be the rightful king. But I like to think that the message Jesus preached was actually quite a bit more radical than the things they accused him of. And this way of reading it makes a lot of sense in the story. Saying “I’m the Son of God” or “I’m the rightful king” is one thing, but saying “Every one of you is the child of God and there is no such thing as a rightful King” is a whole nother thing. We have lots and lots of records of Jesus preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven, in fact the word kingdom occurs fifty-four times in Matthew alone, and not once does he say, “it’s mine.” Instead, he says over and over and over, “it’s for the poor” or “it’s for the persecuted.” He doesn’t usually answer when they ask him if he’s God, but when they ask him about the kingdom of heaven, oh, then he has words and words and words for them. Usually it’s parable beginning with “the kingdom of heaven is like…” But getting back to the story of Palm Sunday again, we’ve been skipping around a little bit, and I want to end with something that Jesus tells the disciples at the outset of this story of the bad week that we now call Holy Week: Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Let’s think about that while we light our candles. Holy Week is a sad week, but it’s also a week of anticipation. What seeds might you have falling to the ground this week? I love you all so much, and I can’t wait to see you all for Easter next week to watch the sun rise. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notesformeeting.substack.com [https://notesformeeting.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Remembrance of Me

It was so much fun hiking with you all yesterday! The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for it, which I suppose is why we couldn’t get a parking space at Patapsco. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who noticed the sun shining. The first daffodils are blooming, right next to the house by the fig tree. It’s a sheltered spot there, and they’re always the first of all the narcissus to bloom here, closely followed by the forsythia that are right across from them, and soon after, it’s everything all at once. Only two more weeks of Lent, next week is Palm Sunday, and the week after that’s Easter. This week we’re going to read an account of the Last Supper from the Gospel of John. It’s substantially different from the other three accounts in the New Testament. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus eats bread and wine with the disciples and delivers a handful of prophecies over dinner. In the Gospel of Luke in particular, he says the words that we Christians all over the world now hear when we celebrate communion in church: “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’” Celebrating communion in church is a way to remember what’s happening there through a ritual, but the ritual itself isn’t so much the point it is to remember Jesus. I like to take the instruction both a bit more literally and to interpret it a bit more broadly. I know those two approaches are in tension with one another, but bear with me. I like to think that every time we eat or drink, we should pause to remember, not just when we’re in church. When we sing our song before dinner, that’s what we’re doing, in remembrance. It’s also a part of why Christians fast. Withholding it from ourselves helps us to remember why we eat and drink. The obvious response to that is “because we’re hungry or thirsty.” But fasting reminds us that it’s not actually quite that straightforward. It helps us remember that we also eat and drink because we decide to. And that others, in the worst of circumstances, lack food or drink because they are denied it. Moving ahead to the story of the Last Supper from the Gospel of John, there is what first appears to be a completely different lesson for us here. Here’s the pertinent part of the story: Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean. When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Notably, just before this scene, John wrote, “the evening meal was in progress” and that’s the whole tale of the meal for John. There’s nothing about the cup and the bread, no new covenant in the blood, just this thing about the dirty feet. There may be some esoteric meaning buried in it. “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me” sounds like it might be an oblique reference to ancient washing rituals from the book of Numbers, “To purify them, do this: Sprinkle the water of cleansing on them”, but there’s also the meaning that Jesus explains directly: if you can’t let me serve you, you’re not getting it. In one sense, this telling of the Last Supper is different than the other three Gospels, because instead of eating and drinking together, Jesus is serving the apostles, and commanding them to serve others in the way he served them. But in another sense, as we refer back to the accounts in the other three Gospels, Jesus is serving food to the disciples. I don’t know if that would have been the role of a host or of a servant in Jesus’ day, but that also brings up a good point: hosting and serving aren’t necessarily so different as I imagine them to be. One more little tidbit to focus on about this story - last week, Jesus quoted the Psalms, “you are all children of the Most High.” In today’s story, he does it again. Directly after washing everyone’s feet, Jesus quotes Psalm 41, by way of telling the disciples that one of them will betray him and one of them will deny him. That’s Judas and Peter, though to quote Monty Python, Peter got better. We’re going to close meeting today with a stanza from this Psalm that’s an enduring lesson all by itself. One kind of neat point before I read this is that Jesus quoted the Psalms more than any other book of the Bible. Here’s the two quote and the previous stanza for a little context: All my enemies whisper together against me; they imagine the worst for me, saying,“A vile disease has afflicted him; he will never get up from the place where he lies.” Even my close friend, someone I trusted,one who shared my bread, has turned against me. “Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me.” King David felt it, Jesus felt it, sadly at some point I think every human being probably feels it. I will remind us all that Jesus’ response to this was to wash their feet. Pretty classy guy. I love you all very much. Week after next, we’ll be celebrating with the sunrise. Tonight, let’s light our candles and remember Jesus as we serve one another. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notesformeeting.substack.com [https://notesformeeting.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]