The Women of Genesis

In our “Chronological Bible” reading this week, we came across a few more well-known stories in the first half of Genesis. Tara and I found ourselves discussing several of these stories from time to time, especially those stories that were surprising or troublesome in some way or another. Let’s take stock of what we have seen so far:

  • Abraham passes off his wife Sarah as his sister in Egypt.
  • Sarah gives her servant girl Hagar to Abraham as a wife. After Hagar gives birth to Ishmael, Sarah has her (and the child) kicked out of the household.
  • Lot very nearly sends his own two daughters outside to be raped by the men of Sodom.
  • Lot’s wife is suddenly and inexplicably (other than the “look back” to Sodom) turned into a pillar of salt.
  • Lot’s two daughters choose to sleep with their father and have (grand)children by him.
  • Abraham passes off his wife Sarah as his sister again, this time because of King Abimelech. Meanwhile, the women of Abimelech’s household are afflicted with infertility because of this situation.
  • Isaac passes off his wife Rebekah as his sister, again because of King Abimelech.
  • Esau learns that his parents don’t like him marrying foreign women, so he marries another one.
  • Jacob marries Leah, even though he wanted to marry (and thought he was marrying) her sister Rachel.
  • Leah and Rachel are portrayed as petty competitors for the most children with their husband Jacob. To this end, two other women (slave girls) are given to Jacob as his wives.

…and that’s just from twenty chapters of Genesis! Do you notice a pattern here? How is it that so many stories in the first book of the Bible have such a negative slant against the women in the stories? Sure, ancient Middle Eastern culture tended to be rather patriarchal in nature – and many cultures around the world today, including our own, still tend to favor men to varying degrees.

Having a patriarchal culture is one thing, but telling so many stories that portray women in such a negative light is another thing. What is going on here?

I can’t really make sense of this. The women of Genesis get a pretty bad rap, and I don’t have a good explanation. They are mistreated, abused, neglected, and disrespected on multiple occasions. The important overarching story of Genesis is God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve sons (all men). The sign of the covenant is circumcision (only for men). In many cases, the women seem expendable.

Maybe the best conclusion to draw is simply to make sure that the same thing does not happen in our world today. Maybe the experience of reading these stories in Genesis should compel us all – men and women alike – to treat women with utmost respect in our everyday experiences, our churches, our schools, our workplaces, our government, and our homes.

I encourage you to read about a present-day movement emphasizing gender equality (#HeForShe) at this website: www.heforshe.org

Pastor David

January Youth Update

Happy New Year! I was happy to see 2014 come to a close and have great expectations for 2015. Knowing that God is always good all the time helps to shape my reactions to life with the knowledge that He is always in control and that my purpose in life is to be like Jesus and to bring God glory in all things.

With that said, we had have great moments in our Youth Ministry this year and we have also struggled. Our conventions and retreats, the new retreat location at Cran-Hill, the SYC and especially the IYC were filled with the Holy Spirit and many students advanced on their decisions to serve the Lord. The fundraisers were especially important as they bonded us together, weekly meetings went well and most of our activities were well participated. The Detroit weekend and Guatemala were fantastic mission opportunities and God was glorified! Students were baptized and many are much more open to walking in faith. GRADS @ Grahams has been a ministry for those people who need a place in the church.

We celebrate our success, but we also recognize the struggles that every ministry endures. Thanks for the prayers for me as I lost my dad this year but rejoiced because I know he has been healed of that terrible cancer & pain, and is now dwelling in the house of the Lord. I have also struggled with my eyesight, dealing with several surgeries but knowing that soon God will restore my sight.

We are a ministry in transition. We have lost several key players due to the natural process of graduation and the group has become younger. Through God’s grace, patience and love, my role now is to weave the students into a ministry where they accept each other, appreciate each other, care for each other, work with each other, not judge each other and most of all, love each other through God’s grace as we grow in Christ. We live in a culture where the easy thing to do, if we don’t like something or someone, is to walk away from it and not even try anymore. My prayer is that God reclaims the group, brings everyone back into the fold, resurrects leaders and creates a comfortable, loving, accepting atmosphere that glorifies God. We welcome your prayers!

At the time of your reading, we are either preparing to depart for Winter Retreat, experiencing Cran-Hill Ranch or celebrating the things that God did over the weekend! We are taking 9 students and I know the weekend is FULL with students and counselors from all across the Church of God congregations in Michigan. We’ve had a great speaker in Brett Talley from Indianapolis Church of the Crossing and are probably enjoying the worship of Josh Lavender & his band out of Florida! Winter Retreat is always a weekend of the Holy Spirit with students drawing closer to Jesus and His love. A shout-out goes to my wife, Connie, the CHOG Director of Youth Ministries in Michigan. Hundreds of people have been blessed with her leadership and the success of state activities and I know she humbly serves to bring glory to God.

The NEXT Big event is the annual YOUTH LOCK-IN on Friday night, January 23rd where we insanely lock ourselves in the church to eat, play wild and crazy games, watch movies, pray and devote, (maybe sleep?) and generally stay up all night. This is, hands down, the most asked for and biggest highlight of the year for many of our students. Details will be coming SOON after the retreat is finished, so watch for them. HOWEVER, WE NEED parents, helpers, volunteers, bodies, to experience the night with us. We are asking for people to help us in 2-3 hour shifts throughout the night to guarantee a success. Connie and I could handle this, but it’s more fun and easier with help. Thanks! Call us!

Guatemala is becoming more and more official each day! 15 servants from 5 different churches (8 from Mt. Haley) will be departing for Guatemala City on Thursday, February 5th and returning to Midland Thursday, February 12th. We have been spiritually prepared and challenged, we have insurance, we have bonded together, our plane tickets are purchased, and we are ready except for the packing. We still need your prayers, money for the house and other expenses and your encouragement. God has BIG plans for Mt. Haley and the Guatemalan community.

This month we will still pursue the study of “Who is the Holy Spirit” and in Sunday School we are still looking at “InTune with Purpose, Purity, Power and People.” GRADS @ Grahams are starting an 8–week study on Revelations which should provide some great discussions.

We NEED your help! I am just going to be blunt. Let’s make a New Year’s resolution. The Youth Ministry has 3 events every week – Sunday School @ 10:00 AM, Mt. Haley Youth @ 6:00 PM and GRADS @ Grahams at 8:15 PM. We are beginning to be a very “tardy” youth ministry. On a typical youth meeting night, we usually begin with 2-3 students at 6 and it may take up to 45 minutes after the start time to have everyone there. The same issue effects the other two meetings also. All the meetings have been well planned to fill up the opportunity to share God’s Word. We ask your help in keeping our meetings start times (and dismissals) punctual. We almost always are open 15 minutes prior to the meeting and want to begin on time. Thanks for the help!

Parents and church, your prayers, support and encouragement are greatly appreciated and we look forward every week to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our students through interaction, study, fellowship and relationship. Thank you for sharing your son or daughter and our congregation for holding the youth up in PRAYER.

Love God, Love People, Live It!

Blessings, Pastor Jerry

Not a January 3 Christian

I don’t want to be a “January 3 Christian.”

Many of us at Mt. Haley are reading the Bible all the way through during this new year. We are using the so-called “Chronological Bible,” which rearranges the biblical text into the order, more or less, in which the events in the Bible occurred. This will help us draw connections among the stories of the various books of the Bible, and by the end of 2015, we will have read all 66 books in their entirety.

I intend to write a post each week to share some of my reflections as I read the scriptures with you this year. And as we get started, my first thought is simply this:

I don’t want to be a “January 3 Christian.”

The first readings of the Chronological Bible are similar to many Bible-in-a-year reading plans: we covered the first several chapters of Genesis. In the first three days of the year, we have read Genesis 1-9, which contain many well-known stories:

Creation. Adam and Eve. The fall. Cain and Abel. Noah and the flood.

And we still have 362 days to go. It’s only January 3! There is so much more to the Bible than just these first few stories.

I have heard Christians argue that we have to defend a literal six-day creation in order to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus. I have heard Christians say that without a literal apple(?) in a literal garden, everything else in scripture becomes meaningless. I have heard Christians say that modern-day weather events might be a sign of the end times, because God promised (remember) that he wouldn’t destroy the earth by a flood again – but earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis and the like are apparently fair game for divine wrath.

Why do we emphasize these stories from early Genesis so much? Why do we make them the litmus test for true Christian faith? Why do we urge ourselves to be “January 3 Christians”?

If you love these early stories, keep on loving them. But please keep in mind that we have yet to read over 99% of the Bible.  What if the best is yet to come?

What if Genesis 1-9 just gets the ball rolling so we can find out what God is really up to in his relationship with humanity?

Keep reading, friends, and let’s keep up the conversation.

Pastor David

Peace on Earth?

Christmas Eve 2014 was the 100th anniversary of the spontaneous ceasefire along the Western Front at the beginning of World War I. That night was, unexpectedly, a “silent night.” How do we reconcile a violent world with the angels’ proclamation of “peace on earth” at Jesus’s birth? Listen in to Pastor David’s message:

Listen now!

How to Read Scripture

Many of us at Mt. Haley are about to embark on a year-long journey through God’s Word. We will be reading through the “Chronological Bible” – every verse of scripture arranged, to the best of our understanding, in the order in which biblical events occurred. Whether or not you have read through the Bible before, this will surely be a fascinating experience!

Reading the Bible regularly is an important part of the life of a disciple of Jesus. But if you are like me, sometimes reading the Bible becomes mundane, repetitive, and – dare I say it? – boring. Sometimes I find myself scanning over words on the page and not allowing them to sink into my soul, to shape how I think, to speak new truths to me. I believe this is a pretty common challenge for anyone who does any task repeatedly. It takes constant dedication to such a task to make it continually meaningful.

An ancient Christian tradition may be of some help to us as we go about the task of reading scripture for our personal spiritual growth. This tradition is called lectio divina, a Latin phrase that means “divine reading.” For centuries, Christians have found this four-step process of reading the Bible to be very meaningful. I recently read a book that summarizes this process quite well:

  1. Lectio. Read the passage carefully, paying special attention to words or phrases that jump out at you. Use your imagination. In a narrative passage, try to picture the scene and yourself as one of the participants… How would you feel? What would you say? … Read the passage again. After using your imagination to place yourself within its world, ask the crucial question: what is God saying to me through this text today? … What am I to believe? What am I to do? Of what am I to repent? For what am I to give thanks?
  2. Meditatio. Meditate on what you have seen, smelled, felt, and, above all, heard in your reading. Dwell. Linger. Abide. Chew the cud. Having entered into the text, let it wash over you so that it becomes the place where you are more fully than the room in which you sit.
  3. Oratio. Pray. Having listened for God’s word in God’s word, respond. Tell God what’s on your mind. Tell God everything, including the intruding thoughts that keep distracting you from attention to the text. Say “Thank you.” Say “I’m sorry.” Ask for help in understanding and embodying this text.
  4. Contemplatio. Contemplate. Remind yourself that in this conversation with the text you are having a conversation with God, that you are in the presence of God, and that by grace through faith God is lovingly with you. As in meditatio, let this mutual presence be the place where, for these moments, you consciously dwell.
    (quoted from Merold Westphal, “Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church,” Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, ©2009)

May God illuminate our lives and shape our thoughts and actions through the ministry of his written word.

The Stupendous Stranger

Christopher Smart was an English poet who lived just before the American Revolution. He contributed regularly to a couple of popular magazines in London, but he was eventually locked away in a mental institution by his father-in-law for various reasons. Smart accumulated so many debts throughout his adult life that he was finally placed in a debtors’ prison, where he died of an illness at age 49.

I just learned about Christopher Smart because of a poem he wrote, entitled The Stupendous Stranger, which has been set to music. One of the choirs in which Tara and I sing will be performing this piece of music at an upcoming Christmas concert this month. The poem is rather short, just two verses long. I offer this to you as an Advent reflection:

Where is this stupendous stranger?
Gentle shepherd, now advise.
Lead me to my Master’s manger,
show me where my Savior lies.
O Most Mighty! O Most Holy!
Far beyond the seraph’s thought,
art thou then so weak and lowly
as unheeded prophets taught?

O the magnitude of meekness!
Worth from worth immortal sprung;
O the strength of infant weakness,
if eternal is so young!
God all bounteous, all creative,
whom no ills from good dissuade,
is incarnate, and a native
of the very world he made.

Sometimes the most powerful ideas are contained in just a few words. I fear that anything I write here might detract from the impact of Smart’s poem on my life – and, perhaps, on yours – so I will keep these comments brief.

Jesus is the stupendous stranger whom we meet as the baby in Bethlehem. The contrasts of this poem are remarkable: great and meek, strong and weak, eternal and young, creating and incarnate, strange and native. Jesus is all of these things.

How can we ask “What Child Is This?”, as the Christmas carol goes, when he is the very one who created Mary, the one on whose lap he is now sleeping?

How can we speak “sleep in heavenly peace,” as the Christmas carol goes, when this tender and mild infant is the immensely powerful God of all creation?

How can we sing “welcome to our world,” as the recent song by Chris Rice goes, when this child is not really a stranger to this world at all?

Perhaps we are the strangers whom God graciously invites to approach his manger. Perhaps we are the visitors who get to meet someone who is so unlike ourselves (immortal, strong, creator, master) yet who is very much like us (enfleshed, weak, vulnerable, native). Perhaps we are the gentle shepherds who are called to escort others to the manger, to the cross, to the tomb, to the Table.

Perhaps we are simply those who read Christopher Smart’s words and pause in awe and thanksgiving. The Stranger is now native. The Creator is among us. The Baby is eternal. The Weak is our Strength.

Pastor David