bald man blogging

[Link to this week's Lectionary Readings]

[ASIDE: Can someone tell me what the number in parentheses refers to? I'm guessing it is a count of weeks since Easter, whereas the first number is a count of weeks since Pentecost, but I'm not certain. Thanks in advance for satiating my curiosity.]

An odd thing happens in the Genesis passage, and I’m not referring to post-menopausal pregnancy in in individuals who should be becoming great-grandparents and not parents. Somewhere between verses 10 and 13 it became clear that one of the strangers was God. Look at it. In verse 10 we read:

Then one [of the strangers] said, ‘I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.“

In verse 11 we are reminded of Abraham and Sarah’s old age, and in verse 12 Sarah blows milk out her nose because she’s laughing so hard at the thought of becoming pregnant. (OK, the milk out the nose is an embellishment, but I can see it happening.) Finally we come to verses 13 and 14:

The LORD said to Abraham, ”Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the LORD? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.“

The language used by the stranger-cum-God is almost identical, so we’re clearly talking about one speaker who repeats himself. Yet, there is nothing in the passage to this point to indicate that the speaker was God. Sure, verse 1 tells us that ”the LORD appeared to Abraham,“ but this sounds like an introduction to the story written retrospectively and not an indication of foreknowledge by Abraham. Later in Genesis we find out that the men were angels in disguise, but that is later. In this passage the visitors are called men - important looking men judging by Abraham’s greeting and the spread he put out for them - but men, strangers.

What happened? How did everything become evident? How was God’s identity revealed?

I think it has something to do with eating, or more specifically eating with strangers. I’m reminded of a story from the New Testament in which an unidentified man sits down to eat with a couple. At some point during the meal the veil of anonymity is pulled back, and the stranger’s true identity is revealed. (I’ll let you read the end for yourself; I don’t want to spoil the surprise.)

What is it about eating with strangers that seems to reveal God among us? How many encounters with God do we miss because we close our table and limit our fellowship to only those we already know?

[Link to this week's Revised Common Lectionary texts]

This week we read of Noah. Noach ish tzadik tamim. That is, “Noah was a righteous [just] and blameless [wholehearted] man.” Most of the commentary I found focuses on the latter two adjectives, tzadik [righteous or just] and tamim [blameless or wholehearted]; but I wonder if the key isn’t to be found in the first. Noach ish. Noah was a man. Before we consider anything else that Noah was, we must first remember that Noah was a man, an ordinary person like you and me. Only by beginning here will we able to usefully evaluate the remaining description.

If we work out of order and forget that Noah was first and foremost a man, then we are likely to make one of two mistakes when interpreting this passage. In the one instance we elevate Noah, crediting him with a level of righteousness and blamelessness that is beyond human proportions. We put him on a pedestal of perfection that ultimately neuters him. By assigning super-human characteristics to him we give ourselves permission to dismiss him, for he is so far beyond us that we need not consider what his story might say to us. In the other, we strip Noah bare, rendering him something less that fully human. He exists only as a vessel to hold a righteousness imputed by God. The result, again, is that Noah is neutered. God in sovereignty has chosen Noah, so there is nothing for us to learn from him. There is no lesson for our lives but to hope God chooses us also.

No, we must begin with this: Noach ish. Noah was a man. The fact that he was also tzadik and tamim flow out of this fact. As a man, Noah was righteous. He was just in his dealings with others. Furthermore, as a man he was wholehearted. (I like this better than blameless, which throws images of super-human perfection into my mind, images that make is hard for me to remember Noach ish.) He pursued his righteousness with his whole heart. He was sincere and a man of integrity.

Noah’s justness and wholeheartedness are contrasted with “violence,” which has corrupted the earth and brought God’s judgment. The contrast serves to further emphasizes the relational nature of the passage. Violence must have both perpetrators and victims. Likewise, the righteousness and wholeheartedness ascribed to Noah must also have a benefactors and beneficiaries. Noah was a benefactor.

Was Noah perfect? No, but he didn’t have to be. He wasn’t expected to be. Noach ish. Noah was a man, and so far as he was able, he was a just and wholehearted man in the way he lived with others. God, who judges not as we judge, saw this and saved him.

The lesson for me is this: I am an ordinary man like Noah. Given that, can it also be said of me: Bald Man ish tzadik tamim?