What’s Up? 07/20/10

Tags

Darwin, David Barton, Elena Kagan, evolution, Glenn Beck, Harriet Miers, Obama, Photography, Plato, racism, religious freedom, religious right, right wing wackos, Sarah Palin, SCOTUS

Here I come to save the day. . .That means that Mighty Mouse is on the way! Oh, ‘scuse me, I get carried away with childhood memories sometimes. You gotta be OLD to remember that cartoon.

Anyways, here I am to give you the scoop on what ya oughta be readin’ today. How’s that for chutzpah? I KNOW what you NEED to read!

I suffer from delusions of grandeur once in a while. Actually I’m very humble. You know that. I want you to believe that–it’s my blog persona. Humility. Yep.

I have others. I’m sybileen in that respect. I can call out the “others.” But don’t make me. I can be not so pretty. A very nice lady at our church said I was a “sweet person.” God love her, but she ain’t talked to the Contrarian–who would give her a different take. I am sweet, but well, let’s not go there okay?

If the wacko right doesn’t like being called racist, they oughta pay more attention to what they are critical of. I mean, Obama was in office a minute and one half when they started making it sound positively EVIL that he used a teleprompter. Like that was something new in politics. I mean they had nothing more but they HAD to criticize. When you criticize EVERYTHING down to the whether he’s a boxer versus briefs kinda guy, it’s pretty obvious you got something else  going on  in your pea brain see?

And just go and refudiate that Ms. Sarah (that woman is an Idiot!) Palin. And Pluleeeeez don’t refer to yourself and the Bard in the same breath. If you have actually read or attended a Shakespearean play, well I’ll eat my left ear.  Steve Benen has some choice words to drop on the Grizzly Mama. It’s delicious!

And don’t miss Sarah Posner’s great lament at the lunatic boy, Glenny Beck who would not, I swear, know the truth if it arrived at his front porch in letters twelve feet high and identified itself as God Almighty come to give revelation directly to the Becky one. David Barton, lap dog, who is usually on his leash when he appears with the padded cell bound Glenn, is also treated for his usual maladjustments of history.

More moaning from Andrea Lafferty of Traditional Values Coalition. She claims that Elena Kagan got a pass where similarly situated Harriet Miers got crucified. She claims the left is unfair. Except of course the truth is available and the main thrust of anti-Mier ranting is documented as coming from the right itself who thought her not conservative enough. It’s just the usual say it and it will be so to the drooling NASCAR/WWF/TRAILER TRASH who read? have it read to them.

Similarly, Family Research Council finds something sinister in Obama’s use of the term freedom to worship on a couple of occasions. It’s the beginning of the end of religion in Merika they squeak. Yeah, except that Obama has used the term freedom of religion 124 versus 9 times for freedom to worship and  Dubya numbers on the two are 124 and  33 respectively. As I said, lying comes as second nature to these RELIGIOUS  claimers.

Okay, I know that music and math are related. How, I don’t know, but some really smarty guy says that he has cracked Plato’s “codes” and well, there was, like a whole lot of new information called symbolic messages. It explains why Aristotle called Plato a student of Pythagoras when scholars can find no reason to agree. And it seems he forecast that the universe would be found to be governed by mathematical principles and not Zeus. Interesting little article.

Someone is suggesting that Darwin did not gather by happenstance a lot of material and then see a pattern which he deduced or inducted into natural selection. Rather, he may have had the hypothesis all along and gathered material in view of that belief. Hey a doctoral thesis has to come from somewhere, here you go.  Heavy reading here.

Just leaving a comment over at Blisterinas. Have you seen here photography? You really should. I was telling her I collect animal skulls. Ones from animals our dogs murder and bring home and deposit. I really like my raccoon skull. The jaw works and everything. I would collect mouse skulls but Spencer the Impaler Cat loves the heads, he leaves the rest of the body for me. I warn them about wrinkles and toss them out.

Speaking of which, why the hell are some people not making their full feeds available? I have a tough time downloading sites as it is. It would surprise you no doubt to know that I READ most of you guys blogs pretty thoroughly, though I don’t comment as much, but I read most of all you write since it’s in my READER. I thought the point of writing was to be read? Yet some folks only give titles and I have to go there just to see if it’s something I wanna read. So I don’t go as often sad to say. Some sites take me a good five minutes to download. Can’t do too many at that rate. Rant complete.

Well I’m pooped. See ya tomorrow.

Oh Martha, I Barely Knew You

Tags

bible, biblical studies, Inspirational, Jesus, Luke, Martha and Mary

I’ve been thinking about Martha and Mary recently. It was the Gospel reading Sunday past, but I’d been thinking before then. The actual story is quite short. Located at Lk 10:38-42, I will quote it in full.

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

There are many treatments of this periscope, most of them refer to the fact that Martha is concerned about the realities of this life, while Mary recognizes Jesus as the Son of God, and wishes to learn from the Master. Clearly this is the “better part.” God first, dishes second.

But thanks to Mompriest  at Seeking Authentic Voice and Elizabeth Kaeton at Telling Secrets, who both wrote on this story, I’ve learned a much deeper meaning. Even more so, what follows is informed by Ebeling’s, Women’s Lives in Biblical Times, and the rector of Christ Episcopal Church, +Martha. And it is mostly from that perspective that I wish to write today.

Ebeling informs us that women in biblical times were seldom autonomous beings. The system of patrimony dictated that women went to live in the villages and homes of their husbands and were under the authority of the husband and his father or elder brother if alive. Women seldom inherited property–all went to any male progeny.

So at the start we are faced with a strange fact. The house here is defined as Martha’s. Yet, Martha is the sister of Lazarus, and presumably Lazarus is alive. A couple of points. In John’s Gospel, this same Lazarus does die, but is raised some days after his burial.(John 11:41-44)  He is not the same Lazarus who is mentioned in Luke 16:19-31, who had conversation with the rich man in the afterlife, outside hell.

We know from the Lazarus rising story that the siblings lived in Bethany, a village about 1.5 miles from Jerusalem, and indeed the modern day site of  al-Eizariya means Tomb of Lazarus. So it appears that at this visit by Jesus, Lazarus was still living in the home.

This makes it curious that the home is denoted as Martha’s, since clearly, tradition would have made it Lazarus’s. This may have been simply a literary change to fit the point Luke wished to make.

More importantly, the cultural norms would never permit a woman to invite any man to her home period. And it is this which I had never considered before. So indeed it was Martha who was first stepping way out in uncharted territory by being so bold. One can imagine other people of the village witnessing her standing forth at the door and beckoning Jesus into the home. How they must have talked!

Tradition would also dictate that Martha was responsible for the cooking and other home care tasks. While Lazarus might have been the one to offer a pallet for Jesus to sit upon (chairs were not known I don’t believe in small village homes), it would have been the women’s duty to supply water for washing and the food.

Anyone who reads the bible regularly would realize that a major aspect of Jesus’ ministry was his table hospitality, his radical departure from what was considered right and even in a sense legal. One did not dine with the unclean and certainly not with sinners. He pushed the limits of hospitality to include all.

So it is somewhat disconcerting when he downplays Martha’s efforts. After all, she has courageously seen him for who he is, and ignored all propriety in inviting him forth. Yet he gives no recognition to her, nor does he validate her dedication to good hospitality in making her guests comfortable. No doubt Jesus was accompanied by his disciples (more strange men), since “they” is used in the story.

It is clear that Mary too is courageous and not typical of her gender. She boldly sits at the feet of Jesus to listen to his words. I’m not completely clear, but I suspect that women were not allowed to dine in the same room with strangers who were male, but were separated from them. Her actions are indeed bold, and also recognize that this Jesus is not just your average rabbi.

Our priest, Martha, suggested that what Jesus means by his upholding of Mary’s choice is that when we invite Jesus in, we should be prepared to have our lives upset and turned upside down. In order to make this point, poor Martha (from the story) is chastised softly. Hospitality is one thing, and usually most important, but when God’s chosen arrives, all else must stop lest one miss the message being offered.

God disturbs our complacency, much as both Martha and Mary disturbed the social customs of their village and time. Something big is afoot here, they trumpet by their actions. God changes the rules, much as Jesus suggests that Martha and perhaps the men in the room might rethink all this business of who does what, where and when. It’s a new day. The Kingdom has arrived.  And things will never be the same.

Amen.