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Baal, Prophetesses, Whores, and the Poor

7:00 am By

Michelangelo's Davidphoto © 2006 Robert Scarth | more info (via: Wylio)
I’m reading through the Bible in 90 days. It might sound a little crazy – I thought it was too, at first. But after I thought about it, I decided to try it for two reasons – I’ve wrestled with the Bible itself for quite some time and realized that reading it cover to cover might help me make better sense of my questions. I’ve been especially interested in what the Bible says about the interplay between the sovereignty of God and free will of mankind, what the Bible says about women, and what the Bible says is the whole point – why did Jesus come and why did he have to die?:

Also? I am not so great at follow-through. A Bible-in-a-Year plan is far too big a commitment for me. Three months? I can do three months.

I love to read, and can easily read for an entire afternoon if I get sucked into a book. I decided that if I could do that, I surely ought to be able to exchange 45 minutes of that time to read the Bible.

I set my alarm clock for 5:30am, get up by 6am (I’ll be honest, I hit snooze almost every morning), make some coffee, and read while everyone else sleeps. It’s my only quiet moment of the whole day.) My kids often wake up early, but they’ve finally learned (after weeks of me sending them back to their rooms) to stay in their rooms until 7am.

It’s a good routine, and it has worked well for the past two months. I’ll finish reading the Bible through on July 30, and I’m already starting to think about what I’m going to do next. (Got any suggestions?)

Two-thirds of the way through the Bible, I already have discovered so much. Like just how long the Israelites continued engaging in pagan idol worship before God did anything, just what that idol worship entailed (burning their children alive, sex orgies around phallic symbols on hills and crossroads as well as in temples and eventually God’s Temple), how often God withheld the fullness of the consequences listed in the covenant they agreed to in the beginning when they would plead for mercy, and how even when he did let them experience the consequences, he still loved them and sent them messages of hope through the prophets.

God often used a very shocking word picture for his relationship with Israel – he was a devoted husband who loved a wife who left him to whore with other nation-lovers and their no-gods, eventually becoming so perverted that she even perverted whoredom by paying men to sleep with her.

Picturesque, isn’t it?

But God remained faithful to her, no matter what she did, even as he allowed her to experience the consequences of her choices, and he took her back. That’s the picture he gives in the book of Hosea, and in the life of the prophet Hosea.

Want to know what two of the biggest surprises have been?  What God says about women preachers and the reasons God gives for sending Israel into captivity.

In Ezekiel 13, God is calling out the false prophets in Israel for their corruption and for misrepresenting him. Then, in verses 17-23, he tackles the women prophets.

“And the women prophets—son of man, take your stand against the women prophets who make up stuff out of their own minds. Oppose them. Say ‘Doom’ to the women who sew magic bracelets and head scarves to suit every taste, devices to trap souls. Say, ‘Will you kill the souls of my people, use living souls to make yourselves rich and popular? You have profaned me among my people just to get ahead yourselves, used me to make yourselves look good—killing souls who should never have died and coddling souls who shouldn’t live. You’ve lied to people who love listening to lies.’

“Therefore God says, ‘I am against all the devices and techniques you use to hunt down souls. I’ll rip them out of your hands. I’ll free the souls you’re trying to catch. I’ll rip your magic bracelets and scarves to shreds and deliver my people from your influence so they’ll no longer be victimized by you. That’s how you’ll come to realize that I am God.

“‘Because you’ve confounded and confused good people, unsuspecting and innocent people, with your lies, and because you’ve made it easy for others to persist in evil so that it wouldn’t even dawn on them to turn to me so I could save them, as of now you’re finished. No more delusion-mongering from you, no more sermonic lies. I’m going to rescue my people from your clutches. And you’ll realize that I am God.’”

Did you notice what is missing? Their gender. So far, this is the only passage in the entire Bible in which God speaks directly to women in the office of prophet – teachers of his message to the people. And God criticizes them for making stuff up and misrepresenting God for their own gain. Not for being female prophets. If women preaching were an offense to God, why didn’t it appear in these verses? Why wouldn’t a sentence like, “They have defied the natural order of things [which, incidentally, is one of the definitions of “abomination”] and taken on the role of prophet which belongs only to the men” appear here?  This is the perfect time to throw that word in. God doesn’t hesitate to call out people who did that which was only to be done by priests or Levites.

Some of you are probably saying, “Joy, it says prophet, not preacher.” You’re right. But. Did you see the phrase “sermonic lies?” Prophets were preachers back then — they were relaying God’s messages to the people and calling them to make changes. That’s preaching, is it not? Now, I know you can’t build a water-tight case based on the absence of something, but I am puzzled by this phenomenon of women prophets and the lack of negative language about their gender, given how people interpret passages in the New Testament about women. I’ve never heard this one included in the discussion before.

The other surprise has been God’s scathing words for Israel’s lack of care for the poor. I’ve written about this in two previous posts (If I Did Not Fear Dying and God Commands Social Justice), so I won’t belabor the point here. But it’s clear that God considers the worst fallout from pagan idol worship and abandoning their worship of the One True God to be greed, gluttony, and callous treatment of the poor. This was even more offensive to God than the sex-and-religion orgies they participated in.

In light of this, I’m heading into the New Testament next week eager to read why Jesus came to the earth, and why He died. It’s like seeing it all for the very first time.

Have you ever read the entire Bible through in a short time? What caught your eye? What surprised you?

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Filed UnderFaith and Doubt, Faith Jam 35 Comments

Fathering Through the Lifequake

10:00 am By

He guesses it before I do. The smell aversions, the sitting and staring and not eating, the emotional outbursts.

“Could you be pregnant?”

Bah. Of course not. I’d know that.

But something is different and the blood doesn’t come and I come home early from work with a test.

The two lines explode off the stick.

I tell him he’s going to be a dad with baby-sized soccer ball and note about slipping one past the goalie. Hugs and giddy giggles and I can’t brush my teeth in the morning for the dry heaves and the shower cleaner sends me stumbling dizzy to the back porch.

But the pregnancy is smooth and easy and I tell people it’s been too easy and I’m sure we’ll get ours when the baby is a teen.

Labor starts one Friday evening, three weeks before the due date, so I don’t think it’s the real deal. I take a bath and work on a project and the father-to-be cuts his hair badly and we go to bed with plans to do laundry for free at a friend’s condo the next day.

I wake up from a dream I’m in labor and in the bathroom I see blood and when I wake him up my water pours out on the floor as I stand stunned. But still I dally and putter, convinced that a first baby doesn’t come fast and he pushes me out the door and agrees to stop for film for our camera (remember when cameras used film?) on the way to the hospital.

The nurses don’t take me seriously until someone checks me.

“She’s 8 cm! Call the doctor! Get the cart! Don’t push!”

Why do they tell laboring mothers not to push?

In minutes, our baby’s head appears and my husband cuts the cord and I watch as if standing behind the bed. That is our baby and shouldn’t I drown in waves of love for her?

Maybe it was premonition. For within hours they say her heart doesn’t sound right. Two days later he drives us to the doctor and then the children’s hospital ER and holds me as we watch them poke her again and again and again and listen to her scream til she’s hoarse. He makes phone calls to our parents explaining that it is bad and the echo means heart transplant and we are going to be there a long time. He keeps me company as I learn to pump and never shows any sign of disgust at seeing his wife hooked up like a milk cow.

Elli and Scott

When they tell us the bad news on top of bad news and offer for us to see her hooked up to life support in that tone of voice that means “This is your time to say good-bye,” I don’t argue or press him when he says he wants his memories of her to be good. And when he sees how badly I wanted to be with her, even if it rips my heart out, so that she won’t be surrounded by strangers and can hear a voice she knows, he comes with me.

But she doesn’t die that day. Or the next. He helps me wrestle with how to pray as we wait for her to regain strength for surgery, through the updates hour by hour as they cut and sew and patch for twelve hours to get her heart to work. He learns her medicines and feedings with me. He works his job to pay the bills and returns home to a sleep-deprived crazy wife punching walls in rage at her helplessness.

Life settles into a bizarre normal and more babies come, including another with heart defects. He is steady and strong through more hospital stays and surgeries and the horrible hematoma and then it happens.

They say those words we’ve dreaded. And he mourns with hope during and after we say our final good bye. And he tends our three remaining children when I can’t stand to be around family devotions. He is their rock as their mother splinters from grief and depression and faith-in-pieces.

We survive the life-quake because of this man who listens to son’s rambling late at night and reads princess books and cleans up poopy pants. And I know we will survive more.

Happy Father’s Day, Scott. We love you.

Linked to today’s Faith Jam at the Faith Barista.


Filed UnderFaith Jam, Family, Marriage 27 Comments

Our Story: of Conspiring Friends, an Election, & a Subway Prophet

9:29 am By

(September, 1998)

The Mikes

“The Mikes” (Mike E and Mike M) sat behind me and Heather in World Lit class fall quarter of my sophomore year. They were a comedy duo and for some reason, they included us. We picked and bantered, teased and goofed off the whole quarter, somehow incorporating the professor enough to avoid getting in trouble.

I needed the light-heartedness we had with those guys as I was floundering in the midst of a really sucky year of school and had pretty much sworn off dating, especially of guys named Scott. I half-hoped that maybe one of The Mikes would ask me out, but unless you count a couple of brotherly (and much-needed) “I can tell you need to talk to someone” dinners, I never got a single date out of either of them.

Well, that isn’t entirely true.

The Mikes were close friends with Scott. Scott had been engaged once before, but the summer before his senior year, she canceled the wedding and broke off their engagement. When he returned to college, he was burned, gun-shy, not looking.

The Mikes had agreed the first day of World Lit that I was The One for Scott, and they took matters into their own hands.

The Ask

Scott walked up to me after the chapel service ended.

“Joy, hey, I am the secretary for the writing organization [we didn’t have fraternities, being a conservative Christian college and all]. You were nominated to be secretary at last meeting. I am supposed to talk you about it before the election.”

“Oh! Ok. What would I have to do?” I knew who Scott was because he was friends with The Mikes, but I hadn’t really talked to him before that night. He was a real man — about to graduate, wore a full beard, carried himself like a mature adult. I was a silly college sophomore girl, in way over her head with resident assistant (R.A.) responsibilities, trying to eke out as much fun as possible in between projects and part-time jobs. It never occurred to me that he’d even see me, let alone give me a second thought.

“It’s really simple. You just keep notes on our meetings, take attendance.”

“Ok, sounds easy enough. Do I need to campaign or anything?”

He grinned. “No, everyone will vote at the next meeting and then we’ll see what happens.”

“Thanks! I’ll wait and see then.” I grabbed my book bag and walked out a side door towards my dorm. Within minutes of entering my room, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi Joy, it’s Scott.”

“Hi Scott.” He must have forgotten to tell me something.

“I have a couple of tickets to the symphony this weekend, and I wondered if you’d like to go with me?”

Uhhhhhhh….. this isn’t about the officer election…. he is actually asking me out. For real? A grown-up is asking me out on a real grown-up date? Didn’t see that one coming. Oh crap… you’re not saying anything. Come up with a coherent reply, Joy, before he dies or hangs up.

“I’d love to!”

So much for my resolution to never date a guy named Scott.

The “Internship”

subway sketch artist rendering of us

Not the most flattering of me, but oh well...

A couple of dates and several weeks later, Scott graduated from college and moved to New York City. Since I had two years left of school and Scott had been burned by long-distance relationships before, we agreed that we were NOT together. We promised to write ( and he is the first guy who kept a promise like that — he wrote me real letters on paper, with pens, mailed with stamps), and we both dated other people.

I didn’t think I’d see him again, but I kept writing – partly because I wasn’t ready to give up hope and partly because it was so much fun. He made me laugh like no-one else. One day, he wrote that a guy from his company

was coming on a recruiting trip to campus. He’d told the guy to look for me, and suggested to me that maybe I could snag an internship there for the next summer.

New York City? On my own? Get to spend a summer with Scott? That would be awesome. Aaaaand my parents would never go for that.

I went to the recruiting fair anyway — to get interview experience, I told myself. I found that recruiter, and was stunned when he said, “Hi Joy! I’ve been told I should hire you. Let’s do an interview right now.” The job sounded great, the location was to die for, and of course, Scott was there. When I left that afternoon I knew I had to try to make it happen.

Much to my amazement, my parents didn’t shoot down the idea, and I found an apartment to sublet, right across from Macy’s in Manhattan. My friends knew about Scott and began referring to my summer job as “your [insert mocking sarcasm and finger-quotes here] ‘internship.’ ”

I hoped Scott and I would date. I guessed that working 2nd shift together in a fast-paced high-pressure environment would tell me whether our relationship had any future. But I wasn’t assuming anything. We both knew we’d been dating other people and were being very careful not to expect anything.

The first weekend I was there, Scott offered to show me the city, a purely platonic sight-seeing tour. That morning, as we stood a proper 3-4 feet apart, waiting for the train to the Lincoln Center, a roving sketch artist walked up to us. He started drawing with a green Crayola marker on a huge pad of paper. Before we knew it, he’d drawn our profiles back to back and an enormous heart around the both of us. In scribbled script, he wrote “Love Forever” and then haggled with Scott to get $20 for it.

Awkward.

And prophetic. We had left staying 3-4 feet apart and “platonic” behind by the end of that day.

The Scavenger Hunt

I returned to school for my senior year knowing that Scott and I would marry. He found himself in yet another long-distance relationship, but bless his heart, he took the risk again.

I kept him up-to-date on my schedule (I traveled with the college debate team, and I didn’t want him to make plans to propose and then find out I wasn’t on campus!), and we moved from weekly handwritten letters to daily emails (oooooh, modernity!). I returned to NYC with his family to be his date for Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall at Christmas, and he visited my family at New Year’s (when he asked my dad if he could marry me, dad pointed out my quick temper with my sisters to be sure Scott was sure.). In February, he surprised me with an elaborate scavenger hunt ending on a bridge with him and a ring. We were married in September.

us on a rare date night

(April 2011)

I forget when Scott finally told me that one of “The Mikes” gave him the symphony tickets on the condition that he take me. I know this: I got better than a date out of them, in the end.


Written for the prompt “Finding the One” at The Faith Barista.

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Filed UnderFaith Jam, Family, Marriage, Memoir 18 Comments
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