Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall and Kylie, that sisterly cohort of over indulged California girls, whose life events, no matter how insignificant they may be, are followed by millions of fans cannot hold a candle to the lives of those biblical women I have read about this year: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachael, Leah, Ruth, Deborah, Esther, Bathsheba, Jezebel, Miryam, Michal, Mary, Elizbeth, Martha, Mary Magdala, these are women of substance and faith. Their roles in the faith history of monotheistic religions are important and multifaceted. Sarah laughs when she overhears that she will bear a son in her old age; Rebecca has a major hand in the rise of Jacob over his brother Esau; Bathsheba's youngest son by King David will rise to be his heir, Mary, the God-bearer, keep all things locked in her heart and was instrumental in the first public miracle of her Son.
And those sets of brothers! You just know it is not going to play out as society expects. You may think the oldest is going to win out, but it just doesn't happen, think of Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his crazy siblings, David and his band of rowdy older brothers, Peter and Andrew, and those sons of Zebedee: John and James.
There is also some real dysfunction in familial relationships out there: Abraham is said to have tied his son Isaac to an altar and raised his knife intent on killing him as a blood sacrifice to Yahweh. Okay, an angel intervened at the last moment, but do you think that father-son bonding was the same after that? I think not. And Sarah does not come off any better. First she "gives" her servant Hagar to her husband so he can have an heir, but, when she sees the child of that union, Ismael, playing with her son, she convinces Abraham to send the boy and his mother away into the desert with a limited amount of water condemning them to a horrid death. Of course, once again, divine intervention prevents this from happening.
In the gospels, we get some glimpses of Jesus acting, well, not as nice as we'd like him to be. At the wedding feast at Cana when he is approached by his mother informing him that there is no wine left, his fist reaction is basically.." Ma, Ma...this is not my problem" before he turns the water into wine. Or how about staying behind in Jerusalem at the age of thirteen, and then responding in a rather flippant manner when his parents finally find him...being about his Father's business, must have gone over well with the folks who were raising him. And how about his admonition to Martha when she just needed an extra set of hands to get the dinner on the table. She gets told that her sister, the one not doing her share of the dinner prep work, has chosen "...the better portion." What do you suppose Martha was thinking? "Oh, of course, silly me." or "Really, really Jesus??? Dinner will be late, thank you very much."
And there were moments of pure joy. Having the opportunity to read though the psalms and savoring the beauty of their symbolism and metaphor; closely following the letters of Paul as he travels across the Middle East corresponding with those in Ephesus, Corinth, and finally Rome; enjoying the glimpse into Paul's personal life in his letters to Timothy and Philemon, taking a closer look at the letters of James, Peter and Jude; these were some of the joys of spending ten minutes a day with Scripture.
So, in closing, I comment this discipline to you, but suggest you do it in community...get a group together who will also commit to this year of reading. We used "The NRSV Daily Bible"; it divides the whole book into daily readings with meditations and prayers for each day. I'd offer to send mine to whomever would like it, but I have already promised it to a friend.
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