God’s Word Sings Among the Ashes

The biblical expression of history is not so much like a line moving steadily from the past into the present and on into the future as it is like a length of fabric that a seamstress rolls out and then folds over on itself once, twice, three times, over and over again. The Exodus from Egypt folds over onto the return of the exiles from Babylon, which folds over onto the early Christians’ experience of liberation through the cross, each story interpreting the next, showing future generations how to find God’s trace in the midst of present chaos and turmoil.

Early September presents us with a season of difficult remembrances – last week Hurricane Katrina, and this week the anniversary of 9/11. In the midst of our own sharp memories of shock, loss, ashes, the tumbling down of an entire order of things that we took for granted, it is easy to forget that both the Old Testament and the New were compiled, written, and edited by people who saw the temple in Jerusalem pulled down, set on fire, and burned down to ashes. Perhaps just as some of us watched the Trade Center Towers be pierced by airplanes, belch smoke, and collapse in an unearthly billow of dark smoke, our ancestors played over in their minds again and again the impossible destruction of God’s house.
But it was in exile in Babylon that the Jewish community went to work pulling together all the disparate narratives of the Torah. And it was the Christian communities who fled north during the Jewish War in the late sixties CE who finally began to write down their stories of Jesus, his teachings, and his crucifixion and resurrection. Tentatively or confidently, these mothers and fathers in the faith wanted to tell us how it was that they came to find God’s imprint even in the times of greatest loss and disorientation.
The prophet Jeremiah proclaimed this difficult guidance to the exiles, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer 29:7 NRSV). After the terrible starvation of the population of Jerusalem by the Romans and the subsequent bloodbath and pulverizing of the Second Temple, Jesus’s followers maintained his teaching to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44 NRSV).
As the fabric of their history folds over us, their insights and faithfulness challenge us likewise to listen again for the song of God’s mercy and justice as we sort through the rubble of the Towers, the rubble of Palmyra, the anguished crowds of people exiled into tents in the Jordanian desert, onto frail boats in the Mediterranean, onto trains headed to places they never wanted to be. What words of our ancestors will help us find God now?
Which scriptures are most challenging to you in our current historical context? Which scriptures give you the most insight into where God is active and calling to you in our time and place?
 
Jane Patterson (@JaneLPatterson1) served on the Adjunct Faculty since 2010 and was appointed assistant professor of New Testament beginning June 1, 2013. In the Master of Divinity program, she teaches courses in Bible and Spiritual Formation; in the Center for Christian Ministry and Vocation, she teaches a course on the Bible as a resource for pastoral caregivers. Outside the seminary, she is co-director of a ministry called The WorkShop that guides laity in the use of the scriptures for discerning how to live faithfully in all aspects of daily life.