BibleWorm

This week BibleWorm turns to the prophet Joel 2:12-29. There we find Joel prophesying to a people suffering from a plague of locusts, promising that God is about to restore them if only they will return to God with their whole hearts. We wrestle with Joel’s call to “rend our hearts” and ask what it means to tear open the pain, sorrow, and regret we carry deep inside. We relish Joel’s description of a God gracious, merciful, and abounding in steadfast love and the promises of a land and a people restored. And we ponder God’s promise to pour out the spirit on all flesh, welcoming everyone—young and old, male and female—into the prophetic community of God.

This week BibleWorm reads Daniel 6:1-28, where we revisit the ever-complex power triangle between king, people, and God. How do we make decisions about loyalty when the points of that triangle appear to be in tension?  And to put more a finer point on that question, there’s a lion in a pit who is eagerly awaiting your decision.

This week BibleWorm turns to Jeremiah 36 and 31, in which God commands Jeremiah to write a scroll of prophecy and yet promises to write a new covenant directly on the hearts of the people. We think about the king’s attempt to suppress the truth by burning it, and the irrepressible power of the word set free among the people. Also, we talk more than we probably should about the Spice Girls. Zig-azig-ah.

This BibleWorm reads Isaiah chapter 6. We step into the incredible sense of awe Isaiah describes as he stands among the skirts of God’s robe and witnesses the angelic liturgy. We understand why, standing there, he would feel lost and out of place -- and see a God whose angels both recognize Isaiah’s human inadequacies and help him address them rather than sending him away. And we wrestle a little bit with the verses that follow - the heavy weight of the call Isaiah has accepted. 

This week BibleWorm turns to the book of Jonah, chapters 1, 3, and 4, where we meet God’s most reluctant prophet. We wrestle with why Jonah runs away from God and why he would seemingly rather die than go to the land of his enemies to prophesy. We think about who counts as “God’s people” and what it means that sometimes the people most responsive to God’s call are the ones we think of as outsiders. And we compare the limits of God’s compassion with the limits of our own, recognizing that sometimes God wants to reconcile the very people we might consider our worst enemies. Also, Amy tells us why she sometimes calls her children “Jonah.”

This week we meet the prophet Elijah. We discuss his increasingly vulnerable existence through a period of drought, and his ultimate reliance on another paradigmatically vulnerable character -- a widow and her child who are already unable to take care of themselves. We talk about the idea of God’s care during the hardest of times, and the pairing in this story of a miraculous healing with the more commonly encountered miracle of having just enough to last you through one more day. And we introduce a strange coping strategy to get through the moments when the internet is out. 

This week BibleWorm turns to the story of God’s covenant with David in Second Samuel 7:1-17. We talk about gift giving, both with God and with each other, and the tendency to give others what we think they want rather than listening to what they ask of us. We wrestle with the significance of a God who dwells in tents versus as God who lives in a Temple and the ways God can be invoked to legitimate the ruling authority. And we wrestle with how one can tell a story about David without sounding like an episode of Schitt’s Creek. Ewww, David.

If you'd like to listen to the extended version of this episode, visit our Patreon at patreon.com/biblewormpodcast. 

This week BibleWorm reads the story of Hannah, expanding the Narrative Lectionary a little bit to I Samuel 1:1-20 and  2:1-10. We step into a scene that reads like the worst Thanksgiving meal ever, complete with taunting, sulking, and refusals of food. We discuss the nature and impact of prayer on God and on ourselves, and connect the experience of triumph over obstacles in our own lives with hope for the larger society.

If you'd like to listen to the extended version of this episode, visit our Patreon at patreon.com/biblewormpodcast. 

This week BibleWorm looks at the story of Aaron and the Golden Calf in Exodus 32:1-14. We wonder about the unrealistic expectations that the people could wait in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights without getting anxious, and struggle with the decisions Aaron makes to keep the people from rebelling. We try to parse the difference between worshiping false gods and worshiping God falsely, and wonder whether there is really a difference. And we wrestle with what it means to worship a God who becomes angry but who also relents of anger when faced with a human interlocutor who insist on covenantal fidelity.

If you'd like to listen to the extended version of this episode, visit our Patreon at patreon.com/biblewormpodcast. 

In this special extended episode, BibleWorm discusses the original Passover ritual described in Exodus 12-13. We think about the mix of urgency and powerlessness that the Israelites may have felt, each in their own homes, just as we may feel today. We consider the ways in which ritual can form us and prepare us for what’s next, even when we can’t see around the pike. And we call out the losses and sorrows that accompany the struggle for liberation.