Meaning Esau Have I Scorned
(a Bible study)
Jacob was
Preferenced
To set the course of Israel
To become a people
Who shall live
The same
With an identity
Moses having gotten the name
Of God
Or as close as we shall get
(being I am that I am
not unlike Popeye
in our time)
To have a name
And also laws
Carved in organic stone
For living people
And these
Are not as hazy
As a name that needs no name
The laws are clear
And shall become
A code
A compass
And a litmus
Who readings shall prove
Judgment
In favor or against
This people
And
In fact
Jacob shall become
Israel in name
And in that amazing purpose
Claiming certain tribes
Marked from the children
And eventually
A homeland
For the twelve
With all conviction
And the foibles
That this people carry
While God must bear with them
And so
With all of us
Called Israel
Or something else
But now this matter about
Jacob loved
And Esau
Even hated
We know that Esau was the older
And so
Should inherit
The identity
And naming
Of the family
Should be in charge
Of all things
Of Esau’s own
And the family that shall grow
And the nation that shall
Grow from the family
And it seems
That Jacob was called
Already having
All the mother’s favoritism
And so t
Plot
Works tricks
Sarah with Jacob
To set
And own
Israel
At last
And tricks they are
To use a situation
In which
Esau says
Out of exigence
Yes
My younger brother
You may have the birthright
And inheritance
And then to fool the father
To fool Isaac
With tricks of wool tied to an arm
So that Joseph would be taken
For Esau
And so
As we say
Seal the deal
And in an eon later
The Apostle Paul
Confirm
That not only was a providence
At work
To found then nation
But that the founder
Was
In truth
Loved by God
While the official candidate
Was hated
My
What had Esau done
And I think
The answer might be
Nothing
Paul asked for the assignment
And got it
To kill the followers of Christ
The ones who in Antioch
Were for the first
Time
Called Christian
And yet
Paul came to be a founder of that
Church in Antioch
And several other cities
In the region
Going north and east
And west
From Jerusalem
And finally ending his evangelistic travels
Inside Rome
Itself
Peter was brash
(we shouldn’t be surprised
if he pushed Andrew
around)
And he consistently said
That wrong thing to Jesus
Showing a rhetorical
Tendency
To go too far
He also maimed
A guard
When Jesus was arrested
And for the all the wrong things
He said
He did
That showed mismanagement
Among other things
He was called by Christ
To be the church’s rock
Once the movement
As it were
Solidified
Peter would become the first leader
Of the church
First pope
First “papa”
So to say
The first in charge
In the days when
Such groups
Can go under
Often do
And Moses
Well
We know
That he had grown
Inside a lie
Through childhood
That should have ruined him
And nearly did
Upon disclosure
And Moses
Murdered an Egyptian
And rather than face justice
Chose to flee
Seeking to live away
From the court of Pharaoh
Also maybe
God
For all the years he might have
Remaining
In Midian
As it
Turned out
But
No
This murderer
And coward
Who on top of these
Offered excuses
To the Lord
Why it could not be he
To free the people
And to lead them
Though that is
Through many chapters
Precisely
What transpired
So shall we say that
Jacob got in
And Esau was out
Because God favors paradox
Maybe mischief
Like an association with the raven
Or the spider
Which he made
After all
The creatures as well as mischief
Or is there
Something else
A reason for one sibling
Technically
The wrong one
To be raised
While the right one
Was put down
Sigh
So much deception
By the way
Especially
Even over generations
To get the broad
Extraordinary story
Going
Adam and Eve
And the blame over
Who did what
Between the people
And the serpent
And the casting
Out
(or down)
Regardless
Then the Nephilim
Who were not supposed to exist
By order of
The Lord
But through rebellion
Of some sort
(the kind that angels cause
as well as we
might foment)
Well
Happened
Anyway
With Abraham
The futures of two nations
Were at stake
And so at risk
Through the faithlessness
Of those who heard the prophecy
About numberless
Family
And
Specifically
A child
Sarah laughed
We know
And sent a servant to become
Pregnant by Abraham
And so secure
The lineage
As if the word of God
And God through angels
Could not
Be enough
And there was
Ishmael
And then there was Isaac
And the younger Isaac
Had to be favored
Over Ishmael
Who out of lack of mercy
And of jealousy
Was
Cast out
To die somewhere
With the mother Hagar
And they did not
For God
In fact
Is higher
Than the mischief
God said
To Israel
The nation
You don’t want a king
Who will take your youth
And crops
And wealth
Inside the palace
To feed decision-makers
Also idlers
As always happens
And to people up an army
That means
The young ones that are taken
Might die
More so than if
They stayed at home
Or rose to fight
As volunteers
With will
You don’t want a king
And Israel said
Yes
We do
And God said fine
And what a pair were set
To rule
Saul
And then David
Before the long prosperity
And peace
With Solomon
The first two realms
Indeed possessed
Strength
And beauty
Also corruption
Broken faith
And politics
Without perspective for the
Welfare of the nation
More paradox
More
Mischief
I don’t think so
I think
Rather it was
More than Esau being negated
Was that Jacob
Was uplifted
Like serving on a search committee
And we find ourselves
Talking down some candidates
When the job is to
Cite the reasons why
We should hire
The one
We think well
Should be hired
Which is to say
Jacob was favored
Maybe not because
In life
Esau was not
But in the naming and the keeping
Of the people of the Lord
Despite officialness
Jacob
Was the one
And that might be all
To be the one
For good or ill
Like Moses
Or like Miriam
Like Abrahaham and Sarah
Like Peter
And like Paul
Somewhere within these
And without
Inside the region
And the age
Certain ones are needed
And God shall have that happen
Though our will
Be predominant
More so
Is the widest will
And way
Of God
Don’t like the limitations
On our discretion
And
I think
Our pride
Well
That is understandable
Since the choice for faith
Is paramount
And determines
Afterlife salvation
On our part
Because God’s part
Is done
And is reliable
Unchanging
The love and judgment brought
To bear
On people of the Earth
Past and present
But
Things are
You know
The way things are
And we must hold the limitations
Of the worldly way
On us
While God is unlimited
To own perfection
To impose a will
Unfaulty
And unfailing
The timelines
And the composition
Might seem strange to us
Though we are not celestial
Yet
And there is enough
To manage
Through our foibles
And the things that seem like foibles
From the Lord
But are
As Narnia might say
Deep magic
With rules that came before the rules
The foundation of commandments
And of all experience
To come
And then light and dark
Were made
To overcome
Not chaos
But the void
Rather than nothingness
We have so many things
And we are loved
And there is
Indeed celestial
A hope
That goes with love and judgment
That the world
Through that part
And that person of God
Be saved
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One might say
Well
Esau himself was brash
He threw away
Birthright
And inheritance
To satiate
An immediate need
Which we could argue
Was not a need
So much
As we might have needs
At all
But
I don’t know
How should Esau
Be called to task
So to say
On this
Moses was not hooked
For murder
Or for cowardice
Or even for the several excuses
He gave to God
Very God
In order to bow out
Of his assignment
I think
Rather
We have to say
There is the will of God
And it is positive
So that we do better
Than excoriating Esau
Lifting Jacob
As the one
Even with foibles
That could complement
Those of the other
Matriarchs
And patriarchs
Genesis 25:19-34, the story of Jacob and Esau in the Bible
Matthew 5:44, the injunction to love our enemies
Romans 9:13-15, the part in Romans about loving Jacob and hating Esau
This poem could become the substance of a Bible Study or even a sermon, if one doesn’t mind reading poetry for a sermon (I’ve done that).
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
(x = space)
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Gospel According to the Birds
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Books are wonderful
Black tracks across the page
Birds to say
There’s something here
Someone inked our talons
And we have walked on lines
Somehow
And there’s a message
Someone overheard a gospel
Before we were
Put back on our branches
Ancient pens
And when we’re gone
Our larger feathers go to humans
Who are
Surprised by grace
To leave a message
Whispers of angels
Like the ones who took their wings
To guide us
In our flights across the page
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They take the credit
Though we guess it is their story
More than ours
We need to messages
No gospels
We emerge into life
Knowing how to fly
How to listen to impulses
The small glories
We would never hide
Or cease in all our starts and stops
From praising the creator
You can hear us
Humans
Our song is perfect
Without lessons
Or egos
Or prevarications
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We could say praise us
In our stories
We know better
Without knowing
We fly
We sing
We know
God loves us
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What is made by birds walking across skin that has a third opportunity?
The answer is a page whose words resemble tracks upon vellum made by animals once alive, whose skin is stretched for a second chance at life, so to say, bearing a story now to offer life for a third time, especially if the story be a gospel.
This is the kind of riddle that literate medieval people enjoyed together, literate meaning mostly monks, the kind who kept texts that had not been destroyed in the fall, thus saving what was left and what could feed into new nourishing, again to say, mostly in Europe a new civilization
The birds talking is not typical back then but my idea now. And Aesop. And Aristophanes.
Sorry, teacher can’t stop chirping.
Old English riddles are found in The Exeter Book, a volume discovered that had served as a coaster and something for impatience to glide a knife into (or why anyone would drive a knife into, along a book). A not-hiding glory to be plainly found, opened, and discovered.
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Photo by Mehdi Sepehri on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Rhapsody in Bible
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God
You are good
You love us
Always
And anyway
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I’m sure it’s in there
Though I can make
Only pages with
Neat typing
Of blurred letters
As I try
x
And then the stream
The invitation
And a wall of rooms
That somehow
Turn into mansions
Promise of two verses
About paradise
About
You know
Dwelling in the house
Of the Lord
x
There are numbers on the pages
Small headlines
Aids from time
Which were not in
The original
Black pages
Into mod
(it was the sixties
into seventies
for us)
And now the church
All wood
And mullions
With a clock that I could see
When in the choir
Set in the center
So the pastor be reminded
(by the clock
committee)
Of the time
For preaching
And when
To wrap it up
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I received my Bible there
I think
Or in the rooms
For Sunday School
Which had checked floors
Of tile
Room dividers
In the wing
That had been built
Before I got there
And a breezeway
Over the drive
x
But this is building stuff
And the pages
Pages stuff
What of the truth that’s in there
And it’s in there
I can recall without the images
Though they come
Anyway
The verses and the truth inside
x
Create in me
A clean heart
O God
And renew a right spirit
Within me
x
And that’s only to begin
The faith
And transformation
Needed
That we learn about
In there
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C L Couch
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from Psalm 51
(followed by
Cast me not away
from thy presence
and take not thy holy spirit
from me
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which happened to Saul
by the way
at the nadir
of his life
as king
appointed by the prophet
who got directions
from the Lord
to look for someone tall
and
well
kingly
for a tragic irony
as things turned out)
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sorry, I got into a kind of coda
(that a kind of song, could be a psalm, might have)
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Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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The Actual Words of God
(don’t worry)
x
God says
Stand up
God says
Up on one foot
(as you are able)
Now down
Uh-oh
You didn’t hear
God says
x
Righteous
Confusion
To say we hear the right thing
All the time
From God
Whose big voice
In the sky
Has chapters for us
As a best-selling
Enterprise
x
How do we know what God says
Well
We don’t
God might speak rather directly
To the mystics
Find a mystic
For the rest of us
We have a text
Then say hello
Then listen
And that ain’t all bad
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We won’t have anything
To sell
But the working out
Shall take a grownup lifetime
With the pleasure
Fully realized
In prayer
Without agenda
Or to find agenda
There
Rather than first
And then
Get the holy language
To agree
x
The actual words of God
Don’t worry
We’ll say things
We’ll listen
We’ll have feelings
We’ll have instincts
Which shall be
Our life of faith
Credible
Without a claim
Or verbatim
But what should love
As we learn God
And live
Tell us
Anyway
x
While if you’re Moses
Reading this
Or Deborah
Or Julian
I think you’ll understand
For the rest of us
x
Be easy
I believe
You might say this
Too
x
C L Couch
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Photo by Achim Ruhnau on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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women’s Bible study
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I should mention the women
Eve
Rebecca
Rachel
Sarah
Miriam
Jezebel
Ruth
Esther
Judith
(whom for strength
perhaps
the Protestants
excoriate)
Susanna
Mary
Elizabeth
the woman at table
the woman at the well
(without a name)
the woman in adultery
(without the man)
Mary
Martha
Mary
Mary
Sapporah
Priscilla
the women in
the final revelation
x
they shouldn’t have to be a block
a ledger of names
and credits after
though we treat the men the same
and maybe God
matters of categories
x
and are these women metaphors
yes
in addition to blood-and-muscled lives
one by one
to save the rest
and
sacred
and secular
bring salvation
into light
and also night
all the hours
all the real stories
toward eternity
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C L Couch
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Photo by Prince Akachi on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Lean
(John 3:17)
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Not to condemn
But to love
Because God would rather love
And does love
It is gravity
The universe is biased toward
That which keeps us together
And God is biased
In the same way
x
Everything is biased
Everything leans
The one who can be objective
Best
Who maybe sets objectivity
Aside for math
(maybe)
Has chosen to favor
The impulse of creation
And an agenda
Toward ourselves
x
God would rather save than condemn
Would rather love than judge
Who will judge
And do so with perfection
Also to pardon
With a possibility
Faith required
Faith in something freely offered
Grace
The sacrifice made by another
Who was God
Who is God
That in the mixture of flesh and the divine
Blood and spirit
Sin and innocence
Might conquer death
And offer conquered death
As proffered life
The chance to live in hope today with
As the song asserts
Bright hope for tomorrow
x
Perfection chooses
Love’s mitigation
Case dismissed
Open the gates
Or however admission
Might be managed
Into heaven
And for now
Into today
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C L Couch
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Photo by Steven Van Elk on Unsplash
Foggy Beach Walk
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(x = space)
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To Philemon
(“and to the church in thy house”)
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We are encouraged
By your faith
In fact
We have joy
x
Give Onesimus
Another chance
We send him
To you
He may have wronged thee
Take him back
x
If he owes anyone money
Or its equivalent
I will repay it
I tell you this myself
Who
Told you about the faith and
So be saved
x
Receive him
Who to me has
Become
Peer and colleague
And he will serve you
Especially this way
x
Treat him now
As one who has
Standing
No matter how it might
Have gone
Before
x
Let the deeper parts
Of all of us
Be glad
That we are one
In Christ
x
From all of us
Who live
Captive by the world
For now
Grace and peace
To thee
And thine
x
From prisoners with me
Paul
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C L Couch
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Philemon is the addressee of a brief epistle in the Christian New Testament
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Photo by Mike Hindle on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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God = Not a Sadist
(read God equals not a sadist)
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Pain is good
It teaches us
It tempers us
We come out wholer people
Better for it
Pain is the megaphone
Says Lewis
Pain is loud
Ginsberg might say
(might say)
Pain howls
x
But it doesn’t howl
Because it’s good:
Pain is bad
It hurts
Great pain hurts
Great
After great pain
The formal feeling comes
Does God allow pain?
Does God wish it?
I don’t know
Christ in the garden
Asked not to feel hurt
And he was
Severely
Bloody
Hurt
Until he died
We say he had to die
Well and good
For theology
And there was real joy
In his returning
Perhaps he felt it first
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I don’t like to hurt
I hope you don’t
I’m in pain now
My neck, my lower back
My eyes from lack of sleep
I have heart disease
And it seems my heart and lungs
Work against me
When it hurts to breathe
Though they are not the source
They are victimized
By fluid
That should not be flowing,
Pressing there
x
Worse, my brother dies from cancer
And it hurts
The medicine might help
It also creates new trials
A passing between pain
And something like sedation
And somehow in the middle
Is what’s living
x
And you hurt
I don’t know how
And the world hurts
In every fracture
x
So where is God?
Where is the love of God?
Where is God is love?
God is there
Love’s there
If God allows
Much less or much more
Created pain
Then there is love as well
Also created
And I think
Preferred
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But pain is hard
It’s not good
We say pain is gain
But it isn’t
Pain is a signal that
Something’s wrong
And we’ll find out
Everyone finds out
The world dissembles, but
Pain is true
Pain sometimes teaches
Usually after the fact
Or in someone else’s story
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I think if pain
Could not be real
If we couldn’t have it
That would be
Better
We might say we’d
De-evolve without it
Maybe so
But then
The world would have to change
And would be changed
We don’t know how
We live with pain
We even bear it
When it won’t
Go away,
x
Which doesn’t mean
We should like it
That God should like it
Wish it
Before the fall,
We might well guess
There was no pain
x
Sorry
There’s pain now
I don’t wish for you
Your pain means
A great deal to me
I cannot make it
Magic
Go away
Or mine
We’re stuck
And while we’re stuck
Comes all the learning
All the tempering like
Metal fired
And then struck
At least we’re not the ashes
At least we’re here
For everything
Imagined,
More so
Realized
And that’s what we have to say
Pain is real
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C L Couch
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(a Sunday School discussion from James 1, an epistle in the Christian New Testament)
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notes (references)
Mere Christianity
“Howl”
“After Grean Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes”
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[photographer’s narration] When we visited Utö, the most outer island of this beautiful archipelago in the place we call Finland, I allowed myself to be guided by the incredible energy of Inca, the daughter of the family we were visiting there. She took me to a series of abandoned bunkers from the times this island was a military strategic point and there I found this graffiti that represent very well the feeling of all that has to do with military, war, conflict and drama. With love from Korpo.
Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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dispersed
(from the beginning of the book of James)
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we were together, Mom and Dad
(physical or meaningful)
now we are spread far
we can always say
the Romans did this
but there is our own
polemics
stranding us
separated
in a world driven by
its own prince
that drove Jesus
in the wilderness
from one arid part to another
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I’m sorry we are no longer
together
though we have letters
we are the legacy of David, still
we are a people
and, as always,
we are family
I hope you are well where you are
I hope that work and food
come easily
I fear, because I know
such things are never certain
we came away with what we had
some maybe had accounts
and interests along the Mediterranean,
generally
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we live today
and in the Messianic time
and must take hope in that
God will return
God also waits for us
like the shepherd by the
clear stream,
both to beckon
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and God is with us, now
with love
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with love,
this note from your child
we all are children now
again
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c l couch
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James is a brief letter in the Christian New Testament; the pastor preached on James this morning at Covenant Evangelical Presbyterian Church in West Lafayette, Indiana (USA)
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