Psalm 114; Judges 6:36-40; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Monday 20 April - Rev. Jerry Eve
Today, as we read the Bible, I’m going to suggest that one possible link between these three very different readings is that they can all be summed up in the words of the book title, Small is Beautiful. Written by E F Schumacher, and first published in 1973, you may remember that its subtitle was ‘a study of economics as if people mattered.’ Let me explain:
And let’s take the last reading first. One of the puzzles for me in the New Testament is why Saul came to be known as Paul. With Simon (who becomes Peter) there’s an accompanying story and explanation. Not so with Paul. All we have is a verse at Acts 13:9 set in Cyprus in which we are told that, ‘Then Saul – who was also known as Paul – was filled with the Holy Spirit.’
My theory is that – just as with Simon Peter (and Abram & Sarai -> Abraham & Sarah in Genesis 17, and Jacob -> Israel in Genesis 32) – Saul / Paul’s name-change was also God-ordained. Saul was a royal name within Judaism (it still is), and would have had that connotation. Paul, by contrast, just meant ‘small / humble’. It may simply have been that Paul was physically little in stature, and this was a nickname, but I prefer to think that God, knowing Paul was prone to a bit of arrogance, sought by the name-change to keep him grounded instead.
This continuation of our reading of 1 Corinthians is not one I would use in a funeral service – it would not be appropriate to cast anyone as either ‘lying’ or pitiable at a time like that – but on any other occasion it’s a devastatingly powerful statement of the central Christian hope of life beyond the grave.
Gideon is a hero. Synonymous these days, thanks to ‘Gideons International’, with Scripture itself, what I really like about him is the way he, not only risks annoying God by asking multiple times for the clearest of signals before he proceeds, but then does the very opposite of most military leaders do. For, instead of building up his army, he whittles them down – from 32,000 to only 300 – in order to defeat the Midianites. And furthermore, this is something he manages to do not by engaging with the enemy, but by scaring them away instead.
Small isn’t just beautiful in this case, it’s actually better. And sometimes that can be the same with the psalms; that brevity is the soul of wit! For, although it’s not the shortest psalm, the 114th is charming for the way it manages to achieve so much using so little words. The personification of nature helps, and this is a classic example of the use in Hebrew poetry of parallelism whereby a statement is made and then repeated using different words. The whole psalm is framed by references to Jacob, and with all the water that the psalm contains, I found myself being reminded of nothing other than Jacob’s Well (which can be found at John 4).
And now, a very little prayer. It’s simply called the Jesus Prayer. Let us pray:
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,
Amen.