Psalm 139:13-18; Genesis 35:16-29; Matthew 12:15-21
Wednesday 22 July
There can hardly be a story in the whole of the Bible that is suitable in its entirety for children to read. And often, such censorship as we need to employ in order to share these stories with a younger audience has the effect of emasculating them of meaning.
Take today’s passage from the Old Testament: which, although it features Bethlehem (and we think, ‘Oh good; that’s where Christmas happened’) we don’t get very far at all before we’re having to answer questions about death in childbirth, polygamy, and I’m not sure whether sleeping with your brothers’ mum is incest, adultery, or maybe it’s both; as we are then moved to try and find something a bit less unsavoury for some bedtime reading – or for Sunday Club.
Psalm 139 is the same. It’s an absolutely stunning work of literature, but it’s difficult to do it justice in its entirety without also including verses 19-22, where we have material such as: ‘O God, how I wish you would kill the wicked!’ and ‘I hate them with a total hatred.’
Similarly, our passage from Matthew is divine; but I’d rather leave off until another time having to explain to Primary-School-Age boys and girls why, when someone so incredibly good as Jesus walked the earth, there would ever have been a ‘plot against him’ (verse 15).
Which is why I often focus on names instead of plot in Children’s Addresses. And so, I’m interested today, for example, in the way the Good News Translation smooths out the inconsistency in the original Hebrew which renders Jacob and Israel (who are one and the same person) as Jacob in some places and Israel in others. This it does by rendering all references to Esau’s brother as Jacob. Other translations more accurately give us mainly Jacob, but then in verses 21-22 Israel instead. The reason for this, I think, must be that those who compiled the GNT thought, if you didn’t know that Jacob was Israel then you might be confused.
In a Sunday Club talk then based on Genesis 35 I might mention the story of Jacob and Esau (and the tussle they had in the womb to be first-born, Jacob holding on to the ‘heel’ of his twin). But also how God then gave him a new name later on meaning ‘he struggles with God’, as something we all have to do as Christians in order to understand God’s will.
Other names that are interchangeable here are Benoni and Benjamin, as well as Ephrath (meaning ‘Fertile’) and Bethlehem (meaning ‘House of Bread’).
Let us pray:
(by Robert Jones, who taught preaching at Pacific School of Religion, a Christian seminary in Berkeley, California, this is from a 1990 collection of his prayers)
Prayer for a Cough
God of breath and spirit,
of polluted, I suppose, and unpolluted air,
there is something in my throat.
It itches. It tickles. It distracts my thoughts.
It disturbs me all day long.
I have just gotten over a virus, they say,
and for that I am grateful.
But what about viruses in the first place, God?
Why must we have them
and all those other germs they say are there
but which we cannot see?
I didn’t sleep last night or the night before.
I wheeze and gurgle throughout the day.
I swallow sticky-sweet syrups and bitter pills.
I cough until my ribs begin to ache.
You must know that when I’m coughing
I don’t care about the homeless or world peace.
I don’t care if the churches are full or empty.
All I want is relief.
And I am not grateful to be reminded
that a tiny vapor or speck of dust can undo me.
I am not thrilled to be mainly a spasm.
I am not happy to be convulsed.
Honestly, God, if this is your way
of telling me I’m a mere mortal,
I’ve had enough,
Amen.