Onward in the Bible! We are now in Exodus... and Matthew... and deep into the Psalms.

I must say, re-reading all of Genesis has been hair-raising. As I said the last time, I have had to overcome decades of preaching reflexes to allow the text just to speak to me.

And what is hair-raising is how, well, contemporary so many of the Genesis stories are. Incest, rape, murder, multiple marriages, dissing God and humanity... all well represented. Plus ça change, eh?

It occurs to me that this reading program of Scripture in its simplicity is a challenge indeed. The work of the Church is always to be in conversation with Scripture, and with one another, in a community dialogue. Or a dialectic. Or arguments, too. Only silence is unacceptable.

If Jesus Christ has no hands or feet or mouth but ours — if we are the Body of Christ — it is only in constant confrontation with the Bible that we can live into what we have been called and transformed to be. As so many Elders have remarked before, the Holy Spirit, a wild and indomitable Spirit, will always be working through the Scriptures and through us to accomplish our part of God’s mission in the Creation.

Exodus — “there arose in Egypt a pharoah who knew not Joseph...” The plot thickens!