" God's Got a LOT of Nerve!"

Genesis 19

Well suh...  Maybe God is trying to tell us something...  But what?  Because surely you didn't think I was going to move on from Genesis 19 without discussing that scoundrel Lot did you?  I just know you didn't think that I, ME, Rev. Dorinda G. "Here's anotha piece of my mind" Henry, was gonna just walk on by the narrative of Sodom and Gomorrah without talking about the "Father of the Year" candidate, the right, good and just Lot!  I mean really, how often do we get to talk about this seedy character?  We know all about Abraham and his negotiating with what many have determined to be God, just prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  We know all about the trials and tensions between Sarah and Hagar.  We even know all about something quite strange happening to Lot's wife on the way out of Sodom and Gomorrah.  In fact, hell, if we are to believe everything we read in the bible, she might still be standing there petrified and frozen for all eternity in a pillar of salt.  But what we don't know much about is that Lot and his two virgin daughters are all that is saved from the cataclysmic goings on that destroyed several cities of the Plain right along with Sodom and Gomorrah.  And even more, that he conspicuously ends up living in a cave up in the hills with his two virgin daughters - the same two virgin daughters he previously offered up to the angry mob, to "do to them as you please" (v. 8b).

As we soon find out, Lot, much like one of his ancestors, Noah, liked to indulge in the consumption of strong drink.  And like Noah, I suppose after half-ass welcoming divine visitors with baking a couple pieces of unleavened bread (nothing like the hospitality demonstrated by his uncle-brother, Abraham), offering his virgin daughters up to an angry mob to have their way with them, watching several cities go up in flames and then seeing his wife turned into a pillar of salt, hell, I suppose he too, needed a stiff drink.  But, if I may, I'd like to stay with my "Color Purple" theme and paint the picture of what happens next with Lot in the same hue.  Why?  Well, because...  Like Noah, the writers of the ancient text wants us to believe that Lot drinks so much that he passes out to the point that unbeknownst to him, he is tricked into having sex with both of his virgin daughters on two separate nights. The text also wants us to believe he did not know when they laid with him or when they got up.  I suppose, his message to the angry mob landed on his daughters and they decided to do with him as they pleased and had their father in ways "after all the manner of the world... and [laid] with him, so that [they might] preserve offspring through [their] father" (vv. 30-38).  Umm hmph!  Once again, I hear The Color Purple echoed through the voice of Lot saying to his daughters; "You betta not tell nobody but God.  It'll kill ya Mammy."  The truth of the matter is that in this case, it probably did.  I'm jes saying...

The sons borne of these incestuous encounters between Lot and his daughters, are Moab, the ancestor of the Moabites and Ben-ammi, the ancestor of the Ammonites.  Both of these names are translated in such a way to expose the incest theme - Moab (of the same father) and Ben-ammi (Son of my Paternal kin).  And if you know like I know, and you should know by now, because the bible tells you so, that from the Moabites, comes Ruth, the ancestor of King David and eventually, Jesus!  So what is God trying to tell us?  That through miscreants, social and cultural misfits, in everyone of us, saint and sinner alike, a potential Messiah lurks just beneath the surface. Let the church say Yessss... Yeesssss.... Yeeessssssssss!
© Dorinda G. Henry, 2010

THEOLOGIA HABITUS EST!

"Sister, We're Two of a Kind"

"Sister, 

you've been on my mind

Sister, we're two of a kind

So, sister, 

I'm keepin' my eye on you.

I betcha think I don't know nothin

But singin' the blues, 

Oh, sister,have I got news for you, 

I'm something,

I hope you think 

that you're something too...

Umm hmmm, ummm hmmm... umm...mmm... Okay, okay I can't quite get it!  But surely you did know that with this being the 25th anniversary of one of my favorite movies, that I was going to find some kinda way to include it in one of my post.  We are up the Genesis 20 and trust and believe you me, it has been a very interesting journey to say the least.  So, if you've been following, and I hope you have, then you know that we are Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.  And I tell you it seems that there is more drama in the bible than the Atlanta House Wives, Desperate Housewives, and Dexter put together.  I had to throw Dexter in there because of all the killing that has been going on so far.  Starting off with Cain and Abel, then God getting so fed up with the humans that S/HE drowned them all, with the exception of Noah, that righteous drunkard that passed out butt-ass naked, exposing himself to his son Ham, right on up to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - that was not destroyed because men were having sex with men.  Hell it seems more plausible that the ancient text wants us to know that whole cities can and will be destroyed, not withstanding a precious few, when injustice, a lack of hospitality, mistreatment of others and abject depravity is the rule and not the exception.

I don't know how many times the ancient text recorded God's frustration with human kind enough to "kill 'em all!"  Lord today!  Where is all that grace we heard about?  Oh that's right, according to Christianity, that doesn't happen until the NEW TESTAMENT.  Whatever!  Anyhue, moving right along...  But for the sake of consistency, if you are new to my blog, I suggest you take a look back at the month(s) of March and April and read the posts; "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," "A Mistress and Her Slave," and "Both Of Us Got Babies Now."  Because I believe I have already given sufficient time and attention to these chapters, I want to do a little daydreaming and take some artistic license of my own as it relates the tension between Sarai and Hagar.  

Here we have two women, who we know don't have any more rights than the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.  Each of them are the victim of an androcentric (male centered) society, that regards women as nothing more than property, with the sacred worth of something just above a dog.  Sarai has been pimped out by her husband, Abram and she in return pimps out her slave-girl, Hagar to her husband.  Sarai's behavior reflects an unconscious response and reaction of one abused who in turn acts in like manner to abuse another.  It isn't her fault and she is not the conscious monster of her oppressor, rather she does what she has been groomed and conditioned to believe is the way of the world.  It is nothing more than the learned behavior of her oppressor in the ways of oppressing others.  We can see this in examples great and small - from families, to relationships, to entire systems of governing.

African Americans took on the disciplinary tactics of the slave-masters to discipline their children and each other.  In like manner, women take on the oppressive tactics of men to oppress other women and so, on and so on and so on.  But just once I would like to tell the story of Sarai and Hagar in the same way of Shug Avery and Ms. Celie.  After having climbed from under all the stale, stank, musty and funky waters of sexual abuse, shame and worthlessness, they found each other in the midst of their own painful and tormented lives,  to reach out from behind the social and cultural paradigms that kept them in bondage and enemies of one another to be that story of liberation and freedom for the other.  Each of them in their own way and at the appointed hour acted on behalf of the other in a selfless kind of love to help the other get free.  If only Sarai, could have seen the beauty of herself reflected in the dimly lit eyes of a scared and abused Hagar to care for and protect her and in so doing care for and protect herself, we may have read a different narrative.  Consequently, the sons of these two women could very well have grown up to be loving brothers, as opposed to enemies, destined to war against each other until this world is no more.

Oh how I wish more people would get a comb and scratch a love song of liberation out of another hurt person's hair.

Scufflin', 

I been up that lonesome road

And I seen alot of suns going down

Oh, but trust me,

No low life's gonna run me around.

So let me tell you somethin' sister,

Remember your name, 

No twister

Gonna steal you stuff away, 

My sister,

We sho' ain't got a whole lot of time

So shake your shimmy 

Sister,

'Cause honey the 'shug' 

is feelin' fine."

                   (Quincy Jones)

© Dorinda G. Henry, 2010

THEOLOGIA HABITUS EST!

"Who Told You That You Were Naked?"

"They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and [the woman] hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, 'Where are you?'  He (the man) said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.'  [God] said, 'Who told you that you were naked'" (NRSV Genesis 3:8-11a)?

I don't know about you, but I find this entire dialogue rather humorous and yet instructive.  I mean really...  Here the ancient text places God's proximity to human beings up close and personal.  As God moves about in the "Garden," S/HE appears to cast off a distinctive sound - unlike any of the other animals, birds and all manner of creepy crawly things that is.  And since the ancient text has already informed us of the presence of four rivers - 1) Pishon, which flows around Havilah, "where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good;" also, sometimes identified with the Arabian Peninsula, 2) Gihon, "the one that flows around the whole land of Cush" (Ethiopia), which is identified with the the "Horn of Africa," 3) the Tigris, which "flows east of Assyria, and 4) the Euphrates river - we can be sure it was not the sound of rushing water either (vv. 11-14). 

The mere sound of God moving about in the "Garden," arguably, the "Cradle of Civilization," is enough for the humans - who have taken a bite out of crime (The tree of good and evil) - to be afraid, to be very afraid.  Why?  Because all of sudden, their eyes have been metaphorically opened, and now they realize that they are naked!  Heaven forbid!  Okay, hold on...  I'm sorry, but I did warn you all that I was a precocious child, yes?  Yes, well, I still am.  So, what on earth could have been so different about their 'nakedness' that was perceived to be more offensive to God than the 'nakedness' of the other animals that they felt the need to cover up?  I mean, really...  Were not all that was created, 'naked?'  Wasn't the lion naked?  Maybe the bear?  How about the orangutan?  Now I don't know about you, but I've seen an orangutan or two in my life, and uh, well...  Let's just say they look pretty 'naked' to me!  Aside from their hair - and I've also seen enough "Adams" walking around here with so much hair on their bodies that I feared the Atlanta zoo was missing some of its residents - the orangutan, gorilla, hell the whole monkey family for that matter - looks a little 'naked' to me.  What was it then that made the humans run for cover?  And more to the point, why is it that God seems to be a bit perturbed that the humans had covered up?

"WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE NAKED?"  Reaching for my trusted black woman's cotton patch version, I sympathize with the early humans as I recall the distinctive sound of my own Mama walking up on me when I was behaving in a way that was less than honorable or doing something I knew I didn't have any business doing.  Like the voice of God, I can still hear her question and admonishment in the tone that only a Mama has, "Who told you that you had to act that way, talk that way?  Who told you that you were ugly, or too skinny or too fat?  Who told you that you were too black, too smart or too dumb, too pretty?  Who told you that?"  And much in the way the early humans responded to God, by placing blame on the female species and she in turn placing blame on the serpent, I too, found something or someone else to deflect Mama's wrath away from me and onto another for my own shortcomings, my own cowardice, and my own stubbornness. 

As we will see in future readings of the bible, human beings will consistently frustrate and anger God.  Rather than take responsibility for the choices that they make, they come up with excuses and place blame on others when they disappoint God.  In like manner, I've done the same regarding God's call on my life.  No more.  Now is the time to do what it is that I know God has for me, and that which is mine to do.   

Thankfully, God sees the beauty and value even in their/our weaknesses and uses  them, they and those who eventually RIZE to the occasion of the appointed hour to answer the question, "WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE NAKED?" with a resounding cry, "I DID!  I looked at myself and saw my frailties in comparison to all that was and all that is, and I was afraid - I am afraid!"  But I know that I know, that I know that I know, that God never fails.  And so, as I take my leave of this post, I replace a sense of chronological time with typological time and hear God's instruction to Abram in Genesis 13:17, to "Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you," as my own call to walk out on faith, "the length and breadth of the land," to take a stand, and to RIZE UP AND BE FREE!

Stay tuned for a ministry near you! 

© Dorinda G. Henry, 2010

THEOLOGIA HABITUS EST!