Page 11 - Reading Between the Lines - Sample

Proper 23
October 15, 2017
situation change when Aaron is faced with more than one person? How many? Was it an “ask” or something else? What do you imagine would have happened if Aaron said no?
- Bill Lindeman (blindeman@educationalcenter.org)
And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
This is just one of the stories in the Hebrew Bible in which someone argues God out of taking some course of action (usually destruction) See, for example, Gen. 18:20-33 or Amos 7:2-3. What might that say about God’s ways of dealing with people? How would you describe the God you find in this story? Have you ever found yourself arguing with God? About what? What moved you to do so? What sort of reply did you feel you got, or did not get, from God?
- Andy Kille (editor@educationalcenter.org)
EXPLORING FURTHER
From A Book of Psalms: Selected and Adapted from the Hebrew translated by Stephen Mitchell
Psalms 15
Lord, who be-trusted with power,
and who may act in your place?
Those with a passion for justice,
who speak the truth from their hearts; who have let go of selfish interests and grown beyond their own lives; who see the wretched as their family and the poor as their flesh and blood. They alone are impartial
and worthy of the people's trust.
Their compassion lights up the whole earth, and their kindness endures forever.
From Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved by Gregory Orr
The beloved moves through the world. Is the world.
Becomes the hundred things we love Or the one and only thing or person We love.
From Silence by Shusaku Endo
“It's not because of any prohibition nor because of persecution that Christianity has perished. There's something in this country that completely stifles the growth of Christianity.”
The words of Ferreira, uttered slowly syllable by syllable, pierced the priest's ears. “The Christianity they believe in is like the skeleton of a butterfly caught in a spider's web: it
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