FAILURE! is starting to sound like the buzzer on a talent show that tells the performer to clear the stage. It’s an ugly sound–but if we don’t like it, just imagine it sounds to God!
Saul, like Samson before him, has a spectacular fall. He’s a tragic character worthy of Shakespeare, who might have written a play about him if it hadn’t been sort of illegal to present Bible subjects on stage. Still, I think of Saul as the “King Lear” of the Bible. Which raises the question, why choose him in the first place? Especially when the Lord has–and always had–another man in mind for a replacement, who made his appearance last week and will now come to “live in Saul’s head.” The plot thickens . . .
To read more, click below for the printable download, with scripture references, thought questions, and activities:
(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible. I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF. The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids. Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)
Is “The Map Song” boring its way into your brain right now? Ha ha–sorry!
A few days after my daughter’s wedding, I was taking my son to the airport in her car. He had to catch a plane to Nevada from Baltimore, and I would be driving back to central Pennsylvania with my granddaughter. It was kind of a complicated plan, but to cut a long story short: on the way to the airport I remembered my daughter kept no maps in her car and I didn’t recall exactly how to get back to her house. No problem: my son whipped out his smartphone and painstakingly wrote down every step of the Google directions. I remarked that it seemed more complicated than it should be. “Google always seems like that,” he said.
So after dropping him off at the airport I wended my way out of spaghetti-bowl of freeway interchanges and turned off on the first numbered road of the route he wrote down for me. My six-year-old granddaughter piped up from the back seat with one request: she wanted to stop at a Sheetz convenience store and order a snack on their electronic ordering board. No problem—you can barely hurl a chocolate malted in PA without hitting a Sheetz, so I planned on making a midway stop during a drive that should last no more than two hours.
Except that, shortly after making another turn I realized we were in the country. Had Google thoughtfully routed me around the metro areas to save my blood pressure? Had I made a wrong turn somewhere? I could have stopped at a convenience store and asked, but there weren’t any. At least, not for very long stretches of road while looping around hairpin curves, straining up and coasting down hills, and barreling, ever more anxiously, through beautiful bucolic countryside.
I didn’t make any wrong turns; the roads I was on turned out to be the correct ones. Maybe Google was having a little fun with me. At any rate, it took a good three hours to get home, without encountering a single Sheetz, and what bothered me the most was that I had. No. Map.
I understand they’re a relic of the past—who needs ‘em when you’ve got GPS to direct your every move? or you can just punch an address into your phone and the smug presence within will call out turns and remain unfailingly polite when you miss them? (I’d rather she would just yell, “You missed it! Go back!”)
I get that smartphone users can zoom out whenever they want a bigger picture of the terrain, but “big picture,” on a tiny screen is a bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it? The clumsiness of a folding map has been gist for a dozen comedy routines and cartoons, but if you’re prudent enough to pull over by the side of the road, spread out the folds and out and peruse the markings at your leisure, what a marvel of vision and precision is a road map. The subtle county boundaries, the squiggly roads and ruler-straight highways, the towns and cities named in varying font-sizes that should give a pretty good idea of where all the Sheetz stores are . . . most of all, the BIG PICTURE.
.Are we missing that? Maybe we spend so much time focused on a three-inch screen that our thinking is more along the lines of How to I get from point to point? rather than What’s the best route to my final destination? There does seem to be a lot of short-term thinking out there—no doubt a human failing from the very beginning. But how did we decide we could get along without a map?
Be careful what you wish for! That saying wasn’t current in 1050 B.C., but it’s the theme of the prophet Samuel’s speech to the people in I Sam. 8:10-18. You want a king? Here’s what kings do.
They still want a king, so God gives them one.
And it doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. The first king of Israel has some kingly qualities, both on the outside and on the inside. He has no palace or royal guard or many of the fancy trappings that come with a long-standing monarchy. Still, once the crown is on his head it goes to his head, as power usually does. We’ll begin to see that process this week. And we’ll encounter another problem that has puzzled Bible readers ever since.
For the printable download, with scripture references, discussion questions, and activities, click here:
(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible. I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF. The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids. Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)
After the chaos of Judges, the LORD is ready to move Israel to a new phase of history. They’ve exhausted themselves by “every man doing what was right in his own eyes,” and they seem to recognize it. They need leadership, direction, identity: “Give us a King, so we might be like the other nations!”
Of course, they already have an identity in the Holy One of Israel, but that’s just not immediate enough. You know? It’s too abstract, even though they still have the tabernacle and a priest and well-defined rituals. They still need a person. And maybe we’re not so different, even now: we need a Person to look to and identify with. That Person is coming, but first he will be personified in a succession of kings. And a transitional figure emerges, vital enough to have two books of the Bible named for him . . .
To read more click below for the .pdf with scripture readings, questions, and activities:
(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible. I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF. The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids. Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)
My daughter was one of the first employees of Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede Dinner Theater Attraction (yes, you need all those words) when it opened in Branson—1996, as I recall. It’s advertised as unique, and for a fact I’d never seen anything like it. The audience sits in long rows before plank tables with a sawdust arena serving as the stage. The two sides of the horseshoe-shaped seating area are designated North and South, and the servers dress in blue and gray uniforms.
The show, like every Branson show I’ve seen, was noisy, corny, and various: trick horse-riding, musical numbers, broad comedy, and animal acts (like ostrich races and buffalo “stampedes”). At the beginning, the entire cast, including servers, marched out to “Dixie” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Then the servers scattered and raced to the kitchen to bring out the first course, which they slammed down on the long tables that made up their section. Audience participation took up the space between show numbers, carrying on a “friendly rivalry between north and south” with events like chicken-chasing and toilet-seat horseshoe tosses. Servers also performed as cheerleaders, stirring up their side to cheer louder than the other. (My daughter says it was a real workout–she was always either running or yelling.)
Chowing down up north. The food is actually pretty good.
It was dumb. It was also really fun.
Last summer Alysha Harris, culture writer for Slate, visited the original Dixie Stampede in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and was appalled. Two considerations: Ms. Harris is black, and the week she attended the show was right around the time of the fracas in Charlottesville. That said, her review was harsh. She actually bought two tickets, to experience both sides, and noted that the Southern side was definitely more boisterous. Though there were very few African Americans in the audience, everyone she talked to was friendly and cheerful. Meanwhile a bizarre retelling of history played out before them, based on the “lost cause” myth of the gracious southern way of life that’s Gone with the.Wind. Her review ended this way:
Dolly’s Dixie Stampede has been a success not just because people love Dolly Parton, but because the South has always been afforded the chance to rewrite its own history—not just through its own efforts, but through the rest of the country turning a blind eye. Even though the South is built upon the foundation of slavery, a campy show produced by a well-meaning country superstar can make-believe it’s not. We’d prefer to pretend, to let our deepest sins be transmuted into gauzy kitsch—and no one blinks an eye because that’s what they truly want.
And don’t forget, “Birth of a Nation was once the biggest box-office hit of all time, and Gone with the Wind still is.” Ms. Harris published her review in August and requested comment from Dolly Parton’s corporate office. The PR department replied that they were considering, and this week they announced the removal of “Dixie” from the name of the attraction. Ms. Harris sees the chiseling of Dixie as a start, but notes that the friendly rivalry theme is still offensive, even more the “fantasy of the Lost Cause.”
I have no investment in “Dixie Stampede” and whether they keep the name is of no concern to me. I appreciate that Alysha Harris’s perspective is far more weighted than mine—even though the ol’ plantation part of the show felt squirrely to me, too—and would just put forward a few points. For the sake of conversation, not rivalry, friendly or otherwise.
The south is not built on the foundation of slavery. I’ll grant that it was (even though the vast majority of southerners in 1861 did not own slaves), but it is not now. The bloodiest war in our history destroyed it, and the southern economy, at a cost of half a million lives at least. Unfortunately the war did not end racial oppression, but those old roots have shriveled and though racist attitudes sadly remain, times have changed.
Likewise, Birth of a Nation can’t be mentioned without being in the same breath condemned. Once it won Oscars. Now 12 Years a Slave wins Oscars. Times have changed.
The slap-happy ending of the Stampede show, that we’re all friends now, is kitschy but true. We are all friends now, even if the political rhetoric is superheated at the moment.
Does the typical ticket-buyer to Dolly Parton’s Stampede still buy the Lost Cause myth? I doubt it. If a few die-hards remain in the audience, they won’t remain long. Old myths are dying out and new ones taking their place, like the environmental spiritualism of native Americans and the innate wisdom of every ethnic group but white Europeans. Real history is complicated and tangled, and myths don’t help us sort it out on any side.
Finally, the audience isn’t there to see their deepest sins transmuted in gauzy kitsch. They are there to have a good time.
What I truly want is reconciliation, desperately, for the sake of “my people” and “your people.” That won’t happen unless we give each other a little grace. Slavery was indeed our deepest sin and the Civil War was a great tragedy. It also occurred 150 years ago. There may be a time and place to not take it so seriously–or something like it may happen again.
After all the mayhem of the book of Judges, Ruth is a sweet breeze blowing from the barley fields surrounding the House of Bread (or as it’s better known, Bethlehem). It’s reassuring that even in times of war and strife, normal life goes on. But Ruth is also a sweet story, a lovely example of ancient literary storytelling, and a significant link in the redemption story.
To see how, read on. Here’s the .pdf of this week’s study, including scripture passages to read, questions to discuss, and activities:
(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible. I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF. The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids. Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)
All that the LORD commands us, we will do.” That’s the solemn promise of God’s own people, first to Moses and then to Joshua. But, as we’ll soon see, they couldn’t even keep the first commandment. (By the way, do you remember what the First Commandment is?) I find the book of Judges to be one of the most depressing books of the Bible, with some of the most appalling stories. Samson’s pathetic decline isn’t the half of it.
But perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to judge the third and fourth generations of God’s own people. We often assume they deserted their God for the pagan deities of Canaan, but that’s probably not the case. More likely, they kept the Tabernacle and the sacrificial rites and the feast days and so on, but added a few other practices too. Just to keep from offending the local gods. They may not have seen this as blatant disobedience; it just made sense at the time.
But the results were tragic. To find out why, click the link below for a printable download with this week’s reading passages, questions, and activities:
(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible. I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF. The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids. Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)
Samuel’s speech to the people in I Sam. 8:10-18. You want a king? Here’s what kings do.
Moses and then to Joshua. But, as we’ll soon see, they couldn’t even keep the first commandment. (By the way, do you remember what the First Commandment is?) I find the book of Judges to be one of the most depressing books of the Bible, with some of the most appalling stories. Samson’s pathetic decline isn’t the half of it.