Deuteronomy 29 – In this chapter, Moses emphasizes the great importance of the narrative the people take from all that has happened to them. They may not “get it” always, but they must tell and retell the story so those who can hear will never forget all that God did to bring them out of the slavery they were in. And he also seems to look forward in time to a time when the Jews too will be sent into exile – that the reason for that exile will be discernible in the narrative of their disobedience and unfaithfulness after God gets them into the Promised Land.

I love the words here: “You are all now standing before the Lord, you God—your chiefs and judges, your elders and officials, and all of the men of Israel, together with your wives and children and the aliens who live in your camp, down to those who hew wood and draw water for you—that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord, your God, which he concluded with you today under this sanction of a curse; so that he may now establish you as his people . . . But it is not with you alone that I am making this covenant, . . .it is just as much with those who are not here among us today” (29:9-14). The Schocken version translates verse 11 in an unusual way, which invites comparison between “entry” into the covenant and “entry” into the Promised Land. He says, you are here with everyone “for you to cross over into the covenant of YHWH your God, and into his oath-of-fealty that YHWH your God is cutting with you today—in order that he may establish you today for him as a people. . .”

1 Corinthians 1 – Paul writes the church at Corinth because he concerned about divisions that have arisen among them. It has been reported to him that these divisions are based on loyalties of factions to different teachers – to Paul, to Apollos or Cephas, men who have come and instructed them about Christ. We [all those who teach of him] preach a “crucified Christ, to the Jews an obstacle that they cannot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1:23-25).

How can one reasonably accept an explanation or teaching about Christ that seems to violate both Jewish tradition, from which the whole idea of the “anointed one,” “the Christ” came from, and the demands of human reason, which the Greeks celebrated? This problem is still a serious obstacle to many. My way through it or around it is not something completely mysterious to me. It is by understanding Christ as the fulfillment of a tradition and more importantly a narrative that must be “entered into” by us through the faculty of our God-given power of imagination and through what we have come to call “faith,” our inner commitment to a vision that is not in the same category as things we can “know” or “prove.” We cannot know that truth lies here, in Christ, but we cannot see life as meaningless or empty of spiritual realities that elude reason or logic either. Somehow we must just accept that we have been given faith. It is just part of who we are.

“The human race has nothing to boast about to God, but you [those who are part of the community of faith], God has made members of Christ Jesus and by God’s doing he has become our wisdom, and our virtue, and our holiness, and our freedom” (1:30).

1 Corinthians 2 - He continues arguing that the while the gospel is not based on a wisdom that is “human.” It is a wisdom “mysterious, [and] hidden, which God predetermined before the ages . . ..”  It is a wisdom revealed through the Spirit. “And we speak about them [things freely given us by God] not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms” (2:13). To understand these things, we must put on “the mind of Christ” (2:16).

I have been thinking a lot about this a lot over the years, how what we adhere to as a people of faith is a kind of “knowing” that is not at all “worldly”; it is a knowledge attained through faith. What is this faith and how does it get planted in us? I, like many believers was not raised in any church. My grandmother taught me to pray and occasionally took me to church with her, but not with any regularity; and I never went to any class or learned any creed. But I always felt loved and watched over from above – yes, up above, when I reached far outside of myself, tapping around for that “presence” outside of myself. As I grew and made this “presence” part of how I lived from day to day, my identification as one connected to this grew in strength.

Not that I did not value and rely strongly on my reason and on what I could know through my senses or my ability to use logic; but this loving “presence” was not something I came close to through those doors. That those doors – reason, logic, consciousness – existed at all I considered part of the “creation” I was blessed with. But they did not lead me to any ultimate “home”. How well Paul puts his lips to these realities – it is amazing!