It Never Means What You Think

Psalm 95 (M’rivah, [quarreling] and Massah [testing])
Genesis 40 (but forgot him)
1 Corinthians 3:16-23 (The wisdom of the world is nonsense)
Mark 2:13-22 (Unshrunk cloth)



Oh, it’s all so complicated. Holy Writ never means what you might think.

The Psalm remembers when Moses got above himself; the Tanakh recalls an ungrateful dignitary; Paul quotes Job out of context; and Jesus reveals that he knows how to sew.

I got down in the weeds looking up Meribah and Massah, only to find that it might be one place or two; one event, or two events forty years apart. One might be about a time when Moses did good, and the other about a time when Moses screwed up.

I wondered if Joseph was angling for favors by offering to interpret the prisoners’ dreams and if, like Moses, Joseph was rebuked for taking too much of the credit for himself— is that why the cupbearer forgot?

Then comes an exasperated Paul, quoting Job to his opinionated flock, telling them to be foolish on purpose, because being wise always bites you on the ass. The thing about Job is that more than half of it is made up of long-winded expositions of bad theology, not to mention some of the most self-important preachifying I’ve ever heard. God wouldn’t even forgive those long-winded pontificators until Job did.

Then along comes Jesus, who compares eating with sinners and tax collectors with sewing unshrunk cloth on to an old garment. The usual interpretation is that John’s disciples and the Pharisees are old well-worn garments, and Jesus’ message is the new cloth which will tear away the first time it’s washed. (Forget the wineskins… that analogy won’t hold up in the third millennium.) But what if the master of metaphor meant something entirely different? What if it’s the other way around? What if the complainer’s attitudes and opinions are the new patch and Jesus is telling them to stop trying to sew it onto the ancient, eternal God?

That would fit, wouldn’t it? Sound familiar?





Opinionated and self-appointed lawyers putting God on trial.



Useless dreams and faulty memories rattling the prison bars.



Misguided clichés tricking Wisdom out of her life savings.



Shrinking egos hung on the line to dry in the wind, all puckered and askew.







I agree with Paul, foolish is the way to go.

After all, ‘it all belongs to me’ anyhow, and in spite of occasional ripping sounds and randomly unraveling seams, I suppose I can manage to carry on.



(So let no one boast about human beings, for all things are yours — ²² whether Sha’ul or Apollos or Kefa or the world or life or death or the present or the future: they all belong to you, ²³ and you belong to the Messiah, and the Messiah belongs to God.)