Tuesday TooMuch
This is a teaching event, isn't it! I mean, never to make light of, but Life is Good and to be cherished, and it's currently even more important than whatever Usual was before we chased a screaming ambulance to Pensacola the wee hours of a May 2018 morning and then saw what was left of Panama City and Bay County the afternoon of October 10 the same year, and now covid-19, to be mindful and deliberate and grateful. Maybe where Paul says Faith, Hope and Love, and the greatest of these is Love, my momentary priorities are Mindful, Deliberate and Grateful, where the greatest of these is Gratitude? I think so.
Outside here on 7H porch it's still pitch black dark, 73° 84% wind SSW 7 mph, overcast and that same lone shrimp boat (pic above) on StAndrewsBay, sweeping east and west in the near channel. Mug of black, and a small slice of incredible "turtle" Kringle waiting on, and here's where the situation teaching and Uncle Bubba learning comes to mind, waiting on yesterday's napkin, our British family says serviette. Or maybe it was from Sunday, IDK. In the New Usual, I am quickly being taught and slow learning to conserve paper products. Both so we don't run out in New Usual, and also because if we do run out there's no point in going to buy more because there is no more. So the lesson plan is about learning not to be wasteful.
More honey, Pooh? asks Rabbit.
Is there any more!? asks PoohBear.
No, there isn't, says Rabbit.
I thought not, says PoohBear, face and hands repulsively sticky with honey as he begins to lick his fingers.
Life is Good is what one makes of it, isn't it, and I can assert that without trying to find a relevant Bible verse in the lectionary readings for Palm Sunday coming up.
Well, okay, maybe the opening and closing verses of the Psalm 118 selection from the Liturgy of the Palms,
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; *
his mercy endures for ever,
which quite frankly in the New Usual comes to me more as whistling in the dark than the hope and confidence of true Faith. That's the sort of thing I'd share with my Sunday School class of sophisticated Bible lovers who no longer are astonished by anything I say in class but never from the pulpit.
Okay, there is one thing. This is for my Sunday School class only. It comes up every three years with Lectionary Year A, when the Palms reading is from Matthew 21: Jesus riding two donkeys into Jerusalem. It's not as ludicrous as it seems. Nor does it warrant the scathing comments of the ignorant.
"When Jesus and his disciples had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, `The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately." This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
"'Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'
"The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them."
Matthew gets his story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem from Mark 11, but with Matthew's agenda of proving Jesus' messiahship to his audience of Jewish Christians, he sees an opportunity to appeal to Old Testament messianic prophecy to explain. Matthew goes to the Septuagint (Greek language Hebrew Bible), which was the Bible being used by Jews in the time of Jesus and Matthew. At Zechariah 9:9, Matthew finds this
9 Χαῖρε σφόδρα, θύγατερ Σιών· κήρυσσε, θύγατερ ῾Ιερουσαλήμ·
ἰδοὺ ὁ βασιλεὺς σου ἔρχεταί σοι,
δίκαιος καὶ σῴζων αὐτός,
πραΰς καὶ ἐπιβεβηκὼς
ἐπὶ ὑποζύγιον καὶ πῶλον νέον.
Matthew is pretty literalist, and even being Jewish, as a tax collector still thinking in terms of numbers (math is fun and good) he seems to have little appreciation of Hebrew poetry, nuances, constant use of parallelism. It's not two donkeys, it's poetic:
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Matthew's reading the LXX. He picks up the "kai" (and) and thinks there are two animals. The Orthodox Jewish Bible has this English translation:
thy Melech cometh unto thee, tzaddik, and having Salvation; ani (lowly, meek), and riding upon a chamor, even upon a colt the foal of a donkey.
The Hebrew verse reads
עַל־חֲמ֔וֹר וְעַל־עַ֖יִר בֶּן־אֲתֹנֽוֹת
upon a donkey and-upon (Hebrew, one word) a colt the son of a donkey
I only do Greek a little bit, and I don't do Hebrew except only very haltingly, and translating from Hebrew to Greek leaves me dimwitted; but the עַל־ above means upon, above, over, and adding the וְ "and" to make it וְעַל־ ("and upon" Hebrew to yield poetic parallelism, "and upon"), and the LXX sticks in the "kai" which makes it "and" and Matthew the tax collector takes it literally that it means two donkeys, which it doesn't.
If I were translating it, I might say
upon a donkey,
upon a donkey's little boy.
If you aren't in my Sunday School class, forget it!!
T+