After the scripture reading, part 3

I love my job, but there's a drawback to being a courts reporter. Several really ugly crimes are up for me to write about in the next week or two, which means lots of reading really ugly criminal complaints. Everything is not ok.

Anyway, a lighter diversion is my recurring series on the scriptures chosen each week for our church services, and the frequently funny, horrible or otherwise discordant passages that come immediately afterward. This week comes to us a passage from Revelation, chapter 5 verses 11-14:

11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice,

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”

13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying,

“To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”

14 And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

Which is a very nice passage, although best taken with a grain of salt: the fact that a snippet of meaningful imagery should slip its way into the torrent of hallucinogenic froth that is Revelation is no more surprising - and no more meaningful - than that the face of the Virgin Mary should on rare occasion manifest itself on pieces of toast.

So, what comes next? Why, Revelation 6, of course! Which, if you're too lazy to click the link, is the classic bit where the four horsemen are introduced: Conquest, War, Famine and Death.

After the scripture reading, part 2

Maybe I'll make a series of this. I'm thinking this might be a fun ongoing project.

This week's scripture was Acts 16:23-34, which is the bit about Paul and Silas in jail and there's an earthquake but they don't run away and then they tell the jailer not to kill himself and then he becomes Christian and gets his whole family saved with him whether they become Christian themselves or not because woo.

Ok, that last bit was uncalled for. It's fairly standard for biblical texts to present decisions by patriarchal males as group decisions. And it does say the rest of the household rejoiced with him, so I guess it wasn't too onerous to change religions overnight.

But anyway, that's what was chosen to read in church. What comes immediately after? Is it horrible, like the two I cited last week? Well, not really, but there's a reason this passage isn't cited as much: it's Paul playing politics.

Reading between the (approved) lines

My favorite part of scripture readings at church is reading the verses immediately AFTER the chosen reading, which are invariably horrid. The reading ending with Isaiah 25:9 misses the wonderous bit in verses 10 and 11 about how the Moabites will be crushed into a dungheap, and EVEN THOUGH they spread out their arms like swimmers to stay afloat in the poop, STILL the Lord will smoosh them in deeper. A truly lovely picture of a loving God.

Or this week, the scripture was the bit at the end of Acts 4 about how the early Christians were actually as determinedly anti-Capitalist as a society can be, which is cool. And then it ended, and I kept reading the bit about Ananias and Sapphira, where God murders two people for being generous, but not generous enough. Because the Lord Almighty was Stalinist before Stalinism was a thing, yo. Still had a little Old Testament to get out of his system, maybe?

The first is less unsettling than the second - God may be disgusting and prone to stomping people who already are down, but at least isn't murdering them out of spite - but both are still definitely not high points for the biblical God. And yet more reason why anyone who claims their morality stems for a literal reading of the Bible is either full of (but not drowning in!) shit, or utterly insane.