Update on the bank

It is truly a tragic story. Like I have said, I am very glad none of my coworkers were hurt in the bank robbery, but there is more. The robber was found dead later that day (or early the next day, I cannot remember which), having hung himself in a tree. I pray for him and his family. And I pray for my family of former coworkers. That's it.

"I have written what I have written!"

Text of devotional meditation at the meeting this past Wednesday night. The textual basis is John 19:1-37, which I did not read for consideration of time. A slightly expanded form of this material was once a Good Friday sermon preached in church:

In the history of history, writing has always played an important role. As an aspiring writer myself, it struck me how many references to writing we find in the Passion Narrative according to John. No less than nine times in John chapter 19, we read about something that was written, or about something that happened that fulfilled Scripture (which was written), or about the reason why something written had been written.

The first reference to writing comes in verse 7. The Jewish leaders insist to Pilate that in their law—their written law—that Jesus has committed a crime worthy of death. But the problem is that, in the situation of Roman domination, the Jewish authorities didn’t have the authority to put Jesus to death. Pilate decides eventually to give in to their request, thinking—quite naturally—that putting one innocent man to death would be far better than sparing him and inciting a revolt in the process.

The next four references to writing in the Gospel all have to do with the inscription that Pilate orders to be made and nailed to the top of Jesus’ cross. This was a usual practice in those days, but this inscription is unusual, because the criminal is unusual. Pilate has written here, “The King of the Jews.” Since the place where Jesus was crucified is near the city, lots of Jews get to read this, which is, after all, the point. So the Jewish leaders say that Pilate should write instead, “This man said he was the King of the Jews.” Pilate says that he has written what he has written.

Next come three notices, in verse 24, verse 28 and verse 37, that something happened in the course of Jesus’ time on the cross that fulfilled a specific prophecy in the Old Testament. In this way, the New Testament demonstrates that, the life and ministry of Jesus was both something very new and something very much in line with the promises of God throughout the history of God’s dealings with the people, or throughout the history of history. And God inspired the story of Jesus to be written in this way so that this continuity in the midst of innovation would be clear to those who are paying attention.

The final reference to writing comes in verse 35, and it is perhaps a bit more oblique than the others. The Gospel writer tells us that the one who testifies to these things—whose memory is preserved in this written document—is a reliable witness, and that his testimony can be trusted. The ends of the last three chapters of John’s Gospel have similar references, in fact, to certain things having been written about Jesus for a specific purpose. John 19:35 says that the one who saw these things is reliable, and that is why these things have been written. Because his testimony is true, you—the reader can read what has been written and come to believe. John 20:30-31 tell us that Jesus did lots of other things in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But the ones that are written are written for a specific purpose, that you—the reader—can come to believe that the Messiah, is Jesus, the Son of God, and that through believing you may come to have life in his name. And John 21:24-25 make the boldest statement of all. After another note that the one who testified to these things is reliable, the writer makes the startling suggestion that all the other things that Jesus did could have been written down, but that there wouldn’t be enough room in the entire world for the books that would have to be written.

So where does this leave us on a Wednesday night, far away from the spectacle of Good Friday? What do we read as we pass by the Cross? What has been written for us? Why was the story written in this way? In the history of history, writing has always played an important role. And this is no less true in the writings testifying to the life of Jesus, God’s ultimate move toward humanity to save us from the fate that we deserve through our sin. Through his death, Jesus won the victory over sin. Through his resurrection, Jesus won the victory over death. So why was it written this way? We might still ask God, why did your son have to die so that we might live? Why couldn’t it be, as Jesus himself prayed in the garden, that this cup could pass from him? Why couldn’t God have written something else?

The answer? “I have written what I have written!” AMEN.

Scriptures read for class devotions: Week 9

Like last week, in one of the classes there was only one text read because of the midterm exam. I have also been a little more intentional this week in lining up the devotional text read with the topic of that day's discussion:

Intro to OT:
8/26 Joshua 24:14-17
8/28 1 Samuel 2:1-10

Pentateuch
8/26 Leviticus 26:3-13

Life is short

Wow. Yesterday, I learned from my old supervisor that the bank where I used to work was robbed on Friday afternoon. I don't know any more details than what was on the news; because I'm no longer an insider, they cannot share those things with me anymore. Praise God, no one was injured, but they are understandably pretty shaken up.

I find it more than a little disturbing, because this is not the first time I left a bank just before it was robbed. When I was in Kansas City, I helped out at another branch that was short-handed for a couple of weeks, then literally the next week after I left it was robbed. Twice. I am not about to say that God was looking out for me or something and got me out of the way of trouble, because such is an alarming theology. Jesus said, "as for those eighteen who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them, do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem" (Luke 13:5). I simply refuse to say that my friends and former coworkers who were there had it coming or something silly like that; but that is indeed the inescapable implication when someone says that God delivered him/her from some sort of tragedy or momentous experience that others had to go through. If memory serves, I preached on this text the first sermon I delivered after September 11. I spoke publicly on it at any rate, whether it was a sermon or a Sunday school lesson or whatever it was, because I think it was decidedly appropriate for that connection.

Turns out that later that day the man who committed the robbery killed himself. A resident found him hanging from a tree in the backyard, which is in itself a rather creepy thing to have happen. We can only wonder what desperation led him to go in and threaten he had a bomb, which turned out not to be the case (the thing he brought in with him, and later left in the bank, was harmless, though they did properly check it out). And then we can only further wonder why he then committed suicide. It is a dangerous world, and life is short. I am thankful that I did not have to experience this, sure, and I sympathize with my former coworkers, sure, and I pray for the family of that man, sure...but at the end of the day (and this is the end of the day), I do not know what to think about this. Theodicy is one of the most important and yet most disturbing theological concepts...more on this later.

There's always room for one more

This is the text of the sermon I delivered in chapel Thursday, August 21. Purihin ang Diyos, it was received well:

Riding back to the seminary from the airport, I was given a brief cultural introduction to the Philippines by Kuya Ed Viado, Kuya Eric Zane and his wife Ate Linda. Honestly, I do not remember much of what they said—I had just gotten finished with a twenty-four-hour-long plane ride that took me from Boise, ID, to Seattle, WA, and from there to Taipei, Taiwan, and from there to Manila. But one thing I do remember is that Kuya Eric said to me, “In the Philippines, there is always room for one more.”

In the States, we highly value personal space and the definition of a group over against the outsiders, those that do not belong. Some groups are more inclusive than others, while yet others pride themselves on exactly how exclusive they can be. But it is not so in the Philippines. There is always room for one more. Empty space is begging to be filled up. Nature abhors a vacuum. If you can fit it in there, even if it’s by the nose of a jeepney or the wheel of a tricycle, then you can do it, and in fact, you must do it.

But what of the ones who are excluded? In my culture, we do not have much concern for them, for precisely because they are not part of the group with which we identify and whose identity and integrity we have sworn ourselves to maintain, they do not matter for us. As for those who do not fit in, it is as if they do not exist. I remember my own experiences of being excluded, shut out from the in crowd, and ignored. I remember how it felt. And I did not like it.

In the final scene of the 1984 movie Revenge of the Nerds, one of the principal characters has just complained of a great injustice done to him and his fraternity brothers in college, forced to band together because they had been excluded by the rest of the community due to their status as intellectually gifted but socially inept young people. After winning the crowd to his cause, he holds an altar call of sorts, calling all others who have ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down—ostracized because of their status. It’s a silly movie, but in many ways it is an accurate depiction of how the excluded are treated, no matter what the community of which they long to be a part. I remember how I felt wanting to be a part of the in crowd, or at least not to be ridiculed by the in crowd. Sometimes the only attention the in crowd paid to me was when they circled their desks around mine and hurled insults at me, one after the other, until I cried. I remember how it felt. And I did not like it.

For sometimes those who are excluded begin to think that they are unworthy, that there will never be a place for them. Over the past dozen years or so, this feeling has erupted from time to time in the US in deadly ways, with the stepped on, left out, picked on, put down resorting to violence to right the wrongs they perceive in the way they were treated. But more often than not people in this situation react like I did, turning toward themselves and withdrawing into despair and hopelessness. I wonder if some of you are like that? In a seminary, we are taught all sorts of things, how to exegete Scripture and how to think theologically and how to understand missions and how to prepare sermons and how to engage in sound educational practice and the lessons we can be taught by the history of the church and how to properly manage resources and how to plan strategically…but sometimes what gets missed is the most important part. For we never seem to hear how to negotiate how to engage forming and leading an inclusive community of believers when we ourselves know nothing but being excluded. Oh, we get good, don’t we, at hiding our true emotions, our feeling of inferiority, the sometimes crushing sense that there will never be a place for us at the table. But we remember, don’t we, how we felt wanting to be accepted, wanting to be loved, wanting not to be ridiculed, wanting not to be shut out. We remember how it felt. And we did not like it.

Isaiah 56:1-8

(1) Thus says Yahweh:

Maintain justice and perform righteousness,

for my salvation will come near,

and my vindication will approach.

(2) Blessed is the person who does this,

the human being who holds fast to it,

who keeps my Sabbath and does not profane it,

who keeps away from works of evil.

(3) Let not the foreigner say,

(the one who has bound himself to Yahweh),

“Yahweh will irrevocably cut me off from his people!”

And let not the eunuch say,

“I am only a shriveled up tree!”

(4) For thus says Yahweh:

The eunuchs who keep my Sabbath,

who choose what pleases me,

and who hold fast to my convenant,

(5) to them I will give within my house and a memorial and a name,

which is better than sons and daughters.

An everlasting name will I give them,

which will never be cut off.

(6) And the foreigners who join to Yahweh,

to minister to and love the name of Yahweh,

and to be his servants,

all who keep the Sabbath and do not profane it,

who hold fast to my covenant—

(7) I will bring them to my holy mountain,

and I will make them joyful in my house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

will be accepted on my altar.

For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations!

(8) Thus says Lord Yahweh,

who gathers the dispersed of Israel:

I will gather others,

in addition to those already gathered.

This prophet, commonly referred to as third Isaiah, is writing at a time when the exile is over, and the people—such as they are—have come back to the land—such as it is—and found it a desolate place, and many of them are probably even seeing it for the first time. Yet they have their traditions and their memories, their texts and their meditations, to tell them what it was like way back when, when the people had first been ushered out of the land of Egypt, out from the house of slavery, and into a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. But now, the milk has gone sour and the honey has become wax. Now, the good and broad land is bad and broken down.

Something had gone terribly wrong to get them into this situation. And so now they were being given a new opportunity, a chance to reconstitute their life together of faithfulness to Yahweh, of trust in his covenant, of adherence to his statutes and ordinances. In the post-exilic period, this is precisely where the decision had to be taken as to how the new community, coming out of exile, was to be constituted. For, you see, the profound experience of exile, loss of land and temple—and sometimes life—was not just for a punitive purpose but it also served a purgative purpose. That is, it represented not only judgment on previous sin but also cleansing so that a new life of faithfulness to God and faithfulness to the covenant could be lived out. Sounds simple, right? Well, it might sound simple, but it really was not a simple matter at all, and this is one of the many places where the Bible shows itself to be a living document, reflective of real, live, real-life debates as to what exactly it meant to live a life faithful to God. The Bible gives us a wonderful glimpse into the disagreements, disputes, and discontinuities that were alive in the post-exilic community, and these things can only be reconciled at great peril, at the expense of sacrificing credibility and diving headlong into credulity.

One side of one of these disagreements can be found here in our text, set over against the vision of the new temple in Ezekiel, as well as the condemnation of so-called “mixed” marriages in Ezra and Nehemiah among others. It is perhaps reasonable to assume that third Isaiah and the Ezekiel/Ezra/Nehemiah complexes of tradition represented the views of various parties in the discussions going on in post-exilic Judaism. What is important to note is that both of these groups were interested in faithfulness to Yahweh, in keeping his covenant, in maintaining justice and performing righteousness, as verse 1 of our text commands. But exactly how that was to be worked out was what was at issue, and we as the inheritors of this biblical tradition are much the richer that the editors of the Bible did not smooth out the wrinkles and the fractures that warp the text and threaten, so it seems, to tear it apart.

The specific issue at play, it seems, in the discussion is the place of the previously excluded in the community of the faithful, chosen people. The word here for “foreigners” is neker, which has a much more negative connotation than the word ger, ‘resident alien.’ The latter were allowed to participate in such important things as the Passover meal (Exodus 12:48), but the former were not (12:43).

One option was to hold the belief that allowing nekarim into the sanctuary was one of the things that defiled it so much that Yahweh’s anger burned hot against the city and the country, and so that was why, among other things, that they found themselves in the situation of exile. So elimination of foreigners from the temple and the land would be the best way to reconstitute the life of faithful Israel in the land of promise, the land which should be flowing with milk and honey but was presently fouled by sour milk and clogged by wax. So there were laws established that everyone should divorce their foreign wives and husbands, that the purity of the land and the community is to be reestablished, so that Yahweh’s anger will be stilled and he will not come again at his people and allow them to be overrun by a filthy, uncircumcised people as they had allowed themselves so to be in the past.

Third Isaiah, however, takes another option. He (or she) suggests that the new community should be more inclusive, not less. The theological theme introduced here is, admittedly, a rather radical innovation when you consider it alongside the many texts excluding non-Israelites from the service of Yahweh and from a position among the blessed community. But at the same time, there are hints of an inclusivity, something approaching universalism (but without some of the theological load that that particular word carries in our understanding), at various points in the story. In any event, the perspective of third Isaiah is that foreigners, nekarim, should indeed be admitted to the land and the service of Yahweh. The thought behind this is perhaps that the exclusion, the mistreatment, of those people, the stepped on, left out, picked on, put down is what caused the souring of the milk and the congealing of the honey.

But third Isaiah is not willing to let just anyone in, but he (or she) is establishing what might be called a “path to citizenship.” Third Isaiah says that those foreigners who have joined themselves to Yahweh, who minister in his service and who love his name, are not to say that Yahweh will surely cut them off from his people. These new membership requirements have nothing to do with the present status of these people as foreigners, those not born of Israelite or Judean parentage (which was a somewhat difficult matter to prove in those days anyway).

But the radical, expansive vision of the community that third Isaiah supports does not end there. This prophet also includes eunuchs in the reconstituted people of God. There is a great opportunity here to include more people who have previously been cut off—an unfortunate term when we’re discussing eunuchs, but we’ll use it anyway—in the blessed life that is offered to those who are faithful to Yahweh. Third Isaiah says that the eunuch should not say, “I am only a shriveled up tree,” not able to fulfill the command of God at the creation of humanity to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. Eunuchs had, by becoming eunuchs, rendered themselves fit for service in the imperial court and, therefore, unfit for the service of Yahweh.

The same words used of the foreigners—keep the Sabbath and do not defile it, hold fast to my covenant—are used of the eunuchs who are now, in this expansionistic vision, allowed to join in the community of the faithful. Salvation comes from the community, and those who would join in the community are subject to the demands laid on the community. It does not have anything to do with their past condition of having made themselves fit for service in the imperial court. If they are willing in the present to keep Yahweh’s covenant, to keep the Sabbath and not defile it, then the door is open for them.

So what about the excluded, the stepped on, left out, picked on, put down? It is a usual response to turn inward and refuse to expose oneself to further hurt at the mistreatment afforded by others. It is another usual response to erupt in violence, to seek revenge on those who have wronged one in the past. But the vision of third Isaiah is that the community of the faithful should be more expansive, more universalistic, more open than it was under the old way of doing the covenant. I am thankful that the Bible contains these competing visions, and allows the tension between them to remain unresolved, for that leaves the decision up to us.

When we are in the position of deciding who is to be included and who is to be excluded from the in group, whether that in group is the socially involved people in a high school or a college (or a seminary!) or a nation, or a church, then we have to decide. Will we follow the vision of Ezekiel/Ezra/Nehemiah, judging people based on their present and their past, based on their status as foreigners or those who have crossed a rather arbitrary boundary? The foreigners belong to another kingdom and the eunuchs have made themselves fit for another kingdom, but they desire to join up with us now. Or will we follow the vision of third Isaiah, and of Ruth, and of the saving of Rahab in the battle of Jericho, and allow in all those who, in spite of their present or their past, have committed themselves to following God’s commands just as we do, to keep his Sabbaths and not defile them, to take pleasure in that in which he takes pleasure, to minister and serve in his temple, to love his name?

And what about when we are the excluded, the stepped on, left out, picked on, put down? Whether your experience is like mine, sitting in the middle of an hour-long, multidirectional volley of insults, or whether your experience is different than mine, excluded based on something you are or the decisions you have made, there is a decision for me and for you and for all of us to take. The vision of the faithful community that is offered by third Isaiah is an expansive one, wherein those previously excluded, whether on the basis of their present or their past, need not either retreat within themselves or lash out in a vain attempt at revenge. There is nothing wrong with you! You are not excluded! If you would but commit yourself to remain faithful to what God requires, then that is the only mark of citizenship in God’s community.

Sometimes in a seminary, we allow ourselves to put on a mask of having everything put together, of being free from the pain and exclusion and hurt of the past, of being immune to poor treatment by our coworkers, our classmates, our family. Oh, we get good, don’t we, at hiding our true emotions, our feeling of inferiority, the sometimes crushing sense that there will never be a place for us at the table. But we remember, don’t we, how we felt wanting to be accepted, wanting to be loved, wanting not to be ridiculed, wanting not to be shut out. We remember how it felt. And we did not like it. But the vision of third Isaiah, which invites us in to an ever-expanding vision of God, shows us that our present and our past, while they are important in defining who we are, need not be any sort of barrier into a helpful and hopeful future. If you have ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down—ostracized because of your status—then the beauty of this vision, the beauty of the Gospel, is that you, even you, can “let the Son of God enfold you, with his Spirit and his love, let him fill your heart and satisfy your soul. Oh let him have the things that hold you, and his Spirit like a dove, will descend upon your life and make you whole…Oh come and sing this song with gladness, as your hearts are filled with joy—lift your hands in sweet surrender to his name. Oh give him all your tears and sadness, give him all your years of pain, and you'll enter into life in Jesus' name.”

At the foot of the Cross, there is always room for one more. Amen.

(Benediction) At the foot of the Cross, there is always room for one more. Give him all your years of sadness, give him all your years of pain, and even if you have been excluded because of your present and your past, you may even now enter into life. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Scriptures read for class devotions: Week 8

I was a little lazy this week, doubling up the readings on Tuesday. I also skipped Thursday in the Intro class, since there was a midterm and I wanted to maximize the available time for the students to complete the test. Similarly, Pentateuch class has a midterm next Thursday so there will be one fewer then as well:

Intro to OT:
8/19 Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Pentateuch:
8/19 Deuteronomy 6:1-9
8/21 Leviticus 19:1-4

I haven't been nearly as systematic or intentional about this as I should have. Perhaps in subsequent semesters I can do better. After all, this was a last-minute inspiration, as I have already said.

The tyranny of language

One of the things drilled into me as a graduate student (both on the master's and doctoral levels) was the power, the terrible power, of language. Sometimes without even realizing it, we can say things that exclude others or make them feel less valuable or valued--and I'm sure there is a philosophical distinction between those similarly spelled words. In my present context, this shows up rather frequently in the American idioms that pepper my speech. (And even "pepper my speech" is an American idiom!) With many of these, I just take their meaning for granted (what the late Pierre Bourdieu would call doxa). But I have learned, and am indeed still learning, to see the nonverbal clues on my students' faces that indicate bewilderment. When I see The Look, I usually catch myself and go back and define what I just said. ;-)

Another way this came up in the last few days is a discussion with the Master of Science in Theology (MST) student to whom I've been assigned as adviser. By the way, Master of Science in Theology is a very Thomistic-sounding degree, perhaps to be expected in a country whose dominant theological and educational ethos is Roman Catholic. But I digress. In reading over the student's sketch of his first chapter, I said that he needed to italicize something, "because it's a word in a foreign language." I was thinking about that particular phrase this morning, and I realized how another American cultural assumption came into play by how I said that. To wit: saying that a non-English word was "foreign" implies, quite simply, that all non-English words are foreign. Even though they are so to me, as English is my heart-language, nevertheless it highlighted for me a cultural-linguistic bias in my own mind which I had previously taken for granted. But now I am in an Asian context. More properly, I am in a multicultural, English-as-a-second-language (ESL) context, so American assumptions about the priority of English as a language need to be called into question.

Unfortunately, the more precise statement is also the more cumbersome. Rather than saying, "All foreign (i.e., non-English) words written with English characters should be italicized or underlined," it should be "All words from languages other than the primary language of the document, and written with the characters of that primary language, should be italicized, underlined, or similarly identified as different from the remainder of the text." That is an awfully complex statement, but it is accurate. The seminary catalog does say that all non-English words should be italicized or underlined, but this does not betray the same cultural-linguistic bias becuase the rule is built on the assumption of English being the language of all instruction, discussion, and writing at the seminary. Whether that assumption reflects a bias is another matter that I will not explore, except to say that it is a matter of practicality to enforce a common language in multicultural environment. English was chosen as the language of official seminary business because it is one of the official languages of the Philippines and also many Filipinos can speak it, whereas they sometimes have difficulty communicating even amongst themselves in the multivariate languages spoken in the archipelago.

So I will continue to say that non-English words need to be italicized when it comes to written documents at the seminary, but forever after I will remember that even talking about the differences between languages can lead to favoring one language over another. Oh, that the Tower of Babel had never been built and that God had not confused our languages...

Scriptures read for class devotions: Week 7

This week's Scriptures represent, I think, a turning of the corner in the practice/discipline I'm developing. For I decided at the last minute before Thursday's Pentateuch meeting to read the Hebrew of the Ten Commandments in Exodus. I was able to read more quickly than I have in the past, with the exception of passages with which I was already familiar for aloud reading. I had never read the Ten Commandments in Hebrew out loud until that time, and the ease with which it flowed convinces me that, by the grace of God, my skill is improving. As for the English translations, those are aided somewhat by the arrival of my parallel-column Hebrew/English Jewish Publication Society Tanakh. ;-) I don't feel as bad about cheating with the English.

Intro to Old Testament:
8/12 Deuteronomy 26:1-11
8/14 Psalm 117

Pentateuch
8/12 Exodus 15:1-18
8/14 Exodus 20:1-17

The big box II

Everything arrived safe and sound in the big box. There is some cosmetic damage to a few of the books, but nothing a good squish job in between a couple of heavy ones can't fix. Public shout-out to my brother, who expertly handled the loading of the stuff with the moving company. It's always a little uncomfortable to turn your valuables over to the control of another person. In my case, I did this twice, once to my brother and once to the moving company. And then to the truck driver and then to the ship crew and then to the receiving company here in the Philippines, and on and on. Even when the person handling things for you is a trusted member of your family, it's a cause for more than a bit of uneasiness and more than a few sleepless (or less sleepful, or something) nights.

I've actually spent quite a bit of time and money acquiring those things, a fact which, admittedly, causes me to stop short when I think of the poverty and general condition of human misery that I see here on a daily basis. I say here that I have only the appearance of being rich (I was taught this afternoon how to say that in Tagalog but I've forgotten), but at the same time the culture in which I was raised carries a strong element of the need to acquire things as a part of acquiring status and respect. I know I didn't say that properly, because I am still trying to process the differences between the society in which I live as a ger (Hebrew; 'resident alien, foreigner') and the society to which I am accustomed. It is a difficult transition, but I am slowly, ever so slowly making the leap. More to come...

Driving and the big box

Just came off my first experience driving in the Philippines. Actually, it was my first experience driving outside of North America. I've driven in Canada some (and of course extensively in the States), but nowhere else. I had lunch with the field strategy coordinator and his wife, and he handed me the keys to drive back to campus. It wasn't a long trip, and there wasn't much traffic this time, but it was good. When I got to Tikling Junction (=asphalt death trap), I just got into the left lane and followed a large flatbed truck through the intersection. We figured, correctly, that no one would challenge the truck for position. If I just hugged its bumper, then I would come through Tikling with no problem. And that is how it was.

Oh, and the other big news is that the big box is on its way across Manila right now (we think). It is supposed to be delivered sometime this afternoon, estimated around 4:00 PM (90 minutes from right now). This has the majority of my library plus a few household items that will make me feel more at home here. I am hesitant to see what it actually looks like, and a little worried about it. But God has controlled everything else, so why should I suspect that this would not work out as well?

Scriptures read for class devotions: Week 6

This was a hard week. I didn't have anything prepared as of this morning for either of my classes, so I pulled out a softball for Intro (one that I had already used for Pentateuch). As far as Pentateuch goes, I was thinking about the "my ancestor was a wandering Aramaean" bit from Deut 26, but I couldn't get it together in time. I had a difficult time selecting the passages, and I even looked at some of the Daily Office readings. These were singularly unhelpful, since the "Old Testament" reading for today was from the Apocrypha. While the book of Judith is wonderful, I'm too much of a Protestant to use that stuff. And I don't have it in Hebrew anyway, which is part of the reason why it wasn't in the OT canon to begin with.

Intro to OT:
8/5 Jeremiah 31:31-34
8/7 Genesis 2:1-4a

Pentateuch:
8/5 Genesis 32:23-32 [Eng. 22-31]
8/7 Genesis 2:18-25

The idea to use the story of the creation of the woman from the side of the man was a kind of deus ex machina for me, seeing as how I had just about given up on not using something twice in the same class. I was tempted to go back to the priestly blessing in Numbers 6, since that's a really great text. But Genesis 2 leapt out at me (and plus I already know that one well in Hebrew).