{"id":734,"date":"2013-01-25T11:21:32","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T15:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/?p=734"},"modified":"2013-01-25T11:21:32","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T15:21:32","slug":"var-_gaq-_gaq-_gaq-push_setaccount-ua-25646250-2-_gaq-push_trackpageview-function-var-ga-document-createelementscript-ga-type-textjavascript-ga-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/?p=734","title":{"rendered":"<script type=\"text\/javascript\">  var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-25646250-2']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);  (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text\/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https:\/\/ssl' : 'http:\/\/www') + '.google-analytics.com\/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();  <\/script>  <\/heat> The Purchase of a Burial Plot &#8211; Held on Sunday, January 20, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Personal Note on Posting Timeline<\/b><\/p>\n<p>For those of you who come to this site I had hoped to post on the Tuesday, then the Wednesday following the Sunday that we had our gathering.\u00a0 Obviously I haven\u2019t been faithful to that time line.\u00a0 If you come to this site by Friday at noon, I will have either posted or informed you of the status of the post.<\/p>\n<p><b>Gen. 23: 01 \u2013 20 \u2013 The Purchase of a Burial Plot <\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Preview<\/b><\/p>\n<p>As is our custom, I began our study with two related topics of discussion.\u00a0 After repeating my intention to offer a Lenten series based on the book, <i>Creator God Evolving World<\/i> by Cynthia Crysdale and Neil Ormerod, about eleven members expressed an interest in attending and settled on the Wednesdays during lent from 7:00 pm \u2013 8:00 pm with \u00bd hour of question period afterwards for those interested.\u00a0 Rosemarie was able to obtain the book through St. Raphael Book Store for $17.25.\u00a0 She must know of your interest no later than February 10.<\/p>\n<p>I then shared a couple of highlights from my studies from the previous week.\u00a0 Listening to a scripture course recording I learned that we spontaneously think that others think as we do, so we tend to understand the scripture readings as though the author thought as we do.\u00a0 It may be obvious that the author\u00a0doesn&#8217;t\u00a0but that\u00a0doesn&#8217;t\u00a0stop us from thinking as though he does.\u00a0 Secondly I learned that scripture is written primarily in symbolic language; much as we do in our ordinary conversations.\u00a0 This fact came up in our discussion, part of which I will share below.\u00a0\u00a0 There are four terms which can help us understand the very nature of symbolic language.\u00a0 It is couched in language that contains affect laden images.\u00a0 In other words our everyday conversations have meaning; we are moved by what we say, hear, read, etc.\u00a0 But more than that, in our affects are revealed an apprehension of values; things that matter to us.\u00a0 I used a couple of examples from the 60s [revealing my age, I guess].\u00a0 You might recall that during the Vietnam protests, the\u00a0protesters\u00a0began to burn the American flag.\u00a0 That act is clearly symbolic, the cloth is much more than cloth; it stands for the US, taps into our patriotism.\u00a0 Another example from the same time period was young men began letting their hair grow longer.\u00a0 Many parents\u00a0weren&#8217;t\u00a0all that happy with their son\u2019s decision.\u00a0 Why would the length of hair create such a reaction, it was a symbol, a form of protest in its own right.<\/p>\n<p>In order to show how we tend to read the symbolic language as though the author thinks as we do, I commented on a few verses from the passage we had been studying, The Testing of Abraham, Gen. 22: 15 \u2013 16<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA second time the angel of the LORD\u00a0called to Abraham from heaven and said: \u201cI swear by my very self\u2014oracle of the LORD\u2014that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your son, your only one . . \u201c<\/p>\n<p>We have an \u201cangel of the LORD\u201d talking to Abraham \u201cfrom heaven.\u201d\u00a0 The angel\u2019s words are in quotes.\u00a0 Now I don\u2019t really know what these two verses mean to you, if anything, but I suspect some of the following might be at play.\u00a0 So I leave you with a handful of questions, does the passage assume that the LORD told an angel what to say to Abraham?\u00a0 If the angel was talking \u201cfrom heaven\u201d where is that?\u00a0 How did Abraham hear him?\u00a0 Why when the angel spoke did he \/ she speak in the first person singular, \u201cI\u201d?\u00a0 Now wonder if any of these questions were questions that the author could answer, even thought about, was concerned with.\u00a0 We can ask questions that the scripture can\u2019t really answer, because the author was no writing to answer such questions.\u00a0 His intention, purpose, was very different.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say the thoughts I shared brought forth a lively discussion.\u00a0 I wish that I could share all of the details of that conversation but that would take quite a bit of space.\u00a0 I chose instead to select out of the many two comments; one from Annette and the other from Faryl. Although both comments flowed in the context of the discussion, reading them here might seem disconnected but they\u00a0weren&#8217;t\u00a0\u00a0 Annette pointed out we can say one thing; others can even thing that of us, but that\u00a0doesn&#8217;t\u00a0mean that we are living it.\u00a0 So husbands and wives might appear to be in a happy marriage, parents might seem to be good parents but we really don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Annette\u2019s comments brought to my mind Mt. 07: 21 \u201cNot \u00a0everyone who says to Me, &#8216;Lord, Lord,&#8217; will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On another note Faryl remarked \u201cclosed minded politically correct\u201d groups misquote the scripture and want to remove God from the public square.\u00a0 I selected her comments because they represent the symbolic language that I was speaking of as reflected in our contemporary scene.\u00a0 If you are old as I am, you might recall a time in which the words \u201cpolitically correct\u201d were not a part of our everyday conversation.\u00a0 But the phrase is certainly used today.\u00a0 It means something to Faryl, and since the adjectives \u201cclosed minded\u201d define the phrase, its\u2019 not hard to know that for Faryl, \u201cpolitically correct\u201d has a pejorative meaning and is disvalued.\u00a0 All of that in a few words strung together.\u00a0 That is how we communicate though, and it is also how the biblical authors communicated.\u00a0 The difference is the context of the times.\u00a0 What moved them might not move us and what moves us might not have moved them.\u00a0 Our task, to rise to the level of our times, is to understand the meaning and values that mattered to the author and figure out how to address those meanings and values in our time and place.<\/p>\n<p>I believe the place to begin is in a spirit of prayer,\u00a0 to pay attention to what moves us, to listen to what move others, and to share in the community of believers.\u00a0 The ultimate test though is both inward, Gal. 5: 22 \u2013 \u201c \u2026 the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;\u201d and outward, I was hunger, thirsty, sick,\u00a0imprisoned\u00a0 etc \u2026\u00a0 whatever you did to these the least of my brothers and sisters, you did to me. [Mt. 25: 31 \u2013 46.]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We concluded chap. 22 with the genealogy of vv. 20 \u2013 24 that relays the descendants of Nahor, Abraham\u2019s brother.\u00a0 Genealogies are located throughout the bible both the Jewish and the Christian scriptures.\u00a0 This particular genealogy begins the transition from Abraham to Isaac by letting us know that his wife to be, Rebekah, is part of the extended family.\u00a0 She is one of us, as it were, a not unimportant value for the Jewish community and many other communities as well.<\/p>\n<p>We then moved on to read chap. 23 that narrates the death of Sarah and the subsequent purchase of burial plot by Abraham.\u00a0 At the heart of this story is the purchasing of the plot within the \u201cland.\u201d\u00a0 It becomes a burial place for Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah.\u00a0 It solidifies the fulfillment of the promise of the land and confirms for the Israelites their claim to the land.\u00a0 Keep in mind as well that in the exilic period, many Israelites were forced to bury their dead in a foreign land.\u00a0 This story has a deeper meaning for them given their life situation and points to the word of God speaking to us in the concreteness of our life.\u00a0 God\u2019s word sheds light on our trials and tribulations; offering hope in the faithfulness of God\u2019s word.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For the sake of completeness I will include in our blog the basic questions that guide us in hearing the passages we study each week.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>First who are the characters and what role does each play? To the extent that we can identify<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>what the characters say and do, or<\/li>\n<li>don\u2019t say and do but we would expect them to do so, and<\/li>\n<li>finally when they enter into the passage and leave it<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We can more easily and more accurately know what their role is from the point of view of the author and \/ or the editor of the passage.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The \u201cwhen\u201d question is quite complicated and again for the sake of completeness; there is<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>The \u201cwhen\u201d within the story \/ passage itself,<\/li>\n<li>The \u201cwhen\u201d of the editor, and most importantly,<\/li>\n<li>The \u201cwhen\u201d of our life at the time we are actually reading \/ studying the passage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>What is the plot, the point of the passage?<\/li>\n<li>Finally, because each passage is at one and the same time the word of human beings and the Word of God, there is revealed the values that are part and parcel of the human beings in their time and place and there is the values revealed by God for the believer.\u00a0 Our final question is to discern which values in the passage are attractive to us, we are drawn to and which are we repulsed by, inclined to reject?\u00a0 The more difficult task, if we do identify these two responses in us of the values revealed, which are of God and we are being challenged to embrace and which are not of God and we are being challenged to correct and develop.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>My Refrain<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Before we read though, let&#8217;s quiet ourselves, remember whatever we can from the background, our questions and, most importantly, pay attention to what happens inside of us as we read.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reading of the passage <\/strong><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/genesis\/22\">http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/genesis\/22<\/a> <strong>\u00a0and \u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/genesis\/23\">http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/genesis\/23<\/a> <strong>.<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discussion Gen. 23: 01 \u2013 20: \u00a0Purchase of a Burial Plot.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I wanted to pick up the discussion around the burial plot passage.\u00a0 Michael referencing the notes reminded us that Abraham as a sojourner, a foreigner, who did not have the right to purchase land.\u00a0 By purchasing the burial plot Abraham becomes a land owner.\u00a0 Ken acknowledged difficulty in following the burial passage, precisely because the passage speaks in terms of giving not of selling.\u00a0 Abraham wants to buy but Ephron wants to give, v. 11 \u201cPlease, sir, listen to me! I give you both the field and the cave in it; in the presence of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This highlights our earlier point that the biblical authors simply don\u2019t think as we do because they live at a different time and in a different place.\u00a0 The passage depicts how people battered at that time.\u00a0 For Carol Abraham needed to purchase the land.\u00a0 Michael emphasized what is accomplished by \u201cpurchasing\u201d has everything to do with legal ownership.\u00a0 Abraham is now a land owner and the Israelites are owners of the land, no longer foreigners.\u00a0 Of course burial is central to our lives.\u00a0 Various members of the group spoke of their own burial plans, plots. \u00a0Isn&#8217;t\u00a0it true that we all want to have a plot to be buried in.<\/p>\n<p>Your comments, observations, questions are welcomed.\u00a0 See \u201ccomment\u201d link below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Personal Note on Posting Timeline For those of you who come to this site I had hoped to post on the Tuesday, then the Wednesday following the Sunday that we had our gathering.\u00a0 Obviously I haven\u2019t been faithful to that &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/?p=734\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,5],"tags":[7,18,19],"class_list":["post-734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-literal-interpretation","category-scripture","tag-modern-scripture-scholarship","tag-religion-and-culture","tag-scripture-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":736,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions\/736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}