Overcoming Lunacy

The Moon with a rainbow halo in cirrus clouds (with the Jupiter beneath). 

My dear wife Martina seems to be under the spell of the moon, or more precisely I should say her work is. As many of you know, she is an Internist at a hospital in the Bronx and she often complains about being on call during full moons.
    Frankly, it defies any attempt for quantified systemization: sometimes it is about a higher number of patients, other times patients are fewer, but more complicated and yet at other times it is not about patients at all, but about their difficult relatives. Whatever the reason, around the full moon I know that I or our son Jakob can prepare dinner at least an hour or two later than usual.
    Many professionals in hospitals are convinced about the influence of moon over their work and they are not alone. Some police departments are on record for scheduling extra officers for the full moon nights.
    Scientists meanwhile insist that there cannot possibly be any direct physical mechanism for the Moon influencing human behaviour. They claim that all this anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal. They call it all an "illusory correlation", we are simply much better in remembering events rather than nonevents. (If something unpleasant happens during a full moon, we remember it, when nothing happens, no one notices.)
    But frankly, I am not convinced by these skeptics. Especially in the summer the full moon is very bright. I observed and photographed bright rainbow-coloured halos around the moon. All that extra light at night, let me put it mildly, can be responsible for more eventful nights. With the moon out more people are also out and more things can happen... And when you distribute it among large samples of people it can certainly have a psychological and spiritual impact. At least it is a possibility...

This Sunday we will leave all the sinister aspects of the Moon out and instead of lunacy we will concentrate on positive and beneficial aspects of the Moon. We will look how the Moon fits positively into our Christian faith.

Cult of Sun

The Bible tells us that King Josiah, as a part of his religious reform of Judean religion, removed from the Jerusalem temple horses dedicated to Sun. (2 Kings 23:11). And I  intentionally left out the definite article before “Sun”, because here it does not designate a heavenly body but almost certainly represents a name of a solar deity.
    It is well known fact that flaming chariots with horses were frequent attributes of ancient solar deities. And in Jerusalem these solar horses were most likely dedicated to YHWH (the LORD) who absorbed the role of the solar deity and was vested with the attributes of Sun god.
    King Josiah allegedly cleansed the temple and religion by eliminating this pagan adulteration. But strangely even in the Bible itself there are still indications that the worship of Sun continued (for instance Ezekiel 8:16).   

     Centuries later, in the fourth century BCE, we have archeological evidence. It comes to us in the form of a coin, quoter-shekel, minted in Judea. The Jewish coin depicts a bearded figure holding a hawk or falcon and seated on the winged chariot.
    An inscription around his head has been deciphered by scholars in two different ways. Either it reads YHW and identifies the figure as the god YHWH, or it might read YHD which indicates that the coin was minted in Yehud (Persian province of Judea).
    In any case, it is not a winged wheelchair, and the bird is not a pet. Both are well known attributes of solar deities. This is clearly a depiction of the YHWH, the LORD God, as a Solar Deity. (And let us leave aside the Commandment against depicting the LORD, clearly it hadn’t been as strictly observed, as we were made to believe.)
    This solar cult in the Jerusalem temple and these relatively late examples of the fusion of YHWH with the Sun god is something you might not know about the biblical religion.

Come and join us this Sunday as we continue our series of Celestial Theology this time concentrating on the rich, beautiful and deeply meaningful solar metaphors and images.

Parent in Heaven

On Wednesday night I was on the roof of our building preparing for this Sunday’s Sermon by taking picture of planet Jupiter and its Galilean moons.

          I have to acknowledge that to the best of my best knowledge, Jupiter is never directly mentioned in the Bible. How could it then be the theme of Sunday? What could Jupiter have in common with our faith? And how could it, for instance, speak to our concerns for migrant children and babies separated from their parents? How could Jupiter inspire our faith or religiously anchor our protest against our babies-abusing government?
          Well, any time we talk or pray to “God the Father” or “Father in Heaven” we are, perhaps indirectly and unknowingly, invoking Jupiter. Because the name Jupiter comes from Proto Indo-European dyau-pater and can be understood and translated from old Latin or Greek as “God Father”
          Join us this Sunday as we reject the toxic and abusive masculinity and rejoice in the protective kindness of our Parent in heaven, protector and defender of widows and orphans.

Interestingly the planet Jupiter plays this protective role. Some astronomers propose that Jupiter functions as protector of life on our planet by substantially reducing numbers of comets and asteroids which could cause us harm. We could observe Jupiter catching and defusing of a comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994. Some of the impact brown clouds in Jupiter atmosphere (all in line near the planet's polar region) are each as large as continental USA.

Mālama ‘āina

Rainbow over Ahu Tongariki on the eastern shore of Rapa Nui

Mālama ‘āina is a Hawaiian expression for the gentle, thoughtful and loving nurture of the land. Pacific islanders can indeed teach us how to live in harmony with our planet. Their islands are like small worlds with limited and finite resources. Polynesians had no other option but to learn how to be careful stewards of their small worlds and there were also some tough lessons.
    One such place that encountered a tough lesson was Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island) an island famous for its megalithic statues - moai.  It is just a speck of land, a lonely island of 60 square miles, in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from the nearest land (five hour flight from Santiago).
    In the last century Rapa Nui people were blamed for catastrophic deforestation of their island, supposedly in order to erect those famous stone monuments. But recently scholars had second thoughts about it. Deforestation was most likely caused by stowaway rats and extremely difficult environment with slow growth rates.
    Archeologists and anthropologists are actually discovering and confirming the resourcefulness of Rapa Nui people. They were thoughtful and industrious stewards of their small island. On this minuscule world buttered with constant winds and cursed with inferior soils, Polynesians perfected the skill of farming rocks. They grew their food in small rock gardens, they crushed old lava (an improvised fertilizer) to provide nutrients for their plants, they even used small stones as mulch to keep moisture in the soil and to keep precious soil from being taken by strong winds. In a small island with extremely limited resources these were examples of their Polynesian mālama 'āina - loving care for their land.
    This Sunday, as we continue our celestial theology, we will look up at the biblical rainbow and discern and be inspired by similar stark yet hopeful message of hope in finite world.

Earth and Sky

Sunset at Mauna Kea - also known as Mauna Wākea

One of the oldest known Greek poets Hesiod tells the story of Gaia and Uranus (Mother Earth and Father Sky), how they gave birth to the whole Greek pantheon and thus indirectly begat the entire Universe. That is actually the original meaning of the word Cosmology - a story about the birth of world.
    Similar stories are known from around the world. On the very opposite side of the world, in Hawai'ian mythology I am familiar with a similar Polynesian myth about Papa (mother Earth) and Wākea (father Sky) and how they originated the birth of a habitable world, individual islands, human culture and even started famous royal families.
    As surprising as it might sound, the Bible also contains interesting traces of a similar story. These cosmogony stories are never really dominant in official religion, they live in the background of people’s worldview. In the biblical tradition this story got overshadowed with the “official” creation story (in six days) and possibly it even got censored for its unorthodox content. But it is still present, and most visibly in the context of the creation story. Just like Greek or Polynesian mythologies the Bible mentions a “Genealogy of Earth and Sky.” (Gen 2:4) And that is something you might not know about the Bible.

As we begin this Sunday a three month long series of Celestial Theology, we will start by looking closer at this genealogy of Earth and Sky and draw encouragement, joy and inspiration from their almost forgotten, yet powerful message.

Scandal!

In stark words Jesus warned his audience against “scandalizing” little children (Matthew 18:6).
What did Jesus mean by “scandal”?

1) In our modern usage scandal is defined as “a disgraceful or highly disagreeable action, a public disgrace”. And to scandalize is “to shock or horrify by something considered immoral or grossly improper.”

2) Biblical dictionaries and biblical translations have a tendency to spiritualize and theologize and thus scandal is often rendered as “temptation to sin”, “enticement to sin or to apostasy”, sometimes also a “stumbling block.”

3) The original meaning of σκάνδαλον (SKANDALON) in the ancient Greek was “a snare”. It was derived from a verb for springing after being tripped. But scandal became more generally “any kind of a trap or even an obstacle on a road.” 

Until recently, when asked what might Jesus mean by scandalizing children, I would look among the first two modern definitions (secular or theological). Then we, unfortunately, heard about the US government literally catching, trapping and caging little children, while separating them from their natural care-givers. This is the SCANDAL! By this action our government joins a dark and horrid company and as Jesus’ followers we must not be silent.

Jewish Temples

The Bible is quite clear. The only legitimate Jewish temple was to be in Jerusalem. Any other temple was illegitimate and a sign of heresy and apostasy. But have you heard about the Elephantine Jewish colony? Elephantine was a military fortress on the island in the Nile which was protecting Egypt’s southern border. A Jewish mercenary colony thrived there during the early Persian empire.
            We know about the Persian Elephantine from many documents - personal and diplomatic letters, business and wedding contracts, manumission of slaves, property deeds, even accounting sheets. These documents were unearthed from the late 19th  through the early 20th century and they made their way into different libraries and museums around the world. A substantial collection of these documents is also kept in the Brooklyn museum. All these documents are collectively know as Elephantine Papyri and they offer an invaluable insight into the economic, legal and political life of people in Persian Egypt (around 400 BCE).
            Now, several diplomatic letters are about a Jewish temple in Elephantine and one letter requests from the Persian administrators a permission for the reconstruction of a Jewish temple of YHW (which is a variant spelling of YHWH) in Elephantine. The letters show that the original temple had stood in Elephantine for generations before it was destroyed by priests of the Egyptian god Khnum.
            We do not know whether the Elephantine Jewish temple was ever rebuilt, probably not. But regardless of the outcome, these documents attest to an active Jewish temple in South Egypt as late as the Persian period. And that is something you might not know about Biblical Judaism.
            This is actually quite a big deal because this Egyptian Jewish temple must had been in flagrant violation of the Biblical rules. Yet, the letters between Elephantine and Jewish authorities seemed supportive, collegial and harmonious. One explanation might be that the biblical rules about the centralization of the Jewish cult to Jerusalem were not enforced. A more radical alternative is that these centralization rules were not in place at that time and the book of Deuteronomy was not codified or even not yet written.

And this broad unorthodox fluency of Jewish religion as late as the Persian period goes even further. An Elephantine papyrus mentions an oath-making in front of a divine couple Anat - YHW. YHW is a version of YHWH and Anat is a well documented Canaanite goddess. In the Ugaritic myths she is a passionate and violent partner of god Baal. Clearly, among at least some of the Jews in Elephantine Anat was a partner, a consort of YHWH. And that is another thing you might not know about Biblical Judaism. 


Why am I bothering you with this old dry scholarship? Because the more we know about our faith tradition, the better we can understand its broadness and better we can resist the dogmatic fundamentalism around us. The biblical testimony had been clearly just a narrow sliver of the real religious life and must be taken with respect but also with some latitude (just as it was clearly done by the ancient people).  

And here is a letter from Elephantine Jewish leader Yedoniah requesting permission to rebuild the Temple.