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Good morning bus riders!
I hope everyone on the mailing list received the email with the link to the lectionary page for today; and, I hope everyone got to read all the readings for today. There are six again.
Remember, if you go to an Episcopal Church on a Sunday, you will maybe hear one thing explained, even though they read aloud an Old Testament, an Epistle, and a Gospel selection, along with one Psalm. Here, I make a point of talking about how they all interconnect.
So, with that said, let’s get started!
In the past, I have said there is a thread of theme that links all the readings and songs together, with some Sundays finding the thread being so thin it is hard to see at first. Today is not like that. Today there is a cable running through all the readings.
A cable is an intertwined set of threads; and, today there are four wrapped together, with the biggest of those being a theme of widows. Wound around that is the theme of famine, which is a statement of a drought of spiritual food that is brought on by those who break Yahweh’s Covenant. This is then wound by a focus on the number two, which always reflects on the duality of life. Finally, there is a thin theme of material possessions.
In the Hebrews reading, it is harder to see most of these themes, but they are there. As it is with the writings of the Epistles, the words need to be held up to the light to see all the colors they hold shining outward. Their threads need that light shone on them often.
In the reading from Ruth, it needs to be remembered that both Naomi and Ruth are widows who lost their husbands. Last Sunday we read Naomi say she was too old to find a new husband, because she was too old to have more children. She freed Ruth and Orpah because they were young enough to have children, thus able to find new husbands.
Today, we read of Naomi’s plan in that regard. Her plan is to have Ruth marry Boaz, who is the brother of Naomi’s deceased husband, Elimelech. That plan is to have Boaz buy back everything Elimelech had sold in Bethlehem, before leaving Judah for Moab, where he died.
In between the chapter three and chapter four words read officially in the lectionary is a story that needs to be viewed in the light of truth, which relates to the famine theme, as well as theme of material possessions.
Last Sunday we read about the famine causing Elimelech and family to move. By learning now of Boaz, this says Elimelech sold everything and left his family behind. That would means Boaz did not leave. That means Elimelech took Naomi and his sons to Moab more because of the waywardness of his family and other Israelites, because during the time of judges, no one had been sent by Yahweh to correct their wicked ways.
In the between story, Boaz says he must buy back Elimelech’s property in order to become a kinsman-redeemer of Elimelech’s widow Naomi. By marrying Ruth, Naomi’s adoptive daughter, who was her son Mahlon’s widow, Boaz would redeem Naomi through the buy-back and marriage to Ruth. This is because a widow had no rights to material possessions; she had to become the responsibility of a kinsman.
While that might seem like a simple thing to do, it was tricky, because a council of elders were required to approve the sale of Elimelech’s former possessions. Additionally, to redeem Elimelech’s estate, Boaz would have to publicly disavow any claims he might have on his (and Elimelech’s) father’s estate (who might have still be living at that time).
The unseen part of this story is then how such a gathering, before Elimelech sold everything and moved, would have been a gathering of men who took advantage of widows. That council of elders – during the time of judges, when Israel was wayward and in spiritual famine – would have decided selfishly, not justly.
This is why Naomi told Ruth, “We’ll wait and see if you get to marry Boaz.” She knew from personal experience that evil men have a difficult time not acting in evil ways.
Because Boaz and Ruth were able to get married, that says the spiritual famine in Bethlehem of Judah was over. It says a judge had arrived; and, that meant forty years of maintaining the Covenant to Yahweh.
The marriage redeemed Naomi and made Ruth a wife again. She conceived and had a baby, who she named Obed, meaning Servant or Slave. Naomi took the boy and nursed him, which means she taught him to love Yahweh with all his heart, all his soul, and all his strength. That is the symbolism of two, where it reflects upon marriage.
Psalm 127, surprisingly, is not a song of David. Instead, it is a song of Solomon. The theme verse then says, “Unless Yahweh builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it.”
In that, the word “house” should be read in the broad sense of family. The family of Elimelech was a house, which had been torn apart when he sold his possessions and left town. The name Elimelech means “God Is My King,” with the “eli” part meaning “my god,” with “el” meaning one who is the hand of Yahweh on the earth, as one of His “elohim.”
This makes the body of flesh that was Elimelech be a tabernacle unto Yahweh, which was totally submissive to Yahweh. When times turned slack, Elimelech could not remain part of a house in disrepair. He sold and left.
Solomon is saying Elimelech knew Judah was not truly a “house built by Yahweh,” but Elimelech himself was. To stay in Bethlehem would have been in vain, when spiritual famine was all about.
The end of Psalm 127 then turns to the “arrows” of a “blessed man,” which are his children that have been taught to keep watch for evil ways and shoot them down before they enter the “house built by Yahweh.” The birth of Obed was such an “arrow,” and Naomi taking Obed to her bosom means she was building his flesh to become a “house built by Yahweh” also, just like his grandfather Elimelech.
By intuiting Psalm 127 was written by Solomon, who turned away from Yahweh to build the house of Israel to worship his goddess Wisdom, we see the lineage told in Ruth – where Obed would bring forth Jesse, who would bring forth David – two generations of maintaining the Covenant of marriage to Yahweh led to more times of spiritual famine, when the elders would ask Samuel to appoint them a king. That king would be Saul, who reigned for forty-two years (1 Samuel 13:1).
Saul’s rule led to spiritual famine across the land. When David became king, he ruled for forty years. That was when the spiritual maintenance of the Covenant was returned. In that way, David was the last judge of Israel.
Solomon became another Saul; in the sense his house was not built by Yahweh. Therefore, after Solomon ruled for forty years, when great wealth was found, at the expense of spiritual famine, Israel and Judah split and no more judges were sent to return the people from waywardness.
This state of spiritual famine is then shown in the story of First Kings, when Yahweh sent Elijah to Zarephath, where a widow woman would provide for him.
Raise your hand if you know what “Zarephath” means.
<Look for hands being sat upon.>
It means “Blast Furnace” or “Workshop For Smelting And Refining Metals.”
Knowing of the wealth of Israel under King Solomon, many have determined that had to be some underground source of his wealth – such as there had to have been mines from which precious metals were taken. That ore would need to be taken to a blast furnace or a place of smelting, where raw materials would be refined to pure metals, such as that coins would be minted.
The symbolism of Yahweh sending Elijah to a place where ores were refined, during a drought and famine, needs to be seen as symbolic of where the focus of the people was on material values, not on spiritual values.
When Elijah reach Zarephath, he sees a widow woman “gathering sticks” to make a fire. When we read her tell Elijah, “I am now gathering a couple of sticks,” the reality of the Hebrew has her clearly say, “two sticks.”
This needs to be seen as metaphor for the dead branches that had been the living tree of Yahweh and the Israelite people, which became Israel and Judah. They had become two dead branches; and, we hear Jesus say the dead branches are pruned and thrown into the first. That is symbolism using the “two” of marriage. Those marriages were dead.
To have those dead branches have some value whatsoever, they would be used to make a fire to heat an over, to make one last meal of spiritual bread for a widow woman and her son.
Here, the symbolism of two is repeated in the flour and the oil, in the jar and the jug, and in the widow and her son. All of these reflect on the “two” that do the work of maintaining a divine marriage.
The flour is the soul and the oil is the Spirit. The jar is the body of flesh and the jug is the presence of Yahweh. The widow is a soul whose husband was a religion, which has died and left a wife without any means of sustenance from Yahweh. The son is the child – the arrow of Solomon – who is too weak to stand and fight against those who worship ore taken from the ground more than Yahweh.
When Elijah told the widow woman, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son,” this needs to be seen as his having been sent to be her kinsman-redeemer, just as Boaz had become for Naomi.
This says her spiritual bread was all she had left of value, during times when the rulers of the land were totally focused on material gains for themselves. By having a young son, not old enough (nor strong enough) to carry the load of a family, the widow’s husband had been like Elimelech and died because of evil ways.
When we read, “For thus says the Lord the God of Israel,” this translation must be restored to the truth, where the Hebrew has this say, “For thus says Yahweh elohe of Israel,” with that meaning Elijah was the elohe Who Retained Yahweh as one of His angels in the flesh (an elohim).
We know this because Yahweh never spoke the words that say what Elijah said: “the jar of flour shall not be used up and the jug of oil shall not run dry.”
This becomes Elijah as the hand of Yahweh coming to redeem the faithful, as a servant of Yahweh who went where he was sent. The widow woman recognized Elijah as a holy man, saying to him, “lives Yahweh you are one of His gods in the flesh.” Her soul knew Elijah was her kinsman redeemer, sent to save her from the lack of faith that was choking the life out of the Israelite people.
This reading from First Kings is then accompanied by Psalm 146, which we discussed last Sunday. Then it accompanied the Ruth reading; and, we saw how it addressed the “the orphan and widow.”
In that same verse, David sang that “the way of the wicked” will be frustrated. That becomes a prophecy of the times of Ahab and Jezebel, which was when Israel – the Northern Kingdom – was in a severe spiritual drought.
The way of the wicked is to become dead branches that get thrown into the fire.
The key term used in Psalm 146, which both begin and end this song of praise is “Hallelujah!” That is Hebrew that says “Praise Yah!,” with “Yah” being short for “Yahweh.”
David sang, “Praise Yahweh oh my soul, I will praise Yahweh as long as I live.”
That says Yahweh with one’s soul means A.) divine marriage; and, B.) eternal life comes to a soul through that union.
David sang a song about this divine marriage; and, it is the accompanying Psalm to multiple Old Testament readings. It accompanied Ruth and Naomi as widows in love with Yahweh; and, it accompanies Elijah and the widow woman. All praised Yahweh!
This song is also very relative to the spiritual famine that was so prevalent. Associated with that, David sang, “Put not your trust in nobility, nor in any son of man, for there is no help in them. Departs, his breath of life returns to his earth, and on that day his plans perish.”
That sings of the reincarnation of souls that waste their time in the flesh seeking material gains – which come from the earth, like ores mined. It is the “nobility” or the “rulers” who seek such underground harvests, as the expense of the people in submission to their will.
David called them each a “son of man,” which is not the same as a son of Yahweh. In the Old Testament, when the language used no capital letters, as “son of Yahweh is written, “Yahweh elohim.”
Anything less than Yahweh a soul should not be sold for. Those who serve the nobility are then those who do little work and make huge profits off the people.
David then also sang, “[Yahweh] gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. Yahweh sets the prisoners free; Yahweh opens the eyes of the blind; Yahweh lifts up those who are bowed down; Yahweh loves the righteous; Yahweh cares for the stranger.
The repetition of “Yahweh” – although the translation found says “the Lord” each time – names the Husband of all souls who find relief sent to them by Yahweh – not some generic “lord.”
Those who do not know Yahweh through divine marriage are then the ones who cause “oppression, hunger, enslavement to laws and doctrines loaded upon Yahweh’s wives. That is due to the blindness to the truth of Scripture their scribes have, who suffer from the fatigue of worshiping false idols, who follow in the ways of wickedness, and who outcast those who are not like them.
This sung by David mirrors the ways of famine in the times of Elijah, as well as the times after the fall of both “sticks,” when Jesus was sent like Elijah to the widows of Judea and Galilee. That famine lingered during the times of Paul’s imprisonment.
David sang of two types of people – those who praised Yahweh with all their souls, alive with His Spirit; and, those who denied Yahweh, breaking every covenantal agreement, serving sons of man and worshiping the material harvests of the earth.
This is the way to look at what Paul wrote in the ninth chapter of his letters in Hebrew.
The translation of these five verses is poor. The word translated as “sanctuaries” gives the impression of a place, like when Solomon wrote “Unless Yahweh builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it.” It projects the image of the Temple or a mega-church; and, that is not what is written.
Paul wrote this verse about the “Christ,” which is a statement of an Anointed one of Yahweh. Yahweh does “not enter into” things “made by human hands.”
In the Ruth reading, we read of the union between Boaz and Ruth creating a son, which was named Obed. That baby was “not made by human hands.” It was the guided development created by the hand of Yahweh. Thus, human flesh is not made by human beings; and flesh cannot find life without a soul being breathed into it by Yahweh.
A soul is not made by human hands; but a soul in a body of flesh is not a Christ.”
The capitalized word “Christ” means a soul “Anointed” by the Spirit of Yahweh. Thus, Paul was writing about the divine marriage of souls, which makes one – like David – be a Christ, where Yahweh Spirit pours out upon one’s soul.
One cannot make one be a Christ “by human hands.” That means going to a seminary will make one a manmade priest; but if one only has a soul in a body of flesh, one is not a Christ.
That is the theme of two being stated discretely. An Apostle is a soul in a body of flesh that marries Yahweh, becoming a Yahweh elohim, like Elimelech, Boaz and Naomi, like Elijah and the widow woman, and like Paul.
Then, after becoming divinely married, the wife soul of Yahweh get pregnant with His Son, Jesus. Jesus is then the high priest that keeps on coming, unlike a high priest who enters a building made by the hands of men, which might be called “sacred,” as a “sanctuary,” but Yahweh’s Spirit does not bless physical buildings.
The aspect of Paul pointing out that mortals only die once, applies to every human ever made by the hand of Yahweh, given His breath of life – a soul. Jesus of Nazareth only died once. That one time death was known to happen when he was born. He knew when the time would be for him to die that one time.
Jesus of Nazareth, born of a woman in Bethlehem is not going to come back as Jesus of Nazareth. One time as Jesus of Nazareth is what Paul meant.
When Paul wrote of Jesus (as the “Christ”), saying “will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him,” that means Jesus appeared “subsequently” in those who would be his Apostles and Saints.
The number two is here stated as the marriage of one’s soul with the Son of Yahweh’s soul, so “two” souls possess one body of flesh … which will die only one time.
Paul saying this divine possession is “to save those who eagerly await him” says those souls want to be promised eternal life. Their marriage to Yahweh comes with the expectation to have a child in that marriage, with that child being Jesus reborn. Those souls eagerly await having a twin … a brother … who will guide their bodies of flesh to live righteously and to enter ministry as Jesus again in the flesh … just not known to be from Nazareth.
The “high priests” who “enters the places set aside as God’s year after year with blood that is not his own,” those are the mortals that die only one time, just like all the animals, whose blood they spill in sacrifices. Because they do not spill their own blood, through the self-sacrifice of total submission to Yahweh … to become His wives … they will never know the presence of Jesus within their bodies of flesh, making their human blood his own.
They do not make those self-sacrifices because they enjoy all the benefits of the material realm. The sell their souls to Satan for a moment of preferential treatment for a number of years; and, then they experience their one time to die, which is followed by judgment and a return to the worldly plane … to who knows where?
This leads to the Gospel reading, where Mark recalled Jesus saying, “Beware the scribes.” The scribes must be seen as those who train the high priests and the priests who perform animal sacrifices. They know procedure; but they do not have a clue why anything is done.
When Mark wrote that Jesus said, “They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers,” the reality is Mark wrote the Greek word that means “pretext” or “excuse,” rather than “for the sake of.” This said the cost to widows for being welcomed into the Temple of Jerusalem and the synagogues of Galilee and Judea was everything they owned. The “excuse” for such theft was a scribe’s ability to orate long and loudly.
This becomes the symbolism of the spiritual famine that existed in Judah, which drove Elimelech to sell everything her possessed to leave. It is the poor widow woman searching for dead limbs to burn, because the interpreters of Mosaic Law decided a woman whose husband had died, without a surviving son, who would not be taken by her dead husband’s brother, deserved to be treated as persona non grata.
The “long prayers” were the legalese of contractual law, where only lawyers understand it fully; but nobody in his or her right mind want to listen to (much less read). Thus, they were not praying to Yahweh in those orations. They were slapping themselves on the back for another “house” taken by the hands of scribes or lawyers.
Jesus then added that Yahweh hears those “prayers” and the scribes will be the ones suffering when it becomes their time to be mortals who only die once.
To make his point, Jesus took his disciples to a place away from the hustle and bustle of the Temple court, so he could teach his students the truth of what he had just warned them to beware. He had them observe all the contributors to the treasury boxes. The rich Jews made sure they let everyone see how much they were putting in. They were posturing for the scribes, because they wanted their favors later.
A poor widow woman was known by the way she was dressed. She had been left with no money to buy new clothes or repair the ones she still owned. She had been preyed upon by the scribes. Most likely she was just one of the many who made a obligatory donation, so she could be accepted in the Temple.
Jesus pointed out she placed two copper coins, which were the least denomination of coins minted. Jesus said she put in all the coins she possessed.
The number two is a reflection on the two sticks the widow women Elijah saw gathered. The two coins is metaphor for how much the dead limbs of Judaism were worth. That number symbolized the marriage of the rulers of Jerusalem to the Mammon gods that produced the metals from which those coins were minted.
This must be seen as at the root of the saying, “put your two cents worth in.” That saying is defined as being able to express your opinion. However, a two cent opinion means it is worthless.
Unlike the long prayers orated by the scribes, as a pretext of taking the widows’ most valuable assets, their complaints were only worthless opinions that had no effect on changing anything.
This means the widow woman gave an amount that was a silent prayer to Yahweh, which was the same as the widow woman’s in the Elijah story. Their prayers are heard and acted upon. Elijah was sent to rescue the widow woman and her son because she had offered her two cent prayer for help.
The reward the scribes could expect from Yahweh, after long prayers netted them financial windfall in the material realm, would be Yahweh telling their souls, “You expressed your opinions on earth and reaped material gains. Now, your opinions are worthless, as your soul has been stripped of all assets.”
I see the bus is pulling in now; so, I will end here.
I hope everyone thinks about these themes presented today, during the week ahead.
I look forward to meeting again next Sunday.
Amen