Two Targums of Love

The photo above is from the ‘Commons’ free images of the Celsus Library 117 AD in ancient Ephesus, a gift of love to honour his late father, Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, Roman Senator of the Province of Asia, from his son Gaius Julius Aquila.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Celsus

Targum:

It was probably the Apostle Paul who writes the book of Ephesians in 70-80 AD as a beautiful Hebrew style poem about how God has chosen to bless his covenant people.  In Jesus, Messiah, now everyone can join that family and find that grace.

After the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem twice in 597 BC and again in 70 AD and the subsequent exile of the Israelites, rabbis had to translate the texts of the Jewish Scriptures as they read.  Few understood Hebrew then.  The rabbis also updated the text into current contemporary idioms and contexts.  These non-literal translations were called targums.

Below are my two different attempts to follow this practice using a text from Ephesians 3 on God’s love – to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day week.  The first one is my wild artist effort to be outside of the box after watching the 61^stGrammy Awards, the second, a calmer version for the more studious among us.  Which do you prefer?

Targum #1

Whether God is a black woman like in “The Shack”

Or Jesus of Nazareth, the embodiment of

Old Testament wisdom literature

God is real and willing to give a course,

A whole series of courses in real practical

Wisdom, in fact the cosmic wisdom God wants us

To have is a new wave of wisdom programs

That permeate universities, corporations, hospitals

Care homes, the prison system and immigration

God not only provides a Tutor, the Spirit

But will program our software

Powered by the user’s faith

To end up with an A+ doctorate degree

In powerful world leaders and spiritual

Gurus and demons destroying type

Of Matrix surprising power

We have a personal Benefactor

A Patron who has paid for us to

Achieve success

All we have to do is register

And stick with the program

Out of love for our Handmaker

In these individualized 2.0 programs

For kindness ME to WE work

We can contact the Handmaker’s

Helpdesk 24/7

We do not work alone

A state-of-the-art studio

Awaits us each day with regular

Field trips offered and practicums

Provided for real-life hands-on

Career impressive callings

The work is messy, filled with chemicals

And hot and cold suffering, crying

Masks, gloves are provided

In metanarrative wisdom

The Handmaker gives us free reign

To create landscapes and portraits

Sculptures and installations

That show Whose love-rooted and

Love-conquering

Program we are in

In fact, in the Wisdom art school

We find ourselves, by faith beloved

Becoming

The painting, the Hand-pulled

Original print

The sculptures ourselves

The handmade Spirit-living art

Donated to gallery visitors

Installed in the Grand Grammy Awards

Art Show.

 

Targum #2

11. God did this as part of his forever plan. Thank you to Jesus for this in all he did on the Cross.
12. As a result, Jesus allows us the chutzpah to come closer to God trusting.
13. Please do not be down when you see me having a hard time on your behalf. Others will see and give you perks.
14. I fold my body before Abba.
15. The One whose vast array of creatures owe him life.
16. God is awesome and magnificent. I offer you to God for powerful modelling.
17. And so Christ will hang out with you and in you trust. Stay there grounded in deep affection and don’t run off.
18. I lay you and all Jesus mentees in his imagination to see the great dimensions of this affection.
19. This care is actually immeasurable in its excellence and scope. Then all that you are will be God-coloured.
20. I ask God to make our New Covenant community do God justice in word and deed fulfilling God’s blueprint for humanity and showing the very nature of God to all.
21. God is capable of doing in us more than we can request of dream up. May it be so.

 

 

 

 

 

The Most Unpopular Topic Ever

 

” Burning Hearts” Acrylic on Gallery Canvas DS

The Spirituality of Sin

Luckily I will keep it short if not sweet! (Oops, not short either.)

Sin is a bad word now. It is worse than all of the other bad words of swearing, cussing, foul language or whatever the term of the hour. The word ‘sin’ is so bad it is unmentionable. You will never hear it pass anyone’s lips, of any age, young or old – perhaps not even in a sermon if you hear one.

The Book of Romans says: “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” All – wow. Surely some of us are good. Sin in the Greek means ‘to miss the mark of perfection’. “Well”, we say, “no one is perfect.” Yet the Book of Romans continues: “The wages of sin is death.” Surely not really, we think.

What to do, what to do, we worry. Indeed, what is there that we can do, even if we wanted to? Sometimes life is like that. We get stuck. We become trapped. Like the web of addiction and denial, are our myriad failed ways to cope, to be free of pain. We need help from the outside – an intervention, of sorts – actually on a cosmic scale. Also like the person addicted to drugs, alcohol, sugar, porn or unhealthy relationships, we must say: “I need help.” and, “I need an interventionist.”

Through the love of society, community, family, we enter detox and treatment, then recovery of a life of freedom from addiction is possible. Through the sacrificial love of God sending his Son Jesus, we can be delivered from sin. We cannot do it ourselves but we can choose help. We look up and heaven sends deliverance.

The Spirit cleans, fills us and teaches us the things of Jesus. It is instant detox. Yet we must enter treatment – a public declaration that we need help and are surrendering to it. Some treatment facilities provide 30 days, some 90 days; some are entered for a year or more. Yet the wise person knows he/she must be in active recovery for a lifetime.

So it is with entering the Kingdom of God. This is the true Easter story. In baptism we symbolize dying with Christ and rising with him to become a new creature. Discipleship, mentorship, the contemplative life, the spiritual journey, the Way, are each labels for this lifetime process of learning to live a new life.

In a community of like people, the church, as members of AA do, support one another, socialize together and pass on the message to those still living in bondage to addiction or sin. We can live clean, free lives, trusting in the power of God. God’s love sustains us. What is it the AA big book says – We admitted we were powerless and became willing for a power greater than ourselves to restore us?

They say that addiction is a disease marked with relapse. As we learn to walk the new road we find ‘good Samaritans’ along the way to companion us. No one chooses to walk the Camino de Santiago alone. A life of pilgrimage is always walked in community even if there are periods of being hermits together like some of the Desert Mothers and Fathers of the 4^th century. Even they would leave their cells and meet several times a year.

Sin; missing the mark – what is the mark we are missing anyway? The mark, I proffer, is the sign of the cross and a person living in peace with one’s Maker. This true peace is it the de facto opposite of sin? Life in the Beloved may be a life of continuing freedom to forgive, to love – even the seemingly unforgivable and unlovable. We are not puppets, we choose. We are persons made in the image of God.

Yet, as the newcomer to AA discovers, I relapse. I regress at times. I fail to pray, to forgive, to love, to be humble, to be a maker. Also true is that I now know how to be high on life – to sing and to dance, to have fun meaningful conversations, to smell flowers, to see a newborn child or view my completed painting. I find myself pondering the greatest high of all – Is it not to taste the very sinless, perfect, presence of God and to be the very person we are made to be, to love as we are loved? Once experienced can we be happy with lesser freedoms?

 

That same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. 

Book of Luke