Status Updates From Reading the Bible with the ...

Another great ch., right up w/ the previous one. So much of this book has been so good that I hate to have to call out 1 major detail, which I imagine/hope gets called out in reviews: in an anecdote here, Ekblad insists on some struggling addicts accepting Communion wine as Christ's blood. Terrible. As a recovering addict, I hate this. E. seems to respect tradition & many churches say 1 element, e.g. bread, suffices.

"Even pastor Feliciano is living under the shadow of the dominant theology, which views God as cosmic Border Patrol chief and church as his deputies. I lament his correct perception that the mainstream church, much like the scribes and the Pharisees of Jesus' time, takes the side of state and the law, rather than that of the people and God's kingdom"–p.182

"Reading Jesus as a coyote who brings us into God's reign against the law at no charge, or presenting baptism as making us all equally "wetback" strangers and aliens, are understandings coming directly out of years of working with undocumented immigrants struggling with the constant reality of possible deportation." — p. 180

Sect. "Why Did Jesus Have to Die? Suffering, Election & the Atonement". Ekblad's reading of the ending of Matt, starting w/ J announcing his eventual death & the sons of Zebedee asking to sit at his right hand in his kingdom, ties the text together well. I hadn't thought that Jesus instilling the Lord's Supper was "the cup" they had to drink. D Blue also handles this text well in ch "The Cock", "Consider the Birds".

Best ch yet?

A provocative question Ekblad poses to his drug-using fellow bible students:

"Is it possible that Jesus' answer might sound something like this," I ask: "'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, "Give me some cocaine," you would have asked him, and he would have given you living cocaine'?"
–p. 167

Ch 7, Praying the Psalms. As a divinity student who had apostatized (clearly reengaging faith willingly now), I did Not memorize a ps as required before a Ps course & lied & said I hadn't b/c "the Pss are scary", i.e., emotionally raw. But Ekblad shows I wasn't wrong! He even cautions how one engages imprecatory ps.s lest they feed hatred. For Ekblad, the Pss hold a complex emotional register, anthropology, & ecology