Category: Uncategorized

The Foremothers of Christ: Redeeming Bathsheba

July 12th, 2025

Introduction

In case you were unaware, there are four women listed in the genealogy of Christ in the beginning of Matthew: Tamar (Gen 38), Rahab (Josh 2), Ruth, and “the wife of Uriah,” or Bathsheba. The story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11-12 is often read as a major condemnation of David’s character, and Bathsheba is harshly castigated for her actions, upheld as a negative example.

The older, evangelical tradition can often blame Bathsheba for “causing” David to “fall” into adultery, never mind the reality that adults are all responsible for their actions and choices. But if we read the text of Samuel closely, David is never characterized as a perfect human. Far from it, for he is a womanizer, brash, boastful. This interpretation of misplaced blame is severely lacking, and fundamentally misogynistic.

However, there has been a turn in scholarship in recent years, especially following the #MeToo movement, which has sought to amplify and center the voices of victims, which interprets the tale of David and Bathsheba of one that is nought but of terror, rape, and a straightforward abuse of power. I, however, am going to argue that this more recent position is an over-correction and an imposition of a modern-day world view.

Rather than empowering women, this interpretation places an unnecessary strain on a text that does not ultimately wish to warn us against an abuse of power. There is enough terror and sexual abuse in the Hebrew Bible, and there is no need to utilize David as an example of an abuse of power, particularly when there are so many other clearer instances of this elsewhere. Not to mention that such texts are outright depressing, and can be triggering to hear discussed ad nauseum, especially by scholars who can get lost in the theoretical and forget about real life.

Finally, regarding Bathsheba’s “fault,” the very points of contention for which Bathsheba is excoriated in commentaries can in fact be used rather as a credit to her character and cleverness—just as it is with all the women who are mentioned in Christ’s genealogy. (All translations below are my own.)

Assault and Terror in the Hebrew Bible

In 2 Samuel, the pericope of David and Bathsheba is conspicuously silent on the relations between them. In contrast to this, there are two other cases in which women are raped, one being Dinah, the daughter of Jacob (Gen 34); the other being David’s own daughter Tamar, by his son Amnon (2 Sam 13). Both of these cases have in common a clear reaction of grief to the traumatization and cultural shaming of the women who were victimized.

In Genesis 34, although Dinah is not given a voice of her own, her brothers are “grieved and angry” (v. 7). Simeon and Levi act swiftly to avenge her by killing every male in the city of Shechem, “on the third day, when they were still hurting” (v. 25). In the case of the second biblical Tamar, after she is assaulted “she took ashes upon her head, and tore the long robes she was wearing, and lay a hand upon her head and went away, crying aloud” (v. 19). Only after two years is Absalom able to avenge her, her and he has his servants kill Amnon (2 Sam 13:23-29).

The only record we have of the sexual encounter between David and Bathsheba, on the other hand, is in 2 Sam 11:4: “And David sent messengers and fetched her, and she came to him, and he lay with her.” Although the word here I translated as “fetched” could alternately be translated as “seized,” or “took,” there is nothing in the context to suggest it was a violent taking of Bathsheba to bring her to David, nor does the ancient Greek translation use a violent word, but rather the common, neutral word meaning “to take.” I do not think it is simply because David is using his power for selfish ends that the text is lacking any sort of grief or indication of affliction or traumatization.

Redeeming Bathsheba

There are several details in the text which I would like to point out that have been used to denigrate Bathsheba, which I think can be instead interpreted in the general tradition of biblical women using their very limited means in a clever and cunning way in order to secure a future for themselves. If you are not familiar with the other three women, I highly recommend reading their stories with this in mind! The circumstances each of these women find themselves in are exceedingly difficult, and they take actions that could be seen as simply morally wrong.

However, rather than being used as an illustration of a bad example, these women, particularly by being mentioned in an otherwise male-only genealogy, are honored for their bravery and brains. Each of them finds themselves in a real life-or-death situation, without a man to properly care for them and ensure their health and flourishing. They take drastic measures in dire circumstances and in the end, through their shrewdness find themselves folded into the ancestry of Jesus Christ! There is nothing I can think of that would honor or praise these women more highly.

Bathsheba’s Home Life

The odds are stacked against our heroine. We know that she is the wife of Uriah, a mercenary soldier who comes from the Neo-Hittites, a people skilled in warfare originating in northern Syria and southern Anatolia. (Wright, Jacob L., David, King of Israel and Caleb in Biblical Memory, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 82-83.) This is the only detail we have about her familial status—she is childless. In this society, women had no rights or property, and so were wholly dependent on both their husbands as well as any children they may have, particularly the firstborn sons, if they were so fortunate as to have a son.

Immediately this sets the tension for the scene—a woman married to a professional soldier knows that she must take swift and decisive action in order to preserve her life and wellbeing. Her only option following her husband’s imminent death would be starvation or prostitution. The next detail we learn about Uriah’s character is that he is so set on making a name for himself in battle that he entirely abdicates his responsibility to care for his wife (1 Sam 11:13). When invited to dine with the king back at the palace, he refuses to “go down” to be reunited with her. This sort of decision stands in shocking contrast to the overall ethos of the Hebrew Bible, which emphasizes over and again the importance of progeny and the continuation of the people, and therefore the faith. Bathsheba instead decides for bravery and self-preservation, and in the process, stakes out an everlasting legacy.

The Character of David

David, we know, is a womanizer. His first wife is a woman named Michal; later he marries Abigail; then he has Bathsheba. Bathsheba knows this about the king, and if I may be so bold, she also knows she is a babe. Although Bathsheba is often portrayed as bathing on the roof of her house in verses 2 and 4, this blatant public exposure is not entirely necessary. David spots her while he is taking a walk along the roof of “the king’s house,” or palace, seeing that she is “exceedingly beautiful” (v. 2). My room where I currently live has high ceilings, and when I am up on my bed in my loft, I can easily glance across the street and see directly into the rooms of my neighbors—all their furniture, whether they’re eating or laying on their beds watching Netflix, whatever it is.

Bathsheba would not need to be on her own roof bathing—this is an absurd notion, and because she is performing ritual bathing following her menstrual cycle, this indicates to us that she is a devout woman, and no harlot. (Although another one of the women in Jesus’ genealogy is also a harlot, and another one gained a son through “harlotry,” so the line of what is morally acceptable is not exactly black and white in these circumstances.) Bathsheba could simply have waited until the afternoon sun was beaming into her house, left the curtains slightly parted, and performed her ablutions from the [relative] privacy of her own home. The trap is set.

Ritual Purification after Menstruation

The next important detail in this story is in verse four, given in the NRSV as a parenthetical statement—she was purifying herself after her period. This is outlined in Leviticus 15:28-30—a woman is to wait a full seven days after the last day of her menstrual cycle before she is allowed to rejoin normal life and activities in her home, but only after a ritual bath in a mikvah. The average menstrual cycle takes around 28 days: day one begins on the first day of bleeding, which lasts for 3-5 days; ovulation occurs around day fourteen, and the fertile window lasts several days. The simple math places Bathsheba right at peak fertility in her monthly cycle.

One commentator in a classical exegetical source notes that this window of time was widely known in the ancient world as the most fertile period for a woman. (Smith, Henry Preserved. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel, International Critical Commentary (New York: Scribner, 1899), 318.) Therefore this would have been common knowledge, particularly to the childless Bathsheba, and she seizes her opportunity in a timely manner. In the following verse she sends to inform David that she has, unsurprisingly after their union, become pregnant.

Bathsheba Immortalized

I do not necessarily see an abuse of power here, or really that David has any particularly great power in this situation. It is easy, as we know, for any male to forcibly grab a woman and assault her—David does not need servants to do this dirty work for him, especially considering how strong and mighty he is. 1 Samuel 17:33 names him “a man of war from his youth,” in the same pericope where he slays Goliath, we learn that he also has killed multiple lions and bears to protect the flocks of his father.

Bathsheba knew that she as a childless woman was about to become destitute and homeless as a widow, and acts to find a way to save her own life. The child that results from of her union with David of course dies in infancy (vv. 15b-23), which I personally see as a mercy to the child. It was an illicit and shameful situation, to be sure, and that child would have been marked for life as the child that resulted in the cold murder of his mother’s first husband, a bastard.

The second child to be born of David and Bathsheba is none other than the son who would become king and build the tabernacle to Yhwh—we now know him as King Solomon, to whom is accredited nearly all the wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible canon. Strictly speaking in terms of the welfare of Bathsheba, her tale is something of an R-rated film with a fairy tale ending. She lives the rest of her days in the palace, becoming the Queen Mother. When framed in this way, one could definitely say—good for her, I am happy for her. Snap in a Z-formation. Call her an empowered woman.

And to speak in more Christian terms, what we see here is the grace of God made manifest in the lives of both David and Bathsheba, taking the imperfect decisions they made and redeeming them far beyond what either of the could have imagined. The choices that both these two people made had eternal repercussions.
True Fasting: An Apologia

February 26th, 2023

I have had a handful of conversations about fasting lately, coincidentally falling around the time of Lent. If you know me very well, you’ll know that this is a topic I love discussing, because of how much it transformed my life. For the last five years, fasting has also been the focus of my academic research, and I am always thinking about it.

The point of contention I always encounter with people in conversations is the issue of fasting from social media. I would like to make an apologia (defense) of fasting as strictly a physical sacrifice of food, meaning that abstaining from social media, as beneficial as this is and can be, is not true fasting. First, we will look at how fasting was historically practiced, especially in the Christian tradition. Then, we will see how in Isaiah 58, the prophet condemns the religious hypocrisy he saw in Judah at the time. Finally, we will see why the physical sacrifice of food is so central to this practice.

What is true fasting?

Practically, fasting has been practiced by both Jews and Christians for at least around two thousand years. In Jesus’ day, Jews observed two fast days per week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Later on, Christians adopted this practice, but changed their fast days to Wednesdays and Fridays. There were also certain days in the liturgical calendar during which Jews were commanded to fast (like on Purim eve, or Yom Kippur, among other days). Lent is, of course, another season marked by fasting or abstention. Typically when Christians do fast, they will spend time in the Word and in prayer when they would normally be eating.

Jesus’ Instructions for Christian Piety

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us instructions for living a pious, or devoted life, saying, “When you pray…” When you give alms…” and “When you fast…” He contrasts the self-focused, performative ways in which people were doing these things with the better way to practice: without thought for what we gain, or how we are perceived. In modern day Evangelical practice, we tend to pray in our “prayer closets” and to give without being recognized for our generosity, although we likely wouldn’t observe fasting, regularly or otherwise.

In Eastern Orthodox tradition, which is incredibly strict around fasting, they follow Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 6 as a unified triad. They are told that on their regular fast days, whatever money they save on food should be given to the poor instead. It is a literal and direct observance of these instructions we have from Jesus, and almost surprising in its outward, community focus. We tend to think of fasting as an individual and private thing, not least of all because Jesus tells us not to broadcast that we are fasting. But our fasting is pointless if it does not in some way help me love my neighbor better, and benefit someone else other than myself.

Hypocritical Fasting

Beyond weekly fasting, in the Old Testament, sometimes it was used as a way to try and get God’s attention, to ask Him for mercy in suffering. Hannah does this in 1 Samuel 1 when she is desperate for a child, and God gives her a son in Samuel, the first prophet of Israel. David also does this in 2 Samuel 12, in an attempt to save his son’s life after conceiving illegitimately with Bathsheba. His plea is not answered in this instance. This kind of fasting is what is happening in Isaiah 58, in which God answers back to why their pleading fasts are unsuccessful. At the beginning of this chapter, God quotes the people of Judah:

“‘Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’” (58:3a).

God responds by saying,

“Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and suppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. …Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?” (vv. 3-4, 5b)

Following this, God corrects them by telling them they should pursue justice and to fight for the poor, oppressed, and marginalized:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (vv. 6-7)

The setting of this chapter takes place around the end of the 8th century or early 7th century BCE, after the nation of Israel has split in two: Israel in the north (who had already fallen to the Assyrians), and Judah in the south. Isaiah is in the Judean capital of Jerusalem, speaking to the nation of the imminent threat of invasion and destruction on the horizon. He warns them that if they do not return to God, their city will be destroyed. Of course we do know that Jerusalem did eventually fall, to the Babylonians, less than 150 years afterward, and the people of God were sent into exile.

In a manner not much different from today, the poor were being extorted and exploited in order to benefit a very few rich at the top. This is what the prophets time and again condemned, for we know this is not what God commanded for His people. He hates religious hypocrisy and performative piety. In continuation with the Old Testament prophetic tradition, just as in Matthew 6, we also see this in the words of Jesus in Matthew 9:13, where he quotes from Hosea: “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice; the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hos. 6:9)

Social Media “Fasting”

Having done a brief overview of how fasting was practiced historically by both Jews and Christians on a regular basis; how improper fasting was condemned in the Old Testament; and how different Christian traditions practice fasting still today, where do we place abstention from social media?

A simple reductio ad absurdum will make the matter clear: Jesus did not have a Facebook to delete from his phone; Moses did not have Instagram to abstain from; and Paul certainly did not spend his evenings scrolling on Twitter or TikTok. I use social media daily, and I am not calling it evil. Nor am I saying that abstaining from social media for a time is hypocritical, pointless, or self-serving. While there is much benefit in decreasing our time scrolling mindlessly, I maintain it is a shortsighted way to cultivate one of those time-honored spiritual disciplines, like prayer, fasting, scripture reading, and simply sitting still in God’s presence.

As we have seen in both the Old Testament and the New, true fasting must be sacrificial, and involve abstention from food. This sacrifice is just as legitimate whether it is as small as giving up chocolate or meat, or doing a full, water-only fast for a time. The cravings or hunger of the body must be a reminder to us throughout our fast of the sacrifice we have chosen to make, and why we have chosen to do so–and that is so that we see God’s will be done and his Kingdom come!

We are called to imitate Christ in his self-sacrificial love for us, and fasting can become a highly effective way to live out a cruciform life. Through this we willingly enter into the suffering of Christ, even on some small level, for its power to transform us more and more into His image. Therefore, while abstaining from social media is a useful auxiliary to our cultivation of spiritual disciplines, we cannot call it fasting. Be encouraged, this is a doable practice that can yield much fruit, even with the smallest of sacrifices.
Seeking Shalom Part II: Fasting & Flourishing

September 19th, 2022

When I was still living in Dublin I spent the last three years living in an area formerly known as Little Jerusalem, due to the once-thriving Jewish community who lived in the neighborhood. There are some rare Hebrew-origin streets names there which hint at this. I lived on a street called Reuben Avenue, and a stone’s throw away from my house was a Place called Rehoboth, which comes from Genesis 26:22, wherein Isaac finally finds a place to settle with his flocks and his family. Rehoboth essentially means “wide open spaces,” like that 90’s song from The Chicks!

He moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” Gen. 26:22

On the end of Rehoboth Place, there stands an enormous house that looks like it was built to be a multi-family dwelling. Rather, it was for one family in the 18th century who had twenty four (!!) children. They chose a place to live, then outside the city walls, where there were some good spring-fed wells, and they could have enough space for all their children; thus the name, and the large building.

Both this Irish family, and the family of Isaac, had to find a defined and definite place to settle down, in order to flourish. What is the connection between my exploration of weakness through fasting, and flourishing? I believe that it is to be found along our boundary lines.

Boundary Lines

A year ago I wrote about fasting and I made a claim that it should generate compassion through a recognition of our own weaknesses. “What fasting does is simultaneously heighten the threshold for personal suffering, and deepen a sense of compassion because of that suffering.” I have recently realized that I never backed up that claim, which is unscientific of me. Today I want to explore this claim a little bit, drawing from pastoral metaphors of boundary lines and wide open spaces.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage. Ps. 16:5-6

As we know from the first chapters of Genesis, each of us is like a cracked mirror–broken, weakened, flawed. Each of us has a lack, in one form or another. We each carry spiritual and therefore physical impoverishment, and to deny this about ourselves and the world would actually be an expression of that fallen state. Our brokenness should lead us back to God, without whom we cannot flourish. However, we are also finite beings, with other, normal–or even healthy–weaknesses, which delineate who we are and our abilities.

One of my now-favorite bible scholars I actually came across during the first lockdown while I was unemployed, and I reached out to him mid-2020 to thank him for how much his research had re-energized me as a scholar. (Ultimately our conversations and his guidance is what in fact led me to Germany this summer!) In my first email, I mentioned I was interested in researching fasting in the Hebrew Bible, and he responded that the isolation and low activity of the pandemic felt like a kind of fasting to him.

Although it was not technically fasting per se, many of us had the time to step away from our normal lives and to deeply examine our souls, to remind ourselves of what we truly value. We also faced our greatest fears around mortality and health, financial instability, and isolation. It was a painful denial of the goodness of social interaction for the greater good of others’ physical health and safety, as well as our own. It was a kind of vow of poverty which we all had to take.

Hangriness & Bad Habits

In one of my first posts about fasting, back in 2018, I talk about how fasting makes us hangry, in more ways than one: “There’s a deeper kind of agitated hunger that we uncover through fasting.” In my initial days cultivating this discipline, I used the physical hunger pangs I was feeling to redirect my mind toward my goal of uninterrupted time with Jesus, solely focused on Him and His Word. I became more able to tolerate the alarm signals in my body, and to train my being to understand that while I would be breaking my fast that evening, there was a greater good I was in pursuit of. This resulted, eventually, in control over my constant sugar cravings, among other transformations.

Initially I just saw this as a wonderful ascetic practice that was intended to bring about greater self-discipline and therefore Christlikeness. However, when I first began fasting, it was late 2016 and I had, for the second time, moved back from Dublin to live with my parents. I was 26 years old, living in a town where I had no friends, and the place just made me feel trapped, lifeless, and at times, hopeless that I would ever find my way back to Dublin to live there more permanently. So it makes sense that a sugar buzz temporarily dampened the depressed feeling I was living with. However, some of that hopelessness also stemmed from my fear that God would forget about me, and that He would not provide for me to return to Ireland. A spiritual wound, a sin-flaw, not to trust fully in God, and to take my own emotions as the truth.

Central here is that we often, or always, fail to see that “bad habits” are always somehow connected, especially our bodily habits, to deeper pain. If we don’t acknowledge the root cause, our spiritual impoverishment, then we will never be rid of the symptomatic bad habits that either niggle at or hound us daily. God wants deeper and deeper healing for us, but we have to have the bravery to choose it.

Boundary Lines

Let us return to the classic pastoral metaphor that I began with in Psalms. Each of us is allotted a wide open space, a pleasant and fertile land which is our lives, and it is our God-given responsibility, like Adam, or Isaac, to cultivate, nurture, and protect that land. If I am the landlady of my own life, and my silly sheep keep escaping through a broken fence in their pen, I must do the hard work of rebuilding that fence, ultimately to protect my livelihood. Then when the foxes come prowling around my perimeter at night, my sheep will no longer keep becoming someone else’s dinner.

How does this generate compassion, then, as I am claiming? Perhaps I know a younger or more inexperienced landowner who has broken fences that need mending, and they think buying border collie puppies will solve the problem, but it just doesn’t work. I could show my neighbor instead how to repair their fence. Or maybe I own a portion of forested land, and I can share timber for fencing, because my neighbor is poorer than I, and they are in need of wood. Awareness of our flaws should make us more compassionate toward the flaws we see in others, rather than antagonistic and full of blame and anger. I am no better than anyone else.

Put plainly, the goal of asceticism is to bear the fruit of righteousness, but that righteousness is not only of value in and of itself; it must be of benefit to others. This means mending fences, shoring up our weak places, and learning to flourish within our rehoboth.

Dwelling in Rehoboth

A further example from my time in Dublin: I initially thought that I loved youth ministry, but after seeing how exhausted and sick I became after one week of youth camp (two summers in a row!) once I returned to Dublin for my master’s, I stepped away from youth ministry to focus on young adult ministry, and especially, my studies. This is another kind of human weakness–a weakness at our limits, which actually indicates where our strength is. It makes sense that I would be plagued by awful sinus infection for a week or more after Pulse camp, because my body was constantly in fight-or-flight mode from overstimulation, lack of sleep, and physically pushing myself.

Our limits delineate who we are, which is why it is so important to know and fight for our boundaries. I am not responsible for guarding someone else’s cabbage patch; or if I try to pull slugs off someone’s tomatoes all day, then the rabbits will nibble away all my radishes, and my overgrown zucchini will choke out the onions, and all my ripe plums will fall to the ground, wasted.

How are my physical and mental limits also tied to my flawed sin nature? I can see now that my adrenaline-fueled time in youth ministry was actually driven by a wrong idea that I had to change my personality in order to fit in (and avoid rejection) as well as a sense of obligation to “perform” like a good missionary. That stemmed from my own previous wounds, insecurities, and dysfunctional ways of viewing the world. I didn’t respect my own limits, which is a sure path to burnout and spiritual barrenness. Once I started to respect those limits while doing my master’s, then I began to produce fruit that has led me to begin dreaming of a career as an academic and scholar.

Self-Compassion is Compassion

The cultivated pain and discipline of fasting (focused time in prayer and Bible-reading) clears our vision and gives perspective into our souls, illuminating the places where we need His healing. The time we spend reading the Bible, rather than eating, nourishes us with divine wisdom to then understand the shortcoming of others, and more broadly, the systemic dysfunction in our world. To willingly create a limit (i.e., I will fast once a week) can be perceived as weakness in a productivity-driven society. But it is within those boundary lines, on our fertile inner fields, that we can begin to flourish. That is God’s gift to us!

My responsibility–indeed, my calling– is to give that gift back to Him, through loving my neighbor as myself. If I am flourishing, then I can better serve others and find ways to help them flourish uniquely. I want to give out of a plentiful harvest. This includes the joyful responsibility of respecting my own limits and cherishing my unique strengths, but also the continued task of healing and ever-increasing in Christlike character and love. This, friends, is how we stay in pursuit of the shalom of the Kingdom, bringing heaven down to earth.
Seeking Shalom: Fasting, Weakness, and Generosity

September 29th, 2021

Introduction

For JW, with gratitude.

In my earlier posts on this blog, I have written about fasting as an ascetic practice, or a discipline. Much of my work on this, especially from the view of theology, was on the benefits that it offers us, improving our self-control, increasing our capacity for joy in the midst of suffering, and overall, helping us to flourish individually.

I believe that was short-sighted, and did not encompass the fullness of the message of the Bible, and in fact, I nearly missed it. Indeed, I believe I was instead informed more by a self-help approach, or what Baylor theologian and ethicist Matthew Lee Anderson would call a therapeutic approach to the practice. (You can read more of his thinking here on painkillers and caffeine, and or in his 2011 book Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith, which really shaped my thinking on this topic.) The last year or so has helped me to not only deepen my research on fasting, but also to broaden my perspective personally and theologically. The following will be a small sliver of what I have been thinking about lately.

First, I want to define the word shalom for us, or perhaps redefine it. Secondly, I will look at the role of humility and weakness in the fasting we see in the OT. Finally, I will connect those two ideas to show how fasting should generate compassion, and why this is so important.

Peace or Mutual Flourishing?

Shalom is broadly and most commonly defined as “peace,” but linguistically, and therefore theologically, it is much more than that. The way Hebrew works is that each word is built from a 3-letter root, made up of only consonants, thus in English we could transcribe this base word as sh-l-m (שׁלם). If we change the vowels according to certain rules, or add a prefix, we can also derive the words for “perfect” and “whole.” I am no expert (least not yet) in this realm called philology, but these literal meanings should inform the understanding of the word. Shalom is more than peace or simple tranquility; it is wholeness and well-being. In the context of the OT, it conveys the value of mutual flourishing, summarized by the command to love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18).

What has obsessed me about this topic is trying to understand why this practice is so powerful. Why is fasting efficacious? Why do I seem to at times find breakthrough when I have spent concentrated time in prayer and fasting, even though this is a normal, unremarkable, weekly practice for me? Do I really move God with my piety, or is it me that is moved instead?

Fasting in the Old Testament

The practice has its origins in the Ancient Near Eastern rites associated with mourning, which means wearing sackcloth and ashes, in addition to not eating. So many instances of fasting in the OT include some kind of mourning either for grief of loss; or anticipatory grief, when there is some threat on the horizon. It is a strong physical response to deeply disturbing events of life. Another important time when fasting was practiced in the Bible was on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This was part of how they were commanded to observe this holy day, so there is some connection between fasting and repentance.

So what’s the big deal?

Why deprive yourself of food? When one is grieving or suffering in some way, it is easy to not want to eat, so this is a natural, physiological response. But when it is practiced regularly, in a kind of ritual way–meaning that it is not a responsive act only–something special can happen, if we have the right mindset.

There is a lot going on here, in terms of social dynamics, that is not so obvious to us when we read the OT. This practice of fasting was probably always accompanied by some sort of physical, outward sign, like wearing sackcloth and throwing ashes on one’s head. This, by the way, is why Jesus tells His followers in Matthew 6 to essentially do away with the outwardness of fasting, and to let it be an inward, secret practice of piety that is for you and God alone.

I won’t bore you with the philological details or the minutiae, but what can be summarized as a common thread of fasting in the OT is humility, and by extension, weakness. The idiom in Hebrew used to sometimes refer to fasting can be literally translated as to “afflict oneself.” This has connotations of and connections to shame, humility, diminishment, self-abasement… basically to make oneself small and insignificant.

But are we truly making ourselves smaller than we actually are when we throw ashes upon our heads, whether literally or figuratively? Or is it based in a recognition of our smallness and relative insignificance? Why deprive ourselves of food when we can become “hangry” in just a number of hours? Why should we, essentially, lean into and actually increase our weakness, even if just for a day?

My Hebrew teacher said once that, anthropologically, fasting is a way to shame the deity into action. As a woman of faith, I doubt that we can move or influence God in some way, but we can attune our prayers to His will better when we decenter our selves by fasting.

I have become painfully aware lately of my weaknesses and my limits. Nowadays, the most normal things like grocery shopping and taking public transportation can result in huge upheavals of anxiety. Yesterday I was on the bus for one hour, and today I am utterly wiped out from the extra effort of keeping myself calm and distracted during that period.

Think about it this way. When I say weakness, it should not sound like a dirty word, because we all have them. What other weaknesses do I carry? Vices? Bad habits? Nervous habits? Coping mechanisms? What unites all these things is an understanding that we are human. At our limits is where we find God.

Daily Bread

When I was constantly running around at my café job, I struggled to keep a fast twice a week, because I always felt too tired and hungry to tolerate another fast. But the typical peasant of the time would have been constantly in motion like me, except unlike me, they had no easy access to extra calories. Their labor was hand-to-mouth. The words “food” and “bread” are synonymous in Hebrew for that reason; that’s all they could afford, and it was the basis of sustenance. I wonder if peasants in that time weren’t edged with hunger at all times, constantly aware and thus constantly both thankful for and fearful of their subsistence and the fruitfulness of their crops.

So then, why willingly deprive yourself when you’re already hungry? According to the OT, it is so you see and help the poor and the oppressed. What fasting does is simultaneously heighten the threshold for personal suffering, and deepen a sense of compassion because of that suffering. (Read Isaiah 58.)

Conclusion: The Generation of Generosity

This is not just an intellectual exercise; it is changing how I live my life. The last number of months I have been facing financial uncertainty, and I have felt like I can’t afford to tithe, like I normally do. Despite the fear, I chose to give anyway, because if I hoard out of greed and hunger and fear, this will consume me, and I will be of no use to the people around me: my neighbors.

Generosity is not only financial, though that is an important part of practicing love for neighbor. For many months it has been my hope and prayer that this pandemic will result in deeper compassion for the other through acknowledging our own fears and weaknesses, and in so doing, loosen our resources to be at the ready for someone else who is in need.

The secret? We are all in need. The main principle is that if we develop in a spiritual discipline like fasting, and it does not benefit our neighbor, then we have failed. My challenge to you: how can you prioritize generosity in your life so that you can more sustainably give, and in so doing, create mutual flourishing?

This is why we pray that God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. We are seeking shalom.

Read Part II here.
Transition and Provision

August 13th, 2021

We sometimes throw around the phrase ‘Jehovah Jireh,’ God provides. It’s easy to say, easy to tell someone when they are worried about the future. But that phrase comes from Genesis 22, the story of the Binding of Isaac. The Binding of Isaac, as in the story when Abraham brings his promised firstborn son up the mountain, and Isaac asks him where the sacrifice is, because they have everything for a burnt offering except the animal. And Abraham trudges steadily upward with his son and their servants, and tells him God will provide (v. 8).

This phrase, YHWH Jireh, or yir-eh, literally means ‘God will see.’ In English it gets translated as ‘provide,’ which is beautiful, because it is the Latin word for ‘to see’, paired with the preposition pro-, which means ‘to foresee.’ It just adds kind of a spatial element to this pericope: I get the sense that God was watching from the heavens, above the mount where he could see Abraham and Isaac in uncertainty on one side, and a ram caught in the thicket on the other side of the peak. He did not just orchestrate things so there would be a sacrifice in Isaac’s place–and what an incredible Christological parallel!–but he saw it all. This is why He asked Abraham to trust Him.

I am in the middle of a long-haul transition here. Last year I was struck unexpectedly with inspiration to pursue a PhD in a slightly different direction academically, which means it will take me to a totally new location. Last year’s moment of inspiration has transformed me as a person, as a scholar, and totally changed my life overall, in such a short period of time.

Some of you have been hearing me talk about super cool Bible scholars in all sorts of places, from Atlanta, Georgia to Germany, and month by month and week by week there has been nothing but development and growth and opening of doors. My head hasn’t stopped spinning all year. At this point I am living in the ambiguity of not knowing where I’ll be studying, but pursuing opportunities headfirst anyway.

Within only a few weeks of arriving back in Dublin, I knew I needed to find an end date for my time at the café where I’ve been working since 2019. I began to pray profusely all through July, and after a terribly difficult and stressful two weeks, made the agonizing decision to leave behind a place and people that had been my second home through a chaotic period. I started teaching recently at my alma mater, Northwest University, as an adjunct instructor for an online theology course. My priority this last number of months has been academics, and I have had to be swiftly decisive time and again to protect my studying and writing time. So I have handed in my notice, and now, my last day ever as a barista is in one week.

It is still too early to know when I’ll be leaving Dublin: I will be staying here for the time being, teaching from across the Atlantic, perhaps taking on some individual students to tutor, and furiously studying all my research languages.

But returning to this city after five months away has made me see it almost with fresh eyes, especially when the pandemic has contorted what I used to know. I have memories of this place going back almost a decade, and so many friendships spanning all these years. My oldest friends, from St. Mark’s, know me as the crazy American who would not give up until she was in Dublin. I went back and forth so many times between Dublin and the US in the span of five years, and each time I felt I was returning home.

Me and some friends on my last Sunday after a year at St. Mark’s in 2015, before I went back to the US (for the first time.)

However, as difficult as it may be for my dear friends to hear, so many brothers and sisters of my heart, I have always known Dublin would not be my long-term home. I have relished every moment here, treasured the times with friends and cherished the things I have experienced, because I always knew deep in my heart that this was for a specific chapter of my life, as a young twenty-something who was happy to live in the middle of a noisy city and make coffee while her dreams were brewing under the surface.

Reuniting with these friends after the pandemic has been a tonic, like a reminder of who I am. Yesterday I had breakfast with a friend at my favorite place, The Fumbally, and I was describing to her how I just knew it was the right thing to quit my job at the café, even though I only know I am contracted to work for NU through October, at this point. I said something like, well I guess I’m just going to have to take this step as a step of faith. And she said Leslie, that’s pretty much the norm for you. This is standard for as long as I’ve known you.

I forgot, somehow, that this is how I’ve been living my entire adult life. The only way I got to where I am, living in Dublin, with a master’s in theology and opportunity and potential to become a biblical scholar, is by taking a step before I could see the path in front of me, Indiana Jones style. Five years ago I took the scariest step of faith, and the events that followed my brave choice to summer in Ireland without plans resulted in me finding my true vocation in academia. God saw. God saw.

I’m still miffed they didn’t let me keep my master’s hood. I would probably still be wearing it now. (Graduation, 2019)

I feel very much like Bilbo Baggins, thrust out, unprepared, on an adventure he didn’t ask for when he would rather stay cozy at home, where life is stable, reliable, and predictable. It has never been easy. I made sacrifices of so much to pursue this life. I bitterly struggle, constantly, with the fact that I do not have my own house and that I am not settled down yet–separate to the fact that I am single and still waiting to find my life partner! Beyond that, this current ambiguity of not knowing where I will be living for the next five plus years as a PhD is the keenest form of torture I have ever known.

I feel weary lately, weary with not knowing, and weary from pushing myself a little too hard for the last year. I think at this stage I am almost at the top of the mountain, knowing God will provide because He will see my needy circumstance. My legs are burning, my lungs are bursting, I’m running out of water.

But I just want to record this painful moment here, so that whenever I finally get to announce where I’ve been accepted to do my PhD, it will come as the provision to a great need, an answer to all the sacrifices I’ve made, a fulfillment of a huge and long-looming question.

Me in July 2012, first time in Dublin.

For a very long time I knew specifically I was supposed to be in Ireland, and once I got here in 2014 I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to be doing. That came in time, really slowly. But now, the exact opposite has happened: I know that I am meant to be taking on a PhD and studying the topic of fasting in the Old Testament. But God won’t budge or give me any hint about where I’m supposed to be studying. Maybe He won’t reveal it until I’m at the top of the mountain.

But until then, I just have to remember that God will see me struggling upwards with empty hands, knowing I have great need of provision. Truly countless times He has met me atop the mountain of sacrifice, filling my hands when I came with nothing.

Things are falling into place. I can see some of it, and I know there must be more happening behind the scenes. But be encouraged, because when God calls us to make a big sacrifice, sometimes He is asking us to sacrifice something we don’t have yet, and we can be confident that if He is calling, then He will meet us there in that place.
Fractals: Theology of Plants

August 24th, 2020

I know I’m not the only one finding it hard to concentrate, and this spills over into my spiritual disciplines. In my bible reading lately I’ve been poring over the history books. I’m in 2 Kings, which will be rewarding long-term but can be so painstaking and boring to keep track of who’s who and why these stories were considered significant enough to be put into Scripture. On top of that, I’m finding it really hard to pray as well, and I feel like I only have a mustard seed of faith.

But despite my feeling of spiritual weakness, God has been teaching me a lot through my plants, my new fascination. And a few days ago I looked at my little jelly beans succulent, or what’s called in Spanish dedos de Dios, or fingers of God, from a different angle, and was so surprised to see that it was actually growing in an orderly and beautiful way.

From the side it looks completely random and chaotic, though in a charming little way. But in fact, like any succulent, like any plant, like any tree, it grows according to what we can summarize by the mathematical concept of fractals. Plants are in fact the easiest way to understand what a fractal is: a tree trunk splits into two, then those branches split into two more, and on and on, creating the recognizable shape.

Each plant has its own shape and pattern of branching and leaf placement. It’s truly amazing; even the spacing of trees growing in a forest is orderly and can be measured using fractal geometry, check out this PBS documentary for more details, it blew my mind when I first saw it.

This is why it’s so hard to make CGI trees look convincing, or even render a CGI forest: it’s infinitely complex, orderly, and mathematical by nature. We really can’t see the forest for the trees! It requires so much time and effort and scientific knowledge to begin to comprehend the complexity and the interconnectedness of life, in just a slice of rain forest, yet forests have always been growing in this way, whether there have been botanists or dendrologists or mathematicians around to observe and measure them.

It just reminds me that in this year, when things feel meaningless or chaotic, even if I don’t understand what’s going on or how to hope or pray for my future, there is order, there is meaning. And someday I hope the sight and understanding of it takes me by surprise, just like my little dedos de Dios succulent. What an apt name for such a plant!
In Defense of Friendship

June 16th, 2019

Recently I was describing to a friend my story of how I went through some seasons of deep loneliness, and I told him that until last year, it had been at least a decade since I’d had a best friend. Surprisingly, he stopped me and asked me what did I mean by best friend?

I started to describe my outdated and immature idea of a best friend, or maybe simply too shallow: someone who makes me laugh more than anyone else, someone I can tell everything to… But I’ve been thinking about what a true friend is for. What really is a best friend?

There are two old dead guys, really famous ones, who make up two thirds of the group we theologians call the Cappadocian Fathers. They were important early theologians, and so both the Eastern and Western Church recognize them and refer to them. Two of them were called Gregory (One of Nyssa, one called Nazanius), and another one called Basil the Great. Gregory of Nyssa and Basil were brothers, but Gregory Nazanius and Basil were each other’s anam cara.

For those of you who may not know any Irish, for the sake of clarity, here I will translate it as “soul friend,” although most often when referred to in English people say “soul mate.” This term actually comes from early Irish Christianity: a soul mate is someone who carves you into the person God made you to be. (See: Proverbs 27:17). Once when I was on a retreat to a Franciscan friary, a friar named Brother Richard explained to us that sometimes you marry your anam cara, and sometimes you don’t. It’s not necessarily tied to the person you will be with.

Gregory Nazanius said of Basil that they were so close, they seemed to be two bodies with a single spirit. What a beautiful thing it is to find such intimacy in friendship. I think in our society, and in church, we put marriage on a pedestal so high that we forget the importance of straight up friendship.

I spent many years living in the middle of nowhere, isolated in many ways. In the process, it deepened me into the theologian I am today. Boredom birthed some beautiful and enduring things in me. I became self-sufficient and independent. But we’re not meant to be independent, are we?

The pain that losing friendships causes is one of the most devastating things in a person’s life. I’ve lost friends so many times either because I moved away or because of other more painful things. This can cause such deep psychological wounds that eventually you realize that you’ve built a wall around your heart, which only reinforces your isolation.

But the opposite, the kind of bond you can have with a friend that’s filled with the agape love of Christ is the most potent force in the world. Oftentimes we acquaint intimacy with sex, but intimacy is not limited to that.

I have one such friend, one who sends me into fits of childish giggles in church. One who sometimes speaks in incomplete sentences because I know what he means without words. One who cleaned up after I got carsick and threw up and felt humiliated, but never once gagged at the smell. One who makes me spitting mad because he’s poking his fingers in old wounds that need to heal.

When you have a friend who loves you and not only wants the best for you, but wants the best for the Kingdom, that person will reshape you. Your anam cara will make you look more and more like you, painfully carving away from you the parts that shouldn’t be there, and lovingly smoothing out and polishing the best parts of you, until you gleam in more and more imitation of Jesus.

This is what a friend is for, and finding friends like this is worth more than gold.
When Jesus is Late

June 3rd, 2019

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on my expectations for my life, and how so much of my life now is simply unexpected, it’s not how I imagined it. It’s not bad, I wouldn’t change it, I’m in a really good season right now. But it’s just not what I expected.

For instance, the realization that I will more than likely–unless something dramatic happens in the next six months–not marry in my twenties is something new and unfamiliar. The thought of navigating my life as a grown-up without a life partner, the thought of beginning my academic career as a single woman and publishing under my maiden name–all of it is a bit daunting. There is a new type of longed-for stability I’m finding in my life, but I’m also beginning to see a new decade of uncertainty begin to uncurl before me, like a fern frond.

I was thumbing through my journal, reading my thoughts from nearly one year ago, and I wanted to share this with you. I wrote it when I was on vacation in Sweden. It’s about Jesus’ close friendship with two women–Mary and Martha–and their experience of what happens when Jesus is later than we expected.

27 July, 2018

Hälsningar från Sverige! I’m outside on Maddie’s mom’s balcony, it’s like 80°, I’m in the shade, there’s a nice breeze coming through the trees. I am so relaxed. So happy.

John 11:40 NRSV – Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

This is from the raising of Lazarus, when everyone doubted Jesus – He came too late, He wasn’t powerful enough to save him from death, all these things. Jesus’ relationships with Mary and Martha were so individual and special. He let Mary anoint His feet and wash them, so intimately. She loved Him so much. And he had such an affirming, teaching conversation with Martha. She trusted Him too, just like Mary.

John 11:21-22 NRSV – Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that God will give you whatever you ask Him.”

Despite bitter disappointment, Martha still submitted humbly to Jesus’ authority, trusting that she would see God’s glory. Trusting Jesus completely, she saw her expectations far exceeded. The upset, the weeping, the disappointment that Jesus didn’t save Lazarus from dying was totally worth the better, more glorious plan God had in mind for her.

I feel that “lateness,” that disappointment. The place I find myself in in my life now is so strange and different from what I thought it would be. But despite the disappointment–singleness, joblessness–I still trust and submit to Jesus. He is my intimate friend and I know God is pleased with me through Christ. I entrust myself to Him fully.

When it seems like God is late, when He’s delaying, He’s actually already arranged to maximize His glory in the situation. My life is to be about squeezing out every last drop of God’s glory. It always has been. I didn’t choose a path that would be a normal career path. The demand for theologians is nonexistent, career-wise. But in the Kingdom, I’m an important part of the Body, and I have to fulfill my purpose, faithfully, joyfully, so the Body can function. God is taking care of me.

What I think is the most beautiful part of the story is not simply that Lazarus was raised from the dead, but that Mary and Martha, in the midst of their pain, they knew Jesus, and they loved Him, they trusted Him. They were able to step out of the pain that could’ve incapacitated them, that could’ve wounded them and broken their hearts, and they let Jesus bring forth what He had already planned–to maximize His glory.

Don’t you think that when Mary and Martha saw such an unbelievable sight–their once-dead brother now alive again–that they were grateful they trusted Jesus even in their disappointment, even in the midst of confusion and pain so great it was even hard to breathe?

Maybe Jesus isn’t late, but He’s simply asking us to wait. He wants to show His glory in our lives.
My Friend KK

March 15th, 2019

In the summer of 2005, in Soap Lake, Washington, I met Kaylyn Bossert.

I was fifteen, she was sixteen. She was dating my friend Collin, but I hadn’t met her yet, because she was from the next town over, another tiny town called Ephrata. We were at Collin’s house one summer night, chilling in his backyard. The sun had gone down, so we were jumping on his trampoline under the stars, hanging in a hammock under the stars, laying on the grass under the stars. It was so dark out in his huge back yard, so we found each other by voices.

Someone brought her over to finally meet me, and when she shook my hand I heard a voice so warm, and deeply kind say to me, “Hi, I’m Kaylyn.” Her voice just dripped with love in a way I had never experienced before.

KK on the bottom right, in a baseball cap. This was in 2005 in Soap Lake, shortly after I met her.

I started going to her youth group at Ephrata Foursquare Church, and it was the best time of my life, finally having Christian teenagers around me as friends. Living in Soap Lake, population of approximately 1,000, meant that we had no youth group at my church.

While she was still in the stage of my life of being “Collin’s girlfriend,” I remember one night she stopped me after youth group, and said to me in the sweetest, most earnest voice, “Leslie, when we get to heaven and we’re worshiping Jesus, can I stand next to you?” I was so taken aback by her boldness and by her absoluteness about the imminence of heaven. I said yes. After all, who asks that kind of a question? I couldn’t say no.

And so that night, while everyone else around us just talked and laughed, we knelt together on the floor of EFC, in the aisle between some chairs, and she clutched my hands strongly in hers, and we just prayed together, sealing the moment. I’ll never forget it.

The last two weeks have brought me a new kind of pain that I have never experienced before, because two Thursdays ago I learned that my special friend KK had suddenly died in a car crash. She was 29 years old. I’m so glad that I got to see her on my birthday when I was in Moses Lake for Christmas. She was the happiest she had ever been. We talked about her finally fulfilling her dream of coming to Ireland to visit me, and she said she might come for my graduation next month.

July 2017, our last picture together.

KK was an absolute treasure. She was my oldest and dearest friend, and even though we’d go sometimes years without talking, we still had such a strong and deep bond. Every time we talked, she would ask me, “What is Jesus teaching you?” She always got right to the heart of what really matters in life. She truly taught me so much.

Her friendship was a gift, and I am so grateful I was able to call her my friend, the sister of my soul. And now I know she is saving me a space next to her in heaven.

I miss you, KK. I will see you again.
Maybe I should buy a houseplant…

August 27th, 2018

I never thought that considering to buy a succulent would be such a momentous decision in my life. But neither did I think that settling down would come so gradually. I always thought I’d finally be able to settle down once I got married, and it would be sudden and definite. Slowly this summer I’ve come to realize that I actually am, at long last, settled.

When I was in bible college I heard the words “nesting instinct” for the first time, and realized that my desire to have my own things and live in my own house had a name. And simultaneously I realized that I had to switch off that instinct indefinitely, because I knew that I needed to pursue a life in Ireland.

So all my books went on Kindle, and anything else that wasn’t immediately necessary or useful, I wouldn’t buy. I stopped adding to my beloved record collection, and a trip to a thrift store or a Marshall’s would twinge my heart to see lovely things to decorate a house or room with.

Between graduating college in 2012 and moving here in 2017, I lived in my old room from when I was a teenager. Although it had a bookshelf and a few other things, it felt stark because never updated the decor. I had my Lord of the Rings poster, an Irish flag, and a borrowed plant from my sister, but it didn’t feel like my room anymore. At best, it felt a bit like a monk’s quarters; at worst it felt like a prison I’d never leave.

Me in 2013, my Irish flag in the background.

This September 8th marks the one year anniversary of my arrival in Ireland, which is a huge deal. I haven’t been in one place for a full year since October 2013-2014, and since 2010 the longest I’ve spent in one place is a year and ten months.

Throughout my twenties, the only constant in my life has been change, and it’s been so painful. I needed to be able to pack my life into my three duffel bags, because that way I was able to easily move to Ireland when I needed to be here. But while many an adventurer would claim that type of lifestyle is freeing, it actually was suffocating to me.

This summer I realized just how much all the back-and-forth affected me. I didn’t accumulate belongings, but I did accumulate callouses around my heart. It grieved me to watch it happen. I love people: love my friends, love making new ones, but I stopped letting people in all the way. Why would I, if I was just going to move soon anyway? Too painful.

Every time I had to leave Ireland it made me cry.

As my one-year mark approached, despite knowing that I’d be staying here, I began to feel myself pulling away mentally, getting ready for my heart to tear again. I was starting to get prickly.

It was my self-sufficiency and independence that enabled me to fight for my dream of living in Ireland, and I finally made it. But it also prevented me from being able to have fulfilling friendships. It took a season of desperation and tight finances this summer to realize just what treasure I have in my friends here. This summer I learned to ask for help, which is something I have never done in my life, and I had to start with tiny things that felt like mountains, like asking for sunscreen, or accepting someone’s offer to buy my lunch.

I always knew my friends would be there for me in hard times, but this summer I had no choice but to rely on other people. Now I’ve learned that it’s okay to have one bad day after another, to feel really weak and to rely on the strength of others who love me.

Once I was able to just let go like that, I see that it’s the people here who create the home for my heart. That keen longing to settle down was never about decorating a house, but what settling down represents. Like a houseplant, now I have space and time for stability, growth, slowness, the mundane.

If I can buy something with roots, then maybe my heart can start to grow some roots too, at long last.