Session 4 began with reading chapters 11 to 13.

The overall subjects discussed were some of the questions Marcus pondered on, and the covenant. (Marcus's note on the Greek and Hebrew differences between will and covenant was not considered in detail - but it was noted that no covenant was implemented without blood.)

For each covenant in Tanakh, we considered: who are the parties, what are the promises, what are the rules and the consequences of not being faithful to the covenant, what is the sign of the covenant. This is a topic that could have occupied several study sessions. How rich indeed is the letter to the Hebrews in its invitation to understand these things. The question was then asked - what are the terms of the new covenant? (I did not take notes and it has been a week so I will have to reconstruct our discussions but the question is answerable in any case.) 

We considered that the terms extend to all humanity including the Jew first and the Greek (gentile) also, that the promises are very deep, intimate and fulfilling, that the sign is our continuing proclamation of the death of Jesus in the Eucharist - our sacraments, and that this Epistle does not spell out the consequences of not accepting, but implies dire ones.  How can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? (end of warning 1) ... And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. (end of 2) ... But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and on the verge of being cursed; its end is to be burned over. (end of 3!!!) ... It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (end of 4) ... for indeed our God is a consuming fire. (end of the fifth warning). But Who would draw back when the High Priest has entered heaven on our behalf and his blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel? What better explanation is there that shows power in the refusal to use power in a world where power is abused? The glory of God is not like human glory.

Mary Alford was copying just before the last session, and I asked her how she was. She replied, "Fine, until I read the Epistle to the Hebrews. It says there that if you believe in Jesus and then fall away, there is no possibility of salvation for you." Read that warning in Hebrews 6 again - it says no such thing. How many of us 1. have been enlightened, and 2. have tasted the heavenly gift, and 3. have shared in the Holy Spirit, and 4. have tasted the goodness of the word of God and 5. the powers of the age to come.

On Pentecost, we celebrate falling into the hands of a consuming fire - which burns without consuming. When the Holy Spirit came to Jesus in his baptism, there was no tongue of fire, but the image of a dove, a gentle creature. Our Lord had no dross that required burning. Yet that same Spirit is now ours too in gentleness. If we were to spurn that Spirit, we would reject the goodness that is God. We must taste first before we can reject it.  Karl Barth defines the Holy Spirit as the act of communion between the Father and the Son. So the Spirit is for us, an act of communion from our God to us - between God and us. Read John 14-16 for an understanding of the nature of the dwelling of God with and in us in preparation for this Sunday which celebrates the Trinity. And let many of us indeed taste all five of the above and then we will know how difficult it would be to fall away from the One who alone makes us secure.

It being between Ascension and Pentecost, the session closed with a reading of a story (Rufus in Antioch) for Pentecost.

After the session, when all the hearing aids and visual aids had been taken down, Kitty came up with another of her famous questions on issues of literal understandings of the Biblical text: how could human procreation have continued with only male children from Adam and Eve?. I reconnected the microphone and answered her by comparing Gilgamesh and Genesis with respect to the faith that God is good rather than, as in the Babylonian myth, bent on evil towards humanity, and that the human is the subject of God's grace, not his whim. But humanity finds itself in fear and needs to learn to love in faith. In other words: plainly put, Genesis 1 is not meant to be read as cosmological history, but as a poem about the goodness of the world we find ourselves in, and Genesis 2 is not to be read as an anthropological history, but as a counter-myth encouraging faith in a good Creator. The myth speaks truth to our condition - desire, guilt, and fear, among many other things. Genesis 1-9 show a remarkable set of counter propositions to the Gilgamesh epic.

I have spent a week considering how to proceed - it was wonderful to talk to so many of you about such a great history and tradition, but the knowledge gap between the pew and the ivory tower is immense. I am not sure where I am sometimes: in the pew or about to fall into a moat next to a tower. Perhaps Kitty's plain faith of 93 years should inform us more and I should not worry about popular beliefs whether an uninformed literalism or an implicit trust in the latest fad from 19th century skepticisms to the votes of the Jesus Seminar. It seems the Bible can stand any question thrown at it. But we have a long way to recover from an uncritical acceptance of 1700 years of Christendom.

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