You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.   John 8:32
I am the way and the truth and the life – no one comes to the father except through me. John 14:6

The word “Truth” is in the Bible between 130 and 300 times (depending on which translation you are using.) 
That is way more than preach (about a dozen times), way less than Love (over 500 times) and about the same as money.

Peninnah treated Hannah cruelly. She provoked her just to irritate her. What she did to Hannah was awful, unkind, unconscionable and simply mean. In this week’s reading from 1 Samuel 1:4-20, her cruelty is glaring.

According to this week’s Bible reading from Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17, here’s how Ruth family functioned:

Elimelech and Naomi went with their sons Mahlon and Chilion beyond the land of Judah – the land of their ancestors, to Moab, the land of their cousins . . . cousins with a tenuous and sometimes violent past.

Do you ever feel like you’ve just arrived somewhere and then it’s time to leave? It seems to happen mostly on the best of vacations. Sometimes it happens when you’re moving from one house to another or changing jobs. Maybe it happens every day where you work, study or do what it is that you do every day.

James and John had the nickname "Sons of Thunder." Jesus gave them that nickname. Once a Samaritan village rejected Jesus. The Sons of Thunder wanted to bring fire down from heaven to kill everyone.

One of my favorite things to say just after “good-bye” to folks is, with a slight wink in my eye, “Be good.” I usually get a smile and something like “not a chance” or a sarcastic “sure” in return.

Why do we use the Bible to cut people down?

It’s too easy to look at the first part of this week’s reading from Mark 10:2-16 and think, Wow – Jesus hates divorced people! 

Context is REALLY important here, however.

In Palestine at the time Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, divorce was all about what the man wanted and what the man did to make the divorce happen. Women had no power in the situation. The Pharisees brought Jesus a question that was a trap. He couldn't answer it without angering some.

So he angered some. He asked them what the law of Moses said. Then he answered a different question -- without dealing with the legality of things. Jesus talked about the ideal for marriage. He talked about it in equal terms with men and women.

Equal terms.

Equal terms in marriage and divorce – and the equality of children with adults. Jesus took the trap and showed the Pharisees and the disciples that marriage was intended to build up both of the people in the marriage. He showed the Pharisees and the disciples that their rules caused trouble when they sought to use them to take power and persecute someone else.

I don't think Jesus ever intended us to take this passage of scripture and shun or chastise people who have suffered through abuse or who have lived through divorce after failed marriages. I do think that Jesus wanted married couples to take their vows seriously and to live their lives loving each other and living at peace with one another.

No one is unimportant. Everyone is valuable.

And we all must stop scriptural abuse.

I’m simply not sure what to think this week. Esther, Mordecai, Haman, Ahasuerus, conspiracy, plot twist and a day to give presents to the poor. Can we discover the good mixed in with evil? Can we discover kindness and love mixed together with anger and wrath? Shall I write something that attempts to present a Mordecai first person monologue?

I’m a puppeteer. I love putting a puppet on one hand and then begin to have a conversation between the puppet and me. It’s a lot of fun to have the conversation as part of a children’s sermon at church or another kind of gathering of younger folks. I love it that the younger ones pay such close attention to the conversation – hopefully learning something in the process. I also have observed on almost every occasion when I’ve presented the puppet/person conversation that adults pay as close or closer attention to what the conversation is about.