Something Like a Star
In my daily scripture reading this morning I was pondering two separate passages. The first was part of my Old Testament reading in Genesis. In the middle of the amazing story of Joseph and his miraculous rise to prominence in Egypt, the writer of Genesis takes a jarring detour. The 38th chapter is about a very strange series of events in the life of Judah, his sons, and a young woman named Tamar.
The mixture of ancient marriage traditions, divine punishment for inappropriate sexual activity, prostitution, harsh punishment for a woman’s indiscretion, and something about tying a string to determine which twin was born first leaves the reader wondering “What in the world is this doing in the Bible?” While all Scripture may be inspired by God and profitable (2 Timothy 3:16-17) it is really hard to understand how this story is supposed to help me, or even why it is in the story of Joseph in the first place.
I then found myself in my New Testament reading. The 4th chapter of Mark starts with Jesus teaching in his familiar style–telling a parable. On this occasion it was the “parable of the sower.” After the parable is finished, when Jesus is alone with His disciples, they ask Him about the parable. It seems they didn’t get the point of the story any more than I understood the story of Tamar. It’s almost as if the disciples and I were wanting to say to Jesus, “If you have something to say, why don’t you come out and say it more plainly? Why do you have to make things so obscure?”
That got me thinking. Maybe there is method in how God communicates. Maybe it’s not that God isn’t so much incompetent at sharing the secrets of the Kingdom, as it is that metaphor, story, and poetry are the only way to even begin to explain the inexplicable.
When I was in high school many moons ago, our choir director had us sing a beautiful choral piece by Randall Thompson. The lyrics were a poem written by Robert Frost entitled “Choose Something Like a Star.” Naturally, practicing the music day after day tended to cement the words in my memory.
While I can’t say that in high school I appreciated all Frost had to say in that profound poem, over the years I have intermittently revisited the lines. It seems to me the poem has a lot to say about how God communicates–even through Scripture.
Addressing the brightest star in the sky, the poet asks that celestial light to share explicit facts about itself. Yet the star is “taciturn.” It says little. And yet as the poet fixes his eyes on it, it calls him to “a certain height.” And in that call, it provides a focal point “to stay our minds on and be staid.”
If you are like me, I like concrete answers to my questions. I want facts, not metaphors. I want clearly delineated principles, not nebulous images. I want dos and don’ts, not nudges toward an unknown path. The Bible should be a technical manual. Yet it’s not.
My readings this morning, and Frost’s wonderful poem, remind me that I need to stop asking God to “Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.” Instead more of my time should be spent in wonder at His light and warmth. I’m thinking His word, the Bible, is less a brilliant scientific, philosophical, and historical treatise and more a love poem that draws us above the noise of the crowd to a height of joy and awe. Perhaps it is less a technically accurate cartographer’s map, and more the whispers of the Spirit, “this is the way, walk in it,” (Isaiah 30:21) as we stumble along the unmarked path of life.
I still don’t know what the story of Judah and Tamar is doing in Genesis. But for right now, that’s ok.