Hello, Boys and Girls, can you say "Shechem" and "circumcision"? I knew you could. Now who knows the story of Dinah?
O.K., so what am I suppose to make of today's reading and a violent and steamy story worthy of HBO Films?
Dinah is violated and her brothers Simeon and Levi not only kill the man who did it, but his father and all the men of the town where he lived. A bit excessive, don't you think? Instead of an eye for an eye, it's an eye for everybody who can see. And they do it using, of course, DECEPTION. They use circumcision -- a symbol chosen by God to mark his people -- as a means to doom a people. You just have to wonder what God thinks about that?
If that weren't enough. Then another one of the Jacob's sons, Rueben, sleeps with his father's concubine Bilhah. Thankfully, Jacob doesn't use the same degree of vengeance his sons believe in. If he'd followed Simeon and Levi's lead, he would have killed the entire clan. And you think your family is dysfunctional.
These are a couple of stories, as my friend David Skidmore would say, you won't find performed on a Bible school flannel board.
What's my take? Well, in case there is any confusion here, we're reminded that God's people are no better than anyone else. There are stories in every church, the church I go to and the church you go to, that would make Roman Polanski blush. We're not good. We just acknowledge the One who is. If there is in any good in us, it's His goodness and, hopefully, a bit of our desire to show our thanks for what He has done.
God forgive us for the impression we've given others about You through the story of our lives.
My post from last year on this date.
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