Symbiotic Economics: Sarah’s Talent - The tree becomes one
12/March/2008 08:13 Filed in: Weekly Column
Volume 10, Issue 11
PDF copy
As I finished writing last week’s Chronicle, I was encouraged by the words of Saint Paul in Romans 11:13-27, that the olive branch of the Gentiles might again be grafted into the Olive tree of Israel. I understood right away that this would have to be a supernatural work of God, but until I started doing research for this week’s episode, I had no idea what a Divine miracle that this would be. Last week’s article thus forms the foundation for this chapter of Symbiotic Economics. If you haven’t read that article, perhaps you should do so before proceeding.
The children of God, and the line of God’s covenant chosen, have been hated by the world since the beginning of time. This hatred falls directly upon the Jewish people, as children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as Christians. That hatred continues until the present era, all you need to do is look at the news each day.
Christianity accepting Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, or Christ, early on followed that same anti Semitic course. Much of that surfacing as early as the Second Century, relating to the Celebration of Easter Sunday as opposed to the Jewish Passover. Of course this had nothing at all to do with the Easter name, being derived from a pagan festival of spring and fertility.
Following any or all of these diverse streams of hatred of God’s people descend only to one place, the slough of despair. This is the design of the evil one, to bring division and hate upon all of God’s people either Christian or Jew, and to divide them from one another.
For all of human history God has chosen to work through human instruments to accomplish His will. In essence that is a manifestation of His love for creation and His children created in His image. Sometimes these miracles can appear ordinary, in other situations truly supernatural and transcendent. However, the normative case is that they occur through common means, or within the attributes of natural law and common grace.
Therefore, the following parable of Sarah’s Talent seeks to build a bridge over, or a path around, the slough of human total depravity. As such it will try to bring forth a potential common means of reconciling Jew and Gentile as one Olive Tree, as Paul seeks in writing the Roman’s Epistle.
Fallen man fears creation, because just like Adam and Eve, we stand naked in the garden unable within our own capacity to resolve our sinful personality conflict with the earth from which we were created. At first flush I was going to use a Blackfoot Native American story to provide a basis for historical pre Christian understanding of the Creator in other regions of the world. The Blackfeet, are a large Indian nation east of the Rocky Mountains in Montana and Alberta, with the historic center of their culture north of the border in Canada. Once encouraged to move from a historical narrative to a future story of Jewish and Christian unity, I decided to keep the genesis in Canada.
At the end of World War II many Jews were resettled from Europe to North America. Some went to the United States others ended up by the will of the Almighty in Canada. All human movements stem from two sources, a departure from a discontented past, and a hope for a better future. This was not a new diaspora for the Jews, but over time and to maintain their distinct culture they have become more urbanized. So just how far into the wildness of creation could you expect of find a Jewish community. I suppose Winnipeg, Manitoba is probably just about the limit of the journey. There in the heart of the rugged Canadian Shield geology we find our Sarah. Maybe she was born in Toronto or Montreal, but by God’s grace this is where she was raised.
Besides being a true suburb to the great Nowhere of the highly glaciated Canadian Shield, this area is also the home of a new people group known as the Metis. In the truest sense the Metis were the result of French Canadian and English fur traders marrying Indian women. Metis therefore means directly half breed, or the melding of two distinct bloodlines and cultures. Along that line, similar to this Symbiotic Economics series, this same threat is found in a series on Metis Economics or Phylogenesis found in the 2005 Archive. This metis approach is also an appropriate concept for Paul’s discussion of the one tree of God’s people. Hence, Winnipeg provides a deeper insight into what God wishes to do with our Sarah than perhaps any other area on earth.
Since I used the example of someone born in 1980 for Talent allocation in the Wealth 6 article two weeks ago, we will use that as the year of her birth. While I’m sure Sarah is very gifted by God, her one overriding talent will be the feminine half of the reunification of the Olive tree of Israel with the wild branches of the Gentiles. Keeping with my one talent concept from the Wealth article, to have a single talent to invest in Godly wealth, the total of the day, month, and the year of her birth will total zero, like October 30th (10+30+80=120) as a simple example.
There are three historic Jewish women who figure significantly in the Post Noah flood development of God’s people. Sarah, Ester and Mary are the three, and they all are of vast importance in celebrations and festivals of both Christians and Jews beginning in a little over a week. Ester, is the Queen that saved the Jewish people during the diaspora in Babylon, which is celebrated this year on March 21st as the Feast of Purim (Adar 14). Without Mary we would have no Christian Easter, which this year is March 23. Finally we have Passover which begins at sundown on April 19th (Nisan 14) of which without Sarah, mother of Isaac, there would be no Jewish people.
Sarah, wife of Abraham, besides being the mother of Isaac, was also known for her timeless beauty. In rabbinical tradition she is also the only woman that is recorded to having talked with God, found in Genesis 18. Biblical Sarah’s children now number as the stars in the sky. While still only being 27 or 28, our Sarah may have a concept of that star power. We all have that desire in our youth, but at about this age, we all realize that, beauty or other gifts that may be important in our early life must be converted into more common and significant talents if we are to fulfill why we were initially given the gift of life. By the time we close in on forty, those early gifts whether in Hollywood or the sports scene must be left to those with youth.
Ester was also a ravishing beauty who won the King Ahasuersus’ contest to replace his former queen, and thus as the new queen was able to foil the plot to exterminate the Jewish people. Our Sarah, it seems must somehow one day recognize that she is like Ester. In the words of Mordecai her uncle, “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Ester 4:13,14
Mary of course, is not an Old Testament, or Jewish Bible patron, but is the Mother of Jesus, in the Christian New Testament. Both the original Sarah and Ester were awesomely beautiful women. Mary on the other hand is not chosen for her looks, but to be the mother of Messiah, a desire for all Jewish women through history. Even if she also was outwardly beautiful, Mary is chosen for her true inner beauty, this gift is also something our 21st Century Sarah must possess.
So we have laid quite a trip on this outwardly and inwardly beautiful Canadian Jewish princess. How in the world is she ever going to pull off this unification of Christians and Jews? Of course she isn’t, it is the hand of the Adonai alone, that can be credited for creating and moving all, now four women, into their unique position in history.
Ester had her uncle Mordecai, I would suppose our Sarah has a loving Jewish mum (Canadian for mom), who probably calls her beautiful daughter weekly to see how she is doing. I would probably write it in a New York Brooklyn accent, but I suppose other than “mum” and “eh” the words would pretty much be standard North American english. Somewhere in the conversation, every conversation, it goes something like this, “So, Sarah, my beautiful Sarah, have you met any good eligible Jewish boys lately? You know you are not getting any younger, you need to start thinking about what you are going to do other than your career. Life it all passes so fast, I don’t want you to miss the experience of being a mother.”
To which Sarah always responds, “Mum, I’m 27 years old, almost 28, I don’t want or need a good Jewish boy, I want a good husband and here all the good Jewish men are already taken. I’m ready, and in time ‘the G-d will provide as He provided Isaac to Biblical Sarah.”
One day mum sort of unexpectedly says, “Now Sarah, don’t tell your father, but I have been thinking maybe if all the good Jewish boys are taken, maybe G-d would have a good Christian husband for you. As we have learned here in Canada, not all Christians are Goyim, there just might be someone out there that G-d would provide that would treat you well and not be anti-Semitic because you are Jewish. He might even realize that your gifts and special talent were given to you by G-d for all humanity and not just Jews. While I don’t understand it all that well, Jews and Christans are ‘People of the Book.’”
Sarah chuckled, just like the first Sarah did when the L-RD told her she would be a mother at age 99. But while there was no audible voice or person present, Sarah for the first time began to consider a Christian husband as an option. How would this man be provided if that were true, and what could be the possible ramifications of this union? Thoughts Sarah began to think and pray about.
Well we are into real miracle territory here, not something we should speculate upon, however if G-d did provide a path to a true Christian man, he probably would be a total mutt for his ancestral heritage, with a truly Gentile name. The Almighty has a unique sense of mirth, to keep us from taking our part in our pilgrimage too seriously.
Is there a beautiful Jewish woman from Winnipeg, Manitoba who is this Sarah? Sarah is a very common name for a woman, probably more common among Jews than others, but a quite common name none the less. I certainly did no internet search looking for ravishingly beautiful women raised or living in Winnipeg. I don’t even know how one would do that, without entering into the swamp of despair. Furthermore, that search would be our all to common attempt to bring God down to the human level, which we Christians and specifically we Protestants like to do so well. Jews on the other hand fully understand the gulf between the created and the Creator, we must do the same and let the Almighty perform His common miracles and build this needed bridge.
The application, or the imperative here, that Paul is talking about in Romans, is his prayer and hope that the nation of Israel will come to understand that Jesus’ propitiatory sacrifice is that bridge between God and sinful mankind, for Jews, Greeks, Americans, Canadians, and everyone else. What is restraining that now is the time of the Gentiles to become children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, descendants of a beautiful old woman, who spoke with God, Sarah. A beautiful Queen Ester, who not only saved the Jews from extermination, but kept alive the Messianic hope. Within that hope, whose object is the Almighty, an internally eternally beautiful Mary, a direct descendent of King David, became the virgin mother of the Eternal King of all humanity, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah.
As C. S. Lewis and others have said so well, “You must make your choice. Either this man (Jesus) was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Saul, one of the best trained Jewish rabbis of all time, became blind while on the road to Damascus to persecute the apostate Jewish sect, then known as The Way. Three days later, Ananias laid hands upon Saul and something like scales fell from his eyes, his sight was restored, and he was baptized. So we have the typology for removing Jewish blindness to the understanding of Yeshua Ha’Macshiach.
Whether Sarah’s mum is the catalyst, or there is some other source along that road of Sarah’s life, that same sight will come and that eternally beautiful Sarah from Winnipeg, could become an unique woman in the long awaited answer to the prayer of the Jewish Apostle to the Gentiles. The wild branches can now be grafted in, he family of God can now become one. Finally one “People of the Book.“ To which all of God’s unified people can say, Amen.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:5,6
In that light, it is the redemptive order of unity in diversity provided in Christ, that vanquishes the chaos of darkness.
PDF copy
As I finished writing last week’s Chronicle, I was encouraged by the words of Saint Paul in Romans 11:13-27, that the olive branch of the Gentiles might again be grafted into the Olive tree of Israel. I understood right away that this would have to be a supernatural work of God, but until I started doing research for this week’s episode, I had no idea what a Divine miracle that this would be. Last week’s article thus forms the foundation for this chapter of Symbiotic Economics. If you haven’t read that article, perhaps you should do so before proceeding.
The children of God, and the line of God’s covenant chosen, have been hated by the world since the beginning of time. This hatred falls directly upon the Jewish people, as children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as Christians. That hatred continues until the present era, all you need to do is look at the news each day.
Christianity accepting Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, or Christ, early on followed that same anti Semitic course. Much of that surfacing as early as the Second Century, relating to the Celebration of Easter Sunday as opposed to the Jewish Passover. Of course this had nothing at all to do with the Easter name, being derived from a pagan festival of spring and fertility.
Following any or all of these diverse streams of hatred of God’s people descend only to one place, the slough of despair. This is the design of the evil one, to bring division and hate upon all of God’s people either Christian or Jew, and to divide them from one another.
For all of human history God has chosen to work through human instruments to accomplish His will. In essence that is a manifestation of His love for creation and His children created in His image. Sometimes these miracles can appear ordinary, in other situations truly supernatural and transcendent. However, the normative case is that they occur through common means, or within the attributes of natural law and common grace.
Therefore, the following parable of Sarah’s Talent seeks to build a bridge over, or a path around, the slough of human total depravity. As such it will try to bring forth a potential common means of reconciling Jew and Gentile as one Olive Tree, as Paul seeks in writing the Roman’s Epistle.
Fallen man fears creation, because just like Adam and Eve, we stand naked in the garden unable within our own capacity to resolve our sinful personality conflict with the earth from which we were created. At first flush I was going to use a Blackfoot Native American story to provide a basis for historical pre Christian understanding of the Creator in other regions of the world. The Blackfeet, are a large Indian nation east of the Rocky Mountains in Montana and Alberta, with the historic center of their culture north of the border in Canada. Once encouraged to move from a historical narrative to a future story of Jewish and Christian unity, I decided to keep the genesis in Canada.
At the end of World War II many Jews were resettled from Europe to North America. Some went to the United States others ended up by the will of the Almighty in Canada. All human movements stem from two sources, a departure from a discontented past, and a hope for a better future. This was not a new diaspora for the Jews, but over time and to maintain their distinct culture they have become more urbanized. So just how far into the wildness of creation could you expect of find a Jewish community. I suppose Winnipeg, Manitoba is probably just about the limit of the journey. There in the heart of the rugged Canadian Shield geology we find our Sarah. Maybe she was born in Toronto or Montreal, but by God’s grace this is where she was raised.
Besides being a true suburb to the great Nowhere of the highly glaciated Canadian Shield, this area is also the home of a new people group known as the Metis. In the truest sense the Metis were the result of French Canadian and English fur traders marrying Indian women. Metis therefore means directly half breed, or the melding of two distinct bloodlines and cultures. Along that line, similar to this Symbiotic Economics series, this same threat is found in a series on Metis Economics or Phylogenesis found in the 2005 Archive. This metis approach is also an appropriate concept for Paul’s discussion of the one tree of God’s people. Hence, Winnipeg provides a deeper insight into what God wishes to do with our Sarah than perhaps any other area on earth.
Since I used the example of someone born in 1980 for Talent allocation in the Wealth 6 article two weeks ago, we will use that as the year of her birth. While I’m sure Sarah is very gifted by God, her one overriding talent will be the feminine half of the reunification of the Olive tree of Israel with the wild branches of the Gentiles. Keeping with my one talent concept from the Wealth article, to have a single talent to invest in Godly wealth, the total of the day, month, and the year of her birth will total zero, like October 30th (10+30+80=120) as a simple example.
There are three historic Jewish women who figure significantly in the Post Noah flood development of God’s people. Sarah, Ester and Mary are the three, and they all are of vast importance in celebrations and festivals of both Christians and Jews beginning in a little over a week. Ester, is the Queen that saved the Jewish people during the diaspora in Babylon, which is celebrated this year on March 21st as the Feast of Purim (Adar 14). Without Mary we would have no Christian Easter, which this year is March 23. Finally we have Passover which begins at sundown on April 19th (Nisan 14) of which without Sarah, mother of Isaac, there would be no Jewish people.
Sarah, wife of Abraham, besides being the mother of Isaac, was also known for her timeless beauty. In rabbinical tradition she is also the only woman that is recorded to having talked with God, found in Genesis 18. Biblical Sarah’s children now number as the stars in the sky. While still only being 27 or 28, our Sarah may have a concept of that star power. We all have that desire in our youth, but at about this age, we all realize that, beauty or other gifts that may be important in our early life must be converted into more common and significant talents if we are to fulfill why we were initially given the gift of life. By the time we close in on forty, those early gifts whether in Hollywood or the sports scene must be left to those with youth.
Ester was also a ravishing beauty who won the King Ahasuersus’ contest to replace his former queen, and thus as the new queen was able to foil the plot to exterminate the Jewish people. Our Sarah, it seems must somehow one day recognize that she is like Ester. In the words of Mordecai her uncle, “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Ester 4:13,14
Mary of course, is not an Old Testament, or Jewish Bible patron, but is the Mother of Jesus, in the Christian New Testament. Both the original Sarah and Ester were awesomely beautiful women. Mary on the other hand is not chosen for her looks, but to be the mother of Messiah, a desire for all Jewish women through history. Even if she also was outwardly beautiful, Mary is chosen for her true inner beauty, this gift is also something our 21st Century Sarah must possess.
So we have laid quite a trip on this outwardly and inwardly beautiful Canadian Jewish princess. How in the world is she ever going to pull off this unification of Christians and Jews? Of course she isn’t, it is the hand of the Adonai alone, that can be credited for creating and moving all, now four women, into their unique position in history.
Ester had her uncle Mordecai, I would suppose our Sarah has a loving Jewish mum (Canadian for mom), who probably calls her beautiful daughter weekly to see how she is doing. I would probably write it in a New York Brooklyn accent, but I suppose other than “mum” and “eh” the words would pretty much be standard North American english. Somewhere in the conversation, every conversation, it goes something like this, “So, Sarah, my beautiful Sarah, have you met any good eligible Jewish boys lately? You know you are not getting any younger, you need to start thinking about what you are going to do other than your career. Life it all passes so fast, I don’t want you to miss the experience of being a mother.”
To which Sarah always responds, “Mum, I’m 27 years old, almost 28, I don’t want or need a good Jewish boy, I want a good husband and here all the good Jewish men are already taken. I’m ready, and in time ‘the G-d will provide as He provided Isaac to Biblical Sarah.”
One day mum sort of unexpectedly says, “Now Sarah, don’t tell your father, but I have been thinking maybe if all the good Jewish boys are taken, maybe G-d would have a good Christian husband for you. As we have learned here in Canada, not all Christians are Goyim, there just might be someone out there that G-d would provide that would treat you well and not be anti-Semitic because you are Jewish. He might even realize that your gifts and special talent were given to you by G-d for all humanity and not just Jews. While I don’t understand it all that well, Jews and Christans are ‘People of the Book.’”
Sarah chuckled, just like the first Sarah did when the L-RD told her she would be a mother at age 99. But while there was no audible voice or person present, Sarah for the first time began to consider a Christian husband as an option. How would this man be provided if that were true, and what could be the possible ramifications of this union? Thoughts Sarah began to think and pray about.
Well we are into real miracle territory here, not something we should speculate upon, however if G-d did provide a path to a true Christian man, he probably would be a total mutt for his ancestral heritage, with a truly Gentile name. The Almighty has a unique sense of mirth, to keep us from taking our part in our pilgrimage too seriously.
Is there a beautiful Jewish woman from Winnipeg, Manitoba who is this Sarah? Sarah is a very common name for a woman, probably more common among Jews than others, but a quite common name none the less. I certainly did no internet search looking for ravishingly beautiful women raised or living in Winnipeg. I don’t even know how one would do that, without entering into the swamp of despair. Furthermore, that search would be our all to common attempt to bring God down to the human level, which we Christians and specifically we Protestants like to do so well. Jews on the other hand fully understand the gulf between the created and the Creator, we must do the same and let the Almighty perform His common miracles and build this needed bridge.
The application, or the imperative here, that Paul is talking about in Romans, is his prayer and hope that the nation of Israel will come to understand that Jesus’ propitiatory sacrifice is that bridge between God and sinful mankind, for Jews, Greeks, Americans, Canadians, and everyone else. What is restraining that now is the time of the Gentiles to become children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, descendants of a beautiful old woman, who spoke with God, Sarah. A beautiful Queen Ester, who not only saved the Jews from extermination, but kept alive the Messianic hope. Within that hope, whose object is the Almighty, an internally eternally beautiful Mary, a direct descendent of King David, became the virgin mother of the Eternal King of all humanity, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah.
As C. S. Lewis and others have said so well, “You must make your choice. Either this man (Jesus) was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Saul, one of the best trained Jewish rabbis of all time, became blind while on the road to Damascus to persecute the apostate Jewish sect, then known as The Way. Three days later, Ananias laid hands upon Saul and something like scales fell from his eyes, his sight was restored, and he was baptized. So we have the typology for removing Jewish blindness to the understanding of Yeshua Ha’Macshiach.
Whether Sarah’s mum is the catalyst, or there is some other source along that road of Sarah’s life, that same sight will come and that eternally beautiful Sarah from Winnipeg, could become an unique woman in the long awaited answer to the prayer of the Jewish Apostle to the Gentiles. The wild branches can now be grafted in, he family of God can now become one. Finally one “People of the Book.“ To which all of God’s unified people can say, Amen.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:5,6
In that light, it is the redemptive order of unity in diversity provided in Christ, that vanquishes the chaos of darkness.