A Message from Pastor Kaji
Dear Church:
This Sunday, we are diving into a difficult and often-overlooked passage: Numbers 5:11+. It is a troubling text—one that describes an ancient ritual used to determine a woman’s guilt or innocence. It is unsettling in its implications, and it may be hard to hear. I want to acknowledge that up front.
As we prepare our hearts and minds for worship, I invite you to sit with a few questions:
- How do you respond when we encounter injustice that is accepted as normal?
- What does it feel like when someone else holds power over your body or your future?
- How do you make peace with parts of our history that disturb you? Or do you?
Come ready to wrestle. Come ready to reflect. Most of all, come knowing that God is always leading us toward love.
Pax Christi,
Pastor Kaji
SCRIPTURE
Numbers 5: 11–24, 27–28:
11 Now the JUDGE OF ALL FLESH spoke to Moses, saying: 12 Speak to the women and men of Israel and say to them: If the wife of any man goes astray and betrays him with a betrayal, 13 and a man lies with her [yielding] an emission of seed yet it is hidden from the eyes of her husband and she conceals [it], and she has rendered herself unacceptable and there is no witness against her and she was not forced . . . 14 And if a spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he is jealous on account of his wife and she has rendered herself unacceptable, or if a spirit of jealousy comes on him and he is jealous on account of his wife and she has not rendered herself unacceptable . . . 15 Then the man shall bring his wife to the priest and he shall bring the offering for her: one-tenth of an ephah of barley flour [about two quarts] and he shall not pour oil on it and he shall not put frankincense on it, for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of remembrance, for remembering iniquity.
16 Then the priest shall bring her near and set her before the JUDGE OF ALL THE EARTH. 17 The priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and from the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle, the priest shall take and put into the water. 18 Then the priest shall make the woman stand before the DREAD GOD, unbind the hair of the woman and place upon her hands the offering of remembrance; it is an offering of jealousy. And in the hand of the priest shall be the curse begetting waters of bitterness. 19 Then the priest shall make her swear, saying, “If no man has lain with you and if you have not turned aside to that which is unacceptable while under [subject to] your husband, be uninjured from the curse begetting waters of bitterness. 20 But if you have turned aside while under [subject to] your husband, if you have rendered yourself unacceptable, and a man has lain with you who is not your husband . . .” 21 Now the priest makes the woman swear the imprecation [oath of cursing] and says to the woman, “May the ALL-SEEING GOD make you an imprecation and an execration [a ritual cursing and the curse itself] among your people when the FOUNT OF JUSTICE makes your uterus collapse and your womb swell. 22 Now may these curse-begetting waters of bitterness go into your innards and make your womb swell, your uterus collapse!” And the woman shall say, “Amen. Amen.” 23 Then the priest shall write these curses in a scroll and dissolve them in the waters of bitterness. 24 He shall make the woman drink the curse-begetting waters of bitterness and the curse-begetting waters shall enter her, creating bitterness.
27 When he has made her drink the waters, then, if she has rendered herself unacceptable and has betrayed her husband with an act of betrayal, the curse-begetting waters shall enter into her and cause bitterness and her womb shall swell and her uterus collapse, and the woman shall become an imprecation among her people. 28 But if the woman has not rendered herself unacceptable and is pure, then she shall be uninjured and be able to be sown with seed.