Assumptions

Rabbi Derek Leman's new book, Yeshua, Our Atonement, arrived last week. I have been able to read several chapters, and like everything he does, it is awesome. Derek has a skill at popularizing scholarship in an insightful, yet readable, way. Go to derekleman.com for more information on this and his other books.

One thing he shares is his own journey of deepening understanding. It is true of us all. We have a chance to factor in new information and test out our assumptions. What I also know is, in spite of contrary evidence, we tend to hold onto our assumptions. It is probably the nature of things.

I am re-reading The Fourth Turning. I am in the section about personality types. I have long been interested in such things, being a big fan of Please Understand Me II (as well as the previous book by the same title without the "II"). I notice that my personality type is interested in personality type. It all fits...

At Youth Villages we had social styles training. The four basic groupings were Driver, Analytical, Amiable, and Expressive. Four basic groupings of human beings. The four come from the combination of two pairs. Do you tell people or ask people? Do you focus on people or are you focused on results? Like all simplifications it is simplified, but there is a core truth available as well. Face it, while we are all different, we also  have many commonalities.

There are any number of "pairs" which we can use to discuss people. Many an old joke begins with the words "there are two kind of people in the world..." And part of the humor is based on the truth of it. One of the places where those binary divisions occur is in religion. A fundamental one, for Judaeo-Christian believers has to do with the status of the Jews. The problem (dilemma, bone of contention) is the statement: The Jews are the Chosen People. In my seminary days this was called "the scandal of particularity." In other words, most of us get skittish when God is identified with a specific choice (as opposed to generalities). The concept of a "chosen" people is hard for Americans to accept. We like "everyone" language so we say, "the Jews are chosen, but so is everyone else." Americans tend to redefine terms to make things fit in an inclusive blanket. In reaction to that, there is an exclusivist party which embraces the opposite stand. Now most of the latter group would also think that "The Chosen People" i.e. Jews have been replaced. But the replacement group (Christians, as specifically defined by the person advocating the position) is every bit as chosen (many like the word "election" meaning pre-ordained, chosen before time, decided on long ago before things got started). It is rare that believers in a "chosen" group do not also include themselves as "the chosen."

One common assumption is the idea that the Jews (Chosen People) have a special place in God's economy of salvation (fancy way of saying, "the way God sets things right"). This special status is generally understood as privilege. Now some of that comes from the (American) cultural inclination to see things in terms of class warfare. Privelege is in the eye of the beholder (listen to how the upper and lower classes, or their political advocates, talk about each other). In fact, assumptions are a direct result of "the eye of the beholder." Our lenses through which we see the world is a function of assumptions.

It is with all this in mind that I stumbled across Numbers 15:13ff. Although I know better, I am still surprised by the instances in the Ancient Covenant Text of the Jews which do not neatly fit into a two tiered universe (us and them). A brief quotation, as regards sacrifice. "As you (Jew) will do so he (alien) shall do. You, congregation (God's people), and the resident alien have one law, an eternal law, through your generations: It will be the same for you and for the alien in front of YHWH. You and the aline who resides with you shall have one instruction and one judgment. [TORAH, translated and commentary by Richard Friedman] Friedman's comment, "Israelites are no priveleged over anyone else.]

The Jews are chosen, indeed, but chosen to mission. As Jesus told them (He spoke to Jews, remember?) "You are the light of the world." That missionary work, to be God's light is fundamental to identity. As such, being chosen is chosen for mission, not status. Jesus makes clear that the servant status of Chosen Ones is not privelege it is self gift.

Unfortunately, there are two kind of people in the world, the ones who think we are chosen for honor and privelege and the ones who think we are chosen to loving service. The question, which one are you (am I)?