The "Poor" are, theologically, a sociological entity and a spiritual metaphor in the Bible. The poor of God refers to those who have entrusted their life to Him. It means the ones who have no other resources, nothing else upon which to lean or hope. Such people (also called the Meek, the Humble, the Lowly, and the Poor in Spirit) have ordered their lives in a hierarchy where God sits atop of all desires and goals. [brief detour: Saying God #1 in our lives, however, can lead to an error. How? We might think that making God #1 implies that there are #2, #3, #4, etc. This leads to thinking that we can divide up our day and give God the "best" or "largest slice" but then turn to other concerns. If God is my #1, what is #2? So I give God an hour and then thirty minutes, with no God reference, to something else which is #2. I would say breathing is a better analogy. Keeping myself alive is certainly something I spend much time and energy doing. Here is the mystery revealed. I continue to breathe even as I do other things. At work, I breathe. At play, I breathe. At prayer, I breathe. At study, I breathe. I don't take leave of the need to breathe in order to do other things. Breathing is on a different level than my "to do" list. And it co-exists with all of them. So it is with God.]
For the poor in spirit God is #1 means to say, "all I am, all I do, all I seek, all I celebrate, all I desire... is IN God." So I pray because God is my #1, but when I play, it is also in God. So nothing I do is outside of that relationship (which makes sinning so blasphemous. In sin, we reduce God to one value among many which, from time to time, can be set aside). The poor (in this spiritual sense) are the ones who recognize that every moment of every day hangs in the balance, and only God (ONLY God !) sustains it. So it is not an issue of balancing God with other values, it is an issue of submitting all values in and through our commitment to God. [The upside is we do not have to being doing "religious" stuff, or "spiritual" stuff, in order to be connecting with God] Family time, recreation time, eating and drinking, reading and relaxing can all be done in a spirit of thanksgiving and worship, without being overtly "religious." However, I would also argue that to pull it off, one needs to set aside times of actual and overt "religious practice/spirituality" so church attendance, Bible study and prayer are not optional. The old mantra from the 70's "my life is a prayer" can be true, but it is usually a delusion if your prayer life is not robust!
However, and this is vital, the Biblical concept of the Poor is not simply a spiritual insight or religious practice. The primary referent to the Poor in the Bible is a sociological and economic entity. As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, dirt eaters refers to a literal fact. The Poor eat "dirt" to fill their bellies. Recall the prodigal son parable in Luke. [If that is not a familiar story here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Prodigal_Son ] The wayward youth was in a most disastrous situation for a Jewish boy--feeding pigs (unclean!) and desiring to fill his belly with pig food (ugh!) because he was so hungry. In America we often hear of people who pick through dumpsters to find a meal. And in the third world people not only eat garbage, they eat actual dirt to make the emptiness go away. The danger with middle class folks (who are never really hungry) talking about being 'poor in spirit' is that we seldom are (when we say "I need" we really mean "I want"). And the delusion of the term can blind us to the actual reality which Almighty God has revealed to us in the texts of the Ancient Covenant (OT) and the Covenant of Jesus (NT). If we spend time reading the Torah we will see that God's concern with the rightly ordered life includes what we call "social justice" and taking care of the poor. In Torah, the farmer is commanded to leave some behind in the fields so that the needy can gather grain. Intentionally inefficient harvests for the sake of the poor is a stunning reminder to us today about how to deal with the poor (and Democrats miss the boat here as badly as Republicans, or so it appears to me). It is a personal decision to give freely of what I have to another. It is generous. It is not a government mandate fueled by Powerful people who tax (i.e. take away by force) and then distribute for political gain (don't believe me, look at which groups vote for which candidates and see if self interest motivates the ballot box!).
The real poor of Jesus' day also figuratively ate dirt because they were downtrodden (the image of being walked all over is figurative for us, but quite literal in some times and places for real poor people). The poor and powerless literally lay face down on the ground. (The Greek word for worship means to fall on one's face.) It was an ancient practice of submission which people really did to humiliate themselves and declare that they were beneath someone of a higher status. That is what 'the poor' does in the presence of the "mighty." (And it is not something middle class Americans ever do, figuratively or literally, hence the limits of the concept as a spiritualized ideal) To "lick the dust" (a frequent Biblical turn of phrase) is not just a poetic image, it is an actual behavior which the real poor experience. Stripped of self value and denied access to the halls of power, the real poor live under no delusions that they matter to society. They know that they are expendable, that they have no rights, and that the insolence of lifting their faces from the ground will result in a beating, or worse. [Remember, Roman citizens were not crucified nor beaten without a trial (see Paul's complaint in Acts 22) because they had rights. Most people, however, were slaves or foreigners. Most people were poor; they were "dirt eaters."]
The salvation revealed in the Ancient Testament (read Amos and Isaiah) is usually concerned with justice. It is a world where all have access to the riches of the earth. Food, drink and a life of joy are available to all in God's Kingdom. And the picture is quite earthy, even in the New Covenant description. As I will preach today (twice), God (in Christ) does not call us to be "spiritual" alone. Nor does He call us to be "only" spiritual. [and I am a tireless advocate of the spiritual life and spiritual discipline] Being only spiritual is Gnostic (heresy, bad, deadly). Being religious is holistic (and holy, being both spiritual and material). Spiritual people do not bring good news to dirt eaters, they bring empty words ("hey, enjoy the sunset, hungry ones, and enjoy the knowledge that we have souls and like nature..."). To paraphrase James 1:27 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+1%3A27&version=ESV real religion is being uncorrupted by the value system of unredeemed humanity AND taking care of the truly needy and poor. It is about Holiness and Justice, two enterprises which are never completely achieved.
Jesus was probably poor, much poorer than we imagine. He had little social power or social status. That is why He was crucified. If one studies His preaching it is hard to understand what He said which led to the cross. It is because in our culture we vote, we have rights to say what we think. Jesus did not advocate anything criminal in our minds, so what was His crime? His crime was that He offered a different vision of society. He claimed a status for the dirt eaters which the Empire could not abide. He basically said the dirt eaters were fully human and children of God. Such radical thinking is at odds with "the world, the flesh and the devil" so it called down the wrath of the Principalities and Powers. But The Evil One (and, as Paul says, we live in 'this present darkness' under Its influence) is subtle. In our own more democratic times the disdain for the dirt eaters morphs and takes new forms. The impulse to oppress others remains, it is just dressed in garb which leads us to think our version of oppression is just and fair. In every age, in all places, the radical message of Jesus (about God's Kingdom as expressed in Torah and Prophets) is hard to hear, harder to understand, and hardest to embrace and incarnate. We are all victims, but we are also perpetrators. We are all poor, but poor is relative and relatively speaking, some are much poorer than others. Some are unbelievably, horribly, hopelessly, despisedly, broken and downtrodden, dirt eating poor. Jesus loves us all. Jesus also calls us to so much more. And unless we repent of our own blindness and sin (distorted by our politics, each in a unique way) we will continue, every day in a myriad of ways, to walk all over the dirt eaters and ignore their plight (or use it to our advantage in the name of justice or other high sounding phrase). And when Jesus comes back, He will not be pleased (no matter how spiritual we think we are).
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
God's Ways
[Teaching Wednesday on Luke 4:16-30, we spent two full weeks on this chapter and I have written about it several times as well. So much there, so very much! Many of you will hear this Gospel Sunday (Revised Common Lectionary and usually the Roman Catholic are the same) so hopefully these reflections will be relevant.]
As we already saw, Luke has taken an event from later in Jesus' life (according to Mark//Mathew) and set it at the beginning of Jesus' ministry as a summary statement of Jesus' mission and ministry as well as a foreshadowing of the rejection and crucifixion. As the story ends, we read that Jesus is taken outside the city to a hill where they want to throw Him over, but He passes through their midst. Passing through is a phrase used over and over by Luke to indicate that Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem (to die). The crucifixion is on a hill outside the city...
As we know from the story an initially positive response devolves into a negative reaction. Luke's Jesus expresses this by saying "...you will probably say, "Do here what you have done in Capernaum [i.e. miracles]" In Mk and Mt He does not say this. Instead it is merely unbelief which is expressed, and Jesus, amazed at this lack of faith is "only able" to do a few healing miracles among them. Luke heads elsewhere in his rendition. By referring to Jesus' broader ministry at Capernaum (which ironically begins in the next verse; Luke is chronologically out of order as we said) Luke is emphasizing the "insider-outsider" Jew/Gentile dilemma. All four Gospels shape the material of Jesus' life and shape it by emphasizing key issues and themes. Luke has his own (Holy Spirit inspired) emphasis. One of those is "the poor." Another is "the Holy Spirit." Here it is "the God Who acts freely as He chooses."
In reflecting on this question, "Why don't YOU do here what you did there?" I shared with the groups I teach that this is actually one of the Atheist/Agnostic's primary arguments against God. As Michael, my most expressive commenter shared some weeks ago: If God is good and powerful why does He allow bad things to happen. In Luke 4:24-27 Jesus gives His answer. Retelling some stories about Elijah and Elisha, Jesus reminds His hearers (and us) that there were lots of needy folks (a widow and a leper in particular) but God chose to only heal two foreigners. Now this is what set off the crowd. Luke is conveying, in narrative, a key element of Jesus' teaching. He says God Ways are not our own. While we may scrutinize those ways and critique God, in the end, Jesus is much less concerned with defending God then He is proclaiming God.
The God who saves Gentiles is, of course, one stream of the ancient covenant. After all, the story begins with Adam & Eve (and all humanity). The covenant with Noah is universal. Abraham is not a Jew. He is a father of nations (remember his offspring include the fathers of many tribes beyond Israel). It is, however, a particular line (Isaac, then Jacob/Israel) with which God makes a covenant (for the sake of blessing the world). Herein lies the mystery. God chooses a people and sets them apart, but He does not (at least in one dominant stream of the text) limit salvation to them, He offers salvation through them. For example, He makes Persian Cyrus an unknowing Messiah. Then there is the Balaam story (which I am reading in my personal prayer). Balaam is a pagan prophet, yet He knows God, BY NAME! He calls God YHWH and he is in communication with God. He is sent to curse Israel, but obedient to God, he blesses them (along the same lines as the Abraham blessing in Genesis).
Reading about Balaam took me deeper into Jesus' discussion in the synagogue. I told the class I frequently bring up things there which show up a day or two later in Morning Prayer readings, or on the radio, or in other readings. As if to prove the point, the next day a psalm I refered to in class (Ps 116, "I love the Lord because He answered my plea") was our first psalm in prayer. [I refered to it as illustrating our tendencies, we love when God does what we want--'do here what we heard you did there' and it is part of our sinful desire to have God serve us, rather than us serve God.] While Jesus is THE ONLY way to the Father, I am not sure the way we define it is accurate. Many are 'nicer than God' (those progressives with whom I am often so cross) and they say things like "Jesus is our savior" or "Jesus is my way." Such a slippery approach to truth makes me, well, it makes me quite cross. I find it silly. However, my conservative friends (and they are) bother me when they talk about salvation in such limited fashion that they seem to forget that God's desire is that everyone is saved. And the Bible, both the older and more recent sections, frequently mention events and words which provide every reason to think that God has a plan B, a plan C and a plan D to compensate for our failure to bring all creation under Christ. And I am clear, Jesus is the only way, and I am clear that Jesus is bigger than the preferred option plan for acquiring salvation being peddled among us.
God's ways are mystery, both (per Luke and the synagogue) "gracious sounding" and "irritating." I do not claim to know or understand, it is paradoxical. I only know that God is at work and I am at work trying to figure out what He is doing. And my vocation is to follow Jesus. To believe in and love Him, and to pick up a cross of my own and "pass through" this world to my appointed destiny. To live and die like Him....
As we already saw, Luke has taken an event from later in Jesus' life (according to Mark//Mathew) and set it at the beginning of Jesus' ministry as a summary statement of Jesus' mission and ministry as well as a foreshadowing of the rejection and crucifixion. As the story ends, we read that Jesus is taken outside the city to a hill where they want to throw Him over, but He passes through their midst. Passing through is a phrase used over and over by Luke to indicate that Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem (to die). The crucifixion is on a hill outside the city...
As we know from the story an initially positive response devolves into a negative reaction. Luke's Jesus expresses this by saying "...you will probably say, "Do here what you have done in Capernaum [i.e. miracles]" In Mk and Mt He does not say this. Instead it is merely unbelief which is expressed, and Jesus, amazed at this lack of faith is "only able" to do a few healing miracles among them. Luke heads elsewhere in his rendition. By referring to Jesus' broader ministry at Capernaum (which ironically begins in the next verse; Luke is chronologically out of order as we said) Luke is emphasizing the "insider-outsider" Jew/Gentile dilemma. All four Gospels shape the material of Jesus' life and shape it by emphasizing key issues and themes. Luke has his own (Holy Spirit inspired) emphasis. One of those is "the poor." Another is "the Holy Spirit." Here it is "the God Who acts freely as He chooses."
In reflecting on this question, "Why don't YOU do here what you did there?" I shared with the groups I teach that this is actually one of the Atheist/Agnostic's primary arguments against God. As Michael, my most expressive commenter shared some weeks ago: If God is good and powerful why does He allow bad things to happen. In Luke 4:24-27 Jesus gives His answer. Retelling some stories about Elijah and Elisha, Jesus reminds His hearers (and us) that there were lots of needy folks (a widow and a leper in particular) but God chose to only heal two foreigners. Now this is what set off the crowd. Luke is conveying, in narrative, a key element of Jesus' teaching. He says God Ways are not our own. While we may scrutinize those ways and critique God, in the end, Jesus is much less concerned with defending God then He is proclaiming God.
The God who saves Gentiles is, of course, one stream of the ancient covenant. After all, the story begins with Adam & Eve (and all humanity). The covenant with Noah is universal. Abraham is not a Jew. He is a father of nations (remember his offspring include the fathers of many tribes beyond Israel). It is, however, a particular line (Isaac, then Jacob/Israel) with which God makes a covenant (for the sake of blessing the world). Herein lies the mystery. God chooses a people and sets them apart, but He does not (at least in one dominant stream of the text) limit salvation to them, He offers salvation through them. For example, He makes Persian Cyrus an unknowing Messiah. Then there is the Balaam story (which I am reading in my personal prayer). Balaam is a pagan prophet, yet He knows God, BY NAME! He calls God YHWH and he is in communication with God. He is sent to curse Israel, but obedient to God, he blesses them (along the same lines as the Abraham blessing in Genesis).
Reading about Balaam took me deeper into Jesus' discussion in the synagogue. I told the class I frequently bring up things there which show up a day or two later in Morning Prayer readings, or on the radio, or in other readings. As if to prove the point, the next day a psalm I refered to in class (Ps 116, "I love the Lord because He answered my plea") was our first psalm in prayer. [I refered to it as illustrating our tendencies, we love when God does what we want--'do here what we heard you did there' and it is part of our sinful desire to have God serve us, rather than us serve God.] While Jesus is THE ONLY way to the Father, I am not sure the way we define it is accurate. Many are 'nicer than God' (those progressives with whom I am often so cross) and they say things like "Jesus is our savior" or "Jesus is my way." Such a slippery approach to truth makes me, well, it makes me quite cross. I find it silly. However, my conservative friends (and they are) bother me when they talk about salvation in such limited fashion that they seem to forget that God's desire is that everyone is saved. And the Bible, both the older and more recent sections, frequently mention events and words which provide every reason to think that God has a plan B, a plan C and a plan D to compensate for our failure to bring all creation under Christ. And I am clear, Jesus is the only way, and I am clear that Jesus is bigger than the preferred option plan for acquiring salvation being peddled among us.
God's ways are mystery, both (per Luke and the synagogue) "gracious sounding" and "irritating." I do not claim to know or understand, it is paradoxical. I only know that God is at work and I am at work trying to figure out what He is doing. And my vocation is to follow Jesus. To believe in and love Him, and to pick up a cross of my own and "pass through" this world to my appointed destiny. To live and die like Him....
Thursday, January 24, 2013
The ONLY only
I have written in the past about my issues with "solo" talk. As I have said, it is fine depending on how you define the terms. "Only faith" or "only grace" or "only the Bible" or "only Jesus" are wonderful chapter headings to summarize much more nuanced and complex theological reflection on reality. And Americans are often bereft of sufficient reflection on exactly what they mean when they say such things.
We were studying Luke 4:16ff last night in Bible study. The famous synagogue scene where Jesus reads from Isaiah and announces the text is fulfilled "today" brings chills to my spine. However, the focus of that sermon was on Jubilee. It is primarilly directed to the poor ("dirt eaters" i.e. people whose faces are on the ground "eating dust" figuratively and hungry people who literally eat other people's refuse and garbage as they starve) and has huge economic ramifications. It is about forgiving debts (see the Lord's prayer for that one, too) and setting those in debtor prison free. This theological principle is tricky and can simplistically be co-opted by politicians. [A rule of thumb, be consistent in applying Bible to politics] Whatever else Jesus means (figurative and spiritual readings of Biblical text are appropriate and very common in the early church) the primary reference (though not only) is to bringing poor people good news--and announcing a salvation which addresses body as well as soul, belly as well as spirit. As we discussed Luke's version of Jesus and His affinity for the poor I was reminded, "only faith" is not advocated here. Service of the poor is, very much.
By opening our mind and heart to Jesus, we are challenged to expand our understanding of God on a daily basis. A minister friend of mine was telling me how hard it is for middle class people to hear the Gospel. I agree with him. When you baptize a middle class white American, you end up with a middle class white American Christian. Now, that is not all bad. It is, in part, the real world. [Our ideal world thinking tends to ignore that.] Academics tend to be academic in approaching Jesus. Simple folks get simple. Emptional (or unemotional) folks express their faith consistently with their personality. That is how it goes. Baptize Frank warriors in the Middle Ages and you get a combative church. Baptize nature mytics in the celtic regions and you end up with an earthy spirituality. Real live people make up the church in every day and time. The spirituality of African Christians has all the strengths and weaknesses of their culture. So, there in not one "only" way to be Christian (although there are parameters and limits) and no one culture is the "only" one to get it right.
Today we read Isaiah 45. We heard that "I am the Lord and there is no other." In fact, we heard it again and again. I am clear that is a place where the word "only" is appropriate. There is only one God and GOD is GOD. There is no other. But as we construct our boxes for God we must recall that He is GOD (not us). And our vision and understanding of God, even if we read the Bible, is always too small and always inaccurate in places. This leads some people to declare it is "all a mystery" as they flush orthodoxy down the toilet and recreate God (with all the stuff they don't like clipped away) in the image they prefer. Isaiah calls that idolatry. He says idol worshippers are basically idiots. I agree with him. Any god I create is not worthy of praise. And the only God I can create is a false one. [so that 'only' is also accurate]
My minister friend said that the only way forward is for the conservative and liberal church to fold up. Statistics indicate that may be happening. A new gerneration has come of age. There is lots perculating among us. God is also among us (Emmanuel) so there is hope. ONLY in God will my soul find its rest. So we continue the journey. Tomorrow I want to reflect on the surprise God who does not match up with our expectations sometimes. More on Luke 4, Numbers 22 and Isaiah tomorrow.
We were studying Luke 4:16ff last night in Bible study. The famous synagogue scene where Jesus reads from Isaiah and announces the text is fulfilled "today" brings chills to my spine. However, the focus of that sermon was on Jubilee. It is primarilly directed to the poor ("dirt eaters" i.e. people whose faces are on the ground "eating dust" figuratively and hungry people who literally eat other people's refuse and garbage as they starve) and has huge economic ramifications. It is about forgiving debts (see the Lord's prayer for that one, too) and setting those in debtor prison free. This theological principle is tricky and can simplistically be co-opted by politicians. [A rule of thumb, be consistent in applying Bible to politics] Whatever else Jesus means (figurative and spiritual readings of Biblical text are appropriate and very common in the early church) the primary reference (though not only) is to bringing poor people good news--and announcing a salvation which addresses body as well as soul, belly as well as spirit. As we discussed Luke's version of Jesus and His affinity for the poor I was reminded, "only faith" is not advocated here. Service of the poor is, very much.
By opening our mind and heart to Jesus, we are challenged to expand our understanding of God on a daily basis. A minister friend of mine was telling me how hard it is for middle class people to hear the Gospel. I agree with him. When you baptize a middle class white American, you end up with a middle class white American Christian. Now, that is not all bad. It is, in part, the real world. [Our ideal world thinking tends to ignore that.] Academics tend to be academic in approaching Jesus. Simple folks get simple. Emptional (or unemotional) folks express their faith consistently with their personality. That is how it goes. Baptize Frank warriors in the Middle Ages and you get a combative church. Baptize nature mytics in the celtic regions and you end up with an earthy spirituality. Real live people make up the church in every day and time. The spirituality of African Christians has all the strengths and weaknesses of their culture. So, there in not one "only" way to be Christian (although there are parameters and limits) and no one culture is the "only" one to get it right.
Today we read Isaiah 45. We heard that "I am the Lord and there is no other." In fact, we heard it again and again. I am clear that is a place where the word "only" is appropriate. There is only one God and GOD is GOD. There is no other. But as we construct our boxes for God we must recall that He is GOD (not us). And our vision and understanding of God, even if we read the Bible, is always too small and always inaccurate in places. This leads some people to declare it is "all a mystery" as they flush orthodoxy down the toilet and recreate God (with all the stuff they don't like clipped away) in the image they prefer. Isaiah calls that idolatry. He says idol worshippers are basically idiots. I agree with him. Any god I create is not worthy of praise. And the only God I can create is a false one. [so that 'only' is also accurate]
My minister friend said that the only way forward is for the conservative and liberal church to fold up. Statistics indicate that may be happening. A new gerneration has come of age. There is lots perculating among us. God is also among us (Emmanuel) so there is hope. ONLY in God will my soul find its rest. So we continue the journey. Tomorrow I want to reflect on the surprise God who does not match up with our expectations sometimes. More on Luke 4, Numbers 22 and Isaiah tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Whose Agenda?
One great challenge in life is overcoming the obstacle of hypocrisy. Sitting in a room with an overweight doctor, wheezing and sweating as he stuffs donuts in his mouth and puffs away at one cigarette after another; well it is just hard to hear his sound advice about diet and exercise and healthy living. Please note the conflict "hard to hear" and "sound advice." Our endless worry about hypocrisy can be a barrier to truth. No matter how disconnected the doctor's own life style is from his teaching, what matters is it is true.
I am a priest, the most dangerous career choice in God's house. There are numerous places where the preacher/teacher/leader of the church is told that (s)he will be held to a higher standard. In other words, God expects more from us because of the role we play. The upside is we can do what we love and enjoy serving Him and His. The downside, better be faithful and do it well, or there is hell to pay. Literally...
The Greek word, hypocrites, is where we get our word in English. It literally refers to a stage actor but by extension also can be applied to those who are fakes. In the end, there is a thin line between active faking and failing to live up to one's standards. This is why the word hypocrite is so difficult. Whenever I preach or teach I always know that I fail to do the things I am calling others to do. Always. And that awareness of self can be a temptation to soften the message. It can be a temptation to ignore the word of God and bring it down to the word of Jeff. That is probably understandable and may even (arguably) be motivated by humility or integrity. Whatever the motivation, however, the sad truth is, it is wrong. You see, the agenda of the preacher must always be God's message. And to replace God with me is always a sin. A failure. A missing the mark.
With that long introduction in place, I want to reflect on our reading today from Ephesians 5:1-14. It begins with the exhortation, "Be imitators of God, as beloved children." Yikes! How can anyone as flawed as me invite others to imitate God? As the words flow from my mouth I can only think that I look as nonsensical as the unhealthy doctor I began today's post with. Do I imitate God? Heck, sometimes am I even trying? The sad truth, no. I try and fail, when I try at all. Yet, Paul is clear. This is our vocation, our calling. This is how we model our lives. Yet it is not obvious exactly what that looks like. Certainly Paul does not mean go around creating universes and ruling creation. He does not mean acting like we are the Supreme Being. What He means is, be holy like God. Be virtuous like God. He provides a list of things to avoid: fornication, impurity, covetousness, idolatry, and silly talk. Rather, he says, "let there be thanksgiving." (Greek word is eucharist)
Fornication, in recent days, had made a huge come back. It is no longer viewed as a vice. And my own life is not pure and holy and innocent, so I am considered a poor candidate to address the issue. I have done some things I should not have. I have thought some thoughts that were inappropriate. So anything I have to say can be ruled the useless banter of a hypocrite. O well, here goes anyhow. The Bible is clear on sex. It is intended in the context of a marriage. As a speaker once said, it is nice if there is love in the marriage, but love is not the context of sex, marriage is. That is God's intention according to the Bible and two thousand years of Christian tradition (and a long time prior, probably one thousand more years for Judaism)
In our culture, believing in traditional marriage is considered evil, or cruel, or bad. Speaking against fornication is considered judgmental and unfair. Saying marriage is what our Bible and prayer books say marriage is called hateful. We hear that "all love is equal" without reference to what that means. And be clear, that statement (in fairness like most pithy little statements) is not only false, it is actually silly and in the wrong hands, dangerous. But dang if it doesn't sound good and feel enlightened and open minded. Until someone who loves multiple women says it, or someone who loves young boys, or someone who loves... Well you fill in the blank. Reality is, all love is not equal. And even if it is, it doesn't matter as regards sexual expression.
Our own thinking on this issue is clouded. As a young man I was very open to the propaganda machine which told me that the church had an outdated, unrealistic approach to such things. Any argument which justified me doing what I wanted was most welcome. It fit my agenda. And it fits the agenda of most of us. Is sex outside marriage (ie, one man- one woman) the worst evil on the planet. Nope. But making the worst evil on the planet the dividing line is probably a bad place to start. It is, however, according to Ephesians, a cause of God's wrath. [God turns us over to the consequences of our sins.] And the fact that most of us are deaf and blind to the word on this issue does not keep us from that wrath. God's agenda is no fornication. God's agenda is not our culture's agenda. And that is too bad for us.
I am a priest, the most dangerous career choice in God's house. There are numerous places where the preacher/teacher/leader of the church is told that (s)he will be held to a higher standard. In other words, God expects more from us because of the role we play. The upside is we can do what we love and enjoy serving Him and His. The downside, better be faithful and do it well, or there is hell to pay. Literally...
The Greek word, hypocrites, is where we get our word in English. It literally refers to a stage actor but by extension also can be applied to those who are fakes. In the end, there is a thin line between active faking and failing to live up to one's standards. This is why the word hypocrite is so difficult. Whenever I preach or teach I always know that I fail to do the things I am calling others to do. Always. And that awareness of self can be a temptation to soften the message. It can be a temptation to ignore the word of God and bring it down to the word of Jeff. That is probably understandable and may even (arguably) be motivated by humility or integrity. Whatever the motivation, however, the sad truth is, it is wrong. You see, the agenda of the preacher must always be God's message. And to replace God with me is always a sin. A failure. A missing the mark.
With that long introduction in place, I want to reflect on our reading today from Ephesians 5:1-14. It begins with the exhortation, "Be imitators of God, as beloved children." Yikes! How can anyone as flawed as me invite others to imitate God? As the words flow from my mouth I can only think that I look as nonsensical as the unhealthy doctor I began today's post with. Do I imitate God? Heck, sometimes am I even trying? The sad truth, no. I try and fail, when I try at all. Yet, Paul is clear. This is our vocation, our calling. This is how we model our lives. Yet it is not obvious exactly what that looks like. Certainly Paul does not mean go around creating universes and ruling creation. He does not mean acting like we are the Supreme Being. What He means is, be holy like God. Be virtuous like God. He provides a list of things to avoid: fornication, impurity, covetousness, idolatry, and silly talk. Rather, he says, "let there be thanksgiving." (Greek word is eucharist)
Fornication, in recent days, had made a huge come back. It is no longer viewed as a vice. And my own life is not pure and holy and innocent, so I am considered a poor candidate to address the issue. I have done some things I should not have. I have thought some thoughts that were inappropriate. So anything I have to say can be ruled the useless banter of a hypocrite. O well, here goes anyhow. The Bible is clear on sex. It is intended in the context of a marriage. As a speaker once said, it is nice if there is love in the marriage, but love is not the context of sex, marriage is. That is God's intention according to the Bible and two thousand years of Christian tradition (and a long time prior, probably one thousand more years for Judaism)
In our culture, believing in traditional marriage is considered evil, or cruel, or bad. Speaking against fornication is considered judgmental and unfair. Saying marriage is what our Bible and prayer books say marriage is called hateful. We hear that "all love is equal" without reference to what that means. And be clear, that statement (in fairness like most pithy little statements) is not only false, it is actually silly and in the wrong hands, dangerous. But dang if it doesn't sound good and feel enlightened and open minded. Until someone who loves multiple women says it, or someone who loves young boys, or someone who loves... Well you fill in the blank. Reality is, all love is not equal. And even if it is, it doesn't matter as regards sexual expression.
Our own thinking on this issue is clouded. As a young man I was very open to the propaganda machine which told me that the church had an outdated, unrealistic approach to such things. Any argument which justified me doing what I wanted was most welcome. It fit my agenda. And it fits the agenda of most of us. Is sex outside marriage (ie, one man- one woman) the worst evil on the planet. Nope. But making the worst evil on the planet the dividing line is probably a bad place to start. It is, however, according to Ephesians, a cause of God's wrath. [God turns us over to the consequences of our sins.] And the fact that most of us are deaf and blind to the word on this issue does not keep us from that wrath. God's agenda is no fornication. God's agenda is not our culture's agenda. And that is too bad for us.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Divine Authorship
Reading and praying over Numbers 21 I stumbled across a reference to another 'book', the scroll of the Wars. The reference seems to be to a poetic summary of Israel's victories. More "conservative" commentators argue that this book was also written by Moses and is a collection of poetic instruction for Joshua as he carries on the fight into the promised land. While there is probably no reason to dismiss this idea without giving it a thought; there is less reason to embrace it (from the text). Like the Book of Jasher (Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18) or the oft mentioned chronicles of the Kings of Judah and Israel (in canonical 1&2 Kings), the plain sense of this reference seems to be to another resource. Why would such a thing trouble us?
When Luke says that he wrote an "orderly account" based on the "eyewitnesses and servants of the word" which he had "investigated carefully for a long time" (Luke 1:1-4) we feel safe to assume that he means, the Gospel of Mark, which he appears to have used as his primary source and either a common source with Matthew, or Matthew's Gospel itself, which served to provide the parallel teachings and assorted other shared features which they (Mt&Lk) share independent of Mark. Just reading the three Gospels side-by-side (which we are doing in our Bible study at St. Andrews) provides a constant reminder of this.
In the early church, there was a point in time when it became widely understood that Jesus was divine. The process of reflection and deepening understanding was not smooth and effortless. Wrapping their head around the concept of "God-become-Man" was difficult and challenging. It also appears that for some, once the idea of incarnation became accepted, the trajectory continued until the only thing people believed was "Jesus is God." His humanity was rejected as an appearance (the meaning of the term Doscetism, which identified this heresy). In a nutshell, they claimed that Jesus appeared to be human, but was not. He was only God. For many centuries the church argued and debated how best to affirm that Jesus is both, human and divine. To this day the struggle continues.
In like manner, for contemporary Christians, the struggle with the Bible follows a similar path. The divinely inspired Scriptures are authoritative. The Spirit leads the composition. Those who believe this sometimes err on the side of reducing the human authorship to mere transcription. "Yes," they affirm human authors wrote the Bible, but they mean "wrote" literally and limited to the physical act of scratching words on parchment as the Spirit guided their hands (like automatic writing) or whispered in their ears the words He had perfectly chosen. Such an approach to the Sacred Writ is in reaction to the Secular view of the Bible, which reduces it to men's religious sentiments and inspiration to the watered down concept of "emotionally moved" to write because of their religious inclinations. Like all good fights, the two sides grow further apart over time and positions solidify. And any listening to one another is condemned as "compromising the truth." The (false) alternatives are "The Bible is Divine" (with divine then defined by a serious of terms, some of which focus on errorless) or "the Bible is 'just' a book by people" (whereby the reader is free to toss out whatever does not meet his/her own standards).
But when I see a reference to another book (Book of War) it lends creedance to the idea that the person(s) writing about Moses. As I said in an earlier post, when the word of the Lord came to the prophets they said "came to me." They spoke in first person. And when an editor (Jeremiah mentions his scribes often) gathered up the prophetic words and added narrative about the prophet, it would switch from first person to third person. That is how we do things on planet earth (although Bob Dole did tend to speak of himself in third person...). Numbers does not read like an autobiography from Moses, but as about Moses. The odd geographic reference to the Wadi Arnon (a boundary of Moab and the Amorites) coupled with the odder citation of a source do not read like a first hand account at all. It sounds like a composer of history drawing attention (for whatever reason) to another source. When I read the Torah (and what follows ) I see conssitency in style. The Book of Joshua (which no one claims Joshua wrote) sounds like what goes before. It sounds like someone wrote the first five and continued with the next six (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings). It sounds like that. And I see no reason to deny that.
God communicates in and through the text. We do well to read it as a human-divine literary work. And we know how human literature is composed (we are human) so that gives us valuable tools from reading and understanding. Does this endanger the authority of the text? Does a process of human authorship mean we cannot read and trust what we read? No, no more than the fetal development of Jesus and His (slow) growth in knowledge and understanding (see Luke again) as a baby to toddler to young child to adolescent to young man to adult make Jesus less an authority. God seems to take His creation more seriously than we do. And the competing options of secular vs. fundamentalist is too limited (and too lacking in reality) for me.
I cannot, will not, read the Bible with an inner "defender of the faith" at work making me twist passages to protect them from some assault. I cannot and will not decide how God "must" do things to ensure He is divine. God made the world and He seems to love this world. A real world, not the ideal world of my wishes and expectations. The sooner we face that, the quicker we will grow in knowledge and understanding of the truth ourselves. And in the end, truth is God's nature.
This sense of sources is intensified by a reference in verse 27. There we read that the conquest of Amorite cities by Israelites has become a mashal (the Hebrew words for parable, puzzle or proverb). What we read is it is now "proverbially" said... Much like Sodom and Gomorah are proverbial cities (for sin and destruction) so the Amorites (and Moab) are proverbial for being destroyed.
I have already said that I believe God inspires the Bible and also that I thought Moses was the human authority behind the text. I do not see why it is needed for us to assume Moses sat down and wrote all five volumes of the Torah. And I think it is clear that in places the Law refers to living conditions (city life) which were not part of the exodus experience. While note taking and oral traditions (memorization is a lost art but widely practiced in non-literary cultures) were no doubt part of the process, it seems most likely that Moses did not sit in the desert for months and months, slowly scratching out the five books which we now possess. And that is why there are such stylistic differences (some of it in theology which can be discerned in English, much of it in vocabulary and phrasing which is locked away in the original Hebrew). It is most likely that the historic core was remembered but later worked, reworked and added to by various schools of scribes.
When Luke says that he wrote an "orderly account" based on the "eyewitnesses and servants of the word" which he had "investigated carefully for a long time" (Luke 1:1-4) we feel safe to assume that he means, the Gospel of Mark, which he appears to have used as his primary source and either a common source with Matthew, or Matthew's Gospel itself, which served to provide the parallel teachings and assorted other shared features which they (Mt&Lk) share independent of Mark. Just reading the three Gospels side-by-side (which we are doing in our Bible study at St. Andrews) provides a constant reminder of this.
In the early church, there was a point in time when it became widely understood that Jesus was divine. The process of reflection and deepening understanding was not smooth and effortless. Wrapping their head around the concept of "God-become-Man" was difficult and challenging. It also appears that for some, once the idea of incarnation became accepted, the trajectory continued until the only thing people believed was "Jesus is God." His humanity was rejected as an appearance (the meaning of the term Doscetism, which identified this heresy). In a nutshell, they claimed that Jesus appeared to be human, but was not. He was only God. For many centuries the church argued and debated how best to affirm that Jesus is both, human and divine. To this day the struggle continues.
In like manner, for contemporary Christians, the struggle with the Bible follows a similar path. The divinely inspired Scriptures are authoritative. The Spirit leads the composition. Those who believe this sometimes err on the side of reducing the human authorship to mere transcription. "Yes," they affirm human authors wrote the Bible, but they mean "wrote" literally and limited to the physical act of scratching words on parchment as the Spirit guided their hands (like automatic writing) or whispered in their ears the words He had perfectly chosen. Such an approach to the Sacred Writ is in reaction to the Secular view of the Bible, which reduces it to men's religious sentiments and inspiration to the watered down concept of "emotionally moved" to write because of their religious inclinations. Like all good fights, the two sides grow further apart over time and positions solidify. And any listening to one another is condemned as "compromising the truth." The (false) alternatives are "The Bible is Divine" (with divine then defined by a serious of terms, some of which focus on errorless) or "the Bible is 'just' a book by people" (whereby the reader is free to toss out whatever does not meet his/her own standards).
But when I see a reference to another book (Book of War) it lends creedance to the idea that the person(s) writing about Moses. As I said in an earlier post, when the word of the Lord came to the prophets they said "came to me." They spoke in first person. And when an editor (Jeremiah mentions his scribes often) gathered up the prophetic words and added narrative about the prophet, it would switch from first person to third person. That is how we do things on planet earth (although Bob Dole did tend to speak of himself in third person...). Numbers does not read like an autobiography from Moses, but as about Moses. The odd geographic reference to the Wadi Arnon (a boundary of Moab and the Amorites) coupled with the odder citation of a source do not read like a first hand account at all. It sounds like a composer of history drawing attention (for whatever reason) to another source. When I read the Torah (and what follows ) I see conssitency in style. The Book of Joshua (which no one claims Joshua wrote) sounds like what goes before. It sounds like someone wrote the first five and continued with the next six (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings). It sounds like that. And I see no reason to deny that.
God communicates in and through the text. We do well to read it as a human-divine literary work. And we know how human literature is composed (we are human) so that gives us valuable tools from reading and understanding. Does this endanger the authority of the text? Does a process of human authorship mean we cannot read and trust what we read? No, no more than the fetal development of Jesus and His (slow) growth in knowledge and understanding (see Luke again) as a baby to toddler to young child to adolescent to young man to adult make Jesus less an authority. God seems to take His creation more seriously than we do. And the competing options of secular vs. fundamentalist is too limited (and too lacking in reality) for me.
I cannot, will not, read the Bible with an inner "defender of the faith" at work making me twist passages to protect them from some assault. I cannot and will not decide how God "must" do things to ensure He is divine. God made the world and He seems to love this world. A real world, not the ideal world of my wishes and expectations. The sooner we face that, the quicker we will grow in knowledge and understanding of the truth ourselves. And in the end, truth is God's nature.
This sense of sources is intensified by a reference in verse 27. There we read that the conquest of Amorite cities by Israelites has become a mashal (the Hebrew words for parable, puzzle or proverb). What we read is it is now "proverbially" said... Much like Sodom and Gomorah are proverbial cities (for sin and destruction) so the Amorites (and Moab) are proverbial for being destroyed.
I have already said that I believe God inspires the Bible and also that I thought Moses was the human authority behind the text. I do not see why it is needed for us to assume Moses sat down and wrote all five volumes of the Torah. And I think it is clear that in places the Law refers to living conditions (city life) which were not part of the exodus experience. While note taking and oral traditions (memorization is a lost art but widely practiced in non-literary cultures) were no doubt part of the process, it seems most likely that Moses did not sit in the desert for months and months, slowly scratching out the five books which we now possess. And that is why there are such stylistic differences (some of it in theology which can be discerned in English, much of it in vocabulary and phrasing which is locked away in the original Hebrew). It is most likely that the historic core was remembered but later worked, reworked and added to by various schools of scribes.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Purity
"Did you wash your hands?"
How often do we hear that question? We have hand wipes, hand sanitizers, fist bumps (to replace dangerous physical contact). The news media regularly has medical snippets on germs. The primary concern is germ avoidance and germs, we are told, are everywhere!!!! (and kitchens are worse than bathrooms). Not long ago the local news lady did a special report where they did all manner of swipes and cultures in the news room and video taped how often the three reporters touched there faces. The message was clear. Touching, even yourself, is a bad idea. One might think that our hands are the most toxic site around!
Our borderline germ-phobia is probably a good model for understanding the ancient covenant. Unfortunately, the word most often used (clean/unclean) is too familiar to us to be useful. We use the term clean constantly. And it is a hygiene word for us. I want to say it is our reaction to the word which is useful. The ancient Israelites were very aware of pure/impure as something larger than a soap and water issue. They reacted to ritual impurity the way we do someone sneezing in our face.
There are two kinds of things in the ancient Biblical world: holy and unholy. This extends to Jesus' day and beyond. Holy things are associated with God. They are "other." The primary referent of Holy is God. In fact, He is "Holy, Holy, Holy!" As we recently have written, such holiness is dangerous to humans. It is life-giving and death-dealing. One way it is described is "light" and another is "fire." Both images are helpful. We know in limited and controlled environments light and fire are good and helpful. But when too bright and too hot (and it is a quick trip from enough to too much with either of them) it becomes uncomfortable and deadly. If holiness of God is like light and fire, we understand why we have to be very, very, very careful dealing with the divine. Like the sun, get too close and you are toast.
A derived meaning of the word holy refers to people, places, and things which are associated with God or dedicated to God. Moses is told to take off his sandals because he is on holy ground. The priest is holy because he is consecrated to God's service and the altar and articles of worship are also holy. According to The Book God says this, not humans. The Israelites believed that God was the driver of this understanding. To be holy is to be consecrated to God. Therefore, a third level of meaning flows out of the word. Because people are holy, they need to be holy. Consecrated to God, His people are expected to act in accordance with His will. Certainly, this meant, most importantly, to be people of love, justice and righteousness. Holy people are moral. It also meant that the worship was dedicated to (YHWH) God alone, no idols, no other gods. And the worship process was highly formal and God laid down the parameters. Ritual purity matters to God very much in the Torah. Very much. We God-believers and Bible-readers have to deal with that fact.
When the holy God chose to "live among" the people, it was potentially dangerous. Like (weak analogy alert) a nuclear reactor, the power of God in their midst was also a mortal threat. Regularly God decides He is going to snuff them out. Meltdowns (nuclear or divine) are devastating. What is being conveyed here (in the actual Biblical text) must be read with care. A concrete, simple reading portrays a God who gets mad and kills people. My guess is the simplistic portrayal of God is more a factor of the people writing then the God being written about. God is too complex for our language to capture or our words to convey. So He speaks to us on our level (and their context was the context of these words). If we see the text as providing a helpful story to explain something more mysterious and larger (God is big!) then we probably will not get bogged down with the troubling questions (is God just a giant man?) which plague so many wonderers and doubters in our age.
The revelation is this. God is holy. How can such holiness mix with people? And it also makes clear, this is bigger than morality. One's liturgical standing also matters. There are lists of animals which are clean/unclean and lists of situations (woman's period, dead bodies, mold, to name a few) which render one unclean. The Bible does not explain why this is the case. And it is baffling to us. As I say in class, "we are fine with an adulterer going to communion, but not someone with a runny nose. We excuse sin, but not germs." And we have no qualms about a woman on her period coming to communion. So why did they have a problem?
First of all, they understood impurity to be communicable. If You are unclean and you touch Me, then we are both unclean. And unclean/impure was associated with death and decay (shed blood). If God is life, then such things are not acceptable in God's presence. Because we operate with a different set of assumptions (and we are not superior, look at the news and evaluate our society if the "new and improved" idea is perculating in your mind) we think they are silly. I do not know that our assumptions are better. Maybe our hyper-individualism blinds us to corporate realities. Maybe unclean people do pollute the land. Maybe everyone is not an island. Maybe we are a body. Much of what "we think" today is not true. In fact, I am alive long enough to know that some things which "all the smart people know" are now relegated to "only idiots think." [My new diet is difficult in part because it runs counter to what I learned in the 80's which had undone the health suggestions of my 60's childhood, for one very easy example: margarine anyone???] Assumptions, unfortunately, are assumed (never explained) so we can know but not understand why the Bible says what it does. But here is the take away.
The goal is to keep the land pure so the holy God can remain among us. And the sacrifices were done to keep the land clean. However much we differ from the ancient content of this, we can and should embrace the idea. God is mobile. He comes and goes (in the Bible), whatever that means (mystery)... We need to make sure we are not driving Him out. Clean and unclean are the religious version of germ/ungermed (infected). It is not just morals. It is about the whole life: What is godly? what is ungodly? It is best to read the text with that in mind. Applying it to today, well that is an even tougher translation task.
How often do we hear that question? We have hand wipes, hand sanitizers, fist bumps (to replace dangerous physical contact). The news media regularly has medical snippets on germs. The primary concern is germ avoidance and germs, we are told, are everywhere!!!! (and kitchens are worse than bathrooms). Not long ago the local news lady did a special report where they did all manner of swipes and cultures in the news room and video taped how often the three reporters touched there faces. The message was clear. Touching, even yourself, is a bad idea. One might think that our hands are the most toxic site around!
Our borderline germ-phobia is probably a good model for understanding the ancient covenant. Unfortunately, the word most often used (clean/unclean) is too familiar to us to be useful. We use the term clean constantly. And it is a hygiene word for us. I want to say it is our reaction to the word which is useful. The ancient Israelites were very aware of pure/impure as something larger than a soap and water issue. They reacted to ritual impurity the way we do someone sneezing in our face.
There are two kinds of things in the ancient Biblical world: holy and unholy. This extends to Jesus' day and beyond. Holy things are associated with God. They are "other." The primary referent of Holy is God. In fact, He is "Holy, Holy, Holy!" As we recently have written, such holiness is dangerous to humans. It is life-giving and death-dealing. One way it is described is "light" and another is "fire." Both images are helpful. We know in limited and controlled environments light and fire are good and helpful. But when too bright and too hot (and it is a quick trip from enough to too much with either of them) it becomes uncomfortable and deadly. If holiness of God is like light and fire, we understand why we have to be very, very, very careful dealing with the divine. Like the sun, get too close and you are toast.
A derived meaning of the word holy refers to people, places, and things which are associated with God or dedicated to God. Moses is told to take off his sandals because he is on holy ground. The priest is holy because he is consecrated to God's service and the altar and articles of worship are also holy. According to The Book God says this, not humans. The Israelites believed that God was the driver of this understanding. To be holy is to be consecrated to God. Therefore, a third level of meaning flows out of the word. Because people are holy, they need to be holy. Consecrated to God, His people are expected to act in accordance with His will. Certainly, this meant, most importantly, to be people of love, justice and righteousness. Holy people are moral. It also meant that the worship was dedicated to (YHWH) God alone, no idols, no other gods. And the worship process was highly formal and God laid down the parameters. Ritual purity matters to God very much in the Torah. Very much. We God-believers and Bible-readers have to deal with that fact.
When the holy God chose to "live among" the people, it was potentially dangerous. Like (weak analogy alert) a nuclear reactor, the power of God in their midst was also a mortal threat. Regularly God decides He is going to snuff them out. Meltdowns (nuclear or divine) are devastating. What is being conveyed here (in the actual Biblical text) must be read with care. A concrete, simple reading portrays a God who gets mad and kills people. My guess is the simplistic portrayal of God is more a factor of the people writing then the God being written about. God is too complex for our language to capture or our words to convey. So He speaks to us on our level (and their context was the context of these words). If we see the text as providing a helpful story to explain something more mysterious and larger (God is big!) then we probably will not get bogged down with the troubling questions (is God just a giant man?) which plague so many wonderers and doubters in our age.
The revelation is this. God is holy. How can such holiness mix with people? And it also makes clear, this is bigger than morality. One's liturgical standing also matters. There are lists of animals which are clean/unclean and lists of situations (woman's period, dead bodies, mold, to name a few) which render one unclean. The Bible does not explain why this is the case. And it is baffling to us. As I say in class, "we are fine with an adulterer going to communion, but not someone with a runny nose. We excuse sin, but not germs." And we have no qualms about a woman on her period coming to communion. So why did they have a problem?
First of all, they understood impurity to be communicable. If You are unclean and you touch Me, then we are both unclean. And unclean/impure was associated with death and decay (shed blood). If God is life, then such things are not acceptable in God's presence. Because we operate with a different set of assumptions (and we are not superior, look at the news and evaluate our society if the "new and improved" idea is perculating in your mind) we think they are silly. I do not know that our assumptions are better. Maybe our hyper-individualism blinds us to corporate realities. Maybe unclean people do pollute the land. Maybe everyone is not an island. Maybe we are a body. Much of what "we think" today is not true. In fact, I am alive long enough to know that some things which "all the smart people know" are now relegated to "only idiots think." [My new diet is difficult in part because it runs counter to what I learned in the 80's which had undone the health suggestions of my 60's childhood, for one very easy example: margarine anyone???] Assumptions, unfortunately, are assumed (never explained) so we can know but not understand why the Bible says what it does. But here is the take away.
The goal is to keep the land pure so the holy God can remain among us. And the sacrifices were done to keep the land clean. However much we differ from the ancient content of this, we can and should embrace the idea. God is mobile. He comes and goes (in the Bible), whatever that means (mystery)... We need to make sure we are not driving Him out. Clean and unclean are the religious version of germ/ungermed (infected). It is not just morals. It is about the whole life: What is godly? what is ungodly? It is best to read the text with that in mind. Applying it to today, well that is an even tougher translation task.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Insight into Priestly Religion
There are numerous theories about the authorship of the Torah. One is that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. If he did, it was strangely written, as he uses the third person to write about himself, including his own death. In addition, his Hebrew portrays different styles in different places. Perhaps, the issue is the word, "author"? If we understand that Moses is the "authority" behind the text (even modern authors do not always write every word in their books) and that the text has a long life history (over centuries) then it is possible to understand the 'conflicts' in the text. (Like two versions of the Ten Commandments with different ordering and emphasis) Using Moses for a shorthand way of saying it Mosaic is no doubt true. I also believe that the "writers" and "compilers" and "editors/redactors" are all divinely inspired. And just as we see relationships between the first three Gospels (and sometimes the Fourth) internally within the Torah texts there are melding of various more ancient traditions. [This is most easily seen reading Genesis 1 and 2.] Not unlike our own constitution (which continues to add ammendments, some to replace others), the document which we read has been made to address different situations over the long lifetime of Israel, from desert wanderers, invaders tribes, confederation, then nation, then nations, then exiles, then oppressed sojourners in their own land under foreign domination. Tent people, town people, city people. Different contexts abound and different needs for communication from One God abounds as well.
Whatever your theory of construction, it is clear that within the Ancient Covenant (Old Testament) text there are streams of concern. There are priestly concerns. There are legal concerns. There are governance concerns. There are prophetic concerns. All are variations on convenant concerns.
There are also narratives, stories which seem to be stories. Some explain. Some illustrate. Some baffle! All provide a different angle on the questions: Who is God and who are we called to be in relationship to Him?
Numbers has much about rituals. For a variety of reasons many of us are not interested in such things. Our religious culture tends to be anti-ritual. We have a basic distaste for priests and ceremonies. In the American south this is especially true. [Which may explain the allure of college football, the heart hungers for rituals.] Things like order, purity, holiness are not understood in the ancient way. Even those of us who like our religion priestly (count me in) are deeply formed (malformed?) by the Puritan ancestors. In the Revised Common Lectionary (used by most mainline denominations) there are only three readings from Numbers which ever appear. It may be the Word of God in theory, but in practice it is a mostly silent communication.
If we can suspend our distaste, we may find insights for our own world from this revelatory word from God. Numbers, after all, is inspired. As Thomas Dozeman says (in the New Interpreters Bible, vol 2) "Interpretation of Numbers requires an understanding of priestly religion." In a nutshell, the God of Numbers is not an intimate friend (like "buddy Jesus"). He is not a pal or playmate. He is an all holy, even terrifying God (see recent post, "How Dangerous is God"). There is an immense gulf between such a God and us. We are not His equals nor do we serve as His counselors. We are not His intimate friends with whom He enjoys a cup of coffee and a chat. He is, rather, creator of all that is, seen and unseen. He is the source and goal of creation. And He has chosen to bridge the gap and come among us.
Because the God Who is self-revealed in this text is Holy, Just, and Righteous, He is deeply offended by our sins. Approaching such a God is done with deep respect, even awe, fear and trembling. He may be good, but good is not nice and true good does not easily entertain the good mixed with evil mess called human being. Humanity lives in exile (since the Garden fiasco) and continues through the time of Moses to be under the dark cloud of sin and death. The rituals of Numbers are meant (by God's revelation) to provide a proper approach to the Divine. It is also intended to create rituals which insure the on-going presence of the Holy God in the midst of an unclean people.
Ever had an experience of meeting someone who is incredibly attractive in dim light from afar, but as the lights get brighter and you get closer, well, hmmm, not so much. In God's perfect sight, the things we overlook (no one is perfect) are more apparent and more glaring. Numbers is written by a someone(s) whose revelation from God wants to make that clear. And Numbers will provide insight into how Jesus is the One Mediator (see Hebrews) whose priesthood perfectly deals with that situation. Tomorrow I hope to write about clean/unclean and make sense of some issues of our own day.
Whatever your theory of construction, it is clear that within the Ancient Covenant (Old Testament) text there are streams of concern. There are priestly concerns. There are legal concerns. There are governance concerns. There are prophetic concerns. All are variations on convenant concerns.
There are also narratives, stories which seem to be stories. Some explain. Some illustrate. Some baffle! All provide a different angle on the questions: Who is God and who are we called to be in relationship to Him?
Numbers has much about rituals. For a variety of reasons many of us are not interested in such things. Our religious culture tends to be anti-ritual. We have a basic distaste for priests and ceremonies. In the American south this is especially true. [Which may explain the allure of college football, the heart hungers for rituals.] Things like order, purity, holiness are not understood in the ancient way. Even those of us who like our religion priestly (count me in) are deeply formed (malformed?) by the Puritan ancestors. In the Revised Common Lectionary (used by most mainline denominations) there are only three readings from Numbers which ever appear. It may be the Word of God in theory, but in practice it is a mostly silent communication.
If we can suspend our distaste, we may find insights for our own world from this revelatory word from God. Numbers, after all, is inspired. As Thomas Dozeman says (in the New Interpreters Bible, vol 2) "Interpretation of Numbers requires an understanding of priestly religion." In a nutshell, the God of Numbers is not an intimate friend (like "buddy Jesus"). He is not a pal or playmate. He is an all holy, even terrifying God (see recent post, "How Dangerous is God"). There is an immense gulf between such a God and us. We are not His equals nor do we serve as His counselors. We are not His intimate friends with whom He enjoys a cup of coffee and a chat. He is, rather, creator of all that is, seen and unseen. He is the source and goal of creation. And He has chosen to bridge the gap and come among us.
Because the God Who is self-revealed in this text is Holy, Just, and Righteous, He is deeply offended by our sins. Approaching such a God is done with deep respect, even awe, fear and trembling. He may be good, but good is not nice and true good does not easily entertain the good mixed with evil mess called human being. Humanity lives in exile (since the Garden fiasco) and continues through the time of Moses to be under the dark cloud of sin and death. The rituals of Numbers are meant (by God's revelation) to provide a proper approach to the Divine. It is also intended to create rituals which insure the on-going presence of the Holy God in the midst of an unclean people.
Ever had an experience of meeting someone who is incredibly attractive in dim light from afar, but as the lights get brighter and you get closer, well, hmmm, not so much. In God's perfect sight, the things we overlook (no one is perfect) are more apparent and more glaring. Numbers is written by a someone(s) whose revelation from God wants to make that clear. And Numbers will provide insight into how Jesus is the One Mediator (see Hebrews) whose priesthood perfectly deals with that situation. Tomorrow I hope to write about clean/unclean and make sense of some issues of our own day.
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