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Pete unpacks a parable Jesus told indicting those who withheld or restricted access to grace and reassuring those who had not heard that they are loved and welcomed by God.

Guardrails: The Ten Commandments

The following is an excerpt from The New Interpreter’s Bible on the Ten Commandments, written by renowned scholar Leander Keck.  I do not believe this violates any copyright issues, but if I learn otherwise, I will take it down immediately.  This is one of the commentaries I use regularly.  The exposition is longer than most people would care to read, but I would encourage you to read it anyway, because the Ten Commandments are the foundation of what it means to be faithful people.  Deeper learning and reflection are worth your time.  Enjoy!

EXODUS 20:1–17, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Overview

The terrible, holy God of Sinai is always at the brink of “breaking out” against Israel and spilling over in self-aggrandizing destructiveness (19:22, 24). We are, in the light of that danger, hardly prepared for the proclamation of the Ten Commandments in this next unit. The God who threatens to break out in inexplicable rage instead breaks out in magisterial command. The relation of theophany to law is an odd one. The juxtaposition of the two genres, however, is definitional for what happens to Israel at Sinai. Command is rooted in theophany. The juxtaposition of theophany and command asserts that, for Israel, there is nothing more elemental or fundamental (even primordial) than the commands that intend to shape and order the world according to the radical and distinctive vision of the God of the exodus.

The Decalogue itself is likely a distinct literary entity that originally was not connected to this theophany. There is, moreover, serious critical question about the date and provenance of the decalogue and, therefore, about its Mosaic authorship. These commands may, like much of the legal material of the OT, have some linkages to already established legal materials of the ancient Near East. None of that, however, takes us very far in interpreting the commands as we have them.

We must, even with all of these critical uncertainties, try to take the corpus of commands as they are given. This means, first, that they are given in the context of the Sinai covenant. They constitute the substantive vision around which the God-Israel relation is ordered. Sinai binds Israel to this vision of social possibility and places Israel under this particular obedience. Second, the commands are given with the authority of Moses. They are in some sense an authentic articulation of what Mosaic faith in its core is all about. Third, even if these two traditions originated separately, the connection of exodus and command in 19:4–6 (and 20:1) binds the Sinai commands to the liberation passion of the exodus narrative. The commands are a decisive way in which Israel (and Yahweh) intend to sustain and institutionalize the revolutionary social possibility that is asserted and enacted in the exodus narrative.

The commands are commonly understood as divided into two “tablets”: one concerning relations to God (vv. 1–11), and one concerning the neighbor (vv. 12–17). The relation between the two tablets is of crucial importance to biblical faith. It is self-evident that the second tablet is the more readily available, practical, and pertinent to us. It is risky, however (especially among “theological liberals”), to take the second tablet by itself, as positive law concerning human relations. But such a view misses the primary covenantal point that these “neighbor demands” have their warrant, impetus, and urgency in the character of this particular God. The second tablet is not just a set of good moral ideas. It contains conditions of viable human life, non-negotiable conditions rooted in God’s own life and God’s ordering of the world. Thus it is important to “get it right” about Yahweh, in order to “get it right” about neighbor. Karl Marx has seen this most clearly and programmatically: “The criticism of heaven is thus transformed into the criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.”

Marx means that “God talk” always implicitly asserts neighbor relations and that every mode of neighbor relations inevitably bootlegs some powerful (even if hidden) notion of God. Thus it is not the case simply that Israel must attend both to God and to neighbor, but that the way of attending to God determines our ways of attending to neighbor and vice versa. It is precisely the worship of the God of the exodus that provides the elemental insistence and passionate imagination to reshape human relations in healing (cf. 15:26), liberating ways.

Norman Gottwald is correct in saying that in its recital of liberation and especially in the actions at Sinai, Israel initiates a revolutionary social experiment in the world, to see whether non-exploitative modes of social relationship can be sustained in the world. In commenting upon the first commandment, Pixley comments:

“The problem is not, of course, whether to call the rain God Yahweh or Baal. Behind the conflict of these gods is the social reality of a class struggle.… The polemical formulation of the commandment to worship Yahweh, then, has its explanation in the long struggle of the peasantry to rid itself of the domination of a long series of kings … who resurrected the old forms of class domination.… An Israelite had no choice but to reject any form of loyalty to any god who had not saved the slaves of Egypt.

Thus the Decalogue stands as a critical principle of protest against every kind of exploitative social relation (public and interpersonal, capitalist and socialist) and as a social vision of possibility that every social relation (public and interpersonal, economic and political) can be transformed and made into a liberating relation.

Exodus 20:1–7, “No Other Gods Before Me”

Commentary

Israel’s destiny under command is rooted in the self-disclosure of God. These commands might be taken not as a series of rules, but as a proclamation in God’s own mouth of who God is and how God shall be “practiced” by this community of liberated slaves. The speech of God itself is abrupt in its beginning. Except for vv. 5–6, which are quite general, chapter 19 gives no hint that commands are to follow from the theophany. In Israel, however, God’s self-giving is in the form of command. Thus the tradition holds closely together “a god so near” and “a torah so righteous” (Deut 4:7–8). God is known in torah; nearness is expressed as righteousness.

20:1–2. The self-disclosure of God begins with a succinct reference to and summary of the recital of liberation (v. 2). The first utterance is, “I am Yahweh.” Thus God speaks the same powerful formula that has been reiterated throughout the exodus narrative (cf. 7:5), in which the formula is designed to reassure Israel and to challenge Pharaoh. Here the formula serves to impose a claim upon Israel. The event of the exodus provides the authority for the commands as well as the material claim of those commands.

20:3. This verse (conventionally the first commandment) is programmatic for all Israelite reflection on obedience. Walther Zimmerli and Werner H. Schmidt have taken this command (together with the second command of vv. 4–6) as the essential command, for which all other law is exegesis, and as the leitmotif of OT theology. We may identify four related themes.

First, the command requires Israel to mobilize all of its life, in every sphere, around one single loyalty. In the contemporary world, as in the ancient world, we practice a kind of henotheism, which lets different gods have their play in different spheres. This command insists on the integrity, coherence, and unity of all of life. Israel is a community destined to “will one thing.”

Second, it is not likely that this command makes any claim about monotheism in any formal sense. That is, it does not insist that there are no other gods. It insists only that other gods must receive none of Israel’s loyalty or allegiance. This command thus is in keeping with Deut 6:4, which also allows for the existence of other gods, but denies them “air time.”

Third, the last phrase, “before me,” may also be read, “before my face.” Because face in reference to God often means “sanctuary” or “altar,” the command may mean “in my presence”—“in my shrine.” On this reading, the command pertains precisely to the practice of worship and asserts that the liturgic life of Israel must be under stringent discipline in order to avoid compromise.

Fourth, H. Graf Reventlow has offered an alternative reading of this command that has considerable merit. Reventlow observes that the formulation of this command is not “Thou shalt not,” but rather “there will not be to you.” He proposes that the statement is not an imperative command, but an indicative, whereby Yahweh in light of the exodus declares the banishment of all other gods (cf. Psalm 82 for the same motif). On this reading, the statement is a declaration of theological emancipation, whereby Israel can freely and gladly serve Yahweh, without any distracting compromise. One does not need to obey this command but only to hear and trust the good news of triumph and banishment.

20:4–6. The second command (vv. 4–6), often linked to the first, further asserts Yahweh’s distinctiveness, which is to be enacted in Israel. The command, in fact, is a series of three prohibitions followed by an extended motivational clause. The three prohibitions are: You shall not make.… You shall not bow down.… You shall not serve.… This threefold prohibition serves as a counterpart to the formula of banishment in v. 3.

Two understandings of the commandment are possible. In the NRSV and NIV renderings, the command precludes “idols,” the assignment of theological significance to any element of creation, the investment of ultimacy in what is not ultimate. Clearly, if “no other god” has any real power and, therefore, any real, substantive existence, it is grossly inappropriate that Israel should invest such an object with ultimacy.

The word פסל (pesel), however, need not be rendered “idol.” It is more properly rendered “image,” a visible representation of Yahweh. The temptation, then, is not the creation of a rival that detracts from Yahweh, but an attempt to locate and thereby domesticate Yahweh in a visible, controlled object. This latter reading, which is the more probable, is also more subtle. It does not fear a rival but a distortion of Yahweh’s free character by an attempt to locate Yahweh and so diminish something of Yahweh’s terrible freedom.

The motivational clause begins in v. 5b, introduced by כי (kî, “for”). The reason for the prohibition is Yahweh’s very own character; Yahweh is a “jealous God” who will operate in uncompromised and uncontested freedom. Yahweh’s jealousy is evidenced in two ways in a formula that is more fully stated in Exod 34:6–7. Negatively, this jealous God is one of deep moral seriousness who takes affront at violations of commands, so that the cost of the affront endures over the generations (34:7b). Positively, this jealous God is one who practices massive fidelity (חסד ḥesed) to those who are willing to live in covenant (34:6–7a). The two motivational phrases are in fact more symmetrical than the NRSV suggests, for “reject me” is in fact “hate” (שׂנא śānēʾ), as the NIV translates, thus contrasting precisely those who “love” and those who “hate” Yahweh.

Thus the idol (as rival and alternative) or the image (as localization and domestication) is an attempt to tone down Yahweh’s jealousy. There are two reasons for toning down God’s jealousy: resistance to God’s deep moral seriousness or discomfort with God’s massive fidelity. Yahweh’s character, to which this command witnesses, holds to both moral seriousness and covenantal fidelity. The measure of both “punishment” and “showing steadfast love” is adherence to the command. The temptation of Israel, here precluded, is to tone down the primacy of command. Israel in covenant must trust itself to the terrible freedom of the God who will be obeyed.

20:7. The third command continues the line of the disclosure of God from the first two commands. This command is often misunderstood and misused, when it is taken to refer to “bad” or vulgar language. While “right speech” is indeed at issue, more is at stake than not cursing or using obscenities. What must be understood is that the “name” of Yahweh bespeaks God’s powerful presence and purpose. The utterance of the name is the mobilization of the presence and power of God, an assumption that is still evident in prayers offered “in the name of Jesus.” To make “wrongful use of the name,” or as Walter Harrelson suggests, the use of the name “for mischief,” means to invoke through utterance the power and purpose of Yahweh in the service of some purpose that is extraneous to Yahweh’s own person. That is, the violation is to make Yahweh (who is an ultimate end) into a means for some other end. Such a practice may be done in quite pious ways (without anything like “curse”) with an instrumental view of God. This command thus follows well from the first two, because all three concern seductive ways in which the God of the exodus is diminished or trivialized.

The sanction (threat) of this command is ominous indeed: Yahweh will not “acquit” those who seek to use God for their own purposes but will hold such persons guilty to perpetuity. The severity of this threat is congruent with the motivational clause of v. 5.

Reflections

These first three commandments are preoccupied with the awesome claims of God’s person. God insists, in the light of the exodus, upon being accepted, affirmed, and fully obeyed.

1. It is not always helpful in teaching and preaching the commandments to go through them one rule at a time, as though using a check list. To be sure, there is some need for specificity of interpretation. That, however, is only preliminary to the main interpretive task, which is to voice the large and demanding vision of God that defines biblical faith.

The truth of the matter is that the biblical God is not “user friendly.” The theological crisis present in all our modern situations of proclamation and interpretation is that we are all “children of Feuerbach.” In the nineteenth century, Ludwig Feuerbach fully articulated the hidden assumption of the Enlightenment, that God is in the end a projection of our best humanness. That Feuerbachian “betrayal” takes more than one form. The “liberal temptation” is to diminish the role of God, either to remove God from public spheres of life and leave God for interpersonal matters, or to make God an object of adoration rather than a subject who can do anything. One signal of such reductionism is the slogan that “God has no hands but ours.” The reactive “conservative temptation” is the projection of a settled, sovereign God who in fact is not operative as a political character (as in the drama of the exodus) but is only a set of fixed propositions that give certitude and stability. Either way, in our shared theological failure of nerve, we end with a God very unlike the one who makes a self-disclosure here.

2. Exposition of these commandments has as its topic the voicing of the holy, jealous God of the Bible who saves and commands; a God who is an active, decisive presence in our common public life, but who in holiness is beyond all our most pious efforts at control and manipulation.

There are no analogues, no parallels, no antecedents, no adequate replications or explanations for this God who confronts us in and through the narrative of liberation. It is the majestic act of “getting glory over Pharaoh” (14:4, 17) that bestows upon Yahweh the right to speak and to command. The exodus shows that Yahweh has now displaced every other loyalty, has driven from the field all rivals, and now claims full attention and full devotion from Israel. This people would not have entered history except for Yahweh’s demanding solidarity against Pharaoh. The question of this faith in the modern world is whether there is a people, a concrete community, that can embrace and practice this demanding loyalty. Most of the people with whom we preach and teach are (like us) both yearning and reluctant, both ready and hesitant, to embrace these commandments that bespeak a lifetime of ceding over authority.

How, indeed, can a “mystery” be demanding? We expect a mystery to be amorphous and transcendental; we expect a demand to be coercive, visible, and political. In these three utterances, however, Yahweh is indeed holy mystery who, in the very utterance of mystery, enunciates demand.

3. This uncompromising demand is properly voiced in a world of unacknowledged polytheism. We have always lived in a world of options, alternative choices, and gods who make powerful, competing appeals. It does us no good to pretend that there are no other offers of well-being, joy, and security. In pursuit of joy, we may choose Bacchus; in pursuit of security, we may choose Mars; in pursuit of genuine love, we may choose Eros. It is clear that these choices are not Yahweh, that these are not gods who have ever wrought an Exodus or offered a covenant.

In the Christian tradition, baptism is the dramatic form of making a God choice, in which receiving a new name and making promises is choosing this liberating-covenantal faith against any other shape of life. Thus in the Christian tradition, appropriating and living out baptism means living by a single loyalty among a mass of options.

4. The second commandment, in its prohibition, inventories the heavens above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth (v. 4; cf. Deut 4:17–18;). The triad, of course, refers to all of creation (cf. Gen 1:28). The command asserts that nothing in creation is usable in making God visible or available. God’s sovereign mystery is discontinuous from everything and anything in creation. The propensity to encapsulate God in creation leads to an attempt to retain for ourselves control over some piece of creation. The clearest, most extensive treatment of this confusion in the Bible is Rom 1:20–25. To imagine that anything in creation could possibly embody the creator God is a result of “futile thinking” and “senseless darkened minds” (Rom 1:21). The outcome is false worship based on a lie instead of the truth (v. 20).

In contemporary church discussions, this powerful, polemical, doxological statement has often been side-tracked and related only to issues of homosexuality. The confusion of creator-creation, however, is much more profound and ominous than an argument about sexuality. Attempts to “image God” by taking creation in our own hands are much more evident in technological abuse of creation and in military exploitation, by which “God as power” comes into play without any restraining awareness that “God as power” is also “God as Holy Mystery.” It may in the end be the case that the “shameless acts” men commit with men (cf. Rom 1:27–28) are not sexual as much as they are military and technological. The Mosaic prohibition against idols and images has profound sociopolitical implications, for the practice of worshiping idols is never simply a theological or liturgical matter but always spills over into social, ideological, and political practice, inevitably with the intent of partisan advantage. Carlos M. N. Eire has shown how the prohibition on idols became a driving power for Calvinism as a sociopolitical force. Where the church is soft on idols, it becomes muted on social criticism.

5. The third commandment asserts that God cannot be put to use and is never a means toward an end (v. 7). The notion that the ultimate human purpose is to “glorify and enjoy God” means that God is pure end and never means. Using God’s name mischievously however, is an enormous temptation, because the holy God is vulnerable to being made into an ideological tool.

Exodus 20:8–11, “You Shall Not Do Any Work”

Commentary

The fourth commandment is conventionally included in the first tablet. However, because the sabbath command occupies such a prominent and decisive position in the Decalogue, and because it enjoins rest for humanity as well as honoring God the creator, I take it as a command that stands between and connects to both tablets.

Unlike most of the other commands (see also v. 12), this one is not a prohibition; rather, it enjoins Israel to positive action. Israel is to remember (זכר zākar). The act of remembering here, as in the remembering of the Eucharist, means to appropriate actively as a present reality. The seventh day is to be marked as “holy time”—i.e., as time completely devoted to Yahweh.

The initial command of v. 8 is explicated in three parts. There is first an acknowledgment of six legitimate days of work. Then comes the command for a day of rest for the one addressed, ostensibly a land-owning man, who will provide rest for all creation under his dominion (vv. 9–10). Finally there is a motivational clause (v. 11).

The positive command itself indicates that sabbath remembrance is in fact a complete and comprehensive work stoppage. There is no mention of worship. The way in which this day is to be acknowledged as holy—i.e., different and special—is to separate it from all days of required activity, productivity, coercive performance, self-securing, or service to other human agents. Moreover, this covenantal work stoppage is not a special privilege of the male believer. The entire society that makes up the family, village, or clan is to share publicly in this act.

How is it that a covenantal work stoppage bears witness to this self-disclosing God? The answer is given in the motivational clause: Israel rests because God rests. This God is not a workaholic; Yahweh has no need to be more secure, more sufficient, more in control, or more noticed. It is ordained in the very fabric of creation that the world is not a place of endless productivity, ambition, or anxiety. Fretheim has made the case that exodus liberation is aimed at the full restoration of peaceable creation. There is no more powerful hint of that connection than in this commandment.

While the motivational clause links this teaching explicitly to creation, the preamble of v. 2 links the command to the exodus as well. Such a connection between the command and the preamble hints at a connection made much more explicit in Deut 5:12–15, where the motivation of creation has been subordinated to that of the exodus. In this text the purpose of the covenantal work stoppage is to remember and reenact the exodus. Moreover, Hans Walter Wolff has observed that the phrase “as you” in Deut 5:14 makes the sabbath a great day of equalization in which all social distinctions are overcome, and all rest alike. To be sure, that nice phrase is not present in our version of the command, but it is in any case implicit. The implicit act of equalization in sabbath witnesses to the intention of the creator that creation should be a community of well-being, in which all creatures stand together, equally and in shared rest.

Reflections

1. This sabbath commandment stands at mid-point between two other extended expositions of sabbath in the book of Exodus, both of which are important for explicating the command (16:5, 22–26; 31:12–17). The story of manna (16:5, 22–26) indicates that rest is possible because God gives enough food, and all who gather either little or much have equally enough. The command of 31:12–17 indicates that God needs to be “refreshed,” and therefore that those made in God’s image also need to have life (נפשׁ nepeš) restored (cf. Pss 19:7; 23:3). Sabbath is necessary because of God’s own vulnerability. Thus in sabbath, Israel relies on God’s generosity and participates in God’s vulnerability.

2. The sabbath command is given its foundation in the creation narrative of Gen 1:1–2:4a. That text, commonly taken to be exilic, is part of the development whereby Israel in exile comes to rely on sabbath as one of the two major distinguishing marks of Judaism. (The other is circumcision.) The cruciality of sabbath is further evident in Lev 26:1–2, where it is paired with making images as the preliminary to the great recital of blessings and curses. (Notice that these two verses have a double use of the formula “I am Yahweh.”) In Isa 56:4, 6, moreover, sabbath is reckoned as the key mark of keeping covenant in the community after the exile.

Sabbath looms so large in exilic and post-exilic Judaism because the Jews are now politically marginal and vulnerable. They are endlessly at the behest of someone else. Sabbath becomes a way, in the midst of such vulnerability, to assert the distinctiveness of this community by a theological announcement of loyalty to Yahweh. It is also a political assertion of disengagement from the economic system of productivity that never has enough. Thus Judaism in its covenantal work stoppage practices disengagement from the socioeconomic political enterprise that in its endless productivity offers safe, secure rest and well-being.

3. Contemporary practice of sabbath is not concerned to devise a system of restrictions and “blue laws.” Rather, sabbath concerns the periodic, disciplined, regular disengagement from the systems of productivity whereby the world uses people up to exhaustion. That disengagement refers also to culture-produced expectations for frantic leisure, frantic consumptions, or frantic exercise.

The pastoral issue for many persons is to develop habits and disciplines that break those patterns of behavior. Sabbath practice is not to be added on to everything else, but requires the intentional breaking of requirements that seem almost ordained in our busy life. Sabbath thus may entail the termination of routines, the disengagement from some social conventions, or even the lowering of one’s standard of living. The very concreteness of sabbath is a sacrament witnessing to the reality of exodus and to the governance of the creator who has broken the restless penchant for productive activity. The healing of creation, and of our lives as creatures of God, requires a disengagement from the dominant systems of power and wealth. Sabbath is the daring recognition that with the change of sovereigns wrought in the exodus, such unrewarding expenditure of labor is no longer required. It is only a bad habit we continue in our disbelieving foolishness (cf. Luke 12:16–20).

4. This fourth commandment is commonly placed in the first tablet, honoring the majesty of God. It belongs in the sequence concerning God’s sovereignty (first commandment), God’s freedom (second commandment), God’s holy name (third commandment), and now God’s holy time (fourth commandment). It is clear, however, that the neighbor concerns of the second tablet begin here to intrude upon the first tablet. The affirmation about God’s rest leads to a command about human rest. In this latter accent, sabbath serves to acknowledge and enact the peculiar worth and dignity of all creatures, and especially of human creatures. Consequently there are limits to the use of human persons, and of all creatures, as instrumental means to other ends. Sabbath is a day of special dignity, when God’s creatures can luxuriate in being honored ends and not mobilized means to anything beyond themselves. In the commandments that follow, we shall see that this limit to the “usefulness” of human creatures introduced in the fourth commandment now becomes a leitmotif for the second tablet.

Exodus 20:12–17, Neighbor Relations

Commentary

This set of six commands includes one positive command (v. 12), followed by five prohibitions. Calvin offers that charity “contains the sum of the second tablet.”

20:12. God enjoins Israel at the mountain to “honor” father and mother. The command consists in an imperative followed by a motivational clause. The command concerns the problematic relationships between one generation and the next. We have seen that the Exodus narrative is understood as a tale told to ensure that the children and the children’s children will know and embrace the memory of liberation (10:1–2). The book of Genesis is preoccupied with the safe transmission of blessing and promise from one generation to the next. Moreover, Michael Fishbane has suggested that the urgent command of Deut 6:4–9 evidences that the children were resistant and recalcitrant to the core teaching of Israel (cf. Ps 78:5–8). And Deut 21:15–17 attests to the fact that Israel struggled with the continuity of generations and the valuing of the life-world of the parents by the children. It may be that every society struggles with this issue, but the children’s loyalty is peculiarly urgent in a community whose faith works only by remembering unrepeatable events.

The command is to “honor.” The Hebrew term כבד (kābēd) includes among its meanings “be heavy,” suggesting the sense of “give weight to.” The negative warning of 21:17 forms a suggestive counterpoint to this command, because the term curse (קלל qll) may also be rendered “to treat lightly.” Such a nuance is important, because the command does not advocate obeying or being subordinate but treating parents with appropriate seriousness. Childs concludes that it was “a command which protected parents from being driven out of the home or abused after they could no longer work.” (Cf. Prov 19:26.) Calvin shrewdly notes that in Eph 6:1, the commandment is quantified, “in the Lord,” so that “the power of a father is so limited as that God, on whom all relationships depend, shall have the rule over fathers as well as children … Paul … indicates, that if a father enjoins anything unrighteous, obedience is freely to be denied him.”

The motivational clause concerns keeping the land, which is God’s gift. This is the only command of the Decalogue that includes land as a motivation. Several possible connections might be made concerning this command and its motivation. First, the connection may be a quite general one, that distorted relations between the generations lead to a forfeiture of shared well-being. Second, the connection may be a quasi-legal one, suggesting that the capacity to retain the inheritance (נחלה naḥălâ) of land depends on embracing the promises of father and mother. Third, if the land is understood as a result of withdrawing from the slave economy for the sake of a covenantal, egalitarian community, then the land will be held only as long as the covenantal vision is held with passion. In any case, socioeconomic security depends on the right ordering of interpersonal relations between the generations, perhaps between the generation of power and that of vulnerability.

20:13. The command against murder is terse and unadorned. While scholars continue to sort out the exact intent of the term murder (רצח rāṣaḥ), the main point is clear: Human life belongs to God and must be respected. Walter Harrelson (following Barth) takes a maximal view of the prohibition and interprets it broadly as “reverence for life”—i.e., all human life. H. Graf Reventlow suggests that the term murder originally referred to blood feuds and epidemics of killings that grew out of an insatiable thirst for vengeance between clans and families. Still other interpretations of this command suggest that murder is precluded within the community of covenant but that the prohibition does not apply outside of one’s own community of covenant. It is entirely possible that all such distinctions, in a kind of casuistry, make too fine a point. Appeal to Gen 9:6 suggests that biblical faith has drawn an uncompromising line against the taking of another life, period. Human life is intrinsically of value and may not be ultimately violated.

20:14. The prohibition against adultery concerns distorted sexual relations, or more broadly, distorted human relations. Again, the command is so terse as to invite and require interpretation. Most narrowly construed, “adultery” consists in the violation of the wife of another man. Such a patriarchal reading understands the woman to be the property and trust of a man. For ample reason, of course, the command has been much more broadly understood in Jewish and Christian communities. Most comprehensively, the prohibition points to the recognition that sexuality is enormously wondrous and enormously dangerous. The wonder of sexuality is available in a community only if it is practiced respectfully and under discipline. The danger of sexuality is that it is capable of evoking desires that are destructive of persons and of communal relations. It is inevitable that such a command will be subject to ongoing dispute, because around the subject of freedom and discipline in sexuality we deal with the most intense and elemental mystery of human existence. There is in this command neither license for permissiveness nor a puritanical restrictiveness. Everything else is left to the interpretive community.

20:15. The eighth command on stealing is characteristically terse. On the face of it, the commandment concerns respect for the property of another. It does not probe behind the social fact of “property” to notice, as Marx has done so poignantly, the probability that private property arises regularly from violence. It is enough that what is possessed by another must not be seized.

On the basis of Exod 21:16 and Deut 24:7, Albrecht Alt has proposed that the original form of the prohibition was “Thou shalt not steal a person.” The gain of such an interpretation is that it focuses on the cruciality of the human and is not drawn away toward lesser “objects.” It is, perhaps, neither necessary nor wise to choose between a more conventional focus on property and Alt’s focus. The materiality of Israel’s faith recognizes that selfhood includes the necessary “goods” to make a life of dignity possible. That, of course, leaves the vexed question of relation between the essential goods of the “have nots” and the extravagant goods of the “haves.” This command cannot be used as a defense of “private property” without reference to the kinds of sharing that are required for available human community. Harrelson concludes: “The commandment not to steal means, in effect, that persons are not to whittle down, eat away at, the selfhood of individuals or of families or of communities.”119

20:16. The ninth commandment (v. 16) is not a general command against “lying” but concerns courtroom practice. The prohibition understands that a free, independent, and healthy judiciary system is indispensable for a viable community. The courtroom must be a place where the truth is told and where social reality is not distorted through devious manipulation or ideological perversion. It is remarkable in this list of prohibitions that concern the sanctity of human life, the mystery of sexuality, and the maintenance of property, that courts should be so prominent. The prohibition, however, is a recognition that community life is not possible unless there is an arena in which there is public confidence that social reality will be reliably described and reported.

The sphere of this command is narrowly circumscribed. Truth-telling concerns “your neighbor”—i.e., a fellow member of the covenant community. The neighbor is not to be “used” by lying in order to enhance one’s own interest. Community requires drawing a line against private interest in order to make social relations workable.

20:17. The tenth commandment, on coveting, is somewhat different from the other elements of the second tablet. It concerns the destructive power of desire. It is not helpful, however, to interpret “desire” as a vague, undifferentiated attitude. Rather, it here concerns desire acted upon publicly, whereby one reaches for that which is not properly one’s own. Such reaching inevitably destroys community. The text knows that humans are indeed driven by desire. The commandment regards desire in and of itself as no good or bad thing; its quality depends on its object. The tale of Genesis 3 is the tale of desire misdirected (cf. v. 3).

Notice that desire in ancient Israel is characteristically not directed toward sexual objects (as we might expect) but pertains primarily to economics. Its concern is to curb the drive to acquisitiveness. Thus the object of desire may be silver and gold (Deut 7:25; Josh 7:21) or land (Exod 34:24; Mic 2:2).

The supreme and legitimate “desire” of Israel is to do the will and purpose of Yahweh.

In this prohibition, the primary object of desire is the neighbor’s house. That “house,” however, includex wife (reckoned in a patriarchal society as property), slaves, and working animals. The command expects that within a community of genuine covenanting, the drive of desire will be displaced by the honoring of neighbor, by the sharing of goods, and by the acceptance of one’s own possessions as adequate. This commandment, placed in final position in the Decalogue, is perhaps intended as the climactic statement of the whole, referring to Yahweh’s claims at the beginning (v. 1). Yahweh’s victory over the Egyptian gods in the same action defeated the spiritual power of coveting.

Reflections

This second tablet, anticipated in the fourth commandment, indicates that the holiness of God puts God beyond the reach of Israel, and mutatis mutandis, the intrinsic worth of human persons as creatures of God puts humans beyond the reach of abuse and exploitation.

The second tablet is a magisterial assertion that human life is situated in a community of rights and responsibilities that is willed by God. Within that community, human life in all its ambiguity and inscrutability is endlessly precious and must not be violated. This affirmation seems so obvious that we are reluctant to voice it. It is now clear that in the obduracy of totalitarian society and in the rapaciousness of market economy, a humane life of shared rights and responsibilities is exceedingly fragile. The interpretive task is to show that this fragile bonding in covenant that guarantees dignity and well-being is a live possibility among us. The second tablet is indeed an articulation of a more excellent way; it is a way in which human life is intrinsically worthy of respect, in which human persons are honored ends rather than abused means, and in which rapacious desire is properly curbed for the sake of viable community.

1. The fifth commandment concerns the struggle between the generations, a struggle that is inherently filled with tension (v. 12). On the one hand, there can be a kind of traditionalism that submits excessively to “the way we were.” On the other hand, there can be a one-generation narcissism that imagines nothing important happened until “us.” That intergenerational tension requires a seriousness that does not simply capitulate but that honors in freedom and response. In the angel’s announcement to Zechariah, a remarkable transposition of the relation of the generations is anticipated: “With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17 NRSV).

Here it is not the children who submit to the parents, but the parents who are “turned” to the children. This assertion of the angel does not override Moses’ command. Rather, the two statements are in tension, and adjudication requires that both parties, parents and children, must be engaged in the process. The commandment precludes a new generation that disregards the parents and does not give them due weight. The angel’s poem precludes a blind, mechanical submissiveness of children to parents. “Honor” is a more delicate, transactive maneuver, whereby both parties grow in dignity through the process.

2. The prohibition on killing asserts that human life is valuable to God, and under God’s protective custody (v. 13). No doubt distinctions and differentiations are to be made in enacting this command. The most obvious of these now before us concern capital punishment, war, euthanasia, and abortion. The interpretive community is of no single mind on these great questions, and no consensus is in prospect. The commandment itself states a non-negotiable principle and nothing more. That, however, is a great deal in a society where life is cheap, where technology is impersonal, where economic greed is unbridled, where bombs are “smart,” and where ideology is powerful. The murder that makes the newspapers signifies a breakdown of the human infrastructure, which legitimates brutality. The murder behind the headlines—i.e., the killing that happens a little at a time, mostly unnoticed and unacknowledged—is kept ideologically obscure. Such slow, unnoticed destruction diminishes human life among those not powerful enough to defend themselves. The interpretive issue may be this: If human life is precious, what public policies are required in order to enhance and protect it? The old-fashioned responses of employment, housing, and health care are not remote from this command. Calvin counts on the positive application of this command, “that we should not only live at peace with men … but also should aid, as far as we can, the miserable who are unjustly oppressed, and should endeavor to resist the wicked, lest they should injure men.”

Jesus intensified the command to include anger (Matt 5:21–26; cf. 1 John 3:15). One wonders whether in our society Jesus might have focused not on anger but on cynical indifference that is sanctified by a greedy, uncaring individualism that is in its own way killing.

3. The prohibition against adultery concerns the primal mystery of human existence and viable human relationships (v. 14). Our interpretive concern, of course, moves beyond the patriarchal assumption that operates with a double standard. Fidelity should be the guiding theme of interpretation of this command, as distinct from legal arrangements that bespeak old property practices and rights. Formal, legal relations of marriage provide the most durable context and basis for such fidelity. They do not, however, in and of themselves amount to fidelity. Our social context has few models or norms for fidelity of a genuine conventional kind. (It is for that reason that the relation of Yahweh-Israel or Christ-church have become such powerful models and metaphors, though these metaphors are beset with enormous problems in their patriarchal articulation.)

Continuing reflection on this commandment, which concerns genuine fidelity, may go in two directions. On the one hand, there is a struggle with legally constituted relations (marriage), which are not always relations of fidelity because of abusive behavior and a lack of authentic mutuality. On the other hand, there is a struggle concerning the possibility of a genuine relation of fidelity that is outside the conventional sanctions of legal marriage. It is clear on both counts that interpretive issues are not simple and one-dimensional.

In its fullest interpretation, the command against adultery envisions covenantal relations of mutuality that are genuinely life-giving, nurturing, enhancing, and respectful. Such a notion of long-term trust is treated as almost passé in a narcissistic society, preoccupied with individual freedom and satisfaction.

4. There are many ways to “steal a self” (v. 15). Such a focus in the eighth commandment raises important issues regarding what it takes to make a self socially viable. We are, of course, aware of theft and household burglary. We are increasingly aware of white-collar crime whereby large sums of money and property are seized in seemingly “victimless” crimes. Serious covenantal relations preclude such activity.

We must take care, however, that our interpretation of this commandment is not a mere defense of private property and the status quo as a justification for the unjust distribution of goods. Faithful interpretation requires us to probe even the subtle forms of “theft” that rob persons of their future. Here are three facets of theft to which the commandment may point.

First, the terrible inequity of haves and have nots in our society (as in many others) means that babies born into acute poverty are at the outset denied any realistic chance of surviving in a market economy. Because we believe in the goodness of God’s creation, we believe such children are intended by God to have what is necessary for an abundant life. Very often, however, they do not—because they have been robbed of their future. They are not robbed by “bad people”; they are robbed by power arrangements and structures that have long since relegated them to the permanent underclass. Over such arrangements and structures, the command speaks out: “Thou shalt not steal!”

Second, a like theft continues to occur between developed and developing nations, whereby a long-term pattern of deathly dependence is fostered. For a long time Third World countries have been treated only as colonies, natural resources, or markets, kept in a dependency relation, so that nearly all benefits of the relation go to the developed economy and its colonial agents. Patterns of military control and credit arrangements guarantee not only long-term dependency but a predictable cycle of poverty, hunger, and endless destabilization. There is no doubt that we in the West are the primary beneficiaries of such practice.

Third, in interpersonal relations that lack mutuality, characteristically there is an aggressor and a victim. In that unequal relation, which is carried on by invisible but brutal power, the “self” of the victim is endlessly stolen and diminished. The radical vision of Moses is that covenantal practice does not permit these modes of destructive power in relations, public or interpersonal.

5. The three commands on killing, adultery, and stealing together constitute something of a special group. Not only are they the most tersely expressed commands, but also they all address the ways in which vulnerable persons in community are assaulted, diminished, and destroyed. Such actions, condemned in these commands, are all acts of uncurbed power, which fails to recognize that the perpetrator and the victim share a commonality and a solidarity that preclude destructiveness. Contemporary interpretation need not get bogged down in casuistry about this or that command, but can focus on the shared solidarity that precludes destructiveness, either in the transactions of public (economic) power or in the intimacy of interpersonal relations.

6. Viable human community depends on truth telling (v. 16). This commandment is not concerned with “white lies,” but the public portrayal of reality that is not excessively skewed by self-interest or party ideology. The primary point of reference is the court, where witnesses speak and testimony is given. The commandment insists that courts must resist every distortion of reality, every collusion with vested interest (cf. 18:21; Pss 15:2; 24:4), which makes such truth telling prerequisite to worship.

More broadly construed, the commandment enjoins members of the covenant community not to distort reality to each other. The major pertinence of the prohibition in our society is the collapse of truth into propaganda in the service of ideology. That is, public versions of truth are not committed to a portrayal of reality, but to a rendering that serves a partisan interest. Such a practice may take many forms. Among the more blatant practices of “false witness” in recent times has been the use of propaganda through which defeat has been described as military victory or reporting has simply been silenced, so that no truth need be told at all. Such a public tendency is not new. Isaiah 5:20 already addresses those who distorted reality (self-)deception.

Moreover, Jeremiah understood that religious leadership is equally tempted to deception, which both advances institutional interests and seeks to give credence to theological claims (see Jer 6:13–14; 8:10–11). The commandment continues to expect that there is a viable alternative to this deceptiveness in public life.

7. The final commandment on coveting does not address general envy (v. 17), but concerns a kind of acquisitiveness that destabilizes the property and, therefore, the life of another. Marvin Chaney has shown that the oracle of Mic 2:1–5 is, in fact, an exposition of the command. That is, the command concerns primarily land and the development of large estates at the expense of vulnerable neighbors.

The propensity to covet in our society is enacted through an unbridled consumerism that believes that the main activity of human life is to accumulate, use, and enjoy more and more of the available resources of the earth. An undisciplined individualism has taught us that we are entitled to whatever we may want no matter who else may be hurt. Such individualism, however, is driven by a market ideology based on an elemental assumption of scarcity. If there is a scarcity of goods needed for life, then energy and passion are generated to gather and accumulate all that one can (cf. 16:19–21). M. Douglas Meeks has shown that the ideology of scarcity, which drives our economy, is, in the end, an act of theological doubt that does not believe that God’s providential generosity is finally reliable. This commandment summons the faithful to break with the practice of acquisitive individualism and to reject the ideology of scarcity upon which it is based. Thus the commandment requires a massive repentance that is theological in substance, but that is manifested economically.

This commandment functions as a crucial conclusion to the entire Decalogue. We may note two important connections to the preceding commands. First, this command is related to the command on sabbath. Whereas coveting is an activity of untrusting restlessness, sabbath resists such anxious activity.

Second, the decision to cease coveting relates to the first commandment. Giving up such a fearful ideological pursuit cannot be accomplished by an act of will. Rather, it may grow out of an affirmation that the powers of coveting and greedy consumption have been defeated. Such powers, then, need have no control over us. In Col 3:5 (NRSV), the first and tenth commandments are nicely joined: “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly … greed (which is idolatry).” Violating the tenth command derives from a violation of the first.

8. In interpreting any of the commandments, it is important to discern clearly the position they occupy in biblical faith. It is possible to conclude simply that these are the most foundational absolutes of God’s purpose in the world. That is, the commandments occupy a peculiar and decisive claim, articulated in the categories of revelation. They disclose the non-negotiable will of God.

Alongside that claim, George Mendenhall’s political understanding of the Decalogue may be useful. Mendenhall has proposed that these ten commands are “policy” statements. They are not in themselves guidelines for specific action, but provide the ground and framework from which specifics may be drawn. Taking them as policies links the commands quite clearly to the concrete community Moses formed. This means that, rather than contextless absolutes, they are proposals that counter other kinds of policies. Such an understanding invites adherents to this covenant to recognize that they have made, and are making, peculiar and distinctive ethical decisions related to a core decision about covenantal existence.

There are important ecclesiological implications in such a recognition. In fact, in some older Christian liturgies, the commandments are recited at baptism. In baptism, the believer pledges allegiance to a vision of social reality that is rooted in God’s wonders and deeply at odds with the dominant assumptions of an acquisitive, individualistic society. The community of faith in our time urgently needs to recover the programmatic intentionality of these commands.

9. In Matt 19:16–22, Mark 10:17–22, and Luke 18:18–30, Jesus alludes to the commandments, though he does not cite them all. Two matters strike us in reading those narratives. First, the reference to specific commandments is kept selective. Harrelson observes that Jesus uses only those commands that pertain to the rich—i.e., the one to whom he speaks. Second, the commandments are, for Jesus, a first-level demand, preparatory to the more rigorous demand, “Go, sell, give, come follow.” In these narratives, the commands are not considered unattainable modes of conduct; they are, rather, the threshold to more serious discipleship and a step on the demanding way to “eternal life”!

(re)Learning to Believe

This week, we’re taking a look at another story from the Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land (Exodus 17:1-7).  In the middle of a desert, the Israelites complained about the lack of water, wondering if God was with them or not, calling for Moses’ head, and wishing they were back in Egypt.  Unlike the previous story where God was empathetic toward their plight, in this passage, God was not pleased with their attitude and behavior.  What’s the difference?

When I was home for Thanksgiving break during my sophomore year of college, I had an intense heart to heart with my parents.  In short, I asked them if they really loved me.  While the question was born from a desire for a better, more expressive relationship, and was painful for me to bring up (and surely painful for them to hear), there are aspects of the conversation that now make me cringe.  Here I was, at home, having flown from Kansas to Michigan to be with the family at my parents’ expense.  I stayed in my own bedroom which my parents provided.  I was wearing clothes purchased mostly from money they earned.  I was on break from college that they essentially made financially possible.  My belly was full of food I did not pay for.  All of these were indicators that my parents loved me.  Yet I had the audacity to ask if they loved me!  They showed me one more way that they loved me.  They didn’t kick me out of the house!  In fact, they listened quietly, shared their sorrow over my feeling the way I did, and were entirely graceful.  They recognized on some level that my passion was matched by my immaturity.  I couldn’t see what was in front of me.

The evening before the Israelites complained about their lack of water, they ate quail that miraculously showed up at camp every evening.  They fell asleep under the glow of the glory of God displayed in a pillar of fire, and arose to a pillar of cloud to signal that God was there with them.  The morning of the day they complained, they collected manna from heaven, baking it into enough sweet bread to get them through the day – another miracle they experienced daily.  After all this they asked if God was still with them!  This is why Moses named the place Massah (test) and Meribah (arguing) - their immature arrogance got the best of them, and they would be remembered for it.

We still do this, don’t we?  The way we do this has changed over time, but we still cry out wondering if God exists at the top of our lungs at times, not aware that we have breath in our lungs that enable us to cry out, let alone hearts to pump our blood, brains to process everything we’re constantly doing to stay alive, including raising our fists to God.  All of these things declare the reality of a very much alive creation that is fearfully and wonderfully made.  Like me at 19, we react recklessly instead of responding after reflection.  This behavior may shed light on our despair, but it also illumines our ignorant, immature arrogance.  We are Israel in this regard.  This is a specific take home that this narrative provides.  Yet there is a more global application as well.  It turns out Israel had a lot to relearn about faith. So do we.

What we see happening here will be an ongoing struggle for Israel’s entire journey, which happens to be humanity’s journey as well: choosing to embrace a very new and different paradigm of faith than had been previously employed.  Paradigms don’t change easily or quickly.

Ignaz Semmelweis advised doctors and surgeons to wash their hands to avoid spreading bacteria.  He was largely ridiculed and dismissed because everybody at that time thought that bathing in general was harmful to one’s health.  Elizabeth I was considered a clean freak because she bothered to bathe once a month! Louis XIII was reportedly not bathed at all until he was seven years old!  Civilized Europeans didn’t do such things.  Only toward the end of the 19th century was basic hygiene considered appropriate for good Americans to do.  It took generations to unlearn the false way of thinking about cleanliness.  Generations!  People were truly convinced that bathing would cause irreparable harm!  Research and observation helped recognize the issue, and eventually full-on marketing campaigns were used to convince Americans that being clean was the right thing to do.  But it took a long time.

The people of Israel had a paradigm of belief largely borrowed from the culture around them which they would need to unlearn.  They understood faith to look a certain way, and expected God to act in ways thatfit their belief construct.  God, however, was trying to create something entirely new.  Their view of God was a merit badge theology where we do our part, and then God does God’s part.  It’s sort of a contract.  We can read words that seem to allude to this way of thinking throughout the Bible. So long as we’re good believers, God will come through.  For all who are not good believers, God will come through as well, we think, by rewarding them with nothing at all or worse – judgment.  “They’ll get theirs” we tell ourselves.  One day, they’ll face the Judge and get the punishment they deserve.  This rhetoric is all over the Bible.  It is ancient, it is easily embraced because that’s how we’ve made sense of everything in our world.  We do our part of the deal and God does God’s part.  Simple math.  Uncomplicated.  Seemingly fair.  We feel at home with this theology.

What happens when we stay with that old story? Train wreck in every possible way as we evaluate and judge our situation and others’ according to our reference point.  We will continue to view the world through a narrow lens that always colors reality in hues that favor ourselves while spotlighting the problems of others.  When we give into this easy old story, we become increasingly binary, categorizing everything as simply right or wrong, people as friends or foes, and believers as “in” while unbelievers as “out”. Fortunately, this is not the story that defines God.

The people of Israel were being invited into a new story, a better story that was and is being written by God that is not merit based but rather founded in a grace that is at the very heart of creation itself.  From the very first chapter of the Bible we read the creation poem reflecting God’s desire to create, and every step of the way declaring it good, culminating with human beings made in the likeness of God who are very good.  Very good.  Reflections of the divine.  This is our foundation: that we are inherently good and loved by God – even when we act out of selfish ambition that hurts ourselves, others, and our connection to God.  This also means we are inherently valued and loved by God unconditionally.  The idea of earning God’s favor simply doesn’t fit because we already have it, and always have.

When we embrace this idea we find our steps ordered very differently.  Our motives come from different places.  Our eyes are focused differently.  We are not afforded a view that separates simply into binary categories where we are usually right and those unlike us are wrong.  This broader, unitive way of being is clearly evident in the Prophets, Jesus, Paul, John, and Peter, yet often gets overlooked because the language they used to communicate to their audience necessarily had to be familiar.  The constructs familiar to their audience were more akin to the Israelites’ at the “water rock”.  The Way of Jesus will always sound like a contrast, I guess, because we human beings will always feel drawn toward regressive paradigms that allow us to remain in control.

Knowing our tendency, we must therefore ever keep before us words like those from the Apostle John, who seemed very in touch with the Spirit: God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them (1 John 4:16 NLT).  Pretty simple.  Pretty obvious.  Like washing your hands.

Manna and Quail and Loaves and Fishes and Rice and Beans and...

Let’s take a slow walk through an incredibly important event as the people of Israel were making their way from Egypt toward their homeland (Exodus 16:1-34 – NLT).

Then the whole community of Israel set out from Elim and journeyed into the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Mount Sinai. They arrived there on the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt. 2 There, too, the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron.

3 “If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”

Note: Anxiousness messes with us.

Question: How does it mess with hungry travelers?

Pete’s thoughts…  When we are anxious, we’re not our healthy selves.  We act out in a number of ways.  We get angry quicker, or we withdraw, or we get hyper and restless.  Sometimes we unintentionally get ourselves into messes because we do not recognize that we are in an anxious space.  We behave in ways we otherwise would not, and things go south.  Perhaps if we remind ourselves that when we are under excessive stress we are not at our best, we will be more mindful of our behavior.

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they will gather food, and when they prepare it, there will be twice as much as usual.”

Note: God didn’t scold people for their anxiety-induced behavior.

Question: How should we treat people who are living with anxiety?

Pete’s thoughts…  Related to the previous thoughts on anxiousness, I wonder what might happen if, when seeing a person acting out in ways not typical for them, we would choose to wonder if they may be under undue stress.  How would things be different if we open up an umbrella of grace with people instead of reacting back with equal and opposite force?  It says so much about the character and nature of God – so surprising for many, I bet – that God acts with grace after taking context into consideration.  Let’s follow suit.

6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “By evening you will realize it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt.7 In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaints, which are against him, not against us. What have we done that you should complain about us?” 8 Then Moses added, “The Lord will give you meat to eat in the evening and bread to satisfy you in the morning, for he has heard all your complaints against him. What have we done? Yes, your complaints are against the Lord, not against us.”

9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Announce this to the entire community of Israel: ‘Present yourselves before the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’” 10 And as Aaron spoke to the whole community of Israel, they looked out toward the wilderness. There they could see the awesome glory of the Lord in the cloud.

11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “I have heard the Israelites’ complaints. Now tell them, ‘In the evening you will have meat to eat, and in the morning you will have all the bread you want. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

Note: Being heard matters.  Being heard matters.  Being heard matters.  Being heard matters.

Question: When we deal with stressed people, how well do we communicate that we hear them?

Pete’s thoughts…  Recently a friend was sharing an insight he had learned after being married many years and also being a father to daughters.  “Women don’t want the men in their life to fix their problems – they really want us to listen.  My wife tells me that from time to time.”  Which means on occasion my friend shifted from listening mode to fixing mode.  God is quoted as saying “I heard you” four times within a brief amount of time.  How hard do we try to listen for understanding – to the point where those we talk with would say they felt heard?

13 That evening vast numbers of quail flew in and covered the camp. And the next morning the area around the camp was wet with dew. 14 When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground. 15 The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. “What is it?” they asked each other. They had no idea what it was.

And Moses told them, “It is the food the Lord has given you to eat.16 These are the Lord’s instructions: Each household should gather as much as it needs. Pick up two quarts for each person in your tent.”

17 So the people of Israel did as they were told. Some gathered a lot, some only a little. 18 But when they measured it out, everyone had just enough. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough. Each family had just what it needed.

19 Then Moses told them, “Do not keep any of it until morning.” 20 But some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. But by then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. Moses was very angry with them.

Note: The bread of God cannot be hoarded.

Question: Which faith system orders your steps, Egypt’s or Israel’s?

Pete’s thoughts…  Bible scholar Leander Keck offered a keen observation worth sharing on this: “They want to establish a surplus, to develop a zone of self-sufficiency. The people in the wilderness immediately try to replicate the ways of Egypt by storing up and hoarding out of anxiety and greed. However, this bread (bread of another kind given by God) cannot be stored up. The narrator takes pains to underscore that stored-up, surplus bread is useless. Bread that reflects self-sufficient anxiety and greed will have no food value for Israel, so that the bread of disobedience breeds worms, turns sour, and melts.”  Of course, it’s not just literal bread to which this applies.  When we hoard love and grace, a similar results occurs.  I once told a highly knowledgeable Christian that he was spiritually constipated.  He knew all about love and grace, but hadn’t shared it with anybody.  Instead of being marked by beauty, he was bitter.  Even with love and grace, it rots if we don’t share it.

21 After this the people gathered the food morning by morning, each family according to its need. And as the sun became hot, the flakes they had not picked up melted and disappeared. 22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much as usual—four quarts for each person instead of two. Then all the leaders of the community came and asked Moses for an explanation. 23 He told them, “This is what the Lord commanded: Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath day set apart for the Lord. So bake or boil as much as you want today, and set aside what is left for tomorrow.”

24 So they put some aside until morning, just as Moses had commanded. And in the morning the leftover food was wholesome and good, without maggots or odor. 25 Moses said, “Eat this food today, for today is a Sabbath day dedicated to the Lord. There will be no food on the ground today. 26 You may gather the food for six days, but the seventh day is the Sabbath. There will be no food on the ground that day.”

27 Some of the people went out anyway on the seventh day, but they found no food. 28 The Lord asked Moses, “How long will these people refuse to obey my commands and instructions? 29 They must realize that the Sabbath is the Lord’s gift to you. That is why he gives you a two-day supply on the sixth day, so there will be enough for two days. On the Sabbath day you must each stay in your place. Do not go out to pick up food on the seventh day.” 30 So the people did not gather any food on the seventh day.

Note: Sabbath is a gift to protect, not a law that enslaves.

Question: How are you protecting Sabbath in your life?

Pete’s thoughts…  We need space and time to just rest with people who matter to us.  To build relationship.  To reconnect.  To be loved and to love.  But we live as if that was a lie.  We over extend ourselves, using up every second with whatever urgent issue arises.  We are left with fragmented lives filled with not-quite-whole relationships with the people we love the most.  To enjoy the gift of Sabbath requires time and intent to make it happen.  It is a gift – let’s unwrap it.

31 The Israelites called the food manna. It was white like coriander seed, and it tasted like honey wafers.

32 Then Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: Fill a two-quart container with manna to preserve it for your descendants. Then later generations will be able to see the food I gave you in the wilderness when I set you free from Egypt.”

33 Moses said to Aaron, “Get a jar and fill it with two quarts of manna. Then put it in a sacred place before the Lord to preserve it for all future generations.” 34 Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded Moses. He eventually placed it in the Ark of the Covenant—in front of the stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. 35 So the people of Israel ate manna for forty years until they arrived at the land where they would settle. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

Note: Passing on the story matters.

Question: How are you sharing the story with those in your sphere?

Pete’s thoughts… This chapter of the Exodus came with and object lesson, a physical reminder of all that the manna represented.  What reminders to you have before you to keep things fresh, and to point to so that others might learn of your hope as well?

Bonus themes:

Note: God transformed the wilderness… and still does.

Question: Are we stuck in our certainty that or wilderness is devoid of life?

Pete’s thoughts… It is very easy to be so consumed by our difficult seasons that all we can see is darkness.  If we will be mindful, however, our wilderness times can become the richest times of our lives.  If you are in a wilderness period right now, mine it for all it’s worth, because there are gemstones under your feet.  I will help you if you need help to see them.  (Mining is work – but it’s worth it).

Note: Jesus fed 5,000+ from next to nothing.

Question: What dots would people connect between these two feeding stories?

Pete’s thoughts… When Jesus fed the 5,000+ from next to nothing, people would have immediately associated it with this manna story.  The biggest take-home was that what Jesus was bringing was from God, given to the listeners in a literal wilderness of space and time.  God showed up, and there was enough for everyone.

Note: The Apostle Paul referenced this manna passage in 2 Corinthians 8:8-15.

Question: How does Paul’s charge to the first century faithful speak to us today?

Pete’sthoughts… It is alittle embarrassing that we’re 20 centuries removed from Paul’s instruction, yet we still struggle with it as if we were the first audience.  We live in a wealthy part of the world.  We need to share as we are able.  The culture will call us to spend our money on tomorrow’s garage sale items or to hoard our money “just in case”, but we can all be better stewards.  There is enough in the world for everyone’s need; there is never enough for everyone’s greed.

And a final thought from Leander Keck:

It is not accidental that at the end of the miracle of the bread, Mark reports that they “did not understand about the loaves” (6:52 NRSV). They did not understand because “their hearts were hardened.” It is a high irony that in an allusion to the manna story, it is now the disciples, not the people of Pharaoh, who have “hard hearts.” Hard hearts make us rely on our own capacity and our own bread. In the end, they render all of these stories of alternative bread too dangerous and too outrageous for consideration. As a result, the bread practices of Pharaoh continue to prevail among us. In the presence of those practices, this community continues to watch the jar, tell the story, and imagine another bread that is taken and given, blessed and broken.

There is a lot in this passage to chew on.  What will you incorporate from it going forward?

The Oldest Song We Can Sing

The first line I read in my research on this particular passage went something like this: this is one of the most profound poems from the Jewish faith in the entire Bible.  That got my attention.

The reason it is so significant is because it restates the Jewish understanding of God so clearly, harkening back to the creation poem in Genesis chapter one, where out of the waters of chaos God brought forth life.  Now, in this poem (Exodus 15:1-21), God used the water of chaos to defeat Pharaoh’s army in order to save the people of Israel.  In the poem, Moses makes one thing abundantly clear: this was all God’s doing, born out of God’s love for the oppressed Israelites.  Pharaoh, the self-identified demigod who ruled the world’s super power of that time was no match for God.  Ant, meet shoe.

There are times in life when it seems the presence and power of God are undeniable, when we stand in awe of God.  Sometimes being immersed in creation draws our attention to the Creator.  Or when a baby is born.  Or when deep love is abundantly displayed in some profound way.  Or when it feels like God has intervened in some special way.  There are many stories from WWII where it seems like God’s hand showed up and caused a gun to jamb, or a leader to not advance troops, which allowed for life to go on.

I’ve experienced physical healing, what I claim was divine intervention.  I prayed, and the pain left and soon after my ailment healed after years of failed treatment.  I experienced divine intervention after a car wreck.  After such experiences, I sang pretty loud songs of praise to God.

Sometimes we experience God intervening in other ways, seemingly aligning stars for a particular reason.  My family experienced this in July at a camping trip which brought us into deeper relationship with a couple we’d met weeks before.  All of us were wondering if God somehow orchestrated this coincidence, and wondered why God might bother.  Note: I don’t generally play this card, and wouldn’t except that the likelihood of all of this happening was so small we simply couldn’t shake the thought that somehow God was in it.  When these types of things happen, it feels natural to be grateful to God.

At other times it is not so easy to sing, because we sense God’s lack of intervention.  Our prayers don’t get answered the way we hoped.  The gun didn’t jamb when it was pointed at a loved one.  The wreck took life.  Sometimes “it” hits the fan and spreads it everywhere.  We look for someone to blame.  Sometimes it’s us. Sometimes it’s someone else.  Sometimes it’s a destructive system.  Sometimes it’s Mother Nature.  Sometimes it sure feels like God could have intervened.  I bet there were some Jews on the victory side of the sea who, while they were delighted at God’s defeat of Pharaoh’s army, wept, wishing God had acted sooner, before their sons were thrown into the Nile, or their loved one died from beatings because they didn’t meet their quota of bricks.

I bet everyone has been impacted by the pain cancer has caused.  I know I have grieved the loss of many lives taken by this indiscriminate foe.  And how many millions of Jews died because the war ended too late?  How many tens of thousands of Japanese were immediately incinerated or slowly, excruciatingly painfully killed from radiation because the threat of a nuclear bomb wasn’t taken seriously, and because we dropped it.  How many people today are stuck in human trafficking, being exploited for their work or their sexuality?  Love to stream porn?  Do you really think all those different women are hoping to be porn stars?  Wake up!  The greatest likelihood is that they are on camera under threat. 

In these times, it’s hard to sing a song about God’s immense power to deliver us from evil.  So we turn to other songs in the Bible.  Like Psalm 42 and Psalm 44.  These are good songs for excrement-filled days.  If my coarse language here offends you, perhaps you haven’t actually had one yet.  Sometimes vulgarity allows for appropriate expression.  Isn’t it good to know the Bible itself gives us permission to vent?

So, where are we then?  Seems a little wanting to sing praise to God for being omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent when it feels like God didn’t quite have enough in the tank, or made a poor choice, or just plain didn’t show up where needed.

The Jewish people were no strangers to oppression.  Most of their existence as a people has been on the receiving end of someone’s hatred.  In all of history, they haven’t truly ruled their own land for much longer than the United States has hers.  Think about that.  In 4,000 years of history, they’ve had their hands on their own steering wheel (speaking in geopolitical terms) for a few hundred years.  Their glory days were during the reign of David and Solomon.  That was around 1,000 BCE.  Not long after Solomon reigned, everything fell apart.  They have faced one challenge after another forever.  Why do they still sing praise to God?

The Jewish faith (which is the foundation for Christian faith) believedGod to be constantly good, constantly active, and constantly loving.  God cannot be otherwise.  God’s choice to redeem Israel in the exodus from Egypt had nothing to do with Israel’s holiness or DNA.  The move had everything to do with God’s unchangeable character of love.  For ancient Jews, reading the story of Adam and Eve reminded them that life is sometimes “excrementy”.  Sometimes it feels like a snake in the grass is the source.  Sometimes it’s people we love and are supposed to love us back -  they defecate on it.  And sometimes we’re the ones who do the defecating.  That’s a whole lot of excrement!  Maybe that’s why the Garden grew so much fruit!  The Garden story reminds us that life is sometimes awful for a wide range of reasons, not the least of which is our own individual arrogance and quest for greater power, even equality with God.  We’re told from the get-go to expect life to be like that.  But this Jewish story also tells of their generation-after-generation experience of God as One who is loving despite our shortcomings and outright defiant rejection; One who comes to heal, restore, instruct, and help move forward.  This is the nature of God, our Ground of Being, Ultimate Reality: Love.

This great, eternal truth is very good news – the same Good News Jesus proclaimed as a corrective to a too-narrowly defined legalistic interpretation of the Jewish faith at that time by the Sadducees who were in charge.  The Good News is this: no matter how excrementy things get, the end of the story is the goodness of God.   I’m not talking about some wimpy, cop-out, denial of and checking out of reality while we wait for heaven.  I’m talking about living through the grit and shit knowing that it does not mean the absence of God, but in fact simply is an expression of the reality of life.  But a reality that need not and should not define us.  Our ultimateidentity is in the person of God, who is with us through and through, supporting and sustaining us even as we wade through the cesspools of life.  When we choose to praise God for this hope which rings eternal, it is an act of honest, strong defiance against that which would have us think less of ourselves, the cosmos, and God.  Praising God even in the midst of the shitstorm is an act of giving the finger to cancer, to evil, to tyranny, to all that tries to go against what is eternally good.  It is a statement declaring that we choose to be defined by our identity in God and nothing less.  This allows us to move forward not with strength instead of fear, joy instead of mourning, because that which gives us life is eternal and cannot be compromised by the light and momentary troubles we may experience here and now.

While such a metaphor may offend our modern sensibilities, the whole claim of rescue, deliverance, and salvation depends on the reality that God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. It is as though the utterance of Yahweh’s name is a defiant challenge to any power that might try to undo the liberation and force the singer back into bondage. The singer anticipates the Pauline assertion: “I am not ashamed of the gospel” (Rom 1:16 NRSV). This singer is not embarrassed to take a strong stand for the future in this affirmation. The singer is buoyant and delighted at the new possibilities the reality of this God makes possible. The remainder of the poem explicates this passionate faith and sure confidence… It is the liturgic remembering and hoping of every community of the oppressed that catches a glimpse of freedom and authorizes liturgical (and eschatological) exaggeration to say, “Free at last!” When the song is sung, clearly this is not yet “at last.” The community at worship, however, can dare such exaggeration, because its hope is more powerful and more compelling than any present circumstance. – New Interpreter’s Bible

May we choose to recognize the majesty of God not only when it is so obvious, but especially when it is not, that we may be beacons of hope as we sing the song that cannot be silenced and must be sung: Where, o death, is your victory?  Where, o death, is your sting?

Gilbert Foster, Scottish Texan

Gilbert Foster brings his secret sauce to CrossWalk...

Harrell Miller: Through the Eyes of Love

Please enjoy this incredible teaching offered by Harrell Miller!

Why are we doing this faith stuff, again?

Joseph was long gone.  So was the Pharaoh who made him second in command over Egypt.  Time changes everything.  At the end of Joseph’s days, the people of Israel (his dad’s extended family) were welcomed into the foreign country with open arms.  A few generations later, the Israelites (who worked hard and no doubt contributed to the country’s bottom line) were viewed as a threat to Egypt’s national stability.  The king treated them harshly with slave labor, but they kept on reproducing.  Giving in to the fear, Pharaoh gave an unthinkable order.

The king of Egypt had a talk with the two Hebrew midwives; one was named Shiphrah and the other Puah. He said, "When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the sex of the baby. If it's a boy, kill him; if it's a girl, let her live."
     But the midwives had far too much respect for God and didn't do what the king of Egypt ordered; they let the boy babies live. The king of Egypt called in the midwives. "Why didn't you obey my orders? You've let those babies live!"
     The midwives answered Pharaoh, "The Hebrew women aren't like the Egyptian women; they're vigorous. Before the midwife can get there, they've already had the baby."
     God was pleased with the midwives. The people continued to increase in number—a very strong people. And because the midwives honored God, God gave them families of their own.
     So Pharaoh issued a general order to all his people: "Every boy that is born, drown him in the Nile. But let the girls live." – Exodus 1:15-22 (The Message)

A couple of questions come to mind for me at this point.  The Pharaoh did not remember, did not know, or did not care about the history of the Jewish people.  I wonder if anyone told him about Joseph’s influence, or if the Pharaoh Joseph worked for simply got the credit for saving Egypt from famine?  So, one question that comes to mind is this: what are some historical moments we do not want our children and grandchildren to forget, lest they forget history and therefore become more inclined to repeat it?

On another note, we are introduced to Shiphrah and Puah, two Hebrew women who were as courageous as Pharaoh was horrific.  They put their lives at risk to ensure that Jewish boys lived.  When held accountable, they played into Pharaoh’s ignorance that fueled his fear.  “Hebrew women are champions when it comes to pushing out babies…”  Reminds me of tales of Brer Rabbit from American slavery days.  Brer Rabbit was a fictitious folklore hero who outwitted those who tried to trap and kill him.  African slaves, knowing that their masters thought them to be lazy and dimwitted, used the prejudice to their advantage at times.  Ingenious creativity in the face of terror that protected life as best as possible.  A question that comes to mind for me at a time in our country that is so divided is this: how are we creatively doing our part to insure that endangered people are allowed to truly live?

The story builds…

A man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and had a son. She saw there was something special about him and hid him. She hid him for three months. When she couldn't hide him any longer she got a little basket-boat made of papyrus, waterproofed it with tar and pitch, and placed the child in it. Then she set it afloat in the reeds at the edge of the Nile.
     The baby's older sister found herself a vantage point a little way off and watched to see what would happen to him. Pharaoh's daughter came down to the Nile to bathe; her maidens strolled on the bank. She saw the basket-boat floating in the reeds and sent her maid to get it. She opened it and saw the child—a baby crying! Her heart went out to him. She said, "This must be one of the Hebrew babies."
     Then his sister was before her: "Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby for you?"
     Pharaoh's daughter said, "Yes. Go." The girl went and called the child's mother.
     Pharaoh's daughter told her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me. I'll pay you." The woman took the child and nursed him.
     After the child was weaned, she presented him to Pharaoh's daughter who adopted him as her son. She named him Moses (Pulled-Out), saying, "I pulled him out of the water." – Exodus 2:1-10 (The Message)

A story that was generally awful just got very personal for a particular Jewish woman.  This wasn’t just some child, this was her child, and she was not about to let her baby drown.  So, she did what people do when they realize they are up against the wall – she did whatever it took to save her son.  A calculated risk all the way around.  If she got caught, she could be killed.  If the baby got discovered by the wrong person, he could be drowned.  If the baby was found by a crocodile, well…  Serious risk. 

Of course, the story went well.  The baby was discovered by a sympathetic princess who wanted a pet, I guess?  Or was this willful disobedience against her Pharaoh-brother born out of compassion?  Very curious.  All of this was witnessed by the boy’s sister, who arranged for her own mother to be the nurse maid.  Clever.  But risky.

I wonder if we would be so creative and courageous if we knew the stakes were so high.  Of course, for most of us in these parts of the world, such a threat seems incomprehensible and extremely unlikely.  But if we were faced with such a foe, if our own flesh and blood were on the line or our kin or our country, I think most of us would act with great bravery and sacrifice willingly.  What would you be willing to do if you knew there existed a real threat that endangered your life and the life of those most important to you?

There is a Pharaoh that threatens.  I don’t think it’s Kim Jong-un, although I think he’s nuts and might just do something incredibly stupid that will hurt many people (he has already ruled in ways that hurt North Koreans – why stop there?).  I don’t think it’s ISIS, either.  They are nuts for sure, so deeply committed to their version of radical, fundamentalist Islam.  I don’t think it’s Trump, or our Congress, even though I think they are each pathetic in their own way and continue to underwhelm us all.

There is a threat that I think seeks to undermine our lifeline, our capacity to really live life as it was meant to be lived.  The Bible actually speaks into it from cover to cover.  The name of our foe may change over time – Pharaoh one day, Nebuchadnezzar the next – but their game plan is essentially unchanged.  Our Jewish ancestors knew that their way of engaging life as people of God was being threatened.  Their culture was built around the belief that God was with them wherever they went, and that basing life on the faithfulness and goodness of God was what would lead toward a truly blessed life corporately and individually.  That is the message of Jesus, too.  He spoke of competing kingdoms – the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world – as being in sharp contrast to one another.  He said bold things about the need to decide which one we would follow, and that only one would lead to life.  Not many find it.  When we try to grasp our individual lives with clenched, white-knuckled fists, Jesus says we will lose it.  Yet when we release our lives, entrusting our ethos to the way of Jesus (the Kingdom of God), we find the life we are looking for.

The Church in the United States is in decline.  An increasing number of people don’t care, and may in fact want to see the Church’s demise accelerate.  I think for many, however, the Church as a whole seems unnecessary for people who are spiritual but not religious.  Why do we even need the Church, anyway?  We can get whatever spiritual input we want from a wide range of websites, podcasts, books, etc., many of which offer excellent content?

Believe me, I think a significant reason the Church has lost so much favor over the years is the Church’s fault.  The Church has been arrogant, unbending on the wrong things, failures at standing for the best things, and has become a political pawn on both the left and right side of the aisle.  This is a terrible tragedy, because the purpose of the Church is to proclaim the teachings of Jesus which called us to see the difference between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world and decide which one would receive our pledge of allegiance.

The kingdom of this world we are intimately familiar with today proclaims from all sectors that the pursuit of personal happiness and success is ours to pursue.  It’s even written into our country’s founding documents.  Go after the life you want, on your terms, defined by you – the American dream.  Our entertainment celebrates it, our capitalistic economy counts on it, our politicians craft speeches that tap into it, our military protects it on a global level.  God is an accessory in our plot to enjoy life.  So long as we feel inner peace when we need it, we’re good.  But this is not the Way Jesus lived or taught.  And while it may give us moments of serenity, it is not the real deal.  It is a false way, and given the multitude who are on it, a highway.  Jesus said that the way is wide and many are on it – that way that leads to destruction.  Not life.

The Way of Jesus, however, is narrow, and few find it.  Why? Because it’s not the norm.  It walks to the beat of a different drummer who doesn’t play familiar rhythms.  The Way of Jesus is foreign and uncomfortable and even unwelcome because it challenges us to think beyond ourselves, to rely on and center ourselves on our identity as entwined and animated by God, which leads us to see others as equally valued and therefore worthy of our respect and inclusion.  This way is radically different than one focused almost solely on our personal, private pursuits to satisfy and build our own puny kingdoms.  It feels like death.  Yet Jesus says it is the way to life.

Influenced by the false kingdom, we think of church as an accessory item that we may or may not adorn, depending on any number of factors.  Instead of being a place where we are reminded of the Kingdom of God and what it means to live under it’s influence, it’s value is measured with the criteria of the culture – if it’s not doing anything for me, I have no patience for it.

If we really believe that this faith thing is legitimate, then we must behave as if were so.  We must muster the courage that the four women in the first chapter and a half of Exodus displayed.  It will need to be creative, it will be different, it will feel risky because it isn’t mainstream, and it just might save a lot of people from literal and figurative death.

What kinds of behaviors need to change?  We live in a spiritually attuned culture that treats God as an on-call therapist – that’s the kingdom of our world.  This Kingdom of God, however, demands that our connection to the Divine be the central, driving, animating force in our lives. We live in a radically individualized culture – that’s the way of this kingdom of our world.  The Kingdom of God calls for community.  The kingdom of our world seeks self-preservation at all costs.  The Kingdom of God, however, is service-of-others oriented, proclaiming that true greatness comes from being a servant, even a slave to the needs of others. Somehow we find our deepest needs met as we base our lives on God’s love and learn to love others well.

How are you creatively countering the culture of this world with the culture of the Kingdom of God? 

How are you fostering a life that is truly centered on a vibrant relationship with God?

How are you engaging others on the Way in genuine community?

How are you serving others in your midst because they are inherently valuable as brothers and sisters created by the same God?

Your Family: Define or Inform You?

In this teaching offered by Sam Altis, we engage the story of Joseph at the end of the Bible's book of Genesis.  Joseph had lots of reasons to perpetuate a nasty family system.  Instead, he chose to break the cycle.  Instead of being defined by the family that deeply influenced him, he chose how his future decisions would be informed.  Are you defined or simply informed by the family system that formed  you?

Striving Toward Heneni

Please enjoy the following weird story from our Bible...

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. – Genesis 32:22-32 (NRSV)

After many years of keeping his distance, Jacob was about to meet his brother Esau again.  As you may recall, Jacob swindled Esau out of his birthright by preying on his vulnerability as well as their father’s blindness in order to get that more-than-twice-as-powerful position as the blessed first born.  Jacob was used to running.  He ran away from his equally slick father.  Now Jacob was all alone.  Everything that mattered to him was on the other side of the river.  The next morning would be a new day (which could have very well been his last).  It was a terrible night.  Jacob experienced a wrestling match that took him from dusk until dawn.  It was the most pivotal night in his life to that point.  Who would Jacob choose to be in the morning?  Would he cross the river, or take his exit as he had so often in his past?

This is a story about striving.

The Hebrew word in question here can sometimes be translated as struggle, or even wrestle, but the most accurate seems to be “striving”, which is defined as: “make great efforts to achieve or obtain something” (Oxford English Dictionary).  This is not a casual exercise.  This is where you leave everything on the mat, as if your life depended on it.

In the story, this isn’t a dream.  The story is passed down that an actual incarnation of God in human form showed up, unannounced.  Furthermore, this person took the initiative – Jacob did not invite him to his campsite.  This seems to be a recurring theme about this God the Jewish people are talking about – this God doesn’t stay in the heavens, but comes down among us.  And this God doesn’t come down to ruin our lives or sleep with our brothers and sisters – this God comes to bring something good to us.

There were likely a range of reasons Jacob chose to sleep alone on the other side of the river that night.  One handy reality was that if he chose to slip away into the night, never to be seen again, he could.  I think a big part of this strife in darkness was that this was to become one of his defining moments.  He did not know what the next day would bring.  Death, perhaps.  Surely a part of him had to consider giving up on the dream, of God’s dream, for his life.  I think that, more than anything else, is what the striving was about.  Would he become the man he was meant to become, or cower once more, tricking his way out this mess and begin yet again as the trickster who knew how to make a deal and work the system.

If you cannot relate to this, I wonder if you’ve ever had a deep, reflective thought in your life.  Perhaps you’ve skated throughout life never wondering about who you are or who you are becoming.  Sometimes we don’t want to wonder because it can be a painful experience.  Denial feels easier, and is easier, for a time.  We can binge on Netflix and avoid personal reflection for a long time.

But shallow living catches up to us eventually.  We were made for love and depth.  When we avoid those things, we will struggle – strive – with despair.  We will face the mirror at some point (even if for a brief moment) and realize that we may have missed Life.  In those moments, I believe the presence of God enters the room to strive with us.  Not to beat us down for being idiots, but to strive with us in the sense of helping us overcome that which keeps us from Life itself.

Sometimes what keeps us from life itself is shame. 

ü  Or guilt. 

ü  Or fear. 

ü  Or anger.

ü  Or sorrow.

ü  Or the company we keep.

ü  Or our depression.

ü  Or… 

Lots of things can keep us from life.  Lots of things distract us from seeing and seeking Life itself.  Surely Jacob could check all these boxes.  Especially when we are alone and are quiet (his campground didn’t have Wi-Fi), we can be flooded with these “adversaries”.  Sometimes it may even feel like it is God who is bringing the battle.  But I don’t think that’s the case.

It seems to me that God is much more interested in blessing than cursing.  Accountability comes for all of us, of course, but only when the Life of God is held high to give us something to contrast our lives with.  God has no need to judge – we’ve got that down to a science.

What God does do really well, however, is come alongside and whisper (or sometimes shout) words of hope and blessing to us.  Words of love and encouragement about who we are and who we can become.  I think Jacob faced his demons that night and was tempted to retreat.  But God was there in the flesh to strive with Jacob through the night, calling him forward, calling him into the morning light, a new day, a new chapter in which he would see the promises come to fruition.

When morning came, there was no clear winner.  Jacob got a new name – one which would become the name for an entire nation of people – the Hebrew people – the cross over people – the people who strive with God in order to cross over rivers into myriad Promised Lands. 

And Jacob also got a limp.  An injury that would remind him of the striving.  Don’t mistake this as some form of punishment to turn God into a jerk and Jacob a needless victim.  On the contrary, I am confident Jacob was grateful for the limp, because as far as everybody thought at that time, to see God face to face meant certain death.  Jacob was alive and moving forward toward promise.  His limp would forever cause him to be grateful, not bitter.  He saw God in a new way by the dawn and put a word to it.  That’s how these things usually go: we strive with God by our side, and we discover a new level of beauty that perhaps we didn’t see before, and it adds to our language about this incredible One we seek and serve.  Of course, the paradox is that we are sought and served more than we seek and serve…

Where are you camping in your life right now?  What does it mean for you to cross the river?  What are you striving against?  Do you realize that God strives with you toward your best, most true self?  You have a teammate with you to help you along the way.  God is not your foe as it sometimes may seem.  God is your champion. 

Another interesting tidbit...  The story ends without the Stranger leaving.  Some scholars think this is a hint that God never left Jacob’s side, especially as he faced his brother in the very next scene.  Perhaps God has never left you, either.

But wait, there’s more!  This was the second of three visions experienced by Jacob.  When the third vision comes, Jacob’s response is different than the first two.  In the first vision, Jacob’s reaction was “Wow!”, and in the second was a wrestling match.  The third time around, when Jacob realizes he is experiencing the Divine, his response is, “Heneni!”  Heneni is a Hebrew word that shows up only a handful of times in the Hebrew Bible.  It translates, “Here am I.”  Jacob, toward the end of his life, finally matured into a person who trusted the nature and character of God so much that his response was simply, “I’m in.” 

Don’t wait until the end of your life to get to Heneni.  Strive toward Heneni now, because life is short and Life awaits. 

Jacob's Ladder: Above and Beside

Jacob was on the run when God came to him in a dream (Genesis 28:10-19).  He and his mother Rebekah had just won the chess game with Esau and his father, Isaac.  Esau, known for being a skilled hunter, having just figured out he got swindled out of half of his inheritance and all of the long-term benefits associated with being the first born son, was, to say the least, pissed.  That’s why Jacob was running: there was likely a target on his back!

After a solid day of fleeing for his life, he finally decided to set up camp for the night.  No glamping here, he found a rock for his head and called it good.  As he slept, he experienced an extremely powerful dream where he saw a ladder/stairway leading up to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it.  None of the angels addressed him.  Rather, God addressed Jacob directly, assuring him that the same covenant that had been made with his grandfather, Abraham, was carrying over to Jacob.  That’s the story in a nutshell.  Pretty awesome, huh?

Unfortunately, the awesomeness of the story is easily lost on us because we don’t live in the ancient world.  If we did, we would be shocked at this story.  Let’s unpack this puppy…

God was above.  In ancient cosmology (and for many yet today), people believed that the gods dwelled in the heavens far above the earth.  These gods were somewhat regional, looking over certain geographical areas, which meant you had to know where you were so that you knew which god you needed to appease.  Messenger-angels would communicate between heaven and earth at certain holy places – often in groves of trees or high places.  The idea about high places: you’re more likely to be closer to the gods if you are literally closer to the gods – the higher the better.  A ladder-portal reaching to the heavens was a sensible (albeit fantastic) dream.

Above and beside.  Scholars have enjoyed some debate over where to place God in this story.  That’s why some translations depict God speaking from the heavens, and others have God come alongside Jacob in the dream.  I like The Message translation because Eugene Peterson just makes it a both-and reality, because it is.  For the ancient mind stuck in the aforementioned cosmological worldview, however, this was really astonishing: the gods stay in heaven where they belong, they don’t come up close and personal.  The “besideness” of God in this story was part of the radically different way of thinking about God from the Jewish tradition.  We are more comfortable with this idea in our present age.  Maybe too comfortable.  Maybe we take the presence of God for granted to the point where God seems as distant as the ancient view where God stayed in heaven.

How would you live differently if you knew that the full presence of God was completely available to you 24/7?  The Good News is that this is true.  So perhaps we might need to rethink any notion of living apart from God.

Another hidden thing right in front of our faces is the fact that in the story, God initiates everything, and God pronounces that the covenant has been passed to Jacob – blessing – without condition.  Usually, people beg and plead for the gods to pay even a little attention.  In this story, however, God makes the move forward Jacob, speaking Good News to him. 

Don’t miss this other obvious thing: Jacob was a trickster.  Because we know the rest of the story, we know he is very shrewd in his business dealings.  He just committed a great offense against his father and brother.  Yet there is no confession preceding God’s coming, speaking, or blessing.  As much as we love and hate the idea of earning our keep with God, that is a lie.  God is unconditionally loving and graceful toward us, ready to bless us as we pursue the Way that leads to Life (which is the Way witnessed in Jesus).  To choose to get on that path (again) is itself repentance, a turning from one way to a better Way.  All of this emanates from God who is ultimate love.  As John noted in his New Testament letter, we love because God loved us first.  It has to be this way, otherwise there is no grace at all.  Deal with it = you are loved.  Build your life on it, in fact.  The voice of God continues to invite you into your next resurrection.  The choice is yours – the offer stands forever.  But the choice comes with a stretch, which may be why you are reluctant to accept the invitation.

Beside and Above.  I think sometimes we are so comfortable with God’s omnipresence that we forget the majesty of the One we’re talking about.  We think about God’s presence being here with us in Napa, NorCal, the West Coast, the United States, and the all over the world.  But the Presence is also light years away, wherever creation continues to unfold.  The One who invites us to the Way has just a wee bit more perspective on things than you and me.  God’s Way is rooted in the essence and energy of life itself, which is why when we find ourselves living in it, we feel like we’ve been born again (and again and again and again and…).  We are tapping into the Source of Life itself.  The perpetual invitation calls us deeper and deeper, which is in significant contrast to our more shallow, self-centered, nationalistic, power hungry, greed oriented life that is so prevalent.  The Way that leads to life is a very different way, requiring different steps than those promoted by our culture.  A choice with a big stretch.  Discomfort as we learn new moves.  Yet so worth it.  Listen to Paul on this:

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. (Romans 8:12-25)

God is everywhere, even alongside of you.  Loving you as you sit there in your dirty diaper.  Ready to clean you up and get you going again.  Promising to never leave you.  Calling you forward to new ways of life that is actually Life.  Better.  Bigger.  More beautiful. 

Your invitation awaits.  You are responding – is it the response you want?

Something's Growing

The story of Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob is absolutely rich (Genesis 25:19-34).  The details given let us know that the story was meant to be fodder for lots of discussion around the campfires and dinner tables of old, and here we are considering it again today.  That’s a good sign that we’ve tripped onto an epic story.  And it is.

              Isaac, now married for some undisclosed period of time (long enough to know he and Rebekah are having fertility issues), prays for help.  God answers his cry and their attempts at getting pregnant take shape, even though they are, like Abraham and Sarah, on the older side (Isaac is 60 when they conceive).  The longer the pregnancy goes, the harder it is for Rebekah.  So hard, in fact, that she cries out to God in agony, wishing she were dead!  God hears her cry and explains why her pregnancy is particularly uncomfortable: she’s carrying twins.  (Aside: note that this is yet another time in this foundational story of Judaism where God responds to a woman’s cry.  That’s significant in a patriarchal age when women were treated as property and had little social voice.)  Making matters worse, Rebekah learns that the two children she iscarrying are competitive, even wrestling in utero, and when the delivery comes, Jacob is holding the heel of his hairy brother.  The stage is set – two brothers who struggle from the get-go.

              More critical details are provided in this introduction to these two boys who will largely define how Israel thinks of themselves and the world around them.  Dad prefers Esau, Mom prefers Jacob.  Esau is a skilled outdoorsman, bringing home lots of game, and Jacob is the student who prefers to stick around the office of the family business.  He likes to cook, too, and does a good job of it with Esau’s spoils.  As soon as readers stop and pay even a little attention to these details, they must be caught up in it.  Because readers were born at some point and understand the dynamics created if favorites are clearly known.  If we don’t have firsthand experience, we have seen it.  These details beg some questions.

              How would favoritism potentially be recognized by each kid?  Imagine it for a while.  How do they know they are favorites?  How might that feel?  How would it be recognized by onlookers outside the family?  How might that impact how they treat these two boys?  How does being a favorite (or not) mess with a kid’s identity, self-worth, and vision?  What kind of foundation is created when favoritism is present?

              One result is competition.  Esau is technically the firstborn (by five minutes), and is Dad’s favorite.  That puts him on the top of the food chain.  Whether or not he knows it is somewhat irrelevant because Jacob definitely knows it – he’s felt it all his life.  And he doesn’t like it.  And with the help of Mom, he is going to change it.

              “The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”  This is statistically accurate (and not just for men).  My wife lured me into her web with Beef Stroganoff.  I was a goner.  Esau came in from a hunting expedition tired and hungry.  Jacob was ready with his famous Lentil Stew.  Esau let his hunger override his mind and control his mouth.  Before he knew it, he took an oath relinquishing his pole position to Jacob.  My guess is he didn’t really take it seriously.  Didn’t matter – the deed was done.  Another piece of the drama to chew on that begs more questions.

              What does this scene tell us about the character of Esau and Jacob, that one would treat something so precious as to give it up so flippantly, and that the other would orchestrate such a deceptive transaction (which was a set up for the much more deviant move to come later with Isaac)?  How is this story an allusion to all the stories that are coming later that include rival tribes?  What does it say about core character issues not just with Jacob, but with Israel herself, which is what he represents?  Better refill your drink and get some more chips – there is a lot to process here!

              Good literature does exactly what we see here.  One reason classic books are classic is because the author has done a good job setting things up in the beginning, and works them out throughout the story.  That’s what we are invited to work with here – much more than a simple check box to help us know that Jacob somehow became the patriarch of what would become the Jewish nation.  Of course, if we are slowing down enough to sit with a text like this, our gaze will eventually turn to ourselves and our world.

              Have you spent much time processing how your beginning story has informed the whole of your story?  Are you aware that you never really outgrow your story, that it is woven into the fabric of who you are and will continue to be?  Or have you stuffed it away, hidden it in a closet or swept it under a rug, thinking that if you ignore it, your origin story will have little effect on you?  You may not be paying any attention to it at all, thinking you’re off the hook.  Nope.  You have been shaped by your story of origin.  You may not realize it, but it has been informing your thoughts, feelings and behavior your entire life.  And it will continue to do so for the remainder of your life.  That’s a fact.  How your origin story informs the rest of your story depends on what you’re willing to do with it.  Everyone is born to human parents, which means everyone has experienced some form of mess.  Your mess may be different than my mess, but it’s all relative, all still a mess, and each of us is invited to be aware of our mess and determine if we want that mess to create more messes in our life.

              When we are aware of the mess inherent in our origin story (and the good, beautiful stuff, too), we then have the opportunity to integrate it into our lives to help us grow into who we want to become.  Everything belongs in our story (thanks, Richard Rohr).  This simple truth doesn’t make the bad stuff we’ve experienced okay, it just simply reminds us that we are complex, composite creatures that have been shaped by innumerable forces from our first breath forward.  Our faith provides some hopeful help, here, because what we see as this origin story unfolds is a God who comes alongside to help work things out, to help us in our struggle, to do something redemptive even with the pain we’ve all been through.  Not to destroy us, but to help us become more alive and free than we thought our story could allow.

              This is why the writer of Psalm 119 had to write the longest Psalm about the Way of God: actually worked!  It’s why Paul talked about the futility of rule-keeping legalism in favor of walking in the Way of the Spirit – relationship with God – in his letter to the church in Rome.  Over the centuries, ghis Ground of Being we refer to as God has been drawing us in, inviting us to root ourselves in the Spirit-infused Way of life that heals and restores not only ourselves, but serves to bring healing wherever we go.  This, of course, begs some questions.

              Are you aware of this Way of God that leads to life?  Are you aware of how it may be similar or different than the way a lot of the world operates?  Are you learning more and more about the Way so that you can be on it and in it?

              Jesus knew that simply hearing about the Way wasn’t enough to make a significant difference in life.  The seeds of the Way need to be cultivated if we ever want to see fruit.  Paying attention to how we cultivate that seed matters.  In his parable of the soils, Jesus speaks plainly about why some people hear the Good News of the Way of God but see little impact – their soil is not conducive to growth.  Knowing that soil matters might help us be less judging toward others, especially if we know that we are not always in control of the fertility of the soil we find ourselves in.  On the other hand, once we know that soil matters, we can do our part to ensure that the soil of our lives is as fertile as possible so that we might experience life in its fullness.  Fruit enough for ourselves and plenty of others.  This, of course, begs more questions.

What is your soil like?  How are cultivating it?  What sort of growth are you looking for – what kind of “plant” or you wanting to cultivate?

              A friend of mine once said that he and his wife try to parent their children so as to limit the amount of therapy they’ll need in the future.  Another friend of mine, when we talk of everyday goofs as well as deeper, uglier stuff we do that naturally affect our children and those around us says, “Well, write that down for the therapist!”  More reflection on who we are and who we are becoming is something that benefits everyone – ourselves, who we immediately impact, and far, far beyond what we can imagine.  One practice from the distant past that is rooted in our biblical story is the Prayer of Examen.  In this time of prayerful, daily reflection (lasting 15-20 minutes), we invite God to help us see ourselves more clearly so that we can pay attention to who we are and who we are becoming.  I invite you to try this on for size this week.  Pick at time toward the end of your day (I like the end of my work day), and move through this process from Ignatius (or use this video to guide you).  It just might help cultivate the soil in such a way that who you really can be might grow and flourish.

Decisions, Decisions

Genesis 24 is all about decisions. And it’s long, really long. It sort of feels long and drawn out like a lot of decisions in life. Here’s a frequent conversation Kaylan and I have. Maybe you can relate.
“Where do want to eat?”
“How about pizza?”
“Eh…what about tacos?”
“Nope. Thai?”
Fast forward 45 minutes, and we’ve driven around Napa three times, and somehow always end up at In N Out. 
I can’t promise that Genesis 24 will solve all of your date night decisions, but I think it does point us in some helpful directions. So take a look at it. I’m not going to include it all here, because it’s roughly the length of the dictionary. Here’s the cliff notes.
Abraham realizes Isaac needs a wife, so he calls in his most trusted servant. He makes him place his hand on Abraham’s…man parts…I’ll explain later. The he has him promise he’ll go back to where Abraham is from and find a wife for Isaac. 
His servant promises and heads out. When he arrives, he sits by a well, where the young women would be going to get water. He thinks to himself, “Whoever offers me and my camels water might be the right type of person.” Lo and behold, a woman named Rebekah comes up and does just that. 
After some quick conversation, the servant is welcomed to Rebekah’s family’s home. It doesn’t take long before he admits to the family why he’s there, and everyone (including Rebekah) agrees that marrying Isaac is good idea. After working out the details, Rebekah returns with the servant, sees Isaac, they marry, grow to love each other, and the rest is history. No Tinder or Christian Mingle needed.
So, then how does this help us think about decisions today, thousands of years later? We shouldn’t take it (or a lot of things in the Bible) as a template. Instead, we should look at what the story is moving towards, and have our decision move in the same way. When we look at the context of the story, we find that certain parts of it are pretty radical for their time, and point in a certain direction. So, let’s check out three ways this happens.
Moving Away from a Fatalistic View of God   
The decision in this story is really important. You can tell that by the weird “put your hand on my man parts” piece. It sounds really odd to us, but at that time, it was sort of like saying “Swear on your kids.” I wouldn’t recommend trying to bring that tradition back.
Even though this is a really big decision, this is one of the only stories in the surrounding context of Genesis that doesn’t include God’s direct intervention. If you look at the stories around it, God is always talking to someone or telling them to do something. In this story, Abraham just acts, and hopes that God will show up in that action. He doesn’t claim any divine authority, or wait for a divine word. 
There’s a good reason for this. Scholars generally agree that this is one of the last stories added to the narrative of Genesis, and because of this it reflects a different understanding of God. It was probably included after Israel had seen some stuff – slavery, exile, war and a host of other tragedies. This had to have shaped their view of God. It’s always harder to say anything is God’s will once you’ve seen enough hardship. They still trusted that God would show up. They just weren’t claiming to know what that would look like.
Here’s where this comes into play for us today. Thousands of years later, we still tend to have a pretty fatalistic view of God. When it comes to big decisions, we often get anxious wondering if we’ve strayed from God’s path for us. I think this story is trying to lead us into greater freedom when it comes to decisions. 
We often think of God’s work in our lives like a set of train tracks that we have to stay on if we want to get to the good things God has. It’s fatalistic. If we stray, life may spin out of control. But that metaphor doesn’t really work for this story. It’s more like wandering down a really wide path, and trusting that God can use our exploration to lead is somewhere worthwhile. 
Before Kaylan and I got engaged, we went through this incredibly angst-filled period where we tried to figure out if it was God’s will for us to get married. You know what? We never figured it out. We knew we loved and admired each other, wanted the same things out of life, and ended up taking the leap. Seven years later, it has been the best decision I’ve ever made, and the one that has taught me the most about God. I don’t think there’s some sort of perfect path. Life is filled with lots of great paths, and God is on all of them. Choose one with freedom and confidence. 
Moving Towards Divine Values
This story offers freedom. It also offers us guidance, mainly by pointing us in the direction that God seems to be moving. When trying to find a wife for Isaac, the servant seems to do something superstitious. He lays out a sort of divine test: “Who will offer me water?” In reality, this wasn’t superstitious at all. He’s trying to identify values – hospitality, openness to strangers, generosity. These are the same values that the narrative of Genesis identifies with God. He’s looking for someone who seems to get what God is about, and is shaping their life in a similar way. 
For us, then, we don’t get a narrow path of God’s will, but we do get a direction. The Bible contains movement. It’s movement towards love, wholeness, hospitality, grace, humility and much more. It’s what we sometimes call shalom. The Hebrew word that means completeness – the entire embodiment of divine love. 
So if you’re looking for guidance in a decision, the biggest question to ask is. “Is this moving in the same direction as God?” If an action moves us towards shalom, then run towards it with freedom. If not, maybe think twice about it.
When Kaylan and I were moving from Los Angeles to Indianapolis, I began looking for a job that would support us while she was in grad school. We were looking, and even prayed for, a couple specific things. We had an amount we needed me to make for us to get by, and we needed it to be close to our apartment because we only had one car. Within a few weeks, I had a job offer that met both of those requirements. We felt like our prayers were answered.
Then I started asking some questions about what type of values the job embodied. First, it was at a for-profit college. Not all for-profit colleges are bad, but many have garnered a reputation for taking advantage of students to make money (think Trump University). Next, I looked at the nature of the job. It was labeled as a student services job, but as they described it, the objective was to keep the students enrolled and paying tuition. Finally, they noted that most of their students fell into a lower socio-economic bracket. The job seemed to be doing whatever it took to keep people in poverty paying for an education that was semi-accredited. 
All of a sudden, I realized this job wasn’t moving the same direction as God. What initially seemed like an answer to prayer now seemed like a potential injustice. So I turned it down. I’d like to say another great paying job popped up right away, but it didn’t. We were really poor for a year while I pieced together work. And I’ve never regretted it. 
Moving Toward Empowerment
There’s one particular value that this story is begging us to consider when we make decisions. It’s the value of empowerment, specifically of those our society pushes to the margins. Abraham, for all of his flaws, does something pretty revolutionary in this story. He gives Rebekah the final say on marriage. From the start, Abraham tells his servant that if the woman doesn’t want to marry Isaac, she shouldn’t. At this point in history, women were basically considered property. Abraham could have essentially purchased a wife for Isaac, but he didn’t. He let the person with the least amount of power in the story have the final say. And she turns out to be the hero.
She’s the one who embodies God’s hospitality. She’s the one who has the faith to leave home, just like Abraham did, and travel far away in pursuit of God. She becomes the matriarch of the family. 
So when we’re making decisions, this story asks us to consider how our actions empower those that society gives the least amount of power to. Because they likely are the ones who understand God best. I haven’t lived in Napa long, but it doesn’t take long to see who are often offered the least amount of access to power. A few come to mind – migrant workers, homeless individuals, people of color, people with mental illness. This story, and really all of Scripture, asks us to shape our decisions around empowering those who haven’t been. Not because we’re doing them a favor or because we have some savior complex, but because when we don’t, we’re completely missing God.
I hope this story offers you freedom when you make decisions. I hope it points you in the direction of divine love. I hope it causes you to empower others with your choices. Maybe most importantly, I hope it assures you that whichever path you take, God is on it with you, nudging you, and all of us, toward wholeness. 
 

Abraham and Isaac and Supreyes

CrossWalking Guide

July 2, 2017

Thanks for joining in today!  Please keep this guide near your cereal bowl or bathroom mirror – wherever you’ll see it easily – so that what happens today goes deeper in the tomorrows ahead.  If you’relooking for the teaching summary, keep scrolling…

Welcoming Song: Learnin’ to Fly

Welcome and Announcements

You are invited.  We choose to enter into this space knowing that God is present and desiring to move in, through and with us toward restoration and renewal.  For the whole world.  For strained relationships.  For communities.  For families.  For individuals.  Joining God in this resurrection venture is a choice that comes with a stretch.  A choice to make the most of this space right here, right now. 

What is your choice?  Will you join in today?  Are you willing to stretch?

Song: He Brings Me Love

Centering Meditation.  Read the following Psalm.  Have you ever felt like this?  Which parts?  How are you feeling today?

Psalm 13 (NLT)

O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.
But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the Lord
because he is good to me.

Meditation Prayer. Sometimes, O God, it seems as though we’re all alone, like nobody cares. Sometimes we hear others laughing at us hurting our feelings making us feel unimportant or worthless. Yet you have promised always to be with us. Help us to remember that promise and to be strengthened by it. Amen.

Meditation Song: Reunion

The Focal Text | Genesis 22:1-14 (NLT)

After all this, God tested Abraham. God said, "Abraham!"
     "Yes?" answered Abraham. "I'm listening."
     He said, "Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I'll point out to you."
     Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants and his son Isaac. He had split wood for the burnt offering. He set out for the place God had directed him. On the third day he looked up and saw the place in the distance. Abraham told his two young servants, "Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there to worship; then we'll come back to you."
     Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to Isaac his son to carry. He carried the flint and the knife. The two of them went off together.
     Isaac said to Abraham his father, "Father?"
     "Yes, my son."
     "We have flint and wood, but where's the sheep for the burnt offering?"
     Abraham said, "Son, God will see to it that there's a sheep for the burnt offering." And they kept on walking together.
     They arrived at the place to which God had directed him. Abraham built an altar. He laid out the wood. Then he tied up Isaac and laid him on the wood. Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son.
     Just then an angel of God called to him out of Heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"
     "Yes, I'm listening."
     "Don't lay a hand on that boy! Don't touch him! Now I know how fearlessly you fear God; you didn't hesitate to place your son, your dear son, on the altar for me."
Abraham looked up. He saw a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. Abraham took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
     Abraham named that place God-Yireh (God-Sees-to-It). That's where we get the saying, "On the mountain of God, he sees to it."

Table Talk.  What surprises you about this passage?  What bothers you?  What inspires you?  Some people want to walk away from the faith because of this passage – why do you think that is?

The Teaching | Abraham and Isaac: Surprise Supreyes

We tend to focus our gaze on the fact that God was requiring Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.  When we do, the whole point of the story shifts to seeing God as a tyrant who puts his people through the paces, asking them to do horrible things as tests of faith.  When we keep our eyes fixed on this part of the story, every fear in us of God acting as a great judge is affirmed, and we walk around in terror, hoping not to make eye contact with God lest God call us to the same.

But this is not what the original hearers of the story would have zoned in on, because, while such a request would be grounds for putting God in prison today, it was normal and expected then.  Human sacrifice was the ultimate display of paying homage to God.  It had been done countless times through history as a means to keep the weather good and the crops coming.

What was so compelling in this story, then?  The fact that God stopped the execution and provided a ram instead of Isaac would have caused every person in antiquity to stop what they were doing and drop their jaw.  Gods don’t do such things.  Gods need to be appeased because we are so annoying.  Gods require more and more from us to keep them happy and us alive.  Gods do not do anything for humanity from a place of generosity or grace.  Gods demand human sacrifice – they do not call them off.  God not only calling it off, but providing a way out and God’s “expense”, and then ending the practice of human sacrifice?  That was front page news.  It was so astounding that most people would even call it fake news.  Yet it is the foundation of the new faith tradition begun in and through imperfect, completely contextualized Abraham and Sarah.

We are hardwired, it seems, to look for lightning bolts from God.  What if our assumptions about God at our core are wrong?  What if we’ve missed the real point of the story?  What if we assume God will surprise us with something good?  How might that shape our perception of reality?  How might that shape our capacity to see what God is actually up to?  Perhaps that is the great new thing that Abraham’s new faith tradition was really about.  How might things be different if we are constantly on the lookout for God to be good, providing an abundance of beauty and possibility?  What if we train our eyes to expect to be surprised by God’s goodness?  That would change everything.

Table Talk.  What seems to be sticking with you from our time together today?  What’s a take home message for you?  What might God be calling us to do in response to what’s happening here?

Offering Song: The Prayer I Used to Pray.  During this song, take a moment to place any offering, prayer request, comments and Clue In into the tins on the tables.  Thank you for your support!  CrossWalk can’t without your generosity.  Thanks for your prayer requests!  We consider it an honor to serve you in lifting your request to God.  Thanks for your comments!  CrossWalk is an ongoing experiment seeking to serve God toward resurrection/restoration/renewal – feedback helps us serve smarter!  Thanks for your Clue In!  If we don’t know who you are, it’s really tough to support you.  Thanks for being here today!

Notes, thoughts, doodles…

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Seeing

Try this to get more out of the blog this week by reviewing these elements we practiced together on Sunday.

Choosing to Be Present to the Presence of God.  The very nature of God is life and love.  Restoring, renewing, resurrecting – all these words reflect what God is up to in the world today.  Shalom – a holistic wellness, wholeness of peace in ourselves and in the world – has always been the True North that is God and guides God’s followers.  Joining God in this venture is a choice.  A choice to be present to the Presence of God which constantly encourages us forward to greater expressions of grace, love, and life.  This means you have a choice every day to be open or not to God.  What is your choice today?

This Weeks Focal Text | Genesis 21:8-21 (NLT):

When Isaac grew up and was about to be weaned, Abraham prepared a huge feast to celebrate the occasion. But Sarah saw Ishmael—the son of Abraham and her Egyptian servant Hagar—making fun of her son, Isaac. So she turned to Abraham and demanded, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son. He is not going to share the inheritance with my son, Isaac. I won’t have it!”
     This upset Abraham very much because Ishmael was his son. But God told Abraham, “Do not be upset over the boy and your servant. Do whatever Sarah tells you, for Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted. But I will also make a nation of the descendants of Hagar’s son because he is your son, too.”
So Abraham got up early the next morning, prepared food and a container of water, and strapped them on Hagar’s shoulders. Then he sent her away with their son, and she wandered aimlessly in the wilderness of Beersheba.
     When the water was gone, she put the boy in the shade of a bush. Then she went and sat down by herself about a hundred yards away. “I don’t want to watch the boy die,” she said, as she burst into tears.
     But God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “Hagar, what’s wrong? Do not be afraid! God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Go to him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.”
     Then God opened Hagar’s eyes, and she saw a well full of water. She quickly filled her water container and gave the boy a drink.
     And God was with the boy as he grew up in the wilderness. He became a skillful archer, and he settled in the wilderness of Paran. His mother arranged for him to marry a woman from the land of Egypt.

Being Honest with Ourselves and God.  What is your heart crying out about today?  Take some time and meditate on this question.  Don’t hold back – you are not going to offend God with sloppy communication in the pursuit of honesty.  Sometimes expletives are highly appropriate in prayer.  Let ‘er rip.  God is mature and graceful enough to hear you out.

Getting your thoughts out.  What are your initial reactions to the text we’re going to look at more deeply today?  What questions do you have?  What is surprising?  What is upsetting?  On another note, who is our world holds power?  Who in our world dwell on the lower rungs of the ladder of power?

The Teaching and Response.  As you read the summarized teaching below, keep the following questions running in the back of your mind.  What’s your take home from this teaching?  What seems to be sticking with you as you reflect on this week’s teaching?  Why do you think that is?  Could God be using this to invite you in some way toward greater shalom personally and/or in community?  What choices are you making to stretch toward the resurrection God is calling you toward?

The story of Hagar and Ishmael leaving Abraham’s camp is better understood in the bigger story in which it sits.  Before Hagar was Abraham’s wife and mother of his first son, she was Sara’s servant/slave.  Her marriage was not born out of love, but was thrust upon her as a mean to bear a child for Abraham.   Perhaps this was not uncommon in the ancient world – that does not make it right or good.  She got pregnant.  Now she was empowered, and apparently she knew it given the report of Sara about her gloating.  Is it reasonable to think that Hagar had attitude toward Sara?  Of course.  She was human, and victimized at that.  But Sara was still Queen of Abraham’s castle, and sent her packing. 

Hagar had the baby, and the baby was named Ishmael, which translates “God hears.”  After some period of time, Sara finally got pregnant in her old age as predicted.  When Isaac (“laughter”) was born, Sara became concerned about his fate: how would he be treated by Hagar, by Ishmael, by Abraham?  Her concern may have led to paranoia: were Abraham and Ishmael making fun of little Isaac?  Was that merely a taste of what was to come?  So she pulled rank, pushing Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away.  When Abraham sent them away, he didn’t send them with much, which was awful on his part.  Gaining her freedom may seem like a gift at first glance, but in that culture at that time it very likely meant that as a free woman no longer married to Abraham, her son Ishmael was no longer considered his heir.  In one awful moment, she went from being enslaved yet safe, to free and extremely vulnerable.  Was Sara’s reaction harsh?  Was Abraham’s stinginess appalling?  Yes.  Inexcusably so.  They were human beings, it seems, which means they were messy, imperfect, screw ups.  Yet still key characters in an unfolding story God was trying to craft with willing participants.  As one commentator noted, “God works with individuals on the scene; God does not perfect people before deciding to work through them.”  And so the story continued.

Pushed into the wilderness with little in the way of provisions, Hagar and Ishmael suffer.  In her grief, Hagar is confident that she will die.  At her lowest, she distances herself from Ishmael so she doesn’t have to see him die, at which point she experiences God speaking to her from heaven:

“Hagar, what’s wrong? Do not be afraid! God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Go to him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.”
Then God opened Hagar’s eyes, and she saw a well full of water. She quickly filled her water container and gave the boy a drink.
And God was with the boy as he grew up in the wilderness. He became a skillful archer, and he settled in the wilderness of Paran. His mother arranged for him to marry a woman from the land of Egypt. – Genesis 21:17-21 (NLT)

This is a beautiful and instructive and surprisingly broad picture of God being shared in this Jewish-oriented text that in general doesn’t have much respect for Ishmael’s line.  God doesn’t hasten Hagar and Ishmael’s death – God instead opens Hagar’s eyes to what she needs to survive, and encourages her with a promise for their future.  Do you realize what a big deal this is?  Sit with it until you do.  This brief passage says much about the breadth of God’s grace for all people regardless of the awful treatment they receive from those who feel especially empowered or chosen by God (Sara and Abraham).  God is bigger and more beautiful.  The nature of God, the Spirit of God is life, restoration, renewal, hope, resurrection.  This story is a story of hope for all the Hagars and Ishmaels of the world. Biblical scholar Phyllis Trible speaks eloquently about Hagar’s becoming many things to many people (see chap. 16):

“Most especially, all sorts of rejected women find their stories in her. She is the faithful maid exploited, the black woman used by the male and abused by the female of the ruling class, the surrogate mother, the resident alien without legal recourse, the other woman, the runaway youth, the religious fleeing from affliction, the pregnant young woman alone, the expelled wife, the divorced mother with child, the shopping bag lady carrying bread and water, the homeless woman, the indigent relying upon handouts from the power structures, the welfare mother, and the self-effacing female whose own identity shrinks in service to others.”

Hagar was blind to the water very near her.  God showed up to help her see.  If you are a Hagar or Ishmael and feel wronged by life, the systems you were born into, etc., the Spirit of God is with you to help you see that you are valued and loved, and that there is hope.  You are not as alone or hopeless as you think.  Cry out to God with all you’ve got, and then be still and listen for God to speak in various ways words of hope and provision.

Biblical scholar Leander Keck notes that

“the text does affirm that God chooses the line of Isaac, not that of Ishmael. This is a strong claim, and it occasions a sharper question for Isaac’s descendants than if the treatment had been more “even-handed.” What one does with the Ishmaels of this world in the face of the claims for Isaac comes front and center. Abraham was chosen so that all families might be blessed through him. This means that the children of Abraham who are also the children of Isaac are so to comport themselves that blessing rather than curse comes upon the nations.” – New Interpreter’s Bible

We who are more like the Sarahs and Abrahams of the world (and we likely don’t know that we are) need to pay attention to this story, because they absolutely blew it.  They were harsh to say the least, and probably felt justified because they were the chosen ones.  Thank God that their harshness was not reflective of God.  Whether we justify our malicious behavior with nationalism or religion or both, we must choose to be conscious of how God treats the worlds Hagars and Ishmaels decide if we are going to be the people of God or not.  One way is harsh.  The other is graceful.  Which way are you going to choose?  Who are you going to be?

Getting your reactions out. What’s your take home from this experience today?

A Prayer of Hope: Loving God, you are father and mother of us all. You love us as only a caring parent can, with a love that challenges all the difficulties around us and embraces us in arms that never let us go. As you have cared for outcasts like Hagar and Ishmael, so can we know that you will always love us. When we want to use family and friends as an excuse not to serve you, help us remember that loving others is a key way to love you; yet we must not see people as an excuse to avoid the difficulties of life that you sometimes set before us. Help us to love family and friends unconditionally, and thus to love you unconditionally, never placing one above another. And as we love others, help us to appreciate how much we are loved by you, our Creator God. Amen.

Hope and Hospitality

On Father’s Day, it seems appropriate to look a story about a father. Actually, it’s a story about one of the most famous fathers: father Abraham…you know the jingle if you ever endured Sunday School as a child. But, as we’ll see, the point of the story isn’t really about being a dad. It’s about faith, and what it looks like when life hasn’t gone the way we want it to. 
The story is in Genesis 18:1-15. It’s long, so hang in there. 
The Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre while he sat at the entrance of his tent in the day’s heat. 2 He looked up and suddenly saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from his tent entrance to greet them and bowed deeply. 3 He said, “Sirs, if you would be so kind, don’t just pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought so you may wash your feet and refresh yourselves under the tree. 5 Let me offer you a little bread so you will feel stronger, and after that you may leave your servant and go on your way—since you have visited your servant.”
They responded, “Fine. Do just as you have said.”
6 So Abraham hurried to Sarah at his tent and said, “Hurry! Knead three seahs of the finest flour and make some baked goods!” 7 Abraham ran to the cattle, took a healthy young calf, and gave it to a young servant, who prepared it quickly. 8 Then Abraham took butter, milk, and the calf that had been prepared, put the food in front of them, and stood under the tree near them as they ate.
9 They said to him, “Where’s your wife Sarah?”
And he said, “Right here in the tent.”
10 Then one of the men said, “I will definitely return to you about this time next year. Then your wife Sarah will have a son!”
Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were both very old. Sarah was no longer menstruating. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, I’m no longer able to have children and my husband’s old.
13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Me give birth? At my age?’ 14 Is anything too difficult for the Lord? When I return to you about this time next year, Sarah will have a son.”
15 Sarah lied and said, “I didn’t laugh,” because she was frightened.
But he said, “No, you laughed.”
If you fast forward to chapter 21, you find Sarah does indeed, in her old age, have a baby. Crazy stuff. 
To get the weight and point of the story though, we need to back up. Reading it outside of its context makes it feel like a nice, quick miracle. But that’s not really what it was. If you go back, you find that Abraham was promised this kid a lonnnnnnnnng time ago. And the kid was supposed to bless the entire world. Abraham believes God and then waits. And waits. And waits. To the point that he and Sarah are way too old to have a baby. By the time we get to our story, life hasn’t gone the way it was supposed to. It seems like God didn’t show up as scheduled. 
We get the same message when we see who would’ve been hearing this story. This story was probably told around campfires and at dinner tables for generations. Eventually, it was written down, probably while Israel, the people reading it, were under the control of an oppressive foreign government. God had promised them some things too. Land. Freedom. Prosperity. All for the good of others. But God wasn’t showing up for them either. They would’ve read this story, and felt the weight of Abraham and Sarah’s pain. They knew what it was like to have life slowly grind the hope out of you. 
That’s what this story is about: what faith looks like when God isn’t showing up, and hasn’t for a long time. 
Paul looks at Abraham’s faith in this story and sees something interesting: resurrection. Check out Romans 4:17, So Abraham is our father in the eyes of God in whom he had faith, the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that don’t exist into existence. 
Just before this, Paul spends a whole chapter raving about Abraham’s faith. He holds him up as the model for faith, particularly for the type of faith that leads to resurrection, to experiencing “the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that don’t exist into existence.” If Paul sees this type of faith in Abraham, then we should take a closer look at his faith, because I’m guessing, at one time or another, you’ve felt like God didn’t show up. 
Normally we talk about faith in terms of unwavering trust- believing that God will show up, even when God hasn’t for a long time. But if Abraham is our prime example of faith, then that can’t be what faith is. Just take a look at his track record when it comes to trusting God. 
Somewhere along the line, he and Sarah get impatient with God, have him sleep with one of their young servants (an abuse of power), and have a child with her. It’s also pretty clear that they become cynical along the way. Sarah just straight up laughs at these messengers when they say she’s going to have a baby. And then, even after our story, Abraham accidentally almost lets Sarah marry another man. If this is the example of unwavering faith, then I think you and I are doing alright. More importantly, I think the story is trying to lead us to a different understanding of faith. 
What did Abraham and Sarah do that was so great? Well, you have to keep reading Genesis 18 to get a better picture. Right after the three messengers in our story leave Abraham and Sarah, they go to a place you might have heard of: Sodom and Gomorrah. When they get there, the men of the town gang up and try to rape them. Often, when people read this story, they see Sodom and Gomorrah’s problem as same-sex relationships. But that’s not at all what the story is about. In fact, Ezekiel just tells us directly what their problem was. 
Ezekiel 16:49-50 This is the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were proud, had plenty to eat, and enjoyed peace and prosperity; but she didn’t help the poor and the needy.  They became haughty and did detestable things in front of me, and I turned away from them as soon as I saw it.
Sodom’s problem wasn’t that they engaged in same-sex relationships. It’s that they were selfish, hoarded their resources, and refused to give to those who needed it. And you see this in Genesis 18. Instead of welcoming these three messengers, they try to rape them – the ultimate sign of control and hostility. The same-sex relationship isn’t the point. Their selfishness and lack of hospitality is. 
Now contrast this with Abraham’s reaction to these three men. As soon as he sees them walk by, he bows to them (a common sign of respect), welcomes them in, washes their feet, and sets a feast out for them (killing a calf for them was an extravagant gesture). 
Now, he didn’t know them from Adam, and life hadn’t panned out the way it was supposed to. Abraham and Sarah had every excuse to become bitter and hostile in their old age, to let these men pass by without a word. But they didn’t. Even when God wasn’t showing up, they opened their lives and home to strangers, and they met God in it. That, according to this story, is what faith is.
We’re meant to look at this story side by side with Sodom and Gomorrah and see how drastically different these three men are treated, and then follow Abraham’s example of radical faith and hospitality. 
Faith isn’t some sort of perfect trust or unwavering hope in God. Abraham and Sarah wavered all over the place. Instead, faith is continuing to be open to and welcome those we encounter in our journeys, even when life hasn’t turned out the way we think it should. Faith is choosing to offer the same inclusive love that God offers, even if we haven’t seen God for a while. 
And, on the other side of it, we just might experience resurrection. Not because God is rewarding us for good behavior, but because we’re aligning ourselves with the divine flow of love and hospitality that’s always at work in the world. We’re wading into a river that’s deeper and stronger than us. And it flows toward resurrection. 
So if life hasn’t turned out the way you hoped, it’s ok to doubt and question God, but as you do, stay open, welcoming and loving to those you encounter, and just like Abraham, you may eventually run into “the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that don’t exist into existence.”
 

Joni Yacoe and Bill Krimm on Communication

Incredibly awesome presentation on effective communication.  Call all your friends over to watch.  Share this teaching everywhere.  Email the video and podcast to everyone you know.

Blown Minds, Warmed Hearts, Refined Lives

Blown Minds, Warmed Hearts, Refined Lives

When the spectacular arrival of the Holy Spirit dawned on the disciples and other believers in Jerusalem, minds were blown.  First, because it was a spectacle of epic proportions: the sound of wind without the breeze, the image of fire atop heads while unlearned languages came forth from the tongues within.  Tongues of fire begat newly-abled fluent tongues to speak to those visiting from afar.  How could your mind not be blown?

But the second reason minds were blown is what the dramatic scene itself communicated.  The Holy Spirit’s greeting wasn’t simply in Aramaic – the language the Jewish people knew well.  Essentially, every language was heard that day, a multilingual miracle using many disciples to communicate to many people gathered round.  God was speaking to everybody in their native tongue.  This implied that God wasn’t beyond speaking to people where they were in ways that they could understand.  It also meant that all those people hearing the testimony about God’s creation were people God deemed worthy of hearing.

I met a foster parent recently who recognized their special role in caring for foster children.  Children needing a foster home are coming from a difficult environment.  Sometimes those kids haven’t been told that they are loved and that they have inherent value.  This particular parent wanted to do everything in his power to correct that – because when our inherent value is communicated to us, it really does blow our minds.  It blew my mind when I woke up to it, too.  Have you awakened to this yet?  Or are you still asleep?

While minds were being blown, we can be sure hearts were being warmed.  Except for limited moments while engaged in ministry when Jesus’ disciples were endowed with the Spirit to minister miraculously in Jesus’ name, the Holy Spirit was for special characters in God’s narrative.  Not fisherman from Hillbillyville.  Definitely not tax former collectors.  Yet on this day, many of Jesus’ followers received the Spirit in a powerful way.  Message received?  God was no longer limiting the Spirit to a select few.  Now all access was granted to those who believed. That’s a heart warmer for sure.  Jesus was gone, and they still mattered.  Because we can look ahead in the story, we also know that the Spirit was given to future believers, too, regardless of previously held limitations.

When we awaken to what God is doing in the world, our hearts warm because we realize God’s love isn’t just for us, but it big enough for everybody.  When we look in the mirror and marvel at the fact that God loves us in spite of our shortcomings – and perhaps more importantly because of our shortcomings – our awakening is humbling.  What’s more humbling is the fact that this love extends even to your idiot cousin.  And your coworker who is in perpetual Monday morning mode.  And your classmate who is pretty sure his stuff doesn’t smell.  And the parent who physically abandoned you, or was emotionally unavailable, or even molested you.  And the drunk driver who killed your loved one.  And the Barack Obama.  And Donald Trump.  And Vladimir Putin.  And Kim Jun Un.  And Bashar al-Assad.  And members or Isis who become suicide bombers, crowd-plowing truck drivers, and pilots who steer planes into World Trade Centers.  And undocumented immigrants.  And black people.  And homeless people.  Every person ever created is loved by God as much as you and as much as anyone else.  When we wake up to this fact, our hearts are so warmed we are changed in our perspective.  It doesn’t make their horrors go away, but it does make us more humane in how we view them and address them.

A lot of people experienced an incredible display of the inbreaking of God.  Pretty cool.  All those people would have felt the breath of God that day – minds blown and hearts warmed – and would have likely lived in hope for the rest of their lives.  But something else equally beautiful happened as well.

In the last few verses of Acts 2, we discover that the wind-infused pyrotechnics show resulted in more than people feeling inner peace and hope:

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity— all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

The experience of Pentecost didn’t remain a personal faith thing alone.  Nope, this was a life changer.  Minds were blown.  Hearts were warmed.  And lives were refined.  Fire and wind have the capacity to burn off impurities and clear out debris.  The experience of God breaking into life changed the lives of many people.  They changed their lives to make room for ongoing learning, serving each other, hanging out together, and prayer.    This led to more good stuff – the Spirit worked powerfully through the Apostles, and everybody shared their stuff with each other.  They sold things so that they could help somebody else out. 

Humanity, at its core, hasn’t changed all that much.  We all still struggle between self-centeredness and other centeredness, between greed and generosity.  Somehow, when people experienced God up close and personal on that day, a shift took place.  “There is always enough for everyone’s need; there is never enough for everyone’s greed.”  Pentecost acted as a refiner’s fire for people like us who struggle with selfishness.  They became generous.

Oskar Schindler woke up and saved 1200+ Jewish people from extermination.  Mother Theresa woke up and served the poorest of the poor in Calcutta.  A friend of mine woke up (one of a series of awakenings in his life) and invested in at-risk children in Kenya instead of a fancy new car for himself.  Another friend of mine woke up a couple of weeks ago realizing that our kids in Africa would trade anything to have our problems, and cut a check for $2000 to help their cause.  Many friends have awakened to what CrossWalk is doing in the world and have giving generously to update our facility so that we can continue to be a space of Good News more effectively – a stage in the Courtyard, a remodeled kitchen, a rehung bell, money to remodel the façade, buy new chairs – the list is huge!  Money spent not for themselves, but for the hope of what we can offer the community.  Of course, time is perhaps the other great commodity we have to offer, and in many of the projects I mentioned, there are people donating untold, unseen, and unsung hours to make it happen.

In a consumer-driven culture that can’t help but determine decisions based on “what’s in it for me”, time and money given for selfless purposes is incredible.  Not just time to work on stuff, but to be together, to learn, to support.  All signs of being awakened or waking up.

And a final piece of good news.  Some of you may long for some tangible experience of the spirit.  You are waiting for the sound of wind and tongues of fire.  But it could just be that the way you begin to experience that is through the behavior that aligns ourselves with God – stuff in the final scene of Acts 2.  Join God in what God is doing, and you are much more likely to catch the breeze that will blow your mind, you’ll more likely sense the flame that can warm your heart, and in the process you will find your life refined into the footsteps of Jesus who totally nailed it.

In today’s dramatic reading, the Apostle Peter asked some penetrating questions:

Are you open to the Spirit speaking to you and living in you? (Pause between each question.) Do you let the Spirit act and speak courageously through you in compassionate and daring ways? Do you forgive yourself and others when mistakes are made? Do you bring hope and new dreams into the lives of others? Do you share in the passions of Jesus for a world of justice and love?   All these things are possible for you. What it means for you, for your church, and for the world is your joyous challenge to discover!

Have you experienced God in some way?  How have you allowed that to impact your life in tangible ways?  Do you realize that the experiences of God are there to call us home?  To align us more with the footsteps of Jesus?  If you’ve settled simply for inner peace, the good news is that there is much, much more for you to experience, and it comes when your life gets refined, when you allow God to remove the impurities and debris that accumulates when we are focused on ourselves.

Will Nesbitt, Young Life Napa

Will Nesbitt brings it on a Sunday led by Young Life Napa Valley, an amazing ministry serving students right where they are.

The Direction of Resurrection