Category: bible (Page 3 of 6)

Spread the jam

Yesterday was pancake morning in our home. We offer a variety of ways to top your ‘cake around here – with or without almond butter, with or without blueberries, and with either jam or syrup. (We have dunking cups for the syrup – no dousers allowed.) With such a smorgasboard, kids have to do a little of the pancake-topping work.

I noticed one particular pancake with a large glob of jam and its owner getting ready to scoop more. I warned her to stop and she protested, “but there’s none on the edges!” I explained, we don’t need more. We just have to put it in the right places. 

That’ll preach.

Moving, buying a house, leaving the work in which I had been engaged, allowing our primary salary to land on a scale considerably less than our former potential… all of this adds up to a bit of money stress. Of course, we willingly took it on, we weren’t blinded. And we’re no different than any other family. No matter the income level, my friends are typically trying to stretch their dollars.

Then one day, I stumbled into a little passage in Deuteronomy 29. “I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot.”

In the Christian circles, “God will provide” is common language. And he does. I love the stories of the groceries arriving on the doorstep on the exact day or the check appearing in the exact amount. These things happen. The ways in which God is faithful to provide can often be found when we’re stretched to the point of need, rather than want.

This passage, however, tells us of another way that “God provides.” He simply takes away the need. God, being the Creator of the Universe, could have created Shoe Valley, in which the Israelites stumbled into a land of Nikes. (But probably not, because they’re not fair trade, and we know God is not into child labor.) This take on provision would’ve made a killer climax in the Exodus story. People would remember a land full of shoes.

But he didn’t. He simply made last what the people already had. They didn’t get new shoes because he made it possible to not need new shoes.

I have to wonder, especially in our current context, if the long-lasting shoe version of provision might be more applicable than the miraculous appearance provision we often anticipate. God could, indeed, drop a check in my lap. Or an opportunity to make more money. Or a really great sale on back-to-school supplies.

Or I could find that he has allowed our dollars to [miraculously] stretch. We could see God as the source of a smaller income that still pays all the same bills. We might discover the blessing of needing less. 

There are times when the jam doesn’t reach the edge of the pancake. Right now, I’m making sure the jam might not need spread out a bit.

 

What to do while waiting on a generation of fighting men to die

It’s story time, my friends! As usual, I’ll midrash-style this little tale, mostly for entertainment purposes so you’ll keep reading and wondering what is next. What does that mean? I may add a few words and phrases for dramatic flare, but the verses you read are the real ones. 

If you were raised with any sort of Christian background, you’re probably familiar with Moses leading the Israelites* out of Egypt toward a Promised Land. They crossed the Red Sea and saw the whales in the water while they walked on dry land. Then God showed up by fire at night and a “pillar” by day and just walked them through the desert. What a wonderful story!  But have you ever spent much time on the ending of the story? It doesn’t put the Israelite nation in such good light, so it doesn’t get told quite as often.

So they reach the edge of the Land which God has promised. The directions have been that God would go before the Israelites to drive out the people currently living in their land of milk and honey. Before actually doing what God says,  they decide to send out a team to find out what is on the other side. Moses says in Deuteronomy 1:23, “the idea seemed good to me; so I selected 12 of you, one man from each tribe.”

Now, if you jump over to the book of Joshua, you get the whole scouting report. Essentially 10 of the 12 taking notes come home with a blank page other than the words “we’re screwed.” The other two, one being Moses’ protege, said, “um, I think we ought to do what God said to do.” However, no one followed those two out of the pep rally – the fighting men sat down and refused to go. The fear of the Israelites is a whole other commentary.

To say that God was slightly pissy is an understatement. Lots of resentment on both sides begins to brew. Some He Said/She Said, a few slammed doors and God declared (Deut. 1:35) “No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors…” (He goes on to exclude Caleb and Joshua, the 2 guys with a positive attitude after the scouting report.) Then he tells them to gather their things, they are all heading back toward the Red Sea.

Much like my own children, the Israelites suddenly muster up some willingness. “We’ll go! We’re sorry! We promise! We’ll do whatever you say!” They gather their weapons thinking they can just go and take the land like they should have the first time. God warns them not too, but they go anyway. Poor choice #642 of the day leads to more dead Israelites.

So they head out toward the Red Sea, wandering around the hill country. Finally God starts to give some direction (2:4-5): “You are about to pass through the territory of your relatives the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful. Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land… I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own.”

Then they come up to another section of countryside. God says, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.” We learn that the Emites used to live there, hefty people that were driven from the land by the Moabites.

Just like the Horites, who used to live in Seir, but Esau’s clan drove them out. Then a funny little quote in 2:12 – “[the descendants of Esau] destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land the Lord gave them as their possession.”

Huh. How about that. But wait, there’s more!

So God then tells the Israelites to take their tour across the valley. By this point the entire generation of fighting men had died. They  go to a part of Moab at Ar. (Ar. I know. The creativity of town naming must be exhausting. I would  imagine this would be a land of pirates, except that they’re in the middle of the desert.)

God begins to sound like a broken record. “When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the decedents of Lot**.” Come to find out, The Rephaites used to live there, but “the Lord destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place.” (2:21)

Three different lands on this little Hall of Fame tour. All three lands have people living in them, people who have not always been there. God promised each of these peoples a land and then gave it to them. Now, that sounds familiar.

(Also – and we can’t spend too much time on this – we can note that many of these are enemies of the Israelites. Huh. How about that. God will bless people whom we do not like and are not like. Noted, and time to move on.)

This ain’t God’s first rodeo. He has done this before. Whatever “this” is in our lives, God has been there, done that. He has references. Call his people, they will tell you he can be trusted, and He does what he says He will do. You can even call people not like you, people you don’t like, and they will tell you what you need to hear.

God clearly knows my and your propensity to try to capitalize on other people’s promises. Every time they walked through another museum of God’s work, he warned them, “don’t even think about trying to take this. It’s not yours. It’s theirs.” God shows us his resume not so we can have what others have, but so we will trust as others have trusted. Their promises are not your promises. Stop trying to make yours what God promised to someone else.

God gives another chance. It takes 40 years waiting for the Sad Sally army men to die, but eventually God takes them back. Then Moses sits down to pen another 32 chapters of instructions in Deuteronomy before giving them a green light. And dying. Which I suppose is probably why Deuteronomy is such a book – if you knew you were going to die at the end, wouldn’t you keep coming up with mundane instructions?

So here we go, my friends. If God has promised it, you can believe it. Ask around. Look around. The evidence is probably in the neighbor’s yard.

 

 

*Chrome tells me that the plural of Israelite does not exist. How can this be? I just did the worst thing and simply added it to the dictionary instead of looking up proper usage. Sorry-not-sorry.

**Yes, Lot has a lot of descendants.

No Greater Love

In the name of the Easter season I’ve been spending some time in John’s Gospel story. I have to be in the right mood for Johnny. He gets all sentimental with flowery love language, telling his version of the story in a bit of an unusual way, compared to the other 3 accounts (called in the academic world the “synoptic Gospels”).  I like the directness of Mark – he moves through the story as if it were a trip to the mall. “And then we, and then we, and then we...” And  Matthew’s rich history underwritten into his texts. And Luke the Equalizer and his love for the poor and downtrodden. So, John is more the Love Child of the gospel stories and thus when I need to get out of the business of religion, I turn to his words.

Specifically, I love his writings on Jesus’ pre-death soliloquy. Chapter by chapter, you can’t read it in one sitting – it’s much too rich. Chapters 14-17 are best in small bites. Today’s nibble that caught me was 15:13.

[box] “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”[/box]

Now, I’ve always identified more as the one who received the love that cost life. Jesus died for me, so I’m receiving the Greatest Love. What a gift. Thank you Jesus, you shouldn’t have. I need to write a thank you note.

But today I dug out my 8th grade English skills and diagrammed this verse and realized I’ve been reading it all wrong. It’s hard in our murky English language with misplaced modifiers and gender-neutral language to completely understand it, but I’m fairly positive I’ve understood it backward.

While, yes, the beloved friends in the verse do reap benefit, they’re not experiencing the Greatest Love. That warm fuzzy is a mere bi-product. The Greatest Love goes to “the one” who is giving – giving the love, laying down the life. While we might feel special, we ought not feel as if we’ve achieved the Greatest of all Loves. We’ve simply been in relationship with one who has.

In our love-hungry culture, we frequently appeal to this desire to be loved. Look at our books and movies and find the undercurrent story of being pursued as the ultimate expression of love. I never watched it, but I believe 50 Shades appealed to a large audience because it played the strings of this desire to be the object of such a love. Christians, be careful – much of our language around dating, specifically for women, sings the same song. Be pursued. Wait patiently. It’s all very knight-in-shining-armor-y.

This narrative distorts the Greatest Love and leaves us hungry. When we devour romance novels and porn we taste something similar, but like saccharin, are not fulfilled. We’re dining on the wrong kind of love. We’re chasing a Receiving love. Jesus said we’ll be full when we begin to live a Giving Love.

Perhaps this is why God gave parenting as a gift and a practice. In this space, we’re thrust into Giving Love. We most certainly aren’t the Beloved of the relationship, and for many of us this might be the first time we’ve lost Beloved status. All of a sudden we’re Loving with costs, not just benefits.

Pair that with a culture that tells us that the measurement of our costly love is how our children turn out. Well-adjusted children become the measuring stick of love. No wonder all parents are neurotic. Because we’re seeing it backward. The beauty isn’t only in the Beloved. The real blessing is in the work of Giving Love.

The Easter season ought not be just a time to reflect on how much we are beloved, though we are and the day is a beautiful one to show gratitude. But it should be for us a time of year to focus on how we might be a Giver of love, someone who lays down one’s life.* If we stop at living the Beloved life, we’ll never actually experience the Greatest Love God has to offer.

 

 

 

 

 

*I appreciate and believe in the need for inclusive language. However, I also hate it and the way it can muck up a sentence.

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