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Once or Twice

Tuesday, June 19th, 2012 | Author:

 . . . she heard that the LORD had taken note of His people and given them food.  Ruth 1:6  JPS

Had taken note – Once or twice in life it’s nice to hear something from the Lord.  Two times is the extent of direct mention of God in the story of Ruth.  Yes, the Lord is active in the lives of these people, but it is quite unusual that there is so little direct mention of Him.  For the most part, life in and around Bethlehem goes on just as usual.  People deal with one form of crisis or another.  Circumstances change.  Things happen.  There is no spiritualized awareness of the consequences of God’s hand.  Life just happens.

That’s the way it is for almost all of us.  And perhaps that’s the way God prefers it.  He moves invisibly among the lives of men to accomplish His purposes.  Try to imagine what it would be like if He didn’t disguise what He is doing.  Would Naomi have gone to Moab if she knew that her husband and sons would die there?  Would she have elicited a paradigm case of hesed from Ruth if she knew it would take the death of a son to bring about these circumstances?  Would Ruth have gone to Bethlehem if she knew in advance what life would be like as an outsider at risk?  Go even further back.  Would Lot and Abraham have separated if they both knew all the ins and outs of God’s purposes over the course of generations to bring about the story of Ruth and the eventual birth of David?  No, my guess is that no human being would sign up for the plan if he or she knew all the details in advance (with perhaps one exception).  Maybe there’s a very good reason why we feel we are left in the dark so many times.  Maybe it’s because if we knew, we would choose not to cooperate.

This verse doesn’t really say that God noticed the plight of His people.  The verb is paqad.  It means “to visit, to exercise oversight or to attend to.”  It isn’t that God somehow forgot about the record book for Bethlehem and then one day suddenly noticed what was happening.  God had oversight responsibility all along.  But God’s oversight doesn’t always line up with the way men would like things to happen.  The people of Bethlehem didn’t want to experience a famine, but that doesn’t mean the famine wasn’t part of God’s oversight.  The famine created the circumstances that led Elimelech and Naomi to Moab – and to Ruth.  That’s oversight.  The death of her two sons lead Naomi and Ruth back to Bethlehem.  That’s oversight.  But before you object, “How can God’s oversight include the death of these three men?” let me remind you that in Hebrew thought whatever God does is good.  We don’t set the standard.  He does.  And what He does is the definition of good.  So God’s oversight, no matter what that might entail, is good.

Naomi doesn’t think so.  She is bitter.  She is discouraged.  She is disconsolate.  But there is this tiny ray of hope in her words.  God has oversight.  He has visited His people.  Maybe all isn’t lost yet.  Maybe.

I suspect that most of the time we are like Naomi.  We can’t see beyond our own pain.  We don’t think tomorrow will be better.  We only imagine what we know now will continue forever.  But we have this tiny ray of hope.  Maybe somehow God will visit us.  It’s not a life-altering rock-solid statement of faith.  It’s just a miniscule desire to have a peek at what He is really doing.  But most of the time, what He is really doing is invisible – and for good reason.  We are left with this.  What God does is good.  Period.

How’s Naomi doing in your life today?

Topical Index:  Ruth 1:6, take note, visit, oversight, paqad, good

 

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Sin’s Opposite

Tuesday, May 08th, 2012 | Author:

Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.  James 4:17 NASB

Right thing – Two factors are immediately apparent from James’ statement.  First, sin attaches to what I know, not what I don’t know.  And second, if I know what is the right thing to do, it is assumed that I am able to do it.  Knowledge and ability are essential to the concept of sin.  Let’s examine these factors more carefully.

James is Jewish, of course.  In the Jewish context, it is possible for me to commit a sinful act and not know it.  Sins like this are covered in Leviticus.  There are ritual atonements for unintentional sins.  No man is held accountable for sins he was unaware of committing – until he is aware of them!  As soon as awareness dawns, he is guilty.  But God has made provision for such a dawning.  Atonement is available.  When James states that sin is attached to what is known to be disobedience, he is not pointing toward unintentional acts.  He is pointing toward a much more serious problem – sins that I willfully commit!  James chooses a Greek word to describe this moral choice before us.  The word is kalos.  In classical Greek this word is connected to agathon, the idea of the divine.  In Greek thought this word expresses the ideal life.  Kalos is Plato’s concept of the Good (with a capital G).  For Plato, and for the Greeks, the Good is what is naturally beautiful, moral and true.  Kalos connects men with the realm of the divine.  Of course, this raises a crucial question:  How do I determine what is naturally beautiful, moral and true?  And that becomes the quest of Greek ethical debate for the next 2500 years.

But James isn’t Greek.  He is Jewish.  He uses this powerful Greek word, kalos, as a translation of the Hebrew yafah (lovely, beautiful, healthy, useful, and by extension, morally good).  However, the Hebrew is a far cry from the robust Greek idea of kalos, a word connected directly to the eternal.  In Hebrew thinking, there is no human ideal life apart from the will of God revealed in Torah.  If anything, the Hebrew ideal is connected to the Greek word doxa (glory), not to a word that expresses human utopia.  Therefore, when James uses kalos, he is referring to what is morally good according to the Jewish standard of Torah.  James does not have a problem with determining what is ethically proper because James already has the final word on this matter.  He does not have to enter into 2500 years of ethical debate about what is ultimately right.  He already knows.  God told him.  Perhaps 1 Maccabees 4:24 gives us the best Jewish connection between what is good and what is holy.  Good is thanksgiving, praise and enduring mercy.

If we read James within the Jewish context of his time, we realize that his statement is a reiteration of Torah observance.  I know what is right because Torah directs my behavior.  If I do not do what I know from Torah, then I sin.  This assumes that Torah is known, and that is precisely what James advocates in Acts 15.  Teach Torah and men will know what to do.  Teach Torah and men will be accountable.  Teach Torah and sin will be obvious.  It is not a matter of my inner conscience or my particular slant on what I consider right.  James is a Torah observant Jew.  What is right is what God has revealed.  What I think about it doesn’t really matter.  The only thing that matters is whether or not I do what God tells me to do.

By the way, most Christian ethics is Platonic.  By adopting an anti-Torah view, Christians are thrust into the same Greek debate about a basis for ethical action.  Without Torah they must determine for themselves what constitutes the Good.  Thus you find all kinds of proposals for determining moral behavior – the “law” of love, the moral “situation,” the cultural conditions, political correctness, some abridged version of the Ten Commandments, the “do no harm” rule.  On and on it goes.  Why?  Because just like Plato, Christians without Torah must produce a human solution to a divine problem.

“He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8 NIV).

Topical Index:  James 4:17, Micah 6:8, good, sin, kalos, right thing

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Holy Perfection (1)

Thursday, January 19th, 2012 | Author:

“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Matthew 5:48  NASB

Perfect – Yeshua’s demand seems perfectly reasonable, right?  You and I can be perfect, can’t we?  God demands it.  We are accountable.  Therefore, we should do it.

When I was much younger, this verse scared me to death.  I knew that I wasn’t perfect.  I made lots of mistakes.  No matter how hard I tried, I always failed.  Yet it seems as if “Jesus” was demanding that I never falter.  This led me to serious spiritual depression.  Knowing that I couldn’t live up to His demand, I either excused my actions or wallowed in guilt.  It took a long time to realize that Yeshua wasn’t asking for faultlessness.  That is a Greek idea based in a culture that viewed perfection like a mathematical formula.  It took a long time to understand that perfection didn’t mean “100% correct.”  The Greek verb teleios carries the sense of direction toward completion.  That means this verse, in Greek, could be translated, “Be fully complete.”  And, of course, no one is fully complete instantly.  To be complete, to be fully grown, takes time.  It is direction that matters here, not destination, although, of course, the ultimate destination sets the direction.  Perhaps the Twelve Step people understand it better.  “Progress, not perfection.”

But Yeshua wasn’t speaking Greek.  He spoke Hebrew.  His implications and references come from the Tanakh, in particular, from Leviticus 19:2.  There we discover that the reference is to holiness, not our Greek ideal of perfection.  “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”  This makes Yeshua’s statement even clearer.  Holiness is a matter of setting apart my life for His purposes.  Holiness is about submission, about domesticating the yetzer ha’ra, about putting an end to the rebellion.  That is also a process.  Each day God reveals another way that I can set apart some aspect of my life.  Each day I am challenged to be holy as He is holy.

It took a long time to understand this.  Then I read this:  “The Rabbinic exposition of Leviticus 19 underscores that to be like God, that is, to be holy, means to act in accord with the rules of morality and compassion.  One cannot overemphasize that fact, since people do not always correlate ‘holiness’ with morality and ethical conduct in the way in which the Torah insists they are to match.”[1]

I realized that holiness is not simply direction toward the divine.  Holiness is living according to the rules God establishes.  Holiness is keeping Torah.  In most Christian circles, holiness is a collection of good principles and noble actions.  But this is not holiness in the Bible.  Yeshua knew exactly what He was saying when He drew on Leviticus 19:2.  Holiness is living God’s way.  Period.  Any other way does not meet the biblical definition of holiness.  Any other way is my way, no matter how noble or upright it happens to be.  Good enough is not holy.

Topical Index:  holy, teleios, perfect, good, Torah, Matthew 5:48, Leviticus 19:2


[1] Jacob Neusner, Judaism When Christianity Began, p. 46.

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East of Eden

Thursday, December 01st, 2011 | Author:

Only this, I have found, as a real good:  that one should eat and drink and get pleasure with all the gains he makes under the sun, during the numbered days of life that God has given him; for that is his portion.  Ecclesiastes 5:17 NJPS

Real good – There are two views of what is good.  One comes from Genesis; the other from Ecclesiastes.  Micah sorts them out for us with his question, “What is good, O man?”  But before we get to the prophet’s answer, we must struggle with God’s garden and Man’s gardening.

Eden is the place of God’s delight.  In the perfect creation, God made a garden.  It was not the creation of human hands nor the expression of human vision.  It was God’s planned place of sheer exuberance.  Everything in the Garden, including some things that men would probably have left out, plays an essential role in God’s definition of delight.  But God’s intention was not a vacation timeshare.  Part of delight in the Garden is work!  Not the kind of toil that most of us experience but rather avad – the work/worship/serve combination that fills God’s perfect creation with our particular place in it.  Avad produces joy.

We no longer live in the Garden.  Qohelet reflects on that undeniable fact in his conclusions about life.  Qohelet’s version of Man’s efforts outside the Garden is summarized in one common phrase:  enjoy it while you can.  For Qohelet, good also means enjoyment, but in his case this is enjoyment without worship.  Qohelet has truncated avad.  Service, yes.  Work, yes.  But worship?  No.  Qohelet’s view of what is good has been reduced to what provides pleasure in the fleeting moments between toil and death.  Since there is no larger picture of the relationship between what I do and who God made me to be, there is only today’s relief from the bitterness of living.

You and I reside in Qohelet’s fields, east of Eden.  But we don’t have to live there.  We can listen to Micah and decide that what is good is not simply what gives us pleasure in between agony and anxiety. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  In other words, we can turn the fields east of Eden into the Garden of delight.  We can bring God back into the meaning of avad.  Qohelet is a sad figure in the Tanakh.  Necessary, to be sure, since we must struggle with alien residence.  But sad because he isn’t able to affirm, confess or assimilate worship into everything he does.  He is a man trying to sit on a two-legged stool.

I suspect you know a lot of the disciples of Qohelet.  They are searching for some form of relief, some trace of enjoyment in a world of pressure, demands and despair.  Perhaps you have been one of them.  But now things are different.  Now you know that the Garden is wherever you do what is good.  Listen to Micah and start plowing.

Topical Index:  Garden, delight, toil, avad, good, tov, Ecclesiastes 5:17, Micah 6:8

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See No Evil

Thursday, August 04th, 2011 | Author:

The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these. Isaiah 45:7  NASB

Calamity – If God is sovereign, then why is there evil?  How can a good God allow evil in the world?

If you’ve never struggled with these questions, perhaps you haven’t read Job.  The existence of evil is one of the fundamental conundrums of theological thought.  Lots and lots of material has been written about this problem.  Many people have struggled with this reality in their lives.  It just doesn’t seem to make any sense.  If God really is all-powerful and all good, why is there evil?

Typical theological answers focus attention on the Fall, suggesting that human disobedience is the cause of all this (it’s kind of like global warming – it’s all our fault).  But a careful reading of Genesis indicates that the yetzer ha-ra was designed into the human fabric.  It was there before the Fall.  And who created that?  The answer has to be “God.”  So the Fall doesn’t really solve the problem, does it?  It only pushed the problem deeper into the unknown.

Maybe the real issue is a category mistake.  Maybe we are reading the Scriptures as if they were written for Western minds.  Maybe that’s the reason that the NASB, NIV, ESV, NKJV and RSV all use circumlocutions for the Hebrew word ra, usually translated “evil.”  Our theology prevents us from using this usual translation.  Instead, we alter the verse so that God creates “calamity,” or “woe,” or “disaster,” or some other less reprehensible occurrence.  All of this linguistic effort is motivated by our unwillingness to attribute “evil” to God.  (You can see how much twisting is involved by following this on-line discussion).  This is a result of seeing evil as an attribute with independent identification and definition.  In other words, we think of evil as some thing (or some deprivation, if you’re following Aquinas) that is applied to the character of God.  It’s as if we have a concept of what is evil (like a list of evil actions and events) and then we are forced to attach those to God, describing God’s character as evil.  We can’t have that, so we alter the verse to fit our theology.  But this kind of metaphysics is totally foreign to the ancient world of Israel.

The ancient Semitic view does not ascribe “good” to God.  “Good” is not a separate category of qualities that are attached to the character of God.  In ancient Hebraic thought, whatever God does is good because good is defined by what God does.  God does not have moral qualities called “good.”  God is good since God Himself is the standard that determines goodness.  There is no outside code of conduct applied to God to see if He measures up.  Good is defined by what God does.  Therefore, when Isaiah speaks God’s words and says, “creating ra,” this also is part of the standard of God’s goodness.  God cannot do what is morally reprehensible because what God does is, by definition, good – no matter what it appears to be from a human perspective.

The next time you experience disaster, calamity, woe or catastrophe, ask yourself if your evaluation of the experience is based on a biblical standard or on a theological concept.  You just might be surprised how Greek your thinking really is.  If all that God does is good, then who are we to decide what fits and what doesn’t fit?  Who are we to question God’s goodness because it doesn’t seem right to us?

Topical Index:  good, evil, ra, God, Isaiah 45:7

 

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The Absence of Awe

Sunday, March 27th, 2011 | Author:

and the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, . . . Genesis 3:6  ISR

Saw - Are you able to see what’s good?  Can you look below the skin of something and see its true nature?  Maybe you can, I can’t.  I’ve spent some time in the wilderness.  I often come across beautiful plants with apparently wonderful fruit, but I would be foolish to “see” it as food unless I knew that it would not harm me.  When I was growing up, we had a mountain ash in our backyard.  It produces amazing red berries.  But my mother sternly warned me, “Don’t you eat those.  They’re poison.”  They looked good, but they weren’t.  As far as I can tell, no human being can simply look at a plant and determine it is good for food.  So why is Havvah able to do so?

The answer, of course, is that she can’t do this either.  When she sees that the tree is good for food, she is projecting a previous evaluation.  That evaluation doesn’t come from her.  It doesn’t come from careful testing of the fruit.  It comes from trusting the word of the serpent.  Havvah is deceived before she even looks.  By the time she looks, she has already decided to believe the serpent’s statement.  The truth is that this fruit was the most poisonous substance on the planet, but the actual nature of the fruit was not the issue here.  The issue was her decision to not trust God’s word.

Doesn’t it seem absolutely incredible to you that Havvah would trust the serpent?  I mean that it is simply not believable that this woman whose very existence is the direct result of YHWH’s action, who lives in an absolute paradise, who has unmediated interaction with the Creator, could have even entertained the possibility that God didn’t speak the truth.  Does that seem reasonable to you?  How are we to explain this complete collapse of relational awareness?

We don’t have to look very far to find the answer.  Even in paradise it is possible to be indifferent to the wonder of being.  In fact, lack of awe may be the genesis of sin.  When I stop being completely amazed at the very existence of the cosmos, at my very being within it, when that sense of overwhelming presence ceases to permeate who I am, then the possibility of my own self-determination arises within me.  Suddenly I become far more important than all the evidence supports.  I have intimations of divinity, and that is enough to allow me to turn from the face of my Creator and question whether or not His word is really “good for me.”

What did Havvah see?  It’s quite impossible that she saw that the tree was good for food.  What she saw was the possibility of becoming better than what she was called to be.  What she saw was an alternate reality where she decided what was good for food.  Havvah was tempted to add to the wonder of the world by ignoring the mystery of being.

Each of us stands before the Tree.  Each of us must decide, “Is this tree good for food?”  We are surrounded by the Presence of all that we are not.  We can stand in awe of it or we can determine to add our own little bit of creation.  We can be shaped by the power of His might, or we can attempt to shape a world stamped with our mark.  It just depends on what we see.

Topical Index:  saw, food, good, Genesis 3:6, awe, ra’ah

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Blasphemy Against the Spirit

Monday, January 31st, 2011 | Author:

Woe to those who say to evil, good; and to good, evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

Evil/Good – What characterizes the ethics of the world more than this?  “Evil is good, good is evil.”  At some level, most of us sense the current reversal of common values. We are aghast at the upside-down ethics of a judicial system that protects the abuser more than the abused.  We are numbed by a political culture that spends more time serving itself than the people it is supposed to represent.  We weep over a morality that believes the only sin is getting caught.  But Isaiah has more than this in mind.  He and Jeremiah are on the same page.  What is good?  It was what the Lord calls tov.  What is evil?  It is what the Lord calls ra.  To mix up these two is to commit the ultimate sin.  To suggest that ra is tov and tov is ra is to assert that God is no longer in charge of His creation.  This is blasphemy against the Spirit.

Yeshua must have reflected on this passage in Isaiah when He delivered His indictment against those Pharisees who claimed that His power to deliver men from demons was fueled by Satan (Matthew 12:31-32). The true character of those accusers came to light with such a claim.  They fulfilled the words of Isaiah by calling what was good evil.  Not only did it take a complete denial of the obvious (men were unchained from the grip of Satan) but it required that these accusers put themselves in the place of judgment over the coming of the Kingdom.  They acted as if they were God, determining what was good and what was evil.

From Yeshua back to Isaiah, from Isaiah back to Havvah, the story of our world is found in this reversal of values.  What does it mean to obtain the “knowledge of good and evil”? What Mankind discovered is that it ultimately means the loss of distinction, the collapse of ethical decision.  Once we partake of this tree, all of our choices are clouded with self-interest.  Thinking we would become wise, we became morally corrupt fools.  We could no longer tell the difference between good and evil.  Color blinded, the world became gray.

That tragic condition of the unforgiveable sin (blasphemy against the Holy Spirit) peeks out from behind the Tree.  Given enough time and enough rejection of grace, men become animated corpses of denial, existing in a self-made hell where good and evil no longer reflect the Creator’s priorities.  That road is wide and many travel it in ignorance and deceit.  Thank God for His grace.  He has shown us what is good.  Now we have only to do it.

Topical Index:  blasphemy, evil, good, ra, tov, Isaiah 5:20, Matthew 12:31-32

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Biblical Antonyms

Sunday, December 19th, 2010 | Author:

I YHWH and none else, forming light and creating darkness; making peace and creating evil – I YHWH do all these things. Isaiah 45:6-7

Peace – What is an antonym?  Answer: the opposite.  The antonym of black is white.  The antonym of fast is slow.  The antonym of leader is follower.  But when it comes to the Bible, our usual expectations about antonyms are often misplaced.  What is the opposite of love?  In common culture, the answer is “hate,” but in the Bible the answer is “apathy.”  What is the antonym of sin?  We might say, “holiness,” but the Bible suggests the answer is “obedience.”  What is the antonym of “grace?”  It’s not “law,” that’s for sure.  And what is the antonym of evil?  If you thought, “good,” you might be leaning on the tree trunk of the Genesis story.  Isaiah suggests something else.  The opposite of evil is not “good;” it is “peace.”  Why?

In order to understand why the opposite of ra is shalom, not tov, we need to go back to Genesis.  God created order.  Order in God’s creation is an expression of harmony, balance and integration.  In God’s creation, this order leads directly to the well-being of everything created and the fullest possible relationship with the Creator.  In the Bible, this is called shalom, peace.  The introduction of evil into this harmonious existence brings about chaos, the disruption of shalom.  Our culture considers good and evil to be ethical opposites, but the Bible views peace and evil as ontological opposites.  The antonym “peace and evil” describes the existence of the world, not the potential of ethical choices.  Peace and evil precede the ethical choices of good and evil.  Even in the Genesis account, good and evil stand as possible but not actual antonyms.  They only become actual ethical descriptions of human choices after the choice is made.  But shalom exists as an actual (ontological) fact from the moment of creation.

You might say, “All this is interesting philosophical discussion, but what difference does it make to me today?”  Ah, it makes all the difference.  The Bible tells us that evil is not a part of creation, a fact of existence.  It is the disintegration of creation, the collapse of what was originally and essentially at peace.  Furthermore, this implies that the end of the game is not the Good, the True and the Beautiful (as the Greeks thought), but rather shalom, the state of the world where the lion lays down with the lamb.  Our direction is toward the past, a return to the Garden of delight in peaceful harmony with itself and with its Creator.  God is restoring peace on earth because everything started in peace.  When I apply this fact of creation to my world today, I am directed to pursue peace.  I am called to be the peacemaker, the one who brings the world into harmony with its Creator.  I am challenged to stand against all the forces of chaos, disintegration, separation and dissention.  I am exhorted to seek unity.  Where I find brokenness, I am asked to heal.  Where I find heartache, I am asked to comfort.  Where I find schism, I am asked to repair.  Peace is my project.  It begins with peace with God and extends itself toward every aspect of His creation.

Of course, God’s peace does not mean peaceful co-existence with what brings evil (chaos).  It means peaceful harmony with what He planned and desires.  And that comes with a price.  But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Topical Index:  peace, evil, shalom, ra, good, tov, Isaiah 45:6-7

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Law And Order

Sunday, November 14th, 2010 | Author:

So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Romans 7:12

Good – What is good?  Well, there’s the good news.  What’s good about that?  It’s the announcement that we can have peace with God.  That’s pretty good.  In the scheme of things, peace with God counts a lot.  What else is good?  God tells us in Jeremiah that caring for the sick, the homeless, the orphans and the widows is good.  Why?  Probably because He cares for them and if we involve ourselves in compassion for these little ones, we are likely to meet God doing the same thing.  Being in His presence is good.  Then there’s Sha’ul’s remark that the Law is good.  Unfortunately, many Christians have been taught that the Law isn’t good.  They have succumbed to the theology that the Law has been replaced with grace because it was inadequate.  How tragic!  This misunderstanding is based on a distorted paradigm about the role of law.  Let’s take a deeper look.

Heschel helps us see the paradigm structure.  “It is not law and order itself, but the living God Who created the universe and established its law and order, that stands supreme in biblical thought.  This differs radically from the concept of law as supreme, a concept found, for example, in the Dharma of Mahayana Buddhism.  Before the Torah, the covenant was.  In contrast to our civilization, the Hebrews lived in a world of the covenant rather than in a world of contracts.  The idea of contract was unknown to them.  The God of Israel ‘cares as little for contract and the cash nexus as He cares for mere slavish obedience and obsequiousness.  His chosen sphere is that of covenant.’  His relationship to His partner is one of benevolence and affection.  The indispensible and living instrument holding the community of God and Israel together is the law.”[1]

Since our culture is so seeped in the concept of the supremacy of Law, we might have to read Heschel’s comment again.  The Hebrew concept of the “law” is not about rules and regulations.  It is about the links within the community that demonstrate benevolence and affection.  In other words, the Torah is the love manual of the community.  It teaches YHWH’s children how to love each other.  How will we know that we are His disciples?  By the love we show for each other.  And what is that love?  It is the exercise of mitzvot.  Moshe Kapinski told me that Torah offered 613 opportunities to love God, but Abraham Heschel tells me that those 613 ways are also the loving fabric of the community.  Faith in action.  Practice of perfection.  Not rules.  Relationships.

Why does Torah contain an ethical hierarchy?  Why are some Torah commandments more important, more necessary, than others.  Because Torah is an expression of benevolence and affection.  Helping another person is more important than maintaining a worship ritual if, and only if, the two options come into conflict.  Healing trumps ritual.  Devotion trumps dedication.

Time to reassess our paradigm.  How often have we thought of Torah as prescribed behaviors instead of love connections?  How much will have to be reordered once we see the world as a place where God teaches us to love Him through the ways we love each other?  What will happen to our neatly packaged existence once we recognize that “law” is a synonym for “love”?  Grace and law were never disconnected.  That is why Sha’ul can say, “The law is holy, righteous and good.”  No kidding!

Topical Index:  Law, good, Romans 7:12, community, love

[1] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, Vol. 2, p. 10.

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Worship The King

Saturday, October 09th, 2010 | Author:

He has declared to you, O man, what is good. Micah 6:8

Declared – Context, context, context.  Far too often we lift a verse from its culture and history when we apply it to extraneous theological topics.  In this case, while it is certainly true that God does determine what is good, Micah is not talking about ethical issues.  He is declaring* something about worship.  Back up a few verses:

With what shall I come before YHWH and bow myself before God on high?  Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with one-year-old calves?  Will YHWH be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?  Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does YHWH require of you . . .

What does YHWH require in order to worship Him?  Why, a stage band, of course!  And plenty of mood-setting music.  A sermon about salvation.  A time to shake hands with someone you don’t know.  A prayer for the community spoken by one person (usually another shorter sermon).  A reminder about the women’s rummage sale.  And coffee.  That’s worship!

“. . . to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” is Micah’s answer.  I wonder how much of our version of worship is designed to cover the lack of justice, the absence of mercy and the failure to walk in His ways.  Do you suppose that God is delighted with twenty-six choruses of “How Great Is Our God” sung by people who pad their expense accounts, refuse to forgive the neighbor who slighted them and ignore Sabbath?  Just sing a little louder.  Maybe that will help.

What would happen if no one came to the worship service (that’s an odd expression, isn’t it?) unless they really did justice (remember mishpat), loved mercy and walked humbly according to His instructions?  Maybe all the entertainment would no longer be necessary?  Maybe salvation sermons would be superfluous.  Maybe there would be no strangers in the crowd.  What do you think?

Micah implies something else about worship.  It isn’t confined to the sanctuary.  When do you practice justice, love mercy and walk in His ways?  Whenever you do, you are worshipping.  Maybe worship is a concomitant of righteous living.  Maybe worship happens when we make Him Lord wherever we are.  What do you think?

Topical Index:  worship, good, declare, Micah 6:8, nagad

*the Hebrew verb is nagad – to tell, to make known, to explain, to declare.

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: , , , ,  | 21 Comments
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