Appeasement
For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. Deuteronomy 10:17 NASB
Nor take a bribe – When did you last try to bargain with God? When did you say (or think to yourself), “Lord, if you just do this, then I will do what you want”? Jacob tried it. “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then YHVH will be my Elohim” (Genesis 28:20-21). Why would Jacob say such a thing? Didn’t he know that there was no god except YHVH? And didn’t he know that you can’t negotiate a relationship with the Holy One? Actually, maybe he didn’t. You see, the world of the ancient Near East wasn’t like our contemporary religious environment.
“The world against which Judaism is a protest is one that saw the universe as an arena of conflicting powers, seen as gods. They fought among themselves and were at best indifferent, at worst actively hostile, to human beings. The universe of idolatry and myth is one in which chaos and destruction are constant threats, and the human order vulnerable and always at risk. Sacrifice in pagan society is the way humans placate the gods. It is how they seek to neutralize the vast forces of nature that seem constantly to threaten the security and stability of human life. They are expressions of fear.”[1]
But, as Nahum Sarna points out, Genesis is the strangest book in the Bible, filled with events and characters, both human and divine, that never appear again. Genesis is a book of beginnings, even the beginning of the awareness that YHVH is not like all the other gods that populated the civilizations of the ancient world. This realization takes time to develop. Jacob is a man on a journey toward faith. Perhaps we are too.
Lo yiqqah shohad, “not takes a bribe,” is a crucial step toward the absolute sovereignty of monotheism. It suggests that YHVH is not moved by inducements, gifts or promises. He is not like all those others who demanded subservience before they would act favorably. We are not required to bring our offerings of food or talent or tithes in order to appease the anger or hostility of the Lord of heaven and earth. In fact, to do so insults Him for it treats Him as if He were one of the many divinities in competition with the others. When Moses delivered this commandment to the people, he radically altered their consciousness of the relationship between men and divine beings. He revealed that God is in search of Man. He does not need to be appeased because He is not angry. He loves His creative handiwork and desires fellowship. Therefore, negotiations are unnecessary and inappropriate.
Don’t bring your tithes, your offerings, your pledges, your promises! Don’t bring anything if your purpose is to placate or pacify. Your supplications will have just the opposite effect. Wake up (as did Jacob) and realize that He welcomes you—as you are. Nothing added. Nothing subtracted. Stop trying to make God your friend. Let Him be your Father.
Topical Index: bribe, appease, Deuteronomy 10:17. shohad
[1] Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, p. 64.
When I was very young and trying to figure out Who and what God was, I was more than a little upset that it appeared that people could seemingly subscribe to the worship of the One true God; could declare their allegiance and assent to everything He said about Himself, even, but STILL end up chasing after other idols. They could sit in church once a week, and publicly show their commitment, but then spend the rest of the week struggling with staying there. I just didn’t get it. If I make up my mind, heart and life to love, serve and obey God, then that should be that! Shouldn’t it?
Since then I have begun to suspect that worship is about something very much more than what we do in church; in fact, the actions of church may even serve to partially obscure (occlude) what true worship actually is. I have wondered if the problem may be so pervasive that we might even need to re-consider how we go about establishing ourselves as worshipers of the One true God, so as to align ourselves better with the ability to consistently practice that worship the rest of the week. It has not been the only heretical thought that I have struggled with, but this one has seriously impeded my willingness to just mindlessly go along with what our modern developments of worship have devolved into. I have wondered often if, in fact, the result of that worship has made it harder, instead of easier, to put us in a place where we can and do worship in spirit and in truth each and every moment, as natural as breathing. I have gone back to the wondering of the child I once was. Worship should not be something that I find myself struggling with on a continual basis, and something that I keep finding myself NOT doing! As you can see, I have not figured this one out very well yet. I am still in the middle of it.
Appeasement of the gods (forces). We can subscribe with our lips and agree in our minds and put our bodies, even, in a position that the world today recognizes as formal worship, but still find ourselves perfect heathens (at least that is the way I think I see it) when it comes to every day reactions to life. In my everyday life, I find myself appeasing forces (false worship) all the time! I have wondered if part of the problem may be because we now believe so much that is wrong (human interpretations of the worship of God) that we have just ended up with very poor defense against error and temptation; we just don’t recognize where we are! When I am lost, I am easily shoved around by anything and everything.
The world has walked into the church, and, I think, in an effort to TOLERATE it (thank you, Robert Lafoy, for reminding me of what Plato had to say about government, and about tolerance, too, in your response to the TW titled A Religion Of Piece(s), the church has lost the ability to define itself as that peculiar entity that can be in the world but still not be of it. I am going to act just like the world when it comes to what I perceive is the right way to relate to that world, if I am believing the same things the world is believing about that world. If I have gone to great pains to assure the world that it does not have to act differently to be saved(!), then I have also gone to the same pains to assure myself that all it takes is to go through some feel-good motions once a week to remember that I don’t have to change to be in God’s favor. When I believe that, it is just never even going to occur to me that I have to have a different response than the world does to reality.
What has been forgotten, though, I think, is that the world responds to reality as a hostile environment that must be negotiated with, managed, avoided (altered states of reality – addictions), medicated, fought against, APPEASED, and, ultimately defeated by. The world stays behind the 8-ball and so self pity is the universal standard for how we ‘stand’ up for ourselves in the face of that defeat. At the end of the day, at least it wasn’t our fault! We tried our best!
The worship of the One true God, however, looks much more like the stance of the Three Worthies on the Plain of Dura: my response to reality is supposed to be in radical opposition to what everybody around me is responding like. In every moment, if I am walking in the right-relating (love; or, righteousness) that Yeshua came to give to me, then my relationship with reality is not going to be based on any of the bases the world has to operate from. Love views reality from an eternal perspective, and sees no impediment to implementing the eternal Standard, no matter what the circumstances.
The world, because it walks in what is seen (which is the PAST, if you think about it, which is exactly what we cannot change), is powerless over that reality. The place of love, which is right-relating to reality, though, walks in what is not YET seen, for it stands in the position of power to CREATE that reality, through faith. Love does not have to appease anything, for love commands from a place against which there is no law; no force. In that one place, there is nothing to appease. That is the one safe place to stand, y’all, in all of reality! In that place, nothing can shove me around. Also in that place, I am no longer an impediment to the love of God to all else, but that Kingdom has been set up to operate through me. I can choose to be an impediment or an instrument of the Kingdom. I was created to be a reflection of Him to all else, for that is my reasonable service, but that reflection of Him IS how I worship Him. I think I gotta ways to go!
Laurita, you are describing exactly why we no longer attend any religious services after having done so for more than 40 years. We tried to find a suitable possibility earlier this year with the coincidental Easter/Passover where we could combine and/or contrast the similarities and differences to our new understanding of YHVH. Impossible, as Skip told me at the time. That is the problem. He was right. Years ago we found much more satisfaction working with charities and NGOs than all the multiple church committees we worked with. Too bad for organized religion isn’t it but their loss is someone else’s gain I suppose.
“The world, because it walks in what is seen (which is the PAST, if you think about it, which is exactly what we cannot change), is powerless over that reality. The place of love, which is right-relating to reality, though, walks in what is not YET seen, for it stands in the position of power to CREATE that reality, through faith. ”
Thank you Laurita. This makes faith understandable in my mind.
Hi Debra, I’m currently reading a book by Abraham Heschel and what you said about the past reminded me of something he wrote that really enlightened me and I would like to share with you and others. He wrote in regards to how he thought the prophets saw history (of Israel) and made this statement, “Moreover, the situation here and now is but a stage in the drama of history. Whatever happens now affects the past; it either shapes or distorts events that are going on. By history we do not mean the ”gone” or the dead past, but the present in which past and future are interlocked. Sin is a repudiation of history. Sacred events, sacred moments are commitments. The conscience stands still, but commitments go on.”
Sage advice I’d say. If we would only grasp history in this definition we wouldn’t be so prone to say, “it is what it is.” All to often our history promotes undue guilt and discouragement, when is properly viewed it’s an active force to teach us repentance and hope. It could be said of us (in the future) “they indeed saw the issues of their day, but didn’t address them due to the overwhelming sense of ineptitude they carried in light of the ongoing active opposition to them,” or ” They saw and rose to the call in spite of what had happened.” History, it is “changeable”, because it isn’t over yet.
YHWH bless you and keep you……
Someone explain how sin repudiates history.
please.
Here’s a thought, although I can’t speak to what Mr. Heschel might have in mind, nor would I attempt to do so, a repudiation is simply the effort of not acknowledging a fact (of debt, etc.). Sin is therefore an attempt at NOT acknowledging what history so plainly teaches us. We look at our activities and suggest that even in light of the insanity (historically speaking) of what we are engaged in, we’re somehow an exception to the rule. THEY may have been destroyed because of ? (pick your poison) but we are smarter than that and will even succeed where they failed. Repudiation of history. Sounds all too familiar huh!
Hope that may help a little.
YHWH bless you and keep you…..
years ago I posted something that might add to this discussion. See https://skipmoen.com/2009/03/03/god-of-the-past-2/
Thank you Skip, that is a good read!
things that make you go hmmmm.
“Let Him be your Father.” Yes, a good Father, one Who will daily teach, guide and direct our purposes in life when we get up and when we lie down, Who will chastise us when we stray from His ways, One Who will not shut His eyes to our misbehavior, One Who loves us as His children/sons, Whose desire is for us to show forth His image, to restore His creation, not to enslave it through arrogance, pride and ignorance. That is the ONLY way we can appease Him.
Shalom.