pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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A Heart for Relationship

Readings: Leviticus 15, Leviticus 16, Leviticus 17, Leviticus 18

Leviticus 18:4 – “My regulations and my rules are the ones you must keep by following them: I am the LORD your God.”

Chapter 15 deals with genital emissions. Didn’t ever think I’d ever start a journal entry or blog with those words! These laws deal with becoming unclean via contact with emissions from the body. The concern and the remedy are the same as we read about in recent chapters. Wash the affected items and bathe the body. Contact with male emissions rendered one unclean until evening. Contact with a woman’s emissions made one unclean seven days – because of contact with blood. Two birds were sacrificed in both cases. One was a purification offering; the second was as a wholly burned offering.

Chapter 16 establishes the Day of Reconciliation (or Atonement.) Aaron bathes in the holy of holies and then wears special, set apart clothing. A bull, a ram, and two goats are gathered. The bull is sacrificed first to purify Aaron and his household. Lots are cast over the goats. One becomes “the Lord’s” and one becomes “Azazel’s.” Incense is then burned in the holy of holies. The smoke represents the prayers of the people. The first goat is sacrificed. Blood is sprinkled, making reconciliation for the peoples’ sin. Aaron then does the same for the tent and the altar, reconciling them to God’s holiness. Azazel’s goat, the scapegoat, is brought to the entrance and Aaron presses his hands onto its head, confessing all the sins of the people. It is led away and released into the wilderness. Aaron bathes and changes back into his normal priestly clothing. This day of self-denial and Sabbath will be observed annually on the 10th day of the 7th month.

Chapter 17 and 18 begin the “Holiness Code” that runs through chapter 26. All animals slaughtered are to be killed at the entrance to the tent of meeting because it involves the shedding of blood. Blood is life, it is sacred. Blood is not to be consumed. Chapter 18 deals with sexual actions. It begins with a warning: don’t be like the Egyptians or Canaanites. God demands better, holier behavior: “My regulations and my rules are the ones you must keep by following them: I am the LORD your God.” Within the great detail of this chapter we find a simple truth: God is prohibiting sexual sin. This is sex that only gratifies self. Sex for personal gain or sex outside of covenant relationship makes one unclean or unholy. Such perversion will “cause the land to vomit you out.” PS – don’t offer up your children to that Canaanite god Molech!

Prayer: Lord God, sandwiched between the health codes we began today with and the personal conduct codes we ended with we find your heart for relationship. We see your desire to provide a way for your children to be reconciled to you. Eventually you’ll send Jesus as the final atoning sacrifice. For your heart bent on relationship with us, your children, we rejoice and offer our thanks and praise. Amen!


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Life to the Full!

Reading: John 10:1-10

Verse 4: “When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

Photo credit: Daniel Sandvik

The teaching that we read today is Jesus’ further response to what happened in chapter 9. It is the story of the healing of the blind man and the Pharisees’ reaction. At the end of this event the blind man sees Jesus as Lord and professes faith in him while the Pharisees remain spiritually blind, bound up in their strict adherence to the Law. They cannot see how the need for healing could ever supercede the Law.

Today’s illustration shows the difference between living the spirit of the Law and living out the letter of the Law. In one there is love and grace. Jesus declares that those who follow him know his voice. They hear the truths that he preaches… He calls to these and leads them out into the world. And “When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” The sheep continue to follow Jesus because they can discern his voice from all the others. By contrast, the Pharisees cannot hear Jesus’ teachings. They are instead trying to climb into the fold by means other than the gate. Instead of hearing the word of God revealed through the teachings and example set by Jesus they’ve turned the Law into an extensive code to follow that has no room for things like healing on the Sabbath. Those who use religion as power are they who “come only to steal and kill and destroy.”

What Jesus offers is radically different. He invites people to live a life of faith, found through entering a relationship with him. He proclaims that these “will be saved.” As wonderful as that is, the offer isn’t just a way into heaven. It’s not about strict adherence to a code of Law that leaves one devoid of love and grace. No, Jesus states, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” A life filled with love and grace and blessing. This thought evokes the overflow of abundance found in the 23rd Psalm. Life to the full! Thanks be to God!

Prayer: Lord God, open my eyes to see all that you place before me. Open my ears to hear all that you have to share with me. Open my heart to respond to you and others in love and grace as I seek to serve you alone today. Amen.


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To Love

Readings: Deuteronomy 30:15-20 and Psalm 119:1-8

Verse 16: “For I command you today to love the Lord your God… then you will live and increase”.

Both the passage from Deuteronomy 30 and the one from Psalm 119 call us to walk in God’s ways. Both speak of life or blessings or prosperity or obedience as the goal. Both also warn of the cost of deciding not to walk upright and blameless. There is a clear call to make the choice to walk with God. It is a choice we must make over and over as the lures and temptations of this world are ever before us.

Walking daily with the Lord is the goal but it is not as easy as a paint-by-numbers project. It is not like when we were children and we tried to take giant steps to walk in someone’s footprints. We are called not to a set pattern or to a predetermined path but to a lifestyle built on loving God and loving one another. To me the first is often easier than the second. God is fully good and loving and holy. God is steadfast and true. I, like the rest of humanity, am not always good and loving and… I get selfish. I get jealous. I can be hard to love at times.

Both Moses and the psalmist call for us to follow the commands, decrees, laws, statutes. From the Old Testament perspective this was the understanding. Keep all the rules and receive God’s blessings. As the Bible moves into the New Testament we see that this task has become burdensome. The Pharisees and other religious leaders have become legalistic. Religion has become a huge code to follow and the connection to God’s heart has paid the price. It has made the circle smaller. Jesus reveals a better way. Jesus took the two great commands – to love God and to love one another – seriously. Jesus entered into life with people, engaging them where they were at both spirituality and physically. Out there, in the midst of life, it was often messy. When we are willing to walk in Jesus’way, letting love of God and love of one another guide us, it might get messy for us too. I’d rather be in a messy place filled with love than in a nice, clean, tidy box filled with rules. How about you?

Loving God, your love is so expansive. The deeper I peer into your heart, the greater the love. In your son’s life I so clearly see the call to love the marginalized and the overlooked. Yes, it was messy. But that didn’t bother Jesus in the least. Help me to feel the same way. Amen.


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The Way

Reading: Acts 11:1-18

Verse 9: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean”.

Peter, like almost 100% of the early church leaders, is a Jewish Christian. Yes, they are Christians first, but their Jewish upbringing is still a big part of their faith. All of the dietary laws, the rite of circumcision, the Sabbath observation… are keys to the new Christian faith. To become a believer and to be baptized into the Holy Spirit one must become a proselyte – in essence, a believer in training. One must prove their faith over a period of time by following all of the rules and only then could you become a baptized believer. The church has not existed for very long and they already have a set method to join! The idea of having a clear process to follow and a defined set of rules to obey sounds very much like another establishment of the day.

Our passage today opens with the aftermath of Peter going to Caesarea. The other leaders of the church in Jerusalem say to Peter, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them”. You broke rule 19.a.2 and rule 27.f.4. How could you. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them” in what we read in Luke 15:2. The Pharisees make this statement just before Jesus tells the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. You might recall each parable ends with a celebration when the lost are found.

In our passage today, Peter uses some of the rules to establish why he broke the rules. First, he was praying. Second, God brought him a vision. Third, God explained the vision to Peter. Not once but three times. Peter even shares that he protested what God was instructing him to do, saying to God, ‘I have never broken rule 4.e.3’. God responds by saying, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean”. Rule 4.e.3 had been revoked. Peter then goes on to tell the story of what happened in Caesarea.

This passage leads to the question: what rules or traditions or unwritten codes are we hanging onto that are preventing unbelievers from becoming believers? Yes, change is hard. What new understanding might God be bringing to Christianity today?

Prayer: Lord God, open my eyes that I may see. Holy Spirit, speak into my life and my heart, illumining the way you would have me go. Amen.