Help me not to doubt

It's been a hard couple of days. I am working this weekend and was inundated with duties and responsibilities yesterday, and could not write about what I wanted to write about yesterday. After reading today's sections, I decided to go back and write about yesterday's. Most of the topics raised in today's reading, I have discussed with the reading of Matthew.

In yesterday's reading, Mark 9:17-24, there is a man who asks Jesus to remove a stubborn demon from his child. He asked, if it is possible, please do it. Jesus' response was that anything is possible if a person believes. The father then replied to Jesus, "I do believe, but help me not to doubt."

I think it is this struggle which tends to paralyze me. I try to continually renew my faith in Jesus, God, and the entire Christian discipline, but I suffer doubts, which lead me astray. In the assessment of deconstructionist thought to the Bible, I wonder how much of it is not divinely inspired, if any, and if so, how much of its relevancy can be re-interpreted based on cultural evolution. And depending on the degree of re-interpretation, how far away from the original, divinely inspired intent, are we progressing? Does Christian doctrine lose relevancy if the cultural norms to which verbiage was applied at the time no longer exist? Is epilepsy still a "demon" or is epilepsy now "epilepsy" and we have lost power over it?

When the intellectual pursuits of life crowd in, doubts crowd in. It's not that I don't believe. I do believe. But I find that I must seek to renew my faith, even in the setting of not losing my belief. Its the process of doubt that causes my faith to lose vibrancy. And so, I often ask God the same thing. I believe, but help me not to doubt. Help my faith to grow.

I have no deconstructionist or legalist viewpoint on this section. This section spoke to me personally, in the setting of the interplay between belief and doubt, and asking God for help with doubt. It's a position I find myself in most minutes of the day, constantly asking for help not to doubt.

Anything Goes

It's been a hard couple of days of Leviticus reading. The last two days have been filled with several proscriptions against having sex with animals, sisters, aunts, same sex partners, and the list goes on and on. But in the midst of all these rules, there is a reason given. The land that the chosen people were entering was filled with people who did practice these patterns of behavior.

Over and over again, God tells the Israelites to set themselves apart from others. He gives rules of moral living and tells His people to follow these rules as a method of discriminating themselves from the people who were currently occupying the land into which they were entering. By hearing that these were the practices of those occupants, we see that the Israelites were entering a promiscuous, permissive society in which anything goes. The list of proscriptions, some of which seem quite "commonsensical" and so why list them, was put in place as a reaction against the practices of the people in the land, as a way of separating the behavior of the Israelites from the behavior of the others. As yeast is used in the bible to represent the small amount of evil that can permeate an entire culture, so these rules were designed to keep even the smallest amount of evil away from the Israelites culture, so that the culture could flourish as it was designed to do.

And although its effect was to enforce the separation, the list also had elements of morality and social structure to it. Don't defile family members. Honor the aged (Lev 19:32). Don't sacrifice your children. Honor God. Have rules. Don't show permissiveness. In short, behave, people! In this manner, the Israelites structured society would serve as a beacon of light and truth amidst a dark and permissive chaotic environment. And even though these lists of rules were given both to act as a moral guide and a culture separator, one rule was given that resonates throughout the OT and NT. In Leviticus 19:34, we hear that we are supposed to love the foreigners in our land as we love ourselves. So, all the legalistic people who prooftext specified sections of Leviticus to express some personal viewpoint must realize that in order to utilize any of the sections as "truth," one must accept the truth of every section, or else one's prooftexting has no fundamental ground upon which to stand. The emphasis on loving each other, even those who are foreigners in your land, is as valid as any and all sections of Leviticus.

So, the Israelites are given an amazing task. They are to live a "moral" life, separated from the cultures of those around them who are practicing "wickedness" and "abominations," yet at the same time are supposed to love those people as they love themselves. This is one of those amazing yin/yang conflicts of human behavior that are presented over and over in the bible, creating a push-pull of emotional and spiritual conflict within oneself that causes one to grow in understanding of the spirit and nature of God. We practice abominations in God's eyes all the time, yet He loves us. By participating in the practice of loving those who commit abominations, in the same manner in which we love ourselves, we gain insight into the nature of God's character.

A few hundred years later, Jesus sees the inversion of this practice. A religious group has come into power that has taken the yeast of wickedness into itself and clothed it in religious principle. By ultimate adherence to the laws, pride and vanity is born, crowding out the love that God intended in Leviticus. Jesus's warnings to the disciples in Mark 8:14 was to avoid this yeast. Even a little pride, self-satisfaction, legalism without love, will destroy the Temple meant to honor a God who specifically instructed us to love others as we love ourselves.

So, as I read these graphic rules set forth in Leviticus, I think of the culture of a people who is breaking all of these rules. I think of its sadness, chaos, hopelessness, lack of purpose. And then I think of the light surrounding a group of people, moving in, who "behave" and also love those around them as they love themselves, mimicking the true nature of God. Light was brought into a dark, sad world through the Israelites, and through Jesus' descriptions of the Pharisees, we see how easy it is for us to snuff out that light through legalism and pride. But the main thing that connects the Israelites, the culture Jesus espoused at His time, and who we strive to be today, is love. To me, that seems to be the link between the OT and NT readings today.

Opposite Sides

Today's readings were most striking in their opposing viewpoints. On one hand, the OT readings in Leviticus were mainly about how to treat one's body relative to sex, sexually transmitted disease, or menstruation. We also learned about Aaron's requirements prior to visiting the Most Holy Place. In short, it was a significant list of rules concerning appropriateness of behavior. But, at the end, it was rules.

Jesus' NT command, in Mark 7:14-23, was a reminder that evil is inside the heart, and evil is not related to what we eat, but how we speak and act. In short, reliance on rules does not cleanse one's heart. I have touched on the way this speaks to legalism in earlier posts, but it is interesting to see these somewhat opposing viewpoints presented together.

On one hand, we see extreme legalism, and on the other, a rejection of legalism. However, both are related to the same things, an appropriate attitude for faith, and the place God takes in our lives. In one manner, by following a litany of instructions, we are continuously reminded of God's proper place in our lives and worship. On the other hand, we are reminded of the pitfalls of relying on rule sets as a way of ignoring God's *true* place in our hearts. Both paths have their shortcomings.

We can follow rules and forget what the rules represent, becoming twisted and harsh in our own legalistic purity. In this manner, we forget how we are sinners also, in need of grace. Or, we can adopt a lackadaisical attitude toward worship, disregarding accountability and purity of belief in God if we stray to far in the opposite direction. Jesus point is the distillation of the intent of OT law, to keep God at the front and center of our faith, so that we avoid a thought-life which might defile us.

So while the OT and NT seem so far apart in application, to me they seem incredibly closely related in intent. How do we keep God at the center of our hearts, so that evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, eagerness for lustful pleasure, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness are kept at bay in our lives? While keeping ourselves busy with a laundry list of rules may provide a path, it is not the final path, because it does not guarantee faithfulness of heart to the mercy of God.

I let the world in and denied a part of my faith today. It was because of one of those thoughts crowded out my faith, for a moment. But a moment was all it took, and after the moment was over, it was gone, and I lost a chance I had. Regret is a hard thing to face, and this admonition from Christ is a good one for me to keep in mind. The shape of my denial may sound legalistic, but in reality, it was not. Its just hard to see how quickly things can displace faith, and very important to reflect on these words, for me. It is the thought life that defiles you.

My only hope is in you...

Lots of good stuff today.

The Proverb, 10:10, seems to hit upon a fundamental difference between the life of the OT and the NT. "People who wink at wrong cause trouble, but a bold reproof promotes peace." The Judaic emphasis on justice runs counter to the "turn the other cheek" philosophy in Christianity. It was, and is, a sin not to pursue justice, because "winking" at wrong, or being ineffectual at pursuing justice, or being too lazy to pursue justice, "causes trouble." The point is that a lack of pursuit of justice is sinful, just like the unjust person. Because not pursuing justice creates further injustice.

This is where everything gets sticky, especially in deconstructionist vs legalist terms. Whose justice are we seeking? Are we seeking a "rational" justice? I would imagine we are always seeking rational justice. But whose definitions are we using? If we are using definitions from the standpoint of the impoverished Islamist, then his concept of justice may be distinctly different from my concept. His justice may extend to putting a bomb on a family member in order to destroy what he feels to be an "unjust" social order, where his religion is dominated by another's. Or, in a milder form, cultural dishonesty, ingrained lying, may be a tool that is "justified" in his arsenal to bring about social justice for his religion. At this point, religion fails and becomes simple "ethics" or the definition of justice established by the ruling class. It no longer reflects a pursuit of an external moral order defined by God before time, as a way we can all understand God's nature. It is simply a fabrication of mankind's "rationality." With too much emphasis on rationality, justice is defined by one class vs another, and it is not the representation of the fundamental moral order of the universe.

How do we avoid this trap? How do we avoid denigrating "religion" and turning it into nothing more than "ethics" that are a rulebook, for culture vs culture? Do we establish a new covenant, because the abuses of the pursuit of justice, the perversion of religion into ethics via rationality, has fundamentally undermined our understanding of the nature of God through the religion with which He blessed us? I think that this is the message behind all church reformers. Christ, Luther, Rev. King... Our rationality, wonderful as it is, destroys religion and turns it into ethics. And soon we end up with a blind and toothless universe.

How do we stop it? I think David has a wonderful message to keep us on track.

I said to myself, "I will watch what I do
And not sin in what I say.
I will curm my tongue when the ungodly are around me."
...
We are merely moving shadows,
and all our busy rushing ends in nothing
...
And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?
My only hope is in you.
Rescue me from my rebellion,
For even fools mock me when I rebel.
I am silent before you; I won't say a word.
...
Psalm 39:1-8

"My only hope is in you." Regardless of our questions, regardless of our concerns, our struggles, our failures, our only hope is in God. We can talk about social justice vs ethics vs morality all day, but at the end of the day, before we lay our heads down, no matter who is with us, we are still alone with God. Because rationality always fails us, we must keep our eyes and hearts attuned to His presence in our lives, and always be listening for Him. Staying silent, and being aware of Him, and our need for Him, continuously. Again, it all comes back to faith.

Wine prior to the Tabernacle

Today's readings had some interesting sections. The NT section about Legion being cast out into the herd of 2,000 pigs (Mark 5:1-20), I have already written about. It is still interesting to see the town's reaction, though. Even though a man was in pain, and even though demons were in their midst, the town's established culture was threatened by the coming of Jesus.

It seems that often we get ensconced in our own histories, and just accept things for the way they are. And then, along comes what is perceived as an act of violence, in this case the destruction of a herd of pigs, and the arrival of sanity and Christ Himself. But the inversion of our carefully constructed lives creates such psychological pain, that if we allow the mob mentality to rule the day, and don't allow ourselves time to think and reflect on an event, we can do something as foolish as asking Christ to leave our lives, if this "loss of past" is too threatening to us. Throughout Christian history, this town will be known as the town that kicked out Christ. What a legacy. All for the cost of a herd of pigs. How many times will that happen in our lives? When will we be presented with an event that shakes our world, and then refuse to consider the downstream good consequences of it, using instead the fear and uncertainty that the event creates as a reason to reject God? Our addiction to our lives, the predictability we feel inside our bubble, creates a loss of discernment and judgment of any event that threatens the status quo.

It seems there was a section of the OT reading (Leviticus 10:8-11) that also dealt with judgment, discernment, and possible addiction. The influence of alcohol on judgment is something that anyone with experience with drinking understands. But from the outside point of view (the non-drinker observing the intoxicated person), it is easy to see the effects of alcohol on empathy. The intoxicated person is pretty ego-syntonic. They lose the ability to discern their own behavior, or to be able to really empathize with the pain and suffering of others. Ask the family member of any addict. God's proscription against alcohol prior to worship is pretty clear in this section.

The leaders (descendants of Aaron) must never lose their ability to judge, discern, or empathize while in relationship with God. Empathy for God's people naturally yields sympathy, leading to mercy. Jesus quote's God's demands for mercy over and over in Matthew, by Jesus' continued references to Hosea 6:6. Any drunk can perform a memorized action, but a drunk cannot empathize effectively, and therefore contribute to mercy. And if the Tabernacle represents a lone safe place of judgment, of trying to understand the fundamental moral order of the universe handed down by God, then how can an intoxicated person, ego-syntonic and non-empathetic, hope to achieve a higher understanding of judgment? And how can faith in that system not be shattered for the petitioners seeking wisdom, and seeing it so perverted by drunken leaders.

Even though alcohol has definite physiologic effects that decrease one's ability to discern and judge, addiction to worldly "predictability" can have similar psychological effects on these same abilities. A town kicks out Christ because they were satisfied with the way things were. Do we, even sober, carry in us this same addiction to life that blinds us to revelatory moments, just because they seem frightening or uncomfortable to our chosen paths? The townspeople, before the arrival of Christ would probably have said, sure, we worship Christ, let Him come. But coming in His own time, in His own manner, caused fear, which then was used by the mob for a complete rejection of what they otherwise may have worshipped.

But the point is, we don't get to choose how Christ comes to us. We have to be ready. We have to have our blinders off, and we have to be prepared to let go our preconceptions. The only way I know to do that is a constant practice of faith, used to assess and discern every event in one's life. By keeping God, Christ, and spiritual understanding in constant awareness, we can overcome the fear, and hopefully not reject Him when He shows Himself in a way not of our choosing.

The Leviticus Procession

I was never raised on a farm. In today's economy, not many of us are. Most of us are city-folk, and were never raised with goats. But in my past, I have dated women who were raised on a farm, and gotten to know their families.

For them, life was different. There was a built in cycle of life, of birthing, of reproduction, and of death. The constant reminder of this life, which us city people are not as privileged to be reminded of so continuously, has a tendency to remind them of the sacred nature of life. Their own lives, but also of the lives of the livestock for which they care.

So, I always read Leviticus as a bunch of animal sacrifice instructions. But, putting myself in the mindset of a person who raises livestock, I can see things a little differently. Making a sin offering by spilling the blood of one of your prized animals does a couple of things. It reminds you that sin and death are closely related. And it reminds you of the ever present nature of the divine as the life is spilling out in front of you. It's not a simply a savage act by cruel people. It's a heartbreaking act by people giving their most prized possessions to God. And not only is it heartbreaking, it is costly. Leviticus reminds us that if we cannot afford a goat, we bring as much as we can afford, even if it is just flour.

All these reminders are designed to keep our heads and our hearts focused on God, sin, life, and death. The act of taking a goat, almost a semi-pet by the time it is delivered, and cutting open its neck as an atonement for sin, or an offering of worship, is designed to keep us focused on the interplay of God in our daily lives. The sacrifice is not a ritual, it is a reminder of God's presence in our very short lives, and it is designed to keep our heads and our hearts focused on God.

Proceed forward a few hundred years...

I can't bring a goat all the way to Jerusalem with me, I will buy one there at the market outside the Temple. I can always get money from the money changers who have their booths in the Temple.

It's a festival. Clowns, street vendors, open air markets, animals of all kinds, and inside the Temple, the bankers... Why, there's even a butcher around so I don't have to kill the goat. All I have to do is bring a little money, give it up, and that is my sin offering. Or is it my burnt offering? Oh, I don't know, does it matter?

How different! How has something somber that was designed to bring us into the presence of God, the Holy process of spilling blood we have cared for and nurtured for months or years, to remind us that ALL is His, how has this changed into an emotionless ritual surrounded by revelry and detachment? We lost it! Somewhere along the way, God's intent was lost in the ritual. And not only lost, but capitalized on by the money changers. What started as Holiness has turned into commerce.

We are human. It's what we do. It is hard for the generations to hang onto the meaning of an event, the meaning that is our faith moment. It is easier for us to cling to the ceremony, even if the meaning is lost, as I perceive happened here. So, we need to depend on a constant renewal, and in the NT reading today, we see an example of the renewal. Jesus states:

"The Sabbath was made to benefit people, and not people to benefit the Sabbath."

God's laws were made to the betterment of people. Having us personally sacrifice an animal is designed to bring us closer to God. If you don't believe it, live on a farm for a while, and see how it feels to kill a livestock animal. See the rush of blood, and feel the grief, and see part of yourself in the act. It is an emotional, gut-wrenching experience, and our usual blinders in life are ripped off so we can experience life, and our spiritual place in it more clearly.

The laws are for our benefit, but when we start to service law, and forget God, we are only practicing ritual. Ritual is not our master. God is. Throwing money in a pot, knowing that somewhere down the line, an animal may or may not be sacrificed, is no longer the same thing as God intended for our spiritual benefit. Through Jesus' constant lessons of renewal, we can achieve a re-orientation of mind (even if our culture cannot revert to full goat herder status) to recall our place in God's Kingdom. God made the Sabbath for us, not the other way around. Human idolatry flips the picture by putting ceremony above faith.

The procession of humanity from Leviticus to Jesus' day is still happening now. How often do we take the best intentions of faith, and lose them in legalism? Only to worship the arguments, the sectarianism, and no longer, God...

She is ignorant and doesn't even know it.

Today's OT and NT readings are hard to comment upon. Leviticus is a difficult read, and much of Leviticus is beyond me. I can see prohibitions against greed and selfishness in much of the laws that were made, but the laws culturally have little application to today's culture, except that they demonstrate obeisance to God.

The NT reading is quite similar to that which I have already blogged about in Matthew. Rather than be repetitive, I was thinking of not blogging at all.

But, after the Psalms reading, I came across this quote about Folly:

"She is ignorant and doesn't even know it."

Much of my life has been spent in the company of such people. And quite honestly, much of my life, perhaps even today and my future, can be summed up in this statement. Having failed so many times in the past, I would never call myself a "success" today, because my future self may easily show my present self to be highly incorrect, just as my present self is chagrined by the behavior of my past selves. This entry may come across as highly elitist, but I have often found a correlation between intellect and morality, or at least, humility.

This is not to say that highly educated people are always moral. I have known some incredibly smart people who revel in sinful and arrogant behavior, as immoral as possible. And I have known people of moderate intellect and education who are the most moral beings I have ever met.

But I have also met a "type" of person who is completely satisfied with his or her own behavior, and desires nothing more than continuing that behavior, despite seeing all the damage and destruction it causes in their life or in the lives of those who care about them. This person practices behavior that is both self-absorbed and immoral. And when presented with evidence why this behavior is somehow "wrong" (by the hurts they have caused to themselves and others, by its self-destructiveness, or simply by its incredible selfishness), they summarily reject the evidence without giving it any consideration.

It is that lack of consideration that is key to their intellectual limitation. I heard one time that the ability to hold two diametrically opposed ideas in one's mind at the same time is a mark of intellect. Consideration of evidence requires careful contemplation. It requires a deconstruction of "self" so that the evidence can be weighed outside of one's own selfish point of view, or inside a civic framework that may be at odds with one's own personal desires. Rather than taking the time to consider the evidence, the evidence is simply rejected.

It has been my experience that the people who are quickest to reject evidence such as this are often those who lack the intellectual capacity to consider it. Abstract thinking is beyond them. Psychological deconstruction is beyond them. It's similar to telling a child that it is wrong to take a candy bar without paying for it, and trying to explain yourself to the child by using Aristotelian philosophical principles. The mind is simply not there to contemplate the immorality of their actions, and so the rejection is immediate.

Most of the rejection comes from attitude. When a person is intellectually incapable of assessing evidence, they tend to wrap themselves in "what they know," which is usually only inside themselves. They are trapped in their own perspectives. Through an arrogant attitude, they reject what they cannot, physically, understand, and they continue with their immoral, un-wise behavior. It is the intellectual challenge they face that locks them into continuation of their un-wise behavior.

This entire personality type is summed up in the above quote. While ignorance may be from a lack of exposure, and have little to do with "intellect," it is Folly's ignorance that is incapable of self-awareness due to a lack of intellectual capacity. Many of us, myself a prime culprit, struggle along in life for years with tools that keep us from missing the mark. We may be intellectually gifted, but our psychological construction keeps us failing in life, until, by the grace of God, He assists us in finding a more moral path. But many also are incapable of finding that path by an attitude of willful rejection, simply due to a lack of ability to consider it. Trying to discuss morality with these people points out my own intellectual limitations. I find that if I were smarter, I'd be more capable of making my point, but I usually end up frustrated, and creating a counter-productive environment.

While presenting evidence to a "mocker," along with moral boundaries, I am branded as "legalistic." And if I relax a moral stance around Folly to reach that level, I feel like I am complacent and permissive of a sin that destroys that person. For the last 3,000 years, this type has existed, and Solomon knew that Folly, "loud and brash," would not know herself, and would continue this self-destructive, un-wise behavior in the setting of her intellectual limitations (she doesn't even know it).

So, when I am confronted with someone who is hurtful, and relatively limited in their intellectual capacity to understand themselves and their own hurtful behavior, I remind myself that I am just like that person.

I *am* that person. I always have been. I always will be.

To God, we are all the same. I am not "better" than that person. Far from it. Any intellectual gifts I may have just add to my responsibility to "get it right." My gifts simply make my fall that much more sinful. So, I try to stay on my own path, and trust God that He will, in the end, help us all.

Fear of the Lord

Is the beginning of wisdom.

Even before I became religious at all, I had heard that quote. I had heard it in both positive and negative contexts. I had heard it from anti-religious people about the negative consequences of "fearing" a supposedly loving God. How this was the tool by which the proletariat was held in check by the ruling classes using religion to establish some sort of pre-ordained dominance. How this was an "anti-Deity" sentiment corrupted by religious totalitarians in order to exert influence over their congregation.

I had heard religious apologists use this argument to contradict the questioning mind. I had heard hellfire and brimstone preachers use these exact words, with spittle flying from their mouths as they went on a prooftexting rampage, trying to exact their will on weak-minded parishioners.

In all the ways I had heard it described, it was the "fear" word that created so many ridiculous interpretations. As people are temporal beings, they tend to put greatest emphasis on the first in any list, or even in a sentence. What if it had said, "Wisdom has its beginnings in the fear of the Lord"? Would people then have concentrated more on the term "wisdom" rather than "fear?"

For me personally, approaching this sentence with a description of wisdom first fills in what the remainder of the intent of the sentence is, in a much calmer and more humane explanation.

What is wisdom? So far, in all the Proverbs quotes, we have seen wisdom described as something that was in place before the heavens and the earth. We see wisdom as something that will promise good results to those who practice it. We have seen wisdom as the foil of Folly, the prostitute who will desecrate a man's future. In all the examples of wisdom, we see a constant "rightness," a way of making sense of the universe. Even, if you will, a moral order to the universe, that if you practice it, will align your life up with a good outcome, even if it means delaying gratification, eschewing the quick carnal fix, or just rejecting being lazy.

In any of these applications of wisdom, we see a commonality, and that is a setting aside of one's immediate "selfish" desires. "Self-ish" refers to the insistence on one's "self" as an arbiter of the choice of action. "Self" only exists as the final arbiter of choice if there is nothing other than "self" around. If one accepts one's creation, and therefore one's Creator, then one must, by that logic, recognize that there is something greater than "self" around. I did not create my self, someone else did. My Creator did. He has a say in my choices, not just my "self."

However one interprets the word "fear," (awe, reverence, fear, terror, respect, obeisance, submission, etc.) the end result is that there is an "other-ness" that is outside one's self, and GREATER THAN one's self. Since the practice of wisdom demands a recognitions of the pitfalls of following one's selfish demands, and suggests that a long-term better way to behave is a non-selfish way, recognition of any spiritual path which aligns oneself with this end result, the destruction of the "self" in "selfish," results in the practice of wisdom.

It has always seemed clear to me what the proverb is intending if one starts from the back of the sentence and works backward. Define wisdom, and how one's "selfish" interests usually result in un-wise behavior, devise a code of conduct that "destroys the self," and pretty soon, you have wisdom. This takes root in education, compassion, family orientation, and civic duty, because all of these tend to remove one's thoughts from oneself.

Starting with the word "fear" always lent itself to pretty foolish antipathies, in my opinion. In no way am I understating the need to fear God's commands, and to treat Him and His creation (us) with reverence, awe, and love, but trying to denote "fear" in the ways I have heard it, well, that simply never seemed all that wise to me.

The Absence of Reason

The story is told in a narrative. There are points in time, points in space, all surrounded by descriptions in words. Words with a variety of connotations, denotations, and shades of meaning. But, at the end of the day, the story is told to convey a message. A message is supposed to have an understandable point, so that the message itself does not come across as gibberish. How we understand the message is the key to our rationality, and it is our rationality which begs for things to "make sense." A verb follows a noun. An adjective describes a noun...

If we are hearing a story, we hear it in a cause and effect pattern so that somehow, sense can be made, and we can encapsulate the story in our own minds for further re-telling. It is only natural for our brains to want, therefore, to make sense of everything.

In the NT reading today, there was an absence of "sense." The observers of the crucifixion proposed a simple cause and effect relationship. If you are the Son of God, then show us, by coming down from the cross that we might believe in you. Asking for proof is a rational approach to skepticism. What if Jesus had come down? Since it was His destiny to die for our sins, that would only have put off the inevitable, so that response did not make sense to His destiny. But it is our mind's response to seek sense when we are taking part in an organized activity of story-telling. To demand "proof."

Faith, in this instance, is the belief in the irrational. It is irrational, by our perspective, for God to be humiliated in this way. It is irrational for Him to love us, in all our sin, this much, to take this pain on for us even when we are spitting at Him for it. The story makes no rational sense.

So we have an organized telling, utilizing rationality and structure, for a completely irrational meaning. In the setting of deconstruction versus legalism, this is the basic yin-yang of the bible.

On one hand, the legalists try to apply rationality to interpret the bible, as though certain word combinations have "power" over other word combinations, by being more "rational" somehow. However, at the end of the day, the "rational" word combinations ultimately describe the "irrational'" so what is the point of trying to "out-rationalize" another group of people?

On the other hand, the deconstructionists arrive at a nihilistic point of view by undermining any sense of "rationality" due to the varied nature of vocabulary from the standpoint of the teller versus the listener. Since there is no effective "rationality" in language, how can language impart any "rational" meaning, is their argument. However, as we have seen, it is the "irrational" which is occurring in the bible, especially in this NT reading. Why not use an irrational medium, if the content of the medium is in itself, irrational. How does the irrationality of language disprove the act?

Prove "love." It's an irrational thing. It will make a man sacrifice himself for his children. It will reduce the cleverest man to a fool. And it will bring the God of the universe to His knees. For us.

Humiliation

The older I get, the more I notice things in the bible I previously glossed over or discounted as less important. In my earlier readings, the crucifixion was the thing. To me, it embodied the entire betrayal of Christ, and so really, what else was there?

As I have gotten older and hopefully more empathetic, I unfortunately can see more of the day's drama. I heard in a movie once, "Dying's the easy part." Crucifixion was their death sentence, and death sentences are death sentences. That is, once assigned a death sentence, the prisoner's choices are removed, but up until that time, he can still aspire to some sort of dignity. The removal of dignity in any form is one of the most dehumanizing things that can happen to a person.

A victim of human sex trafficking and human slavery has her dignity violently ripped away from her. Starvation tears the dignity away from the starving man. The cancer patient, crying in agony and fear, has to suffer the loss of any dignity he or she might have possessed up until that time. All of us carry around a veneer of who we want the world to see us as, and that veneer is all that we possess. How we possess it is our dignity.

Christ's humiliation by the soldiers is but a few sentences of the story. But the end result is man's attempt to strip away His dignity. Imagine if every good act we ever felt happy about doing were taken and spit on in front of a crowd of mockers. It was not good enough for the Messiah to be nailed to a cross. The soldiers had to try to take the last of his humanity away from him, adding tremendous insult to the final injurious act. How did He respond? Most of us would shrink away from a slap lasting less than a second. How many minutes or hours did the humiliation go on, in its conscious attempt to remove all semblance of dignity from Christ?

I don't have much to say about this section of NT reading today. It's a section I did not pay as much attention to when I was younger. Now that I have lived a little, and seen people all over the world fight for their right to cling to just a little dignity, despite all obstacles, I know more how important dignity is, and how much of a sin was attempted that day. We all share genetics with that crowd of soldiers who did that, and for that I feel shame. The only hope is that we all share genetics with Christ, too.

Please don't let me go anywhere without you...

What a bunch of short term memory jerks!

Isn't that what we are supposed to think? I mean, the people are released from bondage, told specifically what *not* to do, then find excuses to do it, and revel in it, to their own ultimate detriment. "We" would never do that, if we were in that situation. Is that what we are supposed to think?

Or, in our own pride and our own stubbornness, is this what we still do to this day. The most enlightened of all of us will still find rationalizations to do what he or she wants to do, despite this object lesson.

The Israelites made idols, got drunk, and suffered. They went through an internal purging, with three thousand paying for their sin with death. Flash forward a couple thousand years, the Son of Man is delivered to us, and our idolatry (legalism, established cultural ideology, fear, schadenfreude) causes us to betray Him and deliver Him to His death. How much had we learned? But in the end, we see that through this, His forgiveness and love is expressed despite our unruly stubbornness.

How do we get over this? How do even the "smartest" of us not fall into this trap? I think, and this is what I have been trying to do by spending time "post-processing" my reading (by pursuing this blog) that it is pretty eloquently summed up in Moses' request to God.

"If you don't go with us personally, don't let us move a step from this place."

Maybe he wanted God's validation for his people, but it is deeper than that. How will any of us ever reflect God in ourselves without God being personally with us all the time? And if God is not with us, how can we ever be well? I know, for myself, looking back at all my past failures, that they always occurred when I walked away from relationship with God and Christ. I am trying to make the commitment to ask Him, always, Please don't let me go anywhere without You, because I know I will be nothing without You. And honestly, I know I don't want to be "me" without You.

It's a prayer. We still have volitional motion, and we can choose where we want to go. But we can also choose to say this prayer, every day, and He will hear it.

If you don't go with *me* personally, please don't let me move a step from this place.

Please don't let me go anywhere without you.

The Betrayer

It's been too many days since I have sat down to do this, and I can definitely tell a change in myself. Without a conscious effort to keep involved with the Word, life can easily crowd it out. It really all comes down to priorities. Life is not nearly as important of a priority as this, and I have to make a conscious decision to keep my priorities straight.

This portion of the NT has always been interesting for me. First of all, it is very dramatic. The arrest and trial of Jesus is a painful thing to read. If one imagines the environment, all the people, and all the pain, it is a very hard thing to think about. But, second, there has always been, for me, the question of the role of Judas.

Jesus continues to state that all is happening as prophesied. Jesus had to be delivered to the Sanhedrin in some way. The trial and crucifixion places all of humanity in the role of betrayer. We killed Christ. Humanity killed Jesus. His disciples "fled," and one of them is the "betrayer." The established religious system at the time, which Jesus' ideas threatened, was the active participant in the destruction of Christ, but all of this had to occur for the sake of grace, as, Jesus says, it was written.

If the story occurred without Judas's involvement, if there had been no betrayer of Jesus from His inner circle, and if the disciples had not fled, then the Sanhedrin would have had to overpower Him and kill Him and them outright. As Jesus said, had He chosen, no power on earth could have overtaken Him. However, He chose not to exercise His deity, in order for grace to be the final product. So, at some point in time, He was always going to have to surrender, voluntarily, in order to be crucified and fulfill the prophecy. Does it, then, really matter more that Judas betrayed Him than if the story had gone down differently and Jesus allowed Himself to be overpowered without a Judas. The end result would have been the same, and in fact, Judas was the functioning agent for the arrest of Jesus. Someone would always have had to fill that role, or else Jesus would have allowed the Sanhedrin to take Him by force.

So, why put Judas in the role of a "betrayer" if the story had already been written that Jesus had to die? Judas filled a part in a cosmic drama that he was "predestined" to fulfill (if one believes in that). If one does not believe in predestination, then Judas' free will in betraying Jesus is really still pretty insignificant compared to Jesus allowing Himself to be taken and not calling on "12 legions" of angels to protect him. Jesus was "predestined" to die. I don't deny Judas' role as betrayer, but I wonder about the literal interpretation of him as the "greatest" of all betrayers, secondary to this particular betrayal, since the endpoint would have been the same regardless of whether a betrayal occurred.

When I get stuck on these sorts of issues, I have to remember that rationality does not provide the way to faith, it provides a stumbling block to faith sometimes, and it definitely is the fuel for legalistic zealotry. So, at times like this, I have to back off, and have faith in the entire story, but I still wonder about his literary depiction as the greatest betrayer of all time.

I was afraid...

This has always been one of my most difficult sections in NT reading. I am not sure I understand it very well.

As I was reading it today, I thought I might have caught something I never caught before. I think I figured out finally the attitude of the man who buried the gold and didn't invest it. I took a risk with my money a couple of years ago. I invested in a house that there was no way I could afford, with the thought that I would sell it at a profit and move the profit into my church. In fact, before I even signed on the house, someone offered me a very large sum of money to take over my contract. I declined.

So, then the bottom fell out of the market, and now I am in a house that is far too much for one person, and pretty much mine for the duration now. I am not complaining, it is a well built house, but my intent has been changed a bit by market factors. Now, it may be a decade or two before I could get a profit, if ever. That being the case, now it's just a matter of how much I am willing to lose. Losing a "little" may be the profit over losing a "lot."

So, my attempt was to take a risk with my money for a benefit for my church, and I failed. Had I buried my money in the yard, I would have just as much today as I did then, and would not have lost a very large amount on losing a "lot" on this house. So, over the last year or so, I wondered if I would be worse than the man who buried his money in the ground, because I have lost money, and at least he did not.

But, I didn't "not" do this because I was afraid. When I read the section today, I didn't just gloss over the facts of how much each servant made, or at least did not lose. I read about the attitude of the servants. The one who buried the gold was afraid, and that is why he buried it. Paul says "perfect faith casts out fear." I'm not sure I had perfect faith my financial deal would turn out alright, but I do consider myself to be faithful and ask Him for help. I am certainly not the only one in this country in this situation.

So, it seems that, again, things go back to the heart, the attitude behind the motivation.

Mercy, not sacrifices. This always seems to be one of the primary message of Christ.

The Moral Order and The Responsible Servant

There are a couple of things in today's NT reading that spoke to me.

I have always considered things, when I am confused about them, by going to extremes. What is the extreme example of faith? It is the "is/is not" question of life. Regardless of whether one is raised Hindu, Sikh, Christian, or any religion, there is a fundamental question about all spirituality and faith. Is there a "God?" Or rather, is there a fundamental moral order to the universe?

If a "moral" God, who is the creator of the universe, exists, then by dint of His omniscience and omnipotence, in the expression of His creativity of the physical nature of the universe, then one has to ask whether He created a moral order to the universe. When we are confused in issues of faith, and we are parsing Christian theological doctrine internally in a denominationalistic approach, or externally, validating "Christianity" against other faith practices, we have to ask ourselves, as we stick to what we think is "right," whether there is some overarching moral principle or north/south moral pole to the universe against which all actions in the universe can be judged?

That is, if something is right in my perspective, and it is fundamentally wrong in someone else's perspective, and we feel equally correct in our assessment, is there a external moral framework in the universe that this point of contention can be assessed against to figure out which of us is "right" or at least, more "right" relative to that moral order?

The underlying question is not whether something is more or less right, it is whether true right and wrong actually exists. It is whether there is a true moral order in the universe outside of the construct of the human mind. If humanity is wiped out next year by a meteor impact, does every "right/wrong" principle we are seeking to understand as humans lose validity because there are no humans around to assess these distinctions. Does "morality" exist outside of us, by the presence a true moral order, or is "morality" merely a human construct, to be lost to the universe if the earth is destroyed by a meteor?

In the NT reading today, Christ answers that question.

"Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will remain forever."

Morality, from the deity Christ, exists distinct from humanity. The moral order to the universe truly exists. The distinction for Christians is that it is "my words" (Christ's words) that serve as the fundamental reflection of that moral order, given to us in ways our human minds can understand. So, the question I always pose, when issues of theological doctrine or the rightness or wrongness of any action is raised, is actually answered very succinctly in this section.

The other part that spoke to me had to do with the description of the faithful and sensible servant being rewarded by his master, when he takes care of that to which the master entrusts him.

To what are we entrusted? We are entrusted first to ourselves. The only control we have is self-control, so the major treasure we have to which we are entrusted is ourselves. What does this mean?

Do we "sin?" When we sin, we do things that harm the gift that we have been given. If we practice immorality, we feed a part of our mind that perpetuates further violation of the care of ourselves. If we drink to excess, we lose the faculty to take care of the gift we were given. If we overeat, we lose control of our pancreas, suffer diabetes, and take away our ability to fix ourselves possibly. If we commit violence, we will suffer the consequences of that violence against ourselves. In other words, by performing any act that negates the health of the gift of our lives, we are an irresponsible servant.

To what else are we entrusted, besides ourselves? We are entrusted with social responsibility, the requirement to care for each other. The people around us are gifts to themselves the way we are a gift to ourselves, and it is our requirement to help each other, and ourselves, to be the responsible servant. This mandates that we care for the other gifts we see God giving, the gifts, the lives, that come into our sphere.

Sometimes the requirement of doing that can cause a self-harm, and that is why I believe Christ suggested methods by which we avoid martyrdom, since we are not supposed to be irresponsible with the gift of ourselves that God has given us. But regardless, it is not only ourselves to whom we are responsible in Christ, but to others who have that same gift and may require any added help we have available to impart to them.

I fail in the second part far too much for my liking, and the older I get, and the more resources I have, the more I see myself failing. But, rather than despair which is an irresponsible luxury, work toward betterment needs to be my goal.

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In one final aside, I enjoyed the OT reading as well. Particularly when Moses heard all the instructions of God, and the first thing he did was build an altar.

People can "worship the altar" or "worship at the altar." I was reminded of the difference in those two phrases when I read the account and saw that Moses' first act of faith was to build the altar. I wondered what future generations would do. Would they "worship the altar," or "worship at the altar?" Which one did Moses intend, when he built the altar, and which one is it that we do today? It seems there is a lot to think about, regarding deconstruction and legalism, in that question.

The abomination of desolation

In my translation, it says, "the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place."

Over and over, Christ is teaching a pattern of what's inside being what matters. He continues to quote Hosea 6:6 to state the God requires mercy not sacrifices, in other words, tenderness of heart rather than frozen ritual.

The only way we are able to guard against ritual becoming our "God" is to continue to cultivate a Godly spirit, tenderness, love, mercy, patience, etc. By seeking this type of heart, we keep ourselves guarded against those who preach a "harder" loveless Christianity. If we all, all of us, lose our hearts, and lose our focus, then soon the inevitable rush of legalism and ritualism slides toward a worship of something that bears less and less resemblance to "God" (tenderness, patience, forgiveness, love) and more resemblance to something that is quite the antithesis of God, even though we don't intend that.

Even with good intentions, if we lose our hearts, we head toward a day that we worship the antithesis of the Father of Jesus, and soon the sacrilegious object that causes desecration will be the focus of the Holy Place. When we are so far away from the mark, by our hardened hearts, we will be ripe for destruction. Temples will not stand. The lack of love will cause true prophets to be rounded up and persecuted by false prophets. And all of this comes from losing our own hearts.

The heart of God keeps us away from that state. We have to interpret the text with an eye to what it represents, and stay away from the slow decline into legalism. Words become cages that bar us from seeing the meaning, but only to a point. We can also not slide into deconstructionism and nihilism by over interpreting our words. A straight path, but tempered by love and faith.

The inside of the cup

I am really beginning to hate myself.

How many times have I been guilty of greed and self-indulgence? Or of ignoring justice, mercy, and faith? How many camels have I swallowed while straining water for gnats?

I fall so short, all the time. And every time I fall short, I remember that I thought I was "doing it right" at the time. I really thought I was trying to live a good life, do the right thing, and do the things that made sense to me. But when the car goes shooting off the interstate at high speed, I'm reminded that I didn't even come close. Not truly. I missed the mark by a wide, wide margin, even though I really thought I was coloring inside the lines. How far away from the ideal that I perceive that I have been is an indicator of how poor of a person I am.

So, even though I think I am trying, even though I think I am doing the right things, I fail. And I fail in a big, big way. Spectacularly, miserably, violently, whimperingly... I fail. And the one thing in common with all these statements is "I." "I" fail. I'm really beginning to hate myself.

Every day, my prayers have been to remove the "I" from me. God needs to drive, and my job is to follow and do what He tells me to do. When "I" come in, "I" fails.

So, I can hate "myself" and not get caught up in self-hatred. I can be instructed from this process to continue to place God's plan for me first. The "me" that is the dirt on the inside of the cup needs attention. The outcome of that dirt, and the poison it creates, is my focus for "hatred."

I was created in a certain way, and the parts of the world that I have taken on and have created this "me" that fails, I can "hate," but I can do it without despair. I hate intolerance and evil, but I do not despair from it. Despair would rob me of my ability to correct that evil, further playing into the hands of the creator of the evil. If I despaired over my own shortcomings, I would be playing into further selfishness and falling farther into that trap. By hating what I see, I can know what I need to correct, passionately, and know what I need to fill my cup with. Mercy, justice, faith...

Jesus spoke against the Pharisees. But what if some of them were well intentioned? What if some of them truly thought they were doing the right thing, because so much of their past had taught this to them. What if some good, well intentioned Phariseeical student, with mercy in his heart, and a sincere love for God, simply could not believe in the deity of Christ because doing so would violate his own faith in right versus wrong? What if his heart were pure and full of humility, and was paralyzed for fear of committing a sin against his knowledge of God? What if that Pharisee was me?

I am starting to really understand how little I can rely on my own understanding. It's easy to Pharisee-bash, but what if I am that Pharisee? I know how much I fail, so I seek to understand, and right now, I start with hating what I see, and using that to correct what I can know.

After my latest crash-and-burn, I know I need to take time to think about what I did wrong. How far away from the mark I was, even though I thought I was doing the right thing. How much I need to lose the "I" and follow God's plan for my life. And if I have even messed that up, how much I need to depend on grace and have faith that if it is His will, He will bring me back to it.

It's faith, again.

"Heaven" means never having to say you're married...

I know. I really shouldn't. And if I weren't trying to make a point through a bit of irreverent humor, I really wouldn't.

When the Pharisees try to trap Jesus with the story of the woman who marries 7 brothers, based on a Judaic law, Jesus response is, "For when the dead rise, they won't be married. They will be like the angels in Heaven."

This is one of those comments that falls in between deconstructionism and accountability. In response to an impossible situation "demanded" by "law," Jesus response is a re-orientation of the earth-bound pharisees, who continually miss the mark, into a Heaven approach. By giving this description of the matrimonial status of the risen, Jesus reminds them that earthly "logic" by which these tricks and games are being laid to ensnare Him, does not hold in the setting of the afterlife. By giving this authoritative response, He not only deflects the trap, but also reminds the Pharisees of their limited vision.

However, in my personal, twice-divorced setting, I find it interesting that marriage is a temporal construct with limited penetrance into the eternal. It seems like the saying, on Earth as it is in Heaven, may be missing a step. What is the purpose of marriage on earth, if it is disavowed in Heaven? And in a reverse sense of accountability, does marriage have relevance temporally, if it has no relevance eternally? Would a deconstructionist play with this logic train, only to derail it as a way of undermining all meaning?

I know, with my past, I am prone to put such a spin on it, but then I remember that my "logic" is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and I simply need to have faith. My first wife remarried, and has a much happier life now than I could ever have given her. My second wife, well, pretty much has very little use for me in this reality. I'm not sure that the next reality will improve her outlook on me. But, then, that's me thinking like a Pharisee again. It's not about my human understanding. It's about my faith.

"They will be like the angels in Heaven." Just have to read and have faith, faith, faith...

No Middle Ground

When Jesus turns the question about authority back on the Pharisees, He asks them whether John's baptism came from Heaven or was it merely human.

"They talked it over among themselves. 'If we say it was from heaven, he will ask why we didn't believe him. But if we say it was merely human, we'll be mobbed, because the people think he was a prophet.' So they finally replied, 'We don't know.'"

Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame lame, LAME!

Jesus took the act of John's baptism and put it in a place where all spiritual questions belong, the is/isn't category. I think I may have blogged about this earlier, at the beginning of Genesis. At what point in time in your life do you answer the question of spirituality. Either God "is" or he "isn't." Once that question is firmly answered in your mind, all other aspects of spirituality will flow. If he "isn't" then why in the world ought anyone do anything merciful for another at one's own expense? If he "isn't" then why shouldn't your behavior be all about gluttony and avarice and domination, because then nothing else "is" outside yourself, so go ahead.

But if He "is" then all the rest of the behaviors in your life fall into place, mercy, kindness, faith, love, everything we all depend on every day. It's a question that has no middle ground. It is an "is/isn't" question with absolutely ZERO gray zone. We can ignore the question, and go party, but the question has only two answers, yes, or no.

Jesus obviously understood the downstream ramifications of His question, and how they would envelop human understanding. With a sublimely simple question, He captures the Pharisees. The Pharisees know the risk of being caught in that question. It's the same risk we all face, every day, once we face the long shadow of eternity and as, "Is God?" or "Isn't God?" We all know what we are supposed to do with our lives, once we answer that question, but we can be afraid to do it, so we shy away from it, and ignore it, turn on the TV and say, I'm too busy to think about it, or tell the obnoxious person pestering us for the answer, I don't know.

This is us, every day, seeing that question, and shying away from the yes/no answer and what that answer DEMANDS from us. We see that demand, and we fear we cannot meet it, so we say, I don't know.

So, Jesus asks the question. GOD asks the question to a group of men, and the best they can come up with is, "we don't know."

Isn't that what we all do? And isn't Jesus basically saying, "LOOK, NOW!, God is here, and you are being asked, YES or NO!" And in our fearful, cringing, pathetic attempts to cling to our own identity, or own pitiful "power," we mumble, in the face of God, "Well, God, um, I... I don't really know."

There is no middle ground. There never has been, there never will be. Any attempt to believe in a middle ground is an illusory attempt to dodge a question and cling to an identity that will fade to dust in the attempt. The Pharisees could have said "No! John was a fake!" and that would have shown some guts, because they would have been standing up for a belief, but instead, they chickened out. A belief in NO God is still a belief, but belief in a middle ground is no belief at all, by the "yes/no, is/isn't" argument.

Jesus painted the eternal "yes/no" question as a way of validating his authority. As Deity, He could have made his authority by snapping His fingers, but He chose to use human terms, human language, to gain his authority from humans, giving us the power to believe in Him.

How much more do we believe in something when we come to it in our terms, versus when it is forced down our throats.? By defining the lack of the middle ground, Jesus lets us come to Him on our terms. The mercy and love in that act is why I chose to be Christian.