Si Sabbath

Let me explain the title before we get started.

It started as a typo.

But as far as typos go, it made a lot of sense because too often we don’t say yes to Sabbath.

So there you have it; Si Sabbath.

I just got back from a church workers conference, the full title being the Sabbath Church Workers Conference. Not even slightly coincidental that the topic is the same as the conference title.

Having taken that week to be renewed and invigorated I was made all the more aware of how greatly I fail at doing the whole Sabbath thing. But as much as I fail at it, I’m glad that I have the option as to whether or not I am allowed to fail in this particular area.

“Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.”

 Exodus 35:2

Yikes!

I should be so dead by now! Well, for that and about ten million other reasons!

But can you imagine the fear that would strike into the heart of anyone who was trying to live according to God’s will? I would be terrified every time the Sabbath rolled around! Quite honestly, I might just stay in bed all day, lest I be found guilty of working and thus sentenced to death.

It hardly seems like the best way to devote a day to God!

Maybe if there were certain rules about how to relax…

That’s right, there’s a Pharisaic law for that!

It’s good though because having a rule about what you can and can’t do on the Sabbath is helpful for keeping you cognisant about rest and God and devoting a whole day to Him.

Or not at all.

Maybe it happens that everything just revolves around these man made rules and God is no longer even a part of the equation. Maybe we get so caught up with keeping these laws that we completely forget the reason behind the Sabbath. We don’t care about God. We definitely don’t care about our neighbour. We care about ourselves and our main effort will be in making sure that we follow the rules, even if that means forsaking the needs of our neighbors.

So what does Jesus say about that?

Let’s look at his reaction in Matthew 12:1-14

There are two statements that really stand out to me, the first in verses 7 and 8:

“And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

 Matthew 12:7-8

And the second:

“So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

 Matthew 12:12b

So, let’s look at the first one. Mercy and not sacrifice. It really flies in the face of everything that the Jewish people had learned up to that point. The Sabbath day had become a day of sacrifice, not necessarily in  terms of animal sacrifice, but in terms of what they were sacrificing, trying to gain God’s favour. However, the one thing that they weren’t sacrificing was their own self-protection. Jesus rightly points out that their recognition needs to be on what they’re doing for themselves, but rather what they’re doing for those around them. We’ve just seen in the verses preceding that the Pharisees have just called the disciples out on fulfilling their base needs on the Sabbath. What kind of dangerous ground are we treading on when we say to someone that they shouldn’t be allowed to eat because it’s considered work? I’m pretty sure that isn’t what God had in mind when he commanded the Sabbath to be a day of rest!

The second statement seems so simple that it shouldn’t have to be said, but unfortunately it was being completely overlooked. The idea of doing good wasn’t nearly as important as taking care of oneself. If it was work to take care of your ailing neighbour, you wouldn’t do it. If someone was dying on the side of the road, well, you might deal with it the next day, if they’re still there! Morals are very skewed when the need to protect yourself becomes greater than somebody else’s life!

It’s a lot easier for us to look at the Sabbath day as a series of rules and laws than as the blessing it was intended to be.

To more fully understand the blessing of the day it helps to go back to Genesis.

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.  And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation."

Genesis 2:1-3

What did God do on the seventh day? He rested.

Why did he rest? Because everything that he made was good…and it was finished. The seventh day, the Sabbath day, was put into place as a celebration, a time to acknowledge what God had done and to bask in the perfection of creation. Rather than rushing around, worrying about what you should and should not do, it’s a day to stop and not to worry but to thank God for what He has given to us.

Now, I have a trick question for you: What day were Adam and Eve created?

…

…

…

The sixth day of course!

So, that means that the first day they were around was…

…

…

…

The seventh day! The day of rest!

Weird right?

They didn’t work their butts off and then take a day to try and get themselves up to a level where they would be able to just function. Nope, they started out with a day of rest, God did all the hard work and gave them the opportunity to get up to 100% before they could even consider working.

Ideally that’s what God still wants to do for us. The Sabbath is still around and is supposed to be used to bring us up to function at our full potential. Very few of us (myself included) would even think of using the Sabbath as it is intended. We might consider it if we were really exhausted and absolutely needed to take a break, but definitely not on a weekly basis!

For us the Sabbath day is no longer a command. It’s not a day that we’re forced to evaluate every little thing we do lest we be accused of working and sentenced to death. But Sabbath is a time that is set aside and dedicated to God. It is a chance for us to go back to the garden of Eden, to remember the perfection of creation, the perfect way in which we were created and at the same time to give thanks to God that he sent his son to be the one to reinstitute that state of perfection for us and all humankind.

Rahab- A hooker with a heart of God

Get it? Like heart of gold? It’s funny, get over yourself.

The story of Rahab is one that we tend to gloss over. We are able to say that she was a prostitute and then we quickly race to the manifestation of her faith and the way she saved God’s chosen people. It’s a beautiful story of a complete turnaround from sinner to saint.

Well…not really.

Let’s take a second to really look at the story of Rahab as we see it in Joshua 2:

And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there.

But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof.

I’ve highlighted a few things here. First off, the very first descriptor that we’re given is that Rahab is a prostitute. I mentioned it before, I’ll probably mention it again, her livelihood depended on breaking the sixth commandment daily and encouraging others to do so likewise. You’ll also note that in this interaction she never repents of that fact either.

Next, look at how she protects the spies. It is obviously not in a truthful manner. We are quick to defend her saying, “Well of course she couldn’t have told the truth, they would have been killed!” But in the same way, it’s important for us to acknowledge that she isn’t perfect, even as she is carrying out works that will be used to glorify God.

In spite of who Rahab was, God used her to accomplish His plan.

Rahab’s account is made even more interesting when you look at the way that it combines so many different elements from both the Old and New Testaments. Take a peek at verses 18-21. So many things that we’ve seen before! Scarlet cord. Scarlet like blood. Identifying a house that should be passed over. Passover. Hmm. But as good New Testament Christians I’m sure you’ve been thinking of another kind of blood that provided salvation.

In this same section we also see the promise that is made to all those who are inside the house. The promise is that those who are in the house will be saved whilst all those who are outside the house will be killed. Replace the word house with  ark and it quickly brings to mind the promise made in Genesis.

Moving forward into the New Testament, Rahab isn’t forgotten! In Matthew 1:5 there is reference to Rahab, this time as a part of Jesus’ lineage. If you look at the other people who are mentioned as part of Jesus’ family tree, you’ll notice just how many oddities there are. So many people of whom you would not want to claim even a passing knowledge are proudly proclaimed as being the forefathers (and mothers) of the perfect king who came to deliver us from evil and proclaim salvation to all. But Jesus does. He proudly proclaims himself as the son of a lying whore and in spite of that he also proclaims himself the perfect son of God, who came to earth to bring about perfection to all people

Rahab isn’t perfect. We see her actively breaking commandments and even at the pinnacle of her service to God she is really only acting as a lying whore. But this is the kind of person who provides us with an example of faith. This is the kind of person that makes up Jesus’ own ancestral line. This is the kind of person that we strive to be. Not that I recommend you all go and start up your own brothel or tell lies “in the name of the Lord.” What this reminds us of is that we are sinful people. This is something that we can’t escape. However, this doesn’t stop us from being utilized by God. In spite of our sin, in spite of the inclination that we have toward evil, God uses us for his good. He takes our sin and, on the cross, he turned it into his goodness.

Q

I’m sure you’ve been waiting all week to see what would be the topic for the letter Q. Would it be Queen Esther? Quirinius? The Quran? Nope, none of the above!

We are looking at Q.

Now, you may or may not have heard of the synoptic gospels, if you have, you’ve got a great head start, if you haven’t, well, you’ll have something new to show off to your friends.

The synoptic gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Not John. Poor John! If you’ve ever read through these gospels, you will have likely noticed that they are awfully similar. They have a very comparable focus and even their word choices are remarkably close.

Has that ever made you curious? Ever wondered why that might be?

If you haven’t rest assured that somebody has! This, my friends, is what we are talking about today is Q, otherwise known as the Q-source.

Going in, I was sure that it was called Q just so that people like me would have something unique to bring to the table during an alphabet study, but turns out that it comes from the German word Quelle, meaning source. Would you believe that in a room full of old school Lutherans, not one person knew the proper pronunciation? I couldn’t either!

This Q thing, what is it exactly?  How is it fitting in to all this jibber jabber?

Q is one proposed hypothesis that could explain why everything fits together so nicely. The idea behind Q is that it contains all of the things that Jesus said and authors, especially Matthew and Luke, would be able to use it as a help as they were writing.

Doesn’t seem too ridiculous, after all, look at Luke, he tells us straight up that he is using other sources.

And if we read through an account that is found in both gospels, such as loving your enemies, (Matthew 5:38-48 and Luke 6: 27-36) we see an awful lot of similarity.

But there are also some pretty extreme differences as well. Take for example v. 46 in the Matthew account where it says “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” and compare it to Luke v. 32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” (emphasis added) You’ll notice (because I very clearly pointed it out) that Matthew purposefully uses the word tax collector instead of sinner. Could be no big deal, tax collectors were seen as pretty bad dudes, but isn’t it weird that Matthew, the known tax collector would include that in this account? This is something that seems to go beyond just a set of sayings that people were conveying to one another, this really impacted Matthew as he heard it to the point where he wrote it as he understood it, not necessarily as it was commonly expressed.

The idea behind Q is one that would very neatly tie up all the loose ends. When we get confused about how the writings of the Gospels are so similar, it would be easiest to point to one common piece that would solve all of the problems. In doing so, however, we are not giving enough credit to the dynamic qualities of Jesus’ words. When he spoke it was more than just a quote to be transcribed, it was a message to be lived. They were teachings that stuck with people and struck them so deeply that they could insert themselves in the teaching and still have it ring as true as it did when it was preached for anyone else in the crowd.

Q could be a possibility. It’s still a hypothetical source that doesn’t have any physical proof behind it, but it does make sense as a theory. However, what we should not neglect when considering this is the power of Jesus’ words. They were, and are, strong enough to stand on their own, and be remembered and applied by all.

Priesthood

What a terrible movie!

Know what I hate?

Rules!

They’re lame and even though I would consider myself more law-abiding than not, whenever someone tells me to do something there is a little spark of anger that rises up inside of me and rebels.

This, in conjunction with my lack of credentials would make me a terrible, terrible priest.

Old Testament priest, that is.

There are an awful lot of rules that you need to follow to be a priest!

These rules start before you’re even born!

I’d like you to meet stick man Dan. Now stick man Dan is an Israelite. He can trace his genealogy back to the tribe of Benjamin. He cannot be a priest.

Now meet stick man Mark. He is also an Israelite. He is from the tribe of Levi…things are looking good so far! Except stick man Mark is from the descendants of Moses. No priesthood for stick man Mark!

Last, but certainly not least I would like you to meet stick man Chaim. Stick man Chaim is also an Israelite, and like stick man Mark is from the tribe of Levi. There is one slight difference between stickmen Mark and Chaim, however, as stick man Chaim is from the line of Aaron so BOOM he’s a part of the priesthood!

Seems like a weird ruling right? Let’s go way back and see why this is the case!

By way back I mean the tale of the golden calf, which tells us about how the Levites were rewarded with the promise of service to God.   For doing what God told them they were promised a life of prestige and special rewards. A life that would be spent serving God and following his rules.

Now our friend Chaim was a good Jewish boy. He met all the requirements to be a priest. He was 32 years old, never trimmed his beard and all his body parts were shaped as they ought to be.

Reading through some of the requirements for priesthood in the Old Testament makes a person wonder how anyone could attain the level of perfection expected for this position. To serve as God’s holy elect was a huge responsibility! You were expected to live a life as close to God’s as possible! Perfection wasn’t just suggested, it was required! Unless you could live up to the specifications as they were laid out, your blood wasn’t enough to carry you through.

As Christians, this doesn’t come as a shock to us. We realize that we are completely reliant on the blood of someone more important to us to bring us to be part of this priesthood.

1 Peter 2:5-9 declares us to be part of the royal priesthood. It calls us a chosen people and gives a description of what we are expected to do in this position. But even as we go forth in this priesthood, we do so knowing that it’s not because of the perfection that we’ve obtained by our own works. We are able to serve God only because of the high priest who has already prepared the way for us. Unlike the priest of the Old Testament who spent every day in fear of their inability to maintain the perfection required to mediate between man and God, we can give thanks that our high priest has given us the perfection needed to stand before God and to proclaim the greatness of his name to all people.

O is not for Obama

But he will feature prominently.

This week was monumental for our neighbors down south as the celebrated the inauguration of President Obama in his second term as president. Interesting fact: this was the fourth time that Obama was sworn in. Second term, fourth oath.

It’s weird to me that you could take an oath over.

I understand the repeated oath this time, as it was making public what had happened in private earlier, but in the first go round it was to fix an error in the first oath.

An oath is pretty serious business. A promise made in the sight of God. A promise which, according to James 5:12, can lead to some pretty grave consequences if broken.

Now as a Christian I look at condemnation pretty seriously.

Some people don’t.

Some people are accused of not taking the threat of condemnation seriously and some people don’t necessarily understand or care about the severity that is involved with an oath.

We see Jesus himself warning against the taking of oaths due to the danger that is involved for us. We are dumb, folks. We say things in the heat of the moment that we don’t really mean. We declare truth where it is not found. We can harm ourselves enough without bringing down the judgment fires.

An oath is a big deal because we have now moved beyond our own reason and understanding and have brought in that of one much greater and wiser than we could ever even imagine. This is no longer between us and our neighbor but instead between us and God.

As humans we want to be in control. We want to be the final authority and have something that supports our opinion. What really makes us seem powerful is when we can have the authority of God behind us. But sometimes we put it there when we are wrong to do so. We can make a promise that invokes God but doesn’t leave him as the authority; an oath where we are using God to strengthen our argument rather than allowing God to use us to strengthen his argument. We want to fit God into our plans and refuse to really look at what we’re doing. We’re breaking all kinds of commandments; putting ourselves before God, turning ourselves into gods and using his name in vain to support what we want so badly to believe.

Our need for oaths comes from our need to assure everyone that we’re telling the truth. Our own actions really don’t reflect the reality that we want to convey. Our solution? Bring in the one being who can always be believed. Not to look within ourselves for what we can change, what we can do to make ourselves trustworthy, but rather to deflect to the one who can always be trusted.

And were we to try I’m not sure that we could change ourselves enough, I know we couldn’t change or convince those around us to change. As with all things we are dependent on God’s perfection to make us complete. I don’t think we can cut out the concept of oaths from our lives. We need God’s accountability, we need his strength. What we also need is the understanding of how serious this contract is and to enter into the contract with that knowledge.

Sound tough?

Not-so Nifty for Nineveh in Nahum

So I’m pretty excited to once again be able to make this a double letter post. 2 N’s, no waiting.

Now, when you think Nineveh, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that your first thought is about Nineveh as we see it in the book of Jonah. Nineveh fares pretty well in this account. They forgot God in the beginning, but with Jonah’s reluctant help they turn from their wicked ways and repent of their evil ways. God forgave the Ninevites and life went on.

But what about the rest of the story?

What happened 100 years after this miraculous occurrence with Jonah and the massive repentance and sack cloth? Did the Ninevites become master evangelists? Was this major city turned into a religious hub? Did the Ninevites continue to recount the near miss they had when the Lord nearly destroyed the entire city?

None of that happened! In  a relatively minor amount of time the Ninevites forgot the warning from God and returned to their former lifestyle. They did not continue in the repentant lifestyle but instead turned once again to murder, looting and warfare. Nineveh was just as bad, if not worse, than what we saw in the beginning of Jonah.

This is where Nahum begins.

Nahum begins by reminding us that God is faithful to his people, those who believe in Him, and against all others he is to be feared. He doesn't conveniently forget his promises, nor does he forget the ways that those who oppose him have sinned in their transgressions.

Nineveh has done so much to deserve God’s wrath. Sneak forward a bit to Nahum 3:1-7. What a description! It disturbs me as much as it intrigues me!

When I read through I like to read really quickly over these descriptions because it’s terrifying to think of someplace that would cause so much damage. It’s the same way as I read Jesus’ being beaten. It’s a very short passage, and in my mind it gets translated to something quite brief as well. I would very much like to downplay the hurt he suffered and the grief he was caused because I know the reason behind it.

With the crucifixion, with the people of Nineveh I would like to turn my eyes from the pain being inflicted.

In my life, I would like to turn my eyes from the pain being inflicted.

We can very easily look at Nineveh as an evil place. We can look at them as murderers and terrible people but we quickly dismiss is as it is so different from the life we’re living now. We aren't that bad.

They did the same thing.

When they were directly confronted with the fact that they were terrible people they came up with a solution; a bandaid solution that hid the wound, but didn’t heal the brokenness beneath. They repented, put on the sackcloth and asked God to forgive him, and He did.

Unfortunately this wasn’t something that they actually believed beyond the scope of this one time occurrence. As soon as they were forgiven, they went back to their evil ways and felt no remorse. The sins that they repented of were the same ones to which they returned.

This is the danger that we face too. The sins that we confess are the same ones that we are faced with continually. We want to ignore the ugly parts of our lives in the same way we ignore the ugly parts of the bible. We want to pretend it didn’t happen because it makes us feel bad.

It's the warning that we see in the book of Nahum. While we know that “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble” (Nahum 1:7a) and that He has made this promise for us, we do so knowing the inherent danger of being complacent in our salvation. When we try to edit out the sinful parts of our life and concentrate only on the good we've done we put ourselves in the same boat as the people of Nineveh.

It’s only when we’re honest with ourselves, when we continually acknowledge our sins both to God AND ourselves that we realize how badly we need forgiving. We’re going beyond just covering up our brokenness but we’re asking God to heal us from the inside out.

M&M: Not Just a delicious candy

I have a sister.

She is a younger sister.

Sometimes I consider her to be the laziest person in the world. Usually this comes about when I think she should be helping me.

I identify wholeheartedly with Martha.

Luke 10:38-42 is a hard passage to read for this very reason because I, like Martha, and I’m assuming like several others love lists. Whether they’re written or not I usually have about 10 lists on the go. The work list, the grocery list, the housework list, the friends list, the free time list, and honestly the list goes on! If someone or something throws this list out of whack I am so lost. I get unreasonably upset, or I try to ignore the disruption to my list and things end up in a mess.

This is how I picture Martha. I feel like she gets a bad rap sometimes as everyone says that you need to be a Mary, not a Martha but Martha isn’t all wrong. Let’s look closer. Martha enters our story as the hospitable friend. Out of the goodness of her heart she invites Jesus, and presumably all the disciples with him to her house. She cooks, cleans, offers them a place to clean up and she does it all by herself. In theory her sister Mary should have been helping her, but she was off hanging out with the guests and shirking her responsibilities as co-hostess. You’ve been in that situation. You’ve hosted the party, or helped someone with a task only to find that you’re the only person doing any work. It’s frustrating! But when she tried to go and get back-up she found herself being thrown under the bus. Hardly seems fair!

Being a Martha is being a doer. But being a doer often means forgetting to take care of oneself. Martha was so busy taking care of Jesus that she missed the opportunity that was right in front of her. She had the opportunity to be served by Jesus but she was so busy serving him that she didn’t even see it.

The funny thing about Martha is that she had an amazing faith.

John 11:25-27

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Very similar to another person’s ground breaking (errr ground supporting?) proclamation, isn’t it?

In spite of the manner in which she is portrayed, her ultimate goal is not to follow the traditional ways beyond all else. In the passage above we see that she forgoes the only faith and culture that she has ever known and declare her belief in a prophet that the religious leaders all denied. Martha is a lot like all of us; she declares her faith but has trouble matching her actions.

The true story doesn’t revolve around the fact that Mary wanted to learn, nor the fact that Martha wanted to serve, but instead it encourages the understanding of the need for both elements.

If we were to all be Mary we would be a very well-learned bunch. We would take every opportunity to read the Word, to be attentive to Jesus’ teachings and to try and learn more each day; where would that lead us? We would know a lot but if we look to James, we know that faith without works is dead.

If we were all to be Martha we would be gracious(ish) servants. We would constantly be feeding the poor, donating all that we have and making sure that those around us were well taken care of; but at what cost? We would be tired and resentful. We would do what we did not because we wanted to, but because we felt that was what was expected of us.

Instead Jesus is pushing for a combination of the two women’s characteristics. First and foremost, we should be equipping ourselves. We need to be aware of Christ’s love, of what he has done for us. We should not be ignoring his teachings and going off, trying to serve everyone but ourselves. In the same breath, we need to realize that these teachings aren’t meant to dwell within us. We are called to be servants, to spread the love that we have received from Christ with all those around us.

We are not called to be Mary. Neither are we called to be Martha. We are called to constantly strive for a greater understanding of Christ and to respond to his great love by reaching out to everyone around us.