Okay, so I was ardent about attending Sunday morning worship on Palm Sunday to celebrate the passage of national health care legislation and to ponder how quickly one's circumstances can change in this world. I was also looking forward to the pageantry of Palm Sunday. But then there was this incident involving cat litter and clean sheets. Trust me, that's really more than enough information. Long story short, I didn't make it to Church. But I did find this Lutheran (ELCA) church that is posting video of the sermons. I have been looking for such a resource for years and I was very thankful to find this.
Listening to the pastor's message reminds me that faith is as much about actions as it is about thoughts and ideals. Thank you, Good Shepherd!
Divine NO to Mutilation -- WARNING, this video depicts explicit violence!
It's unusual these days to find fresh, current commentary on passages from Torah. I imagine its easier and safer to repackage the same messages and meanings that have been applied through the centuries. This practice has always seemed a little self-contradictory to me, though. Since we believe that G-d is fresh and new every morning as the manna that symbolized divine provision, why wouldn't we expect that the Spirit of the Living Word would enliven the message of our own daily bread?
I recently began reading a small book called "Meeting God in Virtual Reality". The authors provide a beautiful and liberating explanation of the ancient practice of "lectio divina" >> the practice of slowly reading a biblical or sacred text and allowing it to touch you with new meaning and purpose... it is more about listening with the heart than understanding with the mind. The application of the practice in this little book covers viewable media of all sorts, not just textual material, but I have enjoyed the application across the full spectrum of daily life. Perhaps I have always regarded the study of God and relationship this way.
So when I read the Levitical texts about mutilation in sacrifice a few weeks ago, I was immediately struck by the sense of how "anti-Levitical" was the body of Jesus in the time of His execution.
Leviticus 22:18-25 (The Message)God spoke to Moses: "Tell Aaron and his sons and all the People of Israel, Each and every one of you, whether native born or foreigner, who presents a Whole-Burnt-Offering to God to fulfill a vow or as a Freewill-Offering, must make sure that it is a male without defect from cattle, sheep, or goats for it to be acceptable. Don't try slipping in some creature that has a defect—it won't be accepted. Whenever anyone brings an offering from cattle or sheep as a Peace-Offering to God to fulfill a vow or as a Freewill-Offering, it has to be perfect, without defect, to be acceptable. Don't try giving God an animal that is blind, crippled, mutilated, an animal with running sores, a rash, or mange. Don't place any of these on the Altar as a gift to God. You may, though, offer an ox or sheep that is deformed or stunted as a Freewill-Offering, but it is not acceptable in fulfilling a vow. Don't offer to God an animal with bruised, crushed, torn, or cut-off testicles. Don't do this in your own land but don't accept them from foreigners and present them as food for your God either. Because of deformities and defects they will not be acceptable."
And yet the offering of Jesus of Nazareth in His broken body was accepted by G-d. So we are told in the historical documents and so we are assured in our hearts as believers.
If we think we honor God by mutilating others, we have some more thinking to do. In every case, it is God who determines what is acceptable and the criteria of the Holy has everything to do with the inherent humility and mercy of the one(s) who make the offering. Selah...
Dear Lord, I am thinking of the wonders and the horrors we are seeing these few short days in Haiti. Short in terms of the wide world history, very LONG if you are trapped alive in the rubble.
Lord, continue to teach us Your everlasting greatness and relieve those who remain alive for the purpose of showing Your glory. You raise up those You will and You are so much more MERCIFUL than we are, so much more MERCIFUL than we imagine You to be . . .
Refresh all those who work in the rubble in Haiti and enable them to complete the work of saving those upon whom Your favor rests.
Spread Your grace and protection over the population and suppress the spread of violence and disease. Be pleased to expedite the formation of roads that will serve effectively to move supplies and transport patients. Remember the outliers and help us to remember and relieve them, too.
Let the healing begin, Lord . . .
If you remembered our sins and shortcomings against us, Lord, no mere mortal would ever stand before You, but You are gracious and forgiving because that is Your nature.
Open our hearts and minds to comprehend Your messages in all of this. Deliver us from evil and from the callus of lazy indifference that allows us to accept a verdict of 'unknowable' writ large upon this disaster.
Touch us with repentance, Lord, of our godless American sense of entitlement. We behave as though we have a DIVINE RIGHT to food and water and healthcare ourselves, yet we barely give a passing thought to those who have to suffer to get even the least of these.
Change us, Lord, in our willingness and our awareness. Lead us in Your way of honest, open-handed mercy. Convince us, Lord, that You care less what name we use to call upon You and so much more that we make the call in simple awareness that we need to be saved . . .
Mastering Secret Fears A New Take on the Faith of Abraham at the Altar of Sacrifice
Caravaggio's Sacrifice of Isaac
As we are presently entering the season of lights, with winter solstice and the great religious holidays all standing out in sharp relief against the often manic reign of retailers in the name of Santa Claus, I am still preoccupied with the issue of faith "stories". Specifically, I am continually astonished at the easy acceptance of ChristOnes when teachers interpret the story of Abraham's "willingness" to make a human sacrifice of his promised son, the intended heir to his legacy as set forth by God's own testimony.
Most recently, I heard this standard rendering retold by one of my "spiritual fathers", Eugene Peterson. I waited through the entire reading in "The Jesus Way" for a back thrust of the famous two-edged sword, but I was mildly disappointed, and not unexpectedly. Even Rev. Peterson tells the story of Abraham's actions as if it delineated a singular sort of heroism.
We ought to be horrified and offended at this perspective. We should be terrified, as our children are. But we are not. We Anglos accept the platitudes offered us by preachers and professors, most of them aging white men who have been taught the same lines and perspectives for centuries. We think that it is better to believe than to question the print on a page.
How appalling and feeble!
If God were disturbed by our questions and our resistance, then how did Jacob survive? Yet Jacob, with all of his wrestling and manipulating, seems highly favored by God and the hosts of heaven.
I honestly believe that there is another way to read this horror story -- and from Isaac's perspective, it is a true and lasting horror. In searching the Old Testament, it is from this point on that THE NAME begins to be referenced uniquely as "the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac".
Aren't we meant to consider the impact of this action on the young man? Aren't we meant to understand that our "religious acts" have a direct effect on others, most especially those we love dearly? Why is it so difficult for we human cousins of Cain to recognize that God is on the side of life and peace, not of bloodshed and death?
Hearing that Cain was spared by God and believing that Christ was raised from the dead, we ought to get it. It ought to come to us much more obviously than it did to those, like Father Abraham, trapped by time in the primitive and bloody cultures of past millenia.
It's my belief and experience that whatever we fear most stands in the way of our full partnership and worship of the Most High. Over time, we are brought face to face with our deepest fears and we either overcome them by faith, by turning to God for deliverance OR we succumb to the darkness they cast on our lives.
Isn't it obvious that Abraham succumbed to darkness by raising the knife against his own son? We are taught to believe that the old man was acting out a faith in God's promise, and maybe he was. That's not actually the point in this exploration. Consider that we must be taught to believe such a thing. It doesn't reside within our spiritual being. It doesn't, apparently, reside in God either. It is simply and utterly abhorrent.
5 They have built pagan shrines to Baal, and there they burn their sons as sacrifices to Baal. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing!
5They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:
Considering that Abraham waited so long for Isaac to arrive AND considering that the culture surrounding him at the time was rampant with blood-letting practices including human sacrifice, I can well imagine that it plagued Abraham's mind to wonder what he would ever do if God demanded he sacrifice Isaac. Over time, I can easily imagine that the fear became bigger and more riveting than the actual grace of God, especially as Isaac grew older and neared the age of sacrifice.
The showdown was inevitable. The Familiar Voice takes on the suffocating fear and tasks the aging father with this horror. Abraham does well in this test right up through his words to the son, testifying that God will provide the sheep for the offering.
At the point when he begins to bind his son, he has succumbed to the darkness of his fear. He could have pleaded for Isaac as he had previously pleaded for the life of his nephew, Lot. God had been gracious to him concerning Lot. He had every reason to believe that God would spare Isaac, too.
But Abraham didn't plead or cry or fast or pray on behalf of Isaac. Why is that? Could it be that the religious practices of his culture had conditioned him to falsely expect this of his God? Had he failed to realize that the God who walked with him was not the same as the Ba'al that his neighbors worshipped? Don't we all pass through moments where we face the same fear-filled darkness?
We miss the point when we accept the tale that it was noble of Abraham to acquiesce to the despicable. We cover the life of faith with a shroud of impenetrable mortal gloom.
The point that we miss is this: even when our faith is feeble and polluted with false expectations, God is mightily willing and able to step into our conditions and provide deliverance. Count on it. Look for it. Open up to it. It is most often not we humans who are heroic, it is the Lord.
This is our God. We have waited for S/Him and S/He has come... not demanding sacrifice and martyrdom, but supporting life and peace -- all ways...
Genesis 1 - 4 >> an assignment for participants in Spiritual Explorations Live with Ron Martoia >> read all 4 chapters daily over the coming week with a goal of discovering fresh insight there.
Simple list of where I am at the outset:
The Genesis account(s) provide a basic topography of God at work in the cosmos with a special emphasis on God's attention to and plan for human development >> God is the creative force responsible for all that comprises our environment and experience, regardless of how or how long that actually takes >> God is the designer and animator of humankind, both male and female >> the imago dei resplendent in humanity is incomplete in either gender; it takes both genders, and indeed the totality of the redeemed human population, to draw a reliable portrait of the Divine, although redemption is not the topic of the earliest accounts >> God is personal, intimately involved with individuals, both men and women >> the typical human experience of the divine begins with the personal encounter, encompasses the primary relationships and bears influence on the various social and corporate interactions that humans experience
Cause & Effect >> Creator takes responsibility for creation and involves humankind holistically in caring for creation; actions have consequences; work apparently came first, even before human relationship and definitely before the fall; work is NOT a consequence of sin
The evil that confronts humankind is limited in scope and is mastered by Creator
The term "serpent" serves as a plot device to describe the action of evil against the best {divine} interests of humanity >> hyperbole about talking animals and mythic constructs is no more helpful to fostering healthy discussion and spiritual understanding than dogmatic insistence on 6x24hr earth days of creation
As far as I am aware, there is nothing in any traceable record that specifically and categorically precludes the possibility of a dual storyline in human development; that is to say that it is entirely possible that Omnipotence chose to specially create a specific couple with which to advance the species' development, even as primitive proto-human types evolved by natural processes
The way the story is constructed leads me to conclude that it was/is important that the human genome remain fully human. The story never hints that Adam was allowed or commanded to experiment with non-human partners before the human female was presented. In fact, Adam was grieved until his human partner was revealed. This storyline is important to countermand the base tendency of high-drive cultures where cross-species experimentation is practiced, whether for sexual gratification or gene-enhancement
I don't take the Genesis accounts as strictly mandating heterosexual human relations. It is clear that both masculine and feminine are inherent in the nature of God, our image-bearing, and so, to complete that original design in the ideal conditions of that time and place, the male was presented with a female. In our fallen world, however, where humankind has been so ravaged by the effects of sin, our capacity for trust and love is warped and often mortally so. The basis for relationship should be defined by the purity of the love and the quality of the commitment, not the gender or race or religion of the parties involved.
