Legos and Leviticus

Well, to be honest, this post does not have much to do with Leviticus, but laws from God in general, and I just liked the alliteration, so I stand by my title.

Going through Matthew in our church, I am struck (probably purposefully by the author) by the competing philosophies of the Pharisees and Jesus. (sarcastically: "NNNOOOOOOOOO, REEEEAAAALLLY?!?!!?!).

This difference is especially noticeable vis a vis Sabbath laws. In historical Judaism (specifically after the exile) there were three main pillars of religious practice that were strictly emphasized in order to maintain distinction between the people of God and the "goyim": the Gentiles. These were Sabbath, diet, and circumcision (all found in Leviticus, and the title is referenced!).

Thus, when Jesus engages the establishment on Sabbath laws, he is treading some mighty rough water (or possibly walking on it, I guess?). But he makes a very striking point in one such meeting: he states that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man.

To me, this line of reasoning sums up all of God's laws, Leviticus and otherwise, in that they are a gift to man for his benefit and not as a punishment. In this way, God's laws are like a parent giving his child a nice lego set.

What was that???

Yup, laws are like legos, though admittedly not as fun. The Pharisees wanted to ensure that the laws were kept to prove how much better they were than everyone else around them. In this way, they built their lego models, and displayed them proudly, yet they put them in fancy acrylic display cases fenced off with velvet ropes and made sure nobody touched them.

All the while, God's intention was for us to play with them, and also to invite others to share the fun with us. Now, to be sure, laws, like legos, are fragile and prone to breaking. But there is a difference between iconoclastic bashing and smashing of God's good gifts and breakage that happens in the course of normal play.

Naturally, God would not want people to smash his gifts to us, but neither would he want us to devote all our energies into keeping something so pristine and untouched that it is completely unenjoyable. Instead, we are called to enjoy God's gifts, to exercise good stewardship of them, and to invite others to enjoy them with us. We are not to use them to abuse and exclude people, and then to judge them for playing with inferior toys.

So what do you think? Is this a good analogy or not? Where does it break down? What scriptures support or deny this analogy? Am I being lazy in forcing readers to do my research for me?

And finally, does Mizzou have a chance in the NCAA Championship coming up?

The "Ever Fixed Mark"

I'm sure that the more refined readers will recognize the title as being stolen from Shakespeare (Sonnet CXVI to be precise).

So what does an old love poem have to do with western culture's movement from modernism to postmoderism, Christian existentialism, and my life so far? Good question!

"Modernism" can be grossly oversimplified as the search for foundations, and even THE foundation. Modernism as we know it was launched with the Cartesian formula "I think, therefore I am." Existence was founded on being rational. The human mind was the pinnacle of creation, and it was thought that no mystery or problem was beyond a solution based on the scientific method.

Eventually, humans figured out that most of what "I think" is based on "my" experience, and "my" culture, and "my" worldview. This discovery led to the mission to deconstruct all previously held general assumptions of facts (and even "proven" facts) by exposing the foundations upon which they were held as mere aspects of "truth," only "relative" to each person's experience. (my right pinky is getting tired of all these quote marks...)

The search for foundations, the "ever fixed mark[s]" upon which everything would stand, has led to the attempted destruction of every thought, theory, and practice. The result is a feeling of "lostness." Philosophers have variously called this feeling despair, angst, homelessness, and sundry other synonyms. It is evident in all our culture, the constant motion of life to avoid these feelings, the acknowledged emptiness of the entertainment, on which we spend countless hours and dollars, the lyrics of many bands (esp. alternative) like Coldplay, U2, and many other less famous performers.

The deeper we dig, and the harder we try, the more questions we find, and the more variables and aspects appear. Science is still trying desperately to put together the grand unified theory of everything, and there is still little consensus on how life begins in naturalistic ways other than "it just does." Wars still rage on, even despite our human "evolution" beyond these things.

So now to bring this around again to the title: humanity is more in need now than ever of an "ever fixed mark."

Is it any wonder that the Old Testament, which is filled with imagery of humanity as transient (filling the earth, scattering after Babel, sojourning in Egypt, wandering in the desert, being exiled from the promised land, etc.) has such "outmoded" titles for God in the Psalms such as Rock, Refuge, Fortress, Tower, Established, Forever...

---

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,

My God, my mountain where I seek refuge,

My shield and the horn of my salvation,

My stronghold.

---

Long ago You established the earth,

And the heavens are the work of Your hands.

They will perish, but You will endure;

All of them will wear out like clothing.

You will change them like a garment,

And they will pass away.

But You are the same, and Your years will never end.

---

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

---

"Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds . . .

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken"

The Most Dangerous Question

I am a guy who loves questions. I love to question everything and every process and every rule I encounter to see just how much scrutiny it holds up to. I especially love it when people ask me questions. I love being the answer man. Questions, questions, questions. It's how I learn and grow.

I wonder now if God is the same as me in this regard. I know when Jesus was on earth He was the master at answering questions with really insightful questions in reply. So in that sense, it was never really a good idea to ask Jesus a question because, more often than not, you left with a metaphorical limp.

I have been asking God a lot of questions over the past year. Why didn't this happen? Why am I still in a city full of sucky sports teams? Why does everyone else prosper by God's grace? Why is God so intent on holding me back? Why did I succeed so overwhelmingly and easily in seminary only to sit the bench in real life? Why have none of my crazy schemes worked? Why, why, why, why, why?

Yet it occurs to me that the question most important to me is the most profoundly unanswered question in the Bible. Honestly, I really appreciate more and more the parts of the Bible where God does absolutely no talking, and people are forced to cling to the rumors and almost-forgotten promises of generations past. Books like Esther, Ecclesiastes, Judges, Nehemiah, the really long middle of Job, the end of Genesis, and even the New Testament epistles bear testimony to the sometimes excruciating ordeal of having only the benefit of hindsight in seeing the fingerprints of God's workings behind the scenes.

And that's the only way to answer the hard and painful why questions. I think, like Job, if God even got close to telling us why then our brains would explode and our faces would melt. OK, so not EXACTLY like Job....

Why? Because He is God and He gets to decide what happens and when it happens. It's a perk of being God. That may sound trite and easy at first, but it is assuredly not, because God is also good and loving and faithful and longsuffering and present with us always. These traits are hard to fuse together because, at least in my mind, the good and loving thing to do would be to tell me all the stuff that will happen.

But I guess for me, "such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain..."

But seriously, why am I the way that I am? Anyone?

Riding the Karma Train

I have been renting episodes of "My Name Is Earl" from Blockbuster Online, and I have absolutely fallen in love with the show. I know, it's no "Office," but they are two completely different types of comedy.

Anyhow, the show's premise is all about Karma--do bad things, and bad things happen, and vice versa. The main character is trying to make up for all of the bad things he's done by helping and repaying the people he's wronged over the years.

It sounds great....at first. Honestly, I find myself wishing that life worked exactly like this. There are several problems, though. First, I find it interesting that in the show, every time Earl finds a way to cross something off his list of wrongs, he almost always wrongs someone in the process, thus, adding to his list. Basically, the list will never come to an end. Hmmm. So then, what happens when someone finishes life with an unfinished list of bad karma????

To be brief, the Bible teaches that there is a connection with sin and righteousness and consequences, but not an absolute connection, because A) no one is completely righteous and B) no one is completely sinful. Generally, everyone pays the consequences for their behaviors at some point of life.

Karma has yet to find a way to explain death and why good things happen to bad people, and the other way around. Why do all humans want to strive and think of themselves as "good" in some form, but everyone understands that they are not perfect. Something is wrong....we know that right exists....what's going on here?

Christianity can say that God's grace coexists with mankind's fallenness, and their interactions are sometimes mysterious to us. Why does God heal, feed, and bless people who will never acknowledge these things as coming from Him? Why do Christians experience pain and suffering?

Karma?

It's just not that easy....

Too Many Resurrections

I was reading a book on Ancient mythology the other day, and I noticed something: there are a lot of ancient myths from the Near/Middle East that involve the death and resurrection of a god, usually celebrated in early spring (sound familiar?).

I have heard of some of these before, such as Baal, Adonis, Osiris, Mithras, Hercules, but I found that the list goes on and on (Wikipedia listed about 30!). It would appear on first glance that Jesus is just one in a long line of myths with a recycled story line and a different nationality.

But wait...not quite...

Interestingly, all the ancient myths before Jesus, involve a PAIR of deities, usually a consort. Baal is rescued by Asherah, Osiris by Isis, Persephone has several rescuers and lovers, and every myth is riddled with countless variations of characters, actions, and timeframes. But, generally speaking, a deity dies, the lover mourns/prays/searches, and the dead deity is reborn.

Jesus doesn't fit this pattern, not surprisingly, because of the lack of consort deities in a monotheistic system. I find it fascinating that Mary Magdelene becomes the consort/rescuer, in a sense, of later Jesus myth traditions put forth by Gnostics and other groups who stole Jesus to make up their own stories. Looks like those guys are the ones who are guilty of several counts of plagiarism...

My point in all this meandering is that despite what comparative religion professors may claim, Jesus is not just one of many dying and rising gods. His story doesn't fit any of the details of the other stories, except for coming back from the dead. Some may claim a parallel with Hercules's three day trip to Hades, but guess what, Jesus never went to Hell...it ain't in the Bible!

Hope this helps somebody.

The Checklist of Sin...

What's on your "Sins Checklist"?

I know it seems like an odd question, but the thing is, most of the behaviors we know as "sin" are not even covered in the Bible. And some that are, are not the things we make them. I'll give you some examples:

1) Saying cuss words
2) Smoking/dipping tobacco
3) Drinking Alcohol (as in not to drunkenness and debauchery and belligerency)
4) Listening to loud rock/rap music

The problem with evaluating people by these (or whatever) criteria is that oftentimes we often treat people much differently based on whatever category we put them in: Sinner/Saint/Whatever. Hidden in these categories are often feelings of superiority or even disdain, or maybe that's just me.

Anyway, I don't really know you, so I don't know if this applies to you at all. But I was just thinking that God maybe doesn't care so much about the things that top our sin list. I wonder what God's list looks like, and which boxes I can check off. Probably none, really if God gets to define them. He has a way of perfection that I hate comparing myself with because I end up looking like a pretty big dirtbag compared to Jesus.

I wonder what it was like to be around a perfect guy. What would it be like to get a compliment from a perfect human, like about big faith, or whatever.

Have you ever noticed Jesus' categories of sinful people? "Hypocrits and Little-Faith-ers." The first century Jews had "tax collectors and prostitutes." The Roman aristocracy had "barbarians and slaves." My personal top two were/are "fornicators and idiots." In the past in America there were "hippies and communists." So what are your categories of sinners? I bet whatever they are, they conveniently leave you out.

I think I tend to be more of a "ye of little faith" than anything else.

Value

I was just reading "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller (again!) and there was something in there about letting things or people "name" you. That is, making your entire worth come from one person or something.

It became clear to me that I have let my vision of the future "name" me. I had decided that I would have no value to anyone unless I planted a successful church in Northern Virginia. That's really what these last few weeks have been about: my feelings of complete worthlessness because this did not happen. Somehow, in the midst of all this I forgot that God values me more than I can value anything: more than my wife, family, job, hobbies, or even my guitars!

The thing that has been the most meaningful about these past few days/weeks is so many friends just coming out of the woodwork and bending over backwards to make time for me, to listen to my frustrations, and show me that they are for me even when circumstances are not.

I've regained some optimism about the future. I'm looking for houses out here, and the prospect of having a real house for the first time with my wife is exciting. We'll see. If you read this, keep praying for me. And read "Blue Like Jazz"!

Messianic Postmodernity

This post may go over some people's heads, but I'm OK with that.

I'm really excited to be graduated so that now I can finally read all the books I've been wanting to read but couldn't because of the demands of school. I'm reading more about the "emergent" wing of the emerging church, frequently classified as those who reside in emergentvillage.com.

One of their unifying traits (if any!) is the idea of what has been termed a "trajectory hermeneutic." Simply put, that is the idea that there seems to be a shift between old and new testaments, and the church continues the shift as our context changes. Some might call it evolutionary Christianity, some might call it stupid.

Some are claiming that we are in a new stage in God's redemption story, which included past things like creation, the exodus, the exile, Jesus' resurrection, (perhaps) the protestant reformation, and now postmodernism (or postmodernity?).

Here's the key question: is the Bible sufficient after 2,000 to 3,000 years of saying the same thing? Are the people that propound this view really under the direction of the Holy Spirit?

I'll make this brief: Yes with a but, and no with an if.
Yes, scripture is sufficient, otherwise we'd either get more of it or we wouldn't even need it.
While I believe that many of these people are Christian, (probably?) I think that some of their teachings are going to have serious consequences down the line.

I Woulda Gotten Away with It, Too...

Let me just say, I'm the kind of person that doesn't get away with anything. While I haven't seen the earth swallow anyone, or fiery hailstones, or poisonous snakes, I can still see a direct correlation between certain willful sins that I do and external events.

Don't get me wrong, I still like God. I don't see Him as some kind of "Soup-Nazi-esque" prison warden, waiting to smack me down whenever I mess up. There's another side to it. That is, when I deliberately disobey something basic to Christianity, God has to hold me accountable for my actions. What's weird is, my punishments can never make up for my mistakes and rebellions. Sometimes I wish God worked like a Catholic priest, where I could just do my penance and never worry about anymore consequences. But that's not how it works.

The thing is, even in discipline there is grace. Thus far, my punishments have never fit the crime. Even more, I still have too many blessings to count!

God's punishments should throw us back into repentance and dependence and trust in Jesus. Jesus makes us right with God, and keeps us right with God. The grace of God frees me to serve Him and others with clean hands and a pure heart.

So praise God when He holds you accountable, because, after all, it means that He still "holds you."