Milk and Honey

Lev 20:19-27         9/11/2017

The promised land is a land flowing with milk and honey…a good land.

The promise of God: The Israelites will keep the land as long as they remain holy, set apart in the service of God.

God’s faithfulness is to the community.

The promise is collective and can only be achieved when the people work together for the common good.

We say, “Lord, may I sit at your right hand”.

Honor and power.

Jesus responds, “The greatest among you must be your servant.” Matt 23:11

Worthy of Death

Holy Aliens!

Lev 19:32-20:8         9/7/2017

It is God that makes you holy. Not the other way round

Zacchaeus went out to see Jesus. He didn’t think he wanted anything. He didn’t think Jesus had anything he needed. He was just curious. His curiosity put him in the way. Jesus met him.

We don’t control God. We can’t compel God to give us gifts, or to visit us, or even to make us holy. But we can put ourselves in His way.

“I am” says: You shall love the alien as yourself.

That’s curious. This is the old testament.

So go out. Allow a virtuous curiosity to rule you.

Love the alien as yourself. Even here. Even now. Make no distinction.

Maybe this will put you in God’s way. Maybe you’ll encounter Jesus. Maybe He will make you holy.

Five Years for Fruit

Lev 19:19-31         9/7/2017

My needs will be satisfied to the extent that I put God’s purposes ahead of my own.

“Plant a tree and wait for five years to harvest.”

Wait? – You plant a tree and wait five years?

A lot can happen in five years. This may not work out.

Our nature is to want both control and certainty. So God’s contingency is a frustration. He might, it seems, do anything. I may like that or not.

A lot can happen in five years.

In frustration I’ll seek a gypsy with some tea leaves and trust her with my darkest fears. The stupidity of this is hard to write on paper. It’s embarrassing. But still, I’m attached to my gypsy.

The freedom is to trust God – the person of God.

The person of God loves you and has provided for you.

So it seems; one great challenge in life is to give attention to Him – even when your favorite gypsy is talking.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” Matt 6:33

Love Your Neighbor

Lev 19:7-18         9/6/2017

Eat and be well – but you share with him no food. James asks, “What good is it?”

What’s the meaning of this – “love your neighbor”? The do’s and the don’ts put some flesh on it. And in truth, it’s harder to plead ignorance when things are clearly written down.

It’s all maturity. In my infancy the prescriptions were necessary. We all come out of the womb entirely focused on ourselves. My needs. My desires.

But the possibility that makes us authentically human is this other: Love.  Her needs.  Her desires.

To care for the other. To take the responsibility to care for the other. To lift them up. To bind up wounds. To visit in prison.

Empathy is a freedom; a skill developed. We don’t come out this way.

In my mind. In my thoughts. In my intuition – I experience it.

And once I have, I know what to do.

And this is the beginning of the greatest freedom.

Land, Sin, Defilement

Lev 18:24-19:6         9/5/2017

Our sins affect the earth.

At once the most obvious of ideas, and yet one of the most radical.

What I do affects the earth – affects the quality of the earth. I can sin against the earth.

I have sinned against the earth.

I thought it was just me. My secret sins.

The whole earth is defiled.

The enlightenment has taught us to want to know everything and to want to live forever. It sonds accusational, but it’s just what we humans do. It’s what we can do.

But my sins affect the earth. And the earth won’t forever accept the nonsense. Like every nursing mother knows – this can’t go on forever.

It’s time to grow.

It’s time for me to grow up.

Relationship Rules

Lev 18:10-23         9/4/2017

All these details about what I can and cannot do in relationship to other people.

It’s interesting that I need to be told. It’s interesting that my conscience doesn’t inform me without itself being first formed.

I tend to think it’s all about me. I feel the constraints on my liberty. I can’t do whatever I might do – whatever I desire to do.

It’s about the other. It’s about the community.

The call of Christ is the call to temper ambition in exchange for the commonweal.

Customs of the Land

Lev 17:11-18:9         9/1/2017

The best life is achieved through obedience to God’s decrees.

God loves you and wants you to be happy and successful. He takes no joy in your sorrow or your pain.

The challenge is that we have our own ideas and strategies concerning what will make us happy. Too often, these don’t lead to real happiness.

It’s a staccato droning: find something to satisfy, find something to satisfy, find something to satisfy. The veneer of temptations is itself driven by a deeper hope for satisfaction.

Augustine – a man who cultivated appetites of his own – said, “My soul is restless until it rests in You”.

A narrow path. But you can find it.

Place of Sacrifice

Lev 16:34-17:10         8/31/2017

No matter where the Israelites lived, they were only to sacrifice at the tabernacle.

Blood sacrifice is a communal act. It is mediated by priests. It is thus, unmistakable.

It is singular.

My motives are never pure. No matter how much I look to Jesus, I still find myself squinting to see my own reflection in the pupils of His eyes.

The Israelites would struggle with this for a thousand years – and even when they thought they finally had it figured out – they remained proud and rebellious.

There is the authentic and the expeditious. God has shown us.

So remember in the bustle of today: Your spiritual journey is less about efficiency and more about authentic reception of what has been given.

The Fast

Lev 16:23-33         8/30/2017

No working. No eating.

In humility and reverent reflection comes the Day of Atonement.

We quiet ourselves in order to allow ourselves a moment to relate to God in confidence and purity.

The possibility of this moment isn’t merely that we are forgiven of the sins we have committed, but that we become aware of the sins we might commit and want them no more.

The possibility of this moment is that we could live ever present in atonement and rest.