Tabernacle Plans

Ex 24:13-25:11

The freedom to relate effectively with another is based on the I – Thou. It is an understanding of who I am and who you might be.   A willingness to revere you and to open myself to your worldview – to the extent that a worldview can be shared.

God has done this progressively over time.  For Abraham, God was a mysterious visitor who made covenant and shared plans – who ate the gift of a meal. For Jacob, He was encountered in the night, in a dream, in a contest. For Moses, he was a bush burning, yet not consuming.

To the children of Israel; God reveals Himself, a consuming fire overwhelming the mountain, a God who reigns in majesty with all the pomp the Hebrews are able to muster.

The opulence of God is revealed in His creation; a billion, billion stars and planets beyond imagination – Yet a person who knows even me.

Good morning Jesus.

Moses on the Mountain

Ex 24:1-12

When a miracle happens – when men become aware that a miracle has happened, what do they typically do? How do they respond? How should they respond?

God revealed Himself to Moses, Aaron, and the leaders of Israel.

They saw Him, and they ate and drank together. They shared a meal.

Miraculous.

What should happen next?

What will you do with the miracle you receive today?

Other gods

Ex 23:21-33

Here’s the thing about other gods…they are made by men – created by men. Made by men as a way of manipulating circumstances in the favor of the people who “serve” them. Men make gods in an effort to influence the world to their desires.

But the thing is; God is really God. He is Creator. In Him we live and move and have our being. God created with purpose. He created the universe, the earth, the man, the men, the community. He has a plan.

You say you want freedom.

A sailboat on the water: The sail doesn’t direct the wind. That’s not the power of a sail. It finds harmony or it gets ripped to shreds.

He isn’t jealous like you or I – He’s just telling you the way it works.

Rest. Feast.

Ex 23:10-20

Rest your body from work. Rest the land from production. Feast with Me.

Resting and feasting are counterintuitive. As an American especially, the idea is to work as hard has you can so that you garner enough wealth to never have to work again.

But whether we are being driven in desperation by the demands of subsistence or by an over focus on accumulated wealth, or even by the puerile belief that work is everything, the challenge of the law is to rest and to feast.

Not all the time – this isn’t hedonism.

But we need rest. The land needs rest. We need to celebrate in community with God, our Creator.

Life isn’t a perpetual inhale.

Breath out.

Holy Men

Ex 22:28-23:9

“You shall be holy men (and women) to Me”.

Holy – set aside for God’s purpose. It’s a little too easy. This thing is set aside for God’s purpose. That person is consecrated to God’s purpose.

Perhaps, for the most part, I’ve interpreted that to mean that I shouldn’t touch them. I should leave them alone so I don’t defile them. “Don’t go too near the altar or you might inadvertently defile it”, once said a man to his son.

Move slow. Keep your distance. Stay safe.

Or maybe holy means the developed capacity to see God’s hand in everything – to see everything as a miracle. Maybe it means that we are called to live our lives responding to the miracles that perpetually surround us. Maybe the Law of Moses is really the Law of Miracle Response.

What would that be like?

Poor and Weak

Ex 22:12-27

Justice in the community of God – Don’t take advantage of widows and orphans. Don’t take advantage of the poor. Don’t abuse the stranger in you midst.

I don’t believe anyone wakes up in the morning thinking, “I can’t wait to abuse some poor people or perhaps some widows and orphans.” It’s just that it happens without much thought. The weakest are abused in the slights and the little injustices from which they cannot or will not defend themselves.

It’s not enough that our conscience isn’t provoked.

The question is; what does God think of these circumstances?

Taking the time to see from God’s perspective makes things appear differently. Accordingly, when I do this, I begin to respond differently.

“Give me Your eyes for just one second…”

Law and Order

Ex 22:1-11

“For every breach of trust…the case of both parties shall come before the judge.”

“How good and pleasant it is, when brothers dwell together as one!” Psa 133:1

The law is for this; to achieve this good of living together in unity.

Broken trust is the existential threat to community; to all healthy relationship. The two cannot exist together.

There are two ways to ensure that trust remains: force everyone else to be trustworthy (this is impossible) or become a person that others can trust.

So, make the good by earning trust. Let your name be beyond reproach. Let your reputation be love.

Neighbor’s Keeper

Ex 21:28-35

Goring oxen and open pits; the idea seems to be that I am responsible to ensure that the things under my control do not hurt other people. Responsible and accountable.

Sins of commission and sins of omission. The things that I have done and the things that I have failed to do.

That was radical. It’s still radical. I wonder how far it goes. The idle words, the social deceptions, the little injury of not helping someone in need; I am responsible for the things under my control?

Jesus said, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak”

I am my neighbor’s keeper.

I am still a man in need of a savior.

Ex 21:14-27

Might does not make right.

Justice is essentially at odds with the idea that the strongest may relate to others as they wish.

As moderns we cringe at the crudeness and brutality of the law. But these primary claims of justice had a radical role to play in the formation of community. This is the beginning of the rule of laws that reflect immutable reality concerning the way one person, or one community, may rightly respond to another.

The other matters. This is a claim that transcends every human power. It begins here.

It ends with “love your neighbor as yourself”.

Laws and Culture

Ex 21:1-13

The ancients lived in a world of harsh experience. Though I don’t, much of the world today lives similarly exposed to systematic lawlessness   and self-executed justice.

God’s project in the exodus is to prepare a nation of people devoted to God and a different way of living.

But the children of Israel are already a people. They have grown up under the law of the Egyptians and the rule of Pharaoh. They are aware of how the world works – what is normal.

Imagine the challenge of integrating children who have been raised in lawlessness, war-torn countries into stable, just communities. The challenge of re-learning everything you know by most bitter experience to be true.  How does one assimilate into peace and just governance when all that has been known is cruelty and self-survival?

The freedom to be just – to be equitable, comes from recognizing value. Seeing the other as such. Recognizing the possibility in the other and working towards the making real that which is possible in the life of the other.  Trust me, babies don’t come out thinking this way.

You were made for freedom and to be powerful in this world. Regardless of your material circumstances.

The law is more than a libertarian constraint on my disposition to be unjust – it is a structure through which I creatively realize my own potential.

“It is for freedom that Christ made you free”