Okay... what now?

Num 13:31-33 But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can’t go up against the people because they are stronger than we are!” So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.”

                I’m staring at giants, and I’m not so sure this is the way to go.  When the scouts returned to camp they reported that the land was good, but it was inhabited by giants.  The cities were fortified and there was no way they could prevail.  God had obviously led them to the land of Canaan to be slaughtered by its inhabitants.  I’m feeling a bit like a grasshopper myself.

                Have you ever been faced with a problem that seemed insurmountable?  If you’ve ever tried to do anything difficult then your answer would most certainly be “yes”.  Perhaps it was a math test, or trying out for a sports team, maybe even finding the courage to ask out that certain someone.  When faced with the impossible (maybe improbable is a better word) we convince ourselves that it is just that, impossible, and we need not attempt it in the first place.  In some cases we find the courage, or abandon enough sense, to try and hit a wall a few steps in.  We bounce back, stunned and staggering, arms flailing blindly to grasp something solid, something familiar, stable.  Some of us charge on ahead, climbing the wall.  Others scout it out, take inventory, access their options, and still others try to find a way around it, no matter how far out of the way it takes them.  Then there are those who simply sit there waiting for the wall to move, be moved, or crumble.  Some pound their head against the wall trying to knock it down.  And still others give up and try to find a new destination.  Then or course there is me.  I usually do all of the above and more often than I would like to admit I end up ultimately walking away and trying something else.  The question is always how long do I wait until I give up?  How long will I pound my head against the wall?  Will I really exhaust all options, knock on every door?  How far am I willing to go out of the way before I realize there isn’t another way?  When will I have to accept that the wall is there for my own good?

                To be honest, I’ve been knocked down a few too many times lately that I don’t have the energy to climb, go around, or even bang my head.  I feel like just staying down.  I don’t want to look for another direction.  I’m done knocking on doors.  This time I’m surrounded by giants and the cities are too well defended.  I think I’ll just sit here and wait for a miracle.

What is up with the Law?

   A few weeks after I started my job my boss came up to me and thanked me for being so efficient. She appreciated my organizational skills (No, seriously!  You guys that know me are probably ROTFL, but at work I'm actually organized.) taking initiative, but most of all seeing what needed to be done and just doing it.  Of course, I took it all with a grain of salt.  She had been running the clinic all by her self with a little help from different family members.  I was the first real full time employee she hired, so having someone else to do the daily office tasks was a huge weight off her shoulders.  I figured she would say that about anyone at that point.  Only later did I look back on past jobs and past experiences and see that, well, maybe I was doing a good job. 

   We've all been there... that co-worker who never seems to do anything unless they are told.  The guy that doesn't recognize the obvious until you point it out. 

"Those cups over there are dirty, maybe you could put them in the sink?"

"Oh. right.  Sorry man."

Part of being a good employee is seeing what's wrong or out of place and fixing it.  It's knowing what needs to be done and not having to be told.  We see the problem, we seek a solution.  It's part of being a good person.  It's seeing the elderly woman staring at her flat tire and stopping to put the spare on for her.  It's helping push that stalled car off the road and out of harms way.  It's giving your time and resources to help those in need.  For some of us it comes naturally, and to others it takes a lot of effort.  Maybe that's why God took the time to spell it out for the people of Israel.

   We just finished Leviticus in our Bible in a Year plan.  Anyone who has read that book knows it is filled with all kinds of weird laws that make no sense.  Boiling goats, mixing fibers in a garment, stoning your children... Things that honestly do not make sense in our day and age.  While they were applicable to the Israelites in that time, they don't apply to us, right?  Jesus came to do away with the Law, so it doesn't matter, we can just ignore those parts of the Bible because they are outdated... wellllll, not so fast.  A lot of the Laws found in the Hebrew bible are there to govern the interactions of not only the people with God, but the people with each other.  Jesus even tells us that the heart of the Law is love.  Love for God, and love for our fellow man.  We are free from the burden of having to fulfill the law in order to find salvation, but we are not free from our obligations to love God and others.  When we look at the Law we find laws about how owners are to treat slaves.  Laws about righting wrongs between neighbors.  There are even laws about taking care of the less fortunate.  For me, the question isn't why should we pay attention to these old statutes, but why aren't we?  Another question is, why do we even need laws about how to treat others?  The answer is quite honestly uncomfortable.  We are inherently selfish.  We want to keep what's ours.  And why not?  We earned it, we worked hard for it.  Why should I care about the poor and homeless?  If I started giving stuff away I might end up like them.  The government is trying to take my money away so that they can fund some program I never agreed to that pays these people to be lazy!  Not me, no thank you.  If we believe that Scripture is truly alive, the very Word of God for His people, then we have to accept that what we have isn't ours.  We only have what we have because of God's blessings, so that we might be a blessing to others. 

   Some of us, I mean us because I count myself among those I'm talking to, give to charities or to our churches and think that is enough.  I did until just recently.  I figured if I give money so that these organizations can help others I'm doing my part.  Then I realized, what I'm really doing is paying someone else to do the work for me.  To show love on my behalf.  I taking the easy way out of loving my neighbor.  I'm buying peace of mind that allows me to say I did what Jesus asked me to.  I see the need, I recognize the problem, then outsource the solution.  James tells us that true religion is taking care of the poor, widows, orphans.  I'm pretty sure he didn't mean paying others to do it for us.  Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with giving to charitable organizations.  I certainly don't have a problem with giving to religious institutions either.  Many of these groups do great work and help a lot of people, but if the depth of your compassion for your fellow man stops at dropping a few extra bucks in a plate, or putting a check in the mail a couple of times a year... I think you need to re-evaluate some things.  Yes, it is easier to just let someone else do it for us, but following Jesus is not meant to be easy.  We are called to be the workers in the Kingdom.  I hope that someday our Boss will tell us we did a great job.

"I hate customers more than anything..."

Realtionships… half of you just cringed after reading the word.  Memories, images of past relationships flashed before your eyes and you can’t believe you ever knew that person.  For the other half that same word does not bring to mind past failures but present triumphs.  The word relationship fills you with warmth that suddenly overflows bursting forth in a huge smile.  If you are reading this around other people they may ask you why you are grinning like an idiot.  Our view of relationships is shaped by the ones we have and the ones we have lost.  Some people leave our lives new and improved, better for having known them.  Others leave us battered and torn; a wake of destruction marking where they have been.  Scarred, we run from the next relationship that comes our way, only to be ensnared by the promise of something new, something better than the last time.  Try as we might, relationships are unavoidable.  You see, we are wired for them.  We are made that way.  We seek relationships because we don’t feel “right” without them.
 
Most of us have heard this before.  We are created for relationships because we were created by a God who Himself craves relationship; the same God who is inherently relational in His very essence.  The mystery of the Trinity is far too complex to even scratch the surface of in this blog, so let us just accept that God exists in eternal relationship with Himself.  Having accepted that (you accepted that right? Good, keep reading) we might ask, what does this mean for us?  Having been created in His image, we bear many of the traits that we have come to associate with God.  Many of us naturally have a sense of fairness, or justice.  We recognize right or wrong and even feel a sense of responsibility to protect the rights of others.  We are capable of incredible acts of selflessness and love.  Some (more than others) have an artistic side, a creative side that seeks to make the world we live in a more beautiful place.  All of us long to be connected to others.  For many of us that longing manifests itself in healthy ways.  We play organized sports, join various interest groups, churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, the gym.  All so that we can see and interact with other people.  As you read this you have already engaged in one of the many ways we seek to connect with others, social media.  I posted a link on Facebook, you clicked the link and here we are, in relationship.  All of these forms of relating have various levels of intimacy attached to them.  Eating in public, working out at gym, going to the mall; all of these are at best surface level relationships or interactions.  Playing a team sport, joining a social club, “friending” someone on Facebook, these have the potential to go beyond the surface.  The people we work, have a class, or go to church with tend to share a deeper level of connection with us, but often times we are guarded with even these relationships.  Ideally it is our families and loved ones that we have formed the most secure, intimate bonds with, but sadly that isn’t always true either.  But, why?  Why do some of us seek destructive relationships?

In my very first Systematic Theology class we read "Created for Community" by Stanley Grenz.  The book can be pretty much summed in in one word, "community".  Everything relates to community.  It became a running joke during the course of the semester.  If you didn't know the answer just write "community".  It wasn't until grad school that I began to realize that Grenz really wasn't that far off in his book.  The Christian faith, living a Godly life, all comes down to community and relationships.  The Bible is the story of how God relates to humanity.  Theology basically boils down to how we interpret our relationship with God and vice versa.  It's our way of trying to figure out what we are meant to do in life, what we are meant for, purposed, destined.  Theology defines us and dictates how we respond to certain situations in life.  The Bible is our source for the Theology we develop amd the worldview that stems from our Theology.  Our Bible in a Year plan has us smack dab in the middle of Leviticus... yaaaayyyy... Leviticus.  On the surface Leviticus appears to be nothing more than a lot, A LOT, of boring rules and regulations meant to limit the people of God.  However, if we change our perspective we can begin to see them as laws of love.  Laws designed to protect the Israelites from themselves and preserve their standing, their relationship, with God.  God wants to remain in relationship with His people, with us.  Sin separates us from Him and in the case of Israel sin meant death.  God wasn't trying to "spoil the party", God was trying to save His people from doing what He already knew they would do.  These same laws also apply to our relationships with other human beings.  Just as with God, we can choose to do the right thing in our daily interactions with others, or we can choose to be the lesser version of ourselves.  The barista having a tough day... do we get snarky and pull an attitude? or do we try to see things from their point of view?  The postal worker who has had rude customer after rude customer (hey it's Christmas...) can we turn their day around with a smile and a kind word? or remind them how terrible the service is and that we had to wait 30 minutes in line?  Our actions can build healthy relationships or tear them down.  

Which will you choose today?  Will you choose to dwell on past failures or negative interactions, or will you rise above them and be a light to others?  Have feelings of guilt convinced you that you aren't worthy of positive relationships?  Maybe, just maybe, today you will remember that the God of the universe loves you.  Became just like you to show you how to live, how to have relationships and exist in community with others.  The God who died to take away the sin that seperates us from Him and give us an opportunity to have the most amazing relationship we could even imagine. Hopefully, you will choose to show love to the angry driver behind you, the rude server at lunch, the stubborn co-worker, your friends and your family no matter how frustrated they make you.