Friday 6 April 2018

Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant. – Hebrews 7:22


Today’s Scripture Reading (April 6, 2018): Hebrews 7

Rex Tillerson in his exiting remarks from the State Department on March 22, 2018, made this comment. “This can be a very mean-spirited town (Washington, D.C.). But you don’t have to choose to participate in that (mean spirit). Each of us gets to choose the person we want to be, the way we want to be treated, and the way we want to treat others.” You can choose the type of person that you decide to be. I was recently reminded that not all people feel that way. There is an increasing number of people that reject this idea of free will. For this group of people, we are nothing more than the sum of both our genetic make-up and the environmental forces that have acted on us throughout our lives. Free will is a myth. You will never be truly free to act independently. Washington D.C. is mean-spirited because it attracts people with a drive to get ahead at any cost. Those who are not bent in that way usually choose to not work in Washington, D.C.

I disagree with the critics of free will. I believe that we all make a myriad of choices every day, ranging from the mundane to the extremely important. And I am not sure that at the time we recognize the importance of our decision. I hope that we can make the choice that Tillerson invites us to make, both in and out of Washington. I never want my behavior to be mean-spirited or to cause others pain. I do believe that we both need each other and that we are commanded to love each other, even when loving each other is inconvenient.

I do not believe that either of these conditions is a grand change from the guidelines of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). We were always supposed to exist in community and love each other. The reality is that it is a lot easier to love each other without community because love is always easier without having to put up with annoying people ( I love you, now just get out of my house), but that option has never been up to us. The problem in the Tanakh is that we were never able to live up to that standard. I story of Jonah illustrates this principle. Even though God evidently loved all people, Jonah didn’t. And Jonah did not want to take part in any plan of redemption for the Ninevites. In the Hebrew covenant, Moses stood as the mediator between God and man, but no one could help us with our behavior; no one that could remind us that we truly have a choice to be the kind of people that we are called to be.

Enter Jesus as our high priest. Jesus is not just our mediator, although he does fulfill that role. As a priest, he gets to walk with us and remind us of our commitments. The presence of his Spirit inside the church guarantees that the new covenant will be more effective than the old. Jesus, who is both priest and sacrifice, has dealt decisively with our sin. And now, in the absence of guilt, we get to make our choices. We can, if we want, live the same life that we have always lived. And if we do, the voice of our priest will slowly disappear from our lives because of the choices that we have made. But if we choose to walk with our priest, to listen to his softly spoken words directed into our lives, I believe that we can make this world a better place, with more peace and more love. And I believe that Rex Tillerson is right. The choice of how we respond to this world, whether we move to make it better or worse, mean-spirited or not, is really up to us. And the guarantee is that Jesus has promised to walk with us to make this world better if we will let him.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hebrews 8

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