… for you are a people holy to the LORD your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the LORD has chosen you to be his treasured possession. – Deuteronomy 14:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 7, 2018): Deuteronomy 14

Alexander the Great asked, “How should a man be capable of grooming his own horse, or of furbishing his own spear and helmet, if he allows himself to become unaccustomed to tending even his own person, which is his most treasured belonging?” It is an interesting question. How can we expect to treasure the important things in life, if we refuse to treasure ourselves and to recognize this incredible gift called life that God has placed inside of us? How can I love others in my circle of influence if I forget how to love myself? Self-care is important because it facilitates everything that I will ever do.

And so, as I sit through the lecture at the beginning of any commercial flight, I am reminded that if there is a sudden loss of air pressure in the cabin, I should place the artificial air supply on my own face first, before I go about the task of helping anyone else in my vicinity that might require assistance. If I don’t, I won’t be able to be of assistance to anyone and instead will become one of the ones in need of help.

Of course, all of this depends on whether I view myself as being worthy of care. I meet too many people who do not seem to have that understanding of themselves. In the brashness of their outward statements, they might declare that they are worthy. But much deeper down runs a river of insecurity, and deep seeded questions about their worthiness, often delivered by our cultural understandings.

As Israel prepares for their move into Canaan, Moses wants to stress that they are worthy as a people. The nations that they meet may not value them, but God treasures them. He has chosen them to be the ones who would carry his message to the world. And he would shape the world through them. He could have done this through some other group of people, but he thought enough of them to choose them as his emissaries to the world.

But because they were chosen, they were also destined to be holy. Holy simply means different or set apart for a specific purpose. They were to conduct themselves differently from the other nations so that they could be a light shining in the darkness.

As Christians, we too share in the responsibility of being the chosen of God. We are set apart so that we can be a light in the darkness. But we will never be able to do what God has called us to do unless we understand that God treasures us, and begin to treasure ourselves.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 15

Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. – Deuteronomy 13:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 6, 2018): Deuteronomy 13

Mahatma Gandhi argued for a universality of religious experience. And he was one of the first to use the analogy of a river. “One may drink out of the same great river with others, but one need not use the same cup.” Later he would assert that “the soul of religion is one, but it is encased in a multitude of forms. My position is that all the great religions are fundamentally equal.” Did Gandhi really believe that all roads led to God? Maybe. But essentially the comment is a political one spoken in an age of religious diversity. For any political leader in a contemporary nation, outside of nations dedicated to Islam, political leaders need to have the ability to speak to people of all religious backgrounds. And people seldom listen when they are simply told that they are wrong.

Even Paul understood that in his famous interaction with the Greeks in Athens. “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship … (Acts 17:22b-23a). He understood that he was speaking to a non-Jewish audience who did not find their identity in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so his approach was very different from what he taught in the synagogues of the Roman Empire.

In our current set-up of nations, the exception to this spiritual diversity are the Islamic nations. There, Islam is not just a religion or a set of spiritual beliefs. Islam in these nations is also a political understanding. In these cases, violating the teachings of Islam often result in imprisonment or even death, because Islamic belief is part of both the political understanding of the nation and national security.  It might be interesting to note that as the second decade of the Twenty-First century draws to a close, it is this understanding that has made Islam a political target in the United States. The move seems to be to attempt to make Christianity the dominant political belief system, an attempt that in North America’s political and spiritually diverse climate, seems destined to fail.

Words like these spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy are almost jarring to our contemporary political understanding. The “nones” in our cultural, those who hold to no spiritual tradition, are on the rise. Spiritual beliefs from many different cultures are also gaining visibility in our society. A while back I attended a service at the Hindu Temple that exists just across the street from the church that I pastor. But as I read these words of Moses, I have to remind myself that he did not live in my culture.

His culture was much more like the culture that exists in contemporary Islamic nations. Judaism was not just the spiritual understanding of the people. It was the political understanding as well as the identity of the nation. To be led away from God was to betray Israel and her future. And Moses was afraid that his people would not stand firm in their relationship with God, and would consequently lose their identity after he was gone. As a result, Israel would cease to exist.

And so Moses makes what we might understand more like a radical Islamic statement. Any violation of the religious norms must be punished by death because any violation of the spiritual norms would result in the loss of the identity of the nation. The strategy during the days of Moses worked because there was no spiritual diversity within Israel. The diversity existed outside of its doors, and Moses wanted to do whatever he could to make sure that it stayed on the outside.

For us, Moses strategy would fail precisely because of the spiritual diversity that exists within our culture. Sometimes we fail to understand that the Christian strategy, the one that is supported by our beliefs, prohibits us from being the dominant spiritual understanding of the nation. We preach and teach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to those on the outside, maintaining that Jesus is the only way to father while loving and trying to understand all who come from various spiritual understandings and backgrounds. We do not rule. The act of ruling we leave to others. We love all who will come, regardless of what they might believe. And in doing so, we reveal the identity that Christ has placed in us.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 14

And there rejoice before the LORD your God—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns who have no allotment or inheritance of their own. – Deuteronomy 12:12

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 5, 2018): Deuteronomy 12

I love the words of William W. Purkey. “You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth.” We need to live this life with abandon, after all, it is the only one we get. There should be a joy that resides inside of us that is bursting to get out. But too often that just isn’t true. I see it, and I hear it, all around me. We seem to believe somehow that either we would be better off without life, or that life would be better off without us. Sometimes it is health issues that bring us to that conclusion, but often I wonder if it is just that we have just set our eyes on the wrong goals and prioritized the wrong things. We want what other people seem to have, rather than being able to be joyful, and to live fully in the present; live in the moments that we have been given. I want to live my life being able to dance like nobody is watching (let’s be honest, that is the only time I really dance). I want to love like I’ll never be hurt. I want to be able to sing like there is no one around me who might be listening. And I want to live like it is heaven on earth.

Charles Spurgeon argued that “All Christian duties should be done joyfully, but especially the work of praising the Lord.” He then goes on to describe some church services that were so sad and slow that he wondered if he would ever escape from their grasp. Later, Spurgeon would reiterate his belief about Christian Worship. “No, no; ‘All that is within me, bless his holy name.’ Come, my heart, wake up, and summon all the powers which wait upon thee! Mechanical worship is easy, but worthless. Come rouse yourself …” Is it possible that we fell spiritually dry because we forget to enter into his presence with purpose and joy? Is it possible that we are spiritually weak because we forget to dance?

Maybe I struggle with worship. I know that as a Pastor, that is probably something I shouldn’t admit. It is not hard for worship to become mechanical, easy, and, as Spurgeon asserts, worthless. It is easy for our worship to become isolated in the moments that we spend in church or in our short private times with God that we might give to him during the week. We forget that everything that we do, and all that we are, belongs distinctly to him. God remains the Lord of all of our moments.  And he is still the author of the dance.

And so a change needs to be made, not just in the isolated moments of our worship, but in the whole of our lives. Somehow, we need to be able to restore the dance that has been missing, because God is watching, and all of this belongs to him. Besides, no matter what is happening in our lives, it is healthy to meet even our struggles with joy.

It is time to begin to live as if heaven is on earth, to love in spite of the hurt, and to sing the song that he places in our hearts. It is time to restore the dance because he is watching. And he is the author of the dance in the first place.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 13

Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. – Deuteronomy 11:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 4, 2018): Deuteronomy 11

In 1995, Gary Chapman released his book “The Five Love Languages.” In the book, Chapman hypothesizes that each of us has a primary and a secondary language by which we understand love. And that there are only five languages, or five ways that love can be communicated to us. The first language is “Words of Affirmation.” We understand love because our significant other compliments us in some way, or verbally encourages us. For these people, if love is not spoken, then love does not exist.

A second language is “Quality Time.” We understand that we are loved because our significant other can push everything else aside and simply be with us. A walk with them loves them, just as they are loved by time spent together just talking with no other interruptions. The act of being together is incredibly important in the way that some people understand love. The third love language is “Receiving Gifts.” Gifts are tangible, they can be held in hand, and they are proof that “He (or she) was thinking of me” even when we are apart. Of all of the love languages, becoming a giver of gifts might be the easiest to learn.

The fourth love language is “Acts of Service.”  I will show you that I love you by taking care of something that needs to be done, and something that your significant other wants done. Cooking a meal or vacuuming the house are both examples of love expressed through “Acts of Service.” And finally, the last love language is “Physical Touch.” We have long understood the importance of being touched at all stages of our life. But what we lose in our culture is that there is an importance in non-sexual touch that helps us to understand that we are loved. Sexual touch is easy and almost innate in our culture, but sometimes it is the non-sexual touch that gets lost in our relationships. All touch becomes sexual, and in the end, we are weakened by that reality.

As I read through the books of Moses, I think that God’s primary love language might be “Acts of Service.” Repeatedly we read words similar to those expressed here in this passage. “Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements” (Deuteronomy 11:1a) or “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22). The idea seems to be that if you love me, then you will take care of the things that I have asked you to do.

But we need to understand the other side of the instruction. The things that I (God) have asked of you are not random actions. These actions will strengthen you and guide you into a positive future. I don’t want you to be a selfish people, existing only for yourselves. I want you to understand how to love me and love each other, strengthening you as you move through the stages of life. Do this, and your future will be unlimited.

God’s message seems clear; If you love me, honor me with your acts of service, and I guarantee that tomorrow will be a better place.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 12

Yet the LORD set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today. – Deuteronomy 10:15

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 3, 2018): Deuteronomy 10

I love the Spiderman origin story. Peter Parker is a stereotypical genius. He is smart but physically weak and unable to defend himself from the bigger bullies on the block. Of course, all of that changes with the bite of a spider. The spider bite changes Peter, giving him strength and power that he had never known before. And Peter is essentially changed from being the one who is bullied, to being the one who is looking out for himself and is on the verge of becoming the biggest bully on the block.

There is a historical connection for the Peter Parker saga. And that connection is the early church. In the beginning, in the days after the execution of Jesus, the church existed as the ones who, at least periodically, would be persecuted and bullied. But we wore that as a badge of honor, after all, Jesus had been persecuted by those who existed in control of the power structures of the world. But almost 300 years after Jesus’s death, all that changed. Constantine came to power with a fantastic story that he had been told to conquer in the sign of Christ. At this moment, the church was bitten by a spider, and we gained a superpower. Christian historians question whether Constantine had really received a vision that told him to conquer in the name or sign of Christ. And partially we question the revelation given to Constantine because of what happened next to the Christian Church. The Christian Church became, well, decidedly unchristian.

Power went to our heads, and the persecuted became the persecutors, and the bullied became the bullies. Rather than forgiveness, revenge seemed to become the motto of the Christian Church. At least in the Peter Parker saga, Peter’s uncle Ben had a chance to change the path of his young nephew. As Ben laid dying in Peter’s arms, he spoke the words that would shape all that Spiderman would become; “With great power comes great responsibility.” Maybe someone should have spoken those words to us. Seventeen hundred years after the time of Constantine, sometimes the Christian Church is still the biggest bully on the block.

Moses reminds Israel that even though their God was God of everything, he had “set his affections” on Israel. God had chosen them. And with great power comes great responsibility. They had received a privilege, but that meant that they had a job to do in the world. They were to be an example set for the rest of the world. God was going to send them into the nations to speak his truth – and his love.

God continues to set his affection on Israel, but I believe that his affections are also set on the Christian Church. And his affection is not set on us so that we can become the bullies of the world. We are being sent with great power to show God’s love. This is our responsibility and our response to the God who has set his affections on us.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 11

Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they. – Deuteronomy 9:14

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 2, 2018): Deuteronomy 9

Everyone has a price, at least that is the cynical understanding of many. Everyone will sell out the things that they value most if the price is right. It is just that for some of us, the price is higher than for others. So the real negotiation has nothing to do with whether you will sell, it is all about your price.

And the Bible is filled with people who sold something of value, and sometimes for not all that much money. Judas sold Jesus out for his thirty pieces of silver. Rahab sold Jericho out for the promise of a future with Israel after the city fell. Jonah went to Nineveh, a place that he had vowed that he would not go, for the price of not having to spend a fourth night in the whale. Stories of selling abound within the pages of our Holy Book.

Then there are some who maybe didn’t really sell anything out, but they were unwilling to put up any resistance. During the days of Noah, God decided to destroy the world and rebuild it from the descendants of Noah. Noah was game, and he decided to build the ark and allow God to start over again with him. The price paid for the destruction of the world was the salvation of Noah and his family. Abraham was told that God had decided to destroy Sodom, Gomorrah and the Cities of the Plain. The man of God argued with the Creator and established the price of the cities about to be destroyed; the established price was ten righteous men. But there weren’t ten righteous men in the cities, and the cities were destroyed.

And then there was Moses. In many ways, God was establishing Moses’s price. The deal that he offers Moses is eerily similar to the one that he offered to Noah. Let me destroy these people, and I will start over again with you. And if Moses were Noah, he likely would have said: “go God.” But Moses might have been one of those rare people who was without a price.  Moses refuses to acquiesce to the request of God. Instead, he decides to wrestle with him. He pleads with God for the salvation of his people. I think that Moses would have agreed with the sentiment of Walter Wink when Wink argued that “I for one do not abandon scripture, but neither do I acquiesce. I wrestle with it. I challenge it. I am broken and wounded by it, and then in defeat I sometimes encounter the living God.” Moses was willing to wrestle with God, and in the process have a close encounter with the Creator of the World.

Here, Moses remembers that encounter. And, maybe, there is an element of pleading with Israel in this moment. Remember when God wanted to destroy you. Remember, it was then that I stood up for you. Now as you enter into the land that God has promised to you, don’t prove me wrong. Now is the time to prove to God that you are worthy of redemption and salvation.

Of course, we aren’t worthy of redemption and salvation. At least, not on our own power. We all seem to have a price for which we are willing to sell out everything that we hold dear, including God. And so God remembered Moses and sent us Jesus to pay the price for our shortcomings. And he became our price.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 10

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. – Deuteronomy 8:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 1, 2018): Deuteronomy 8

We would never truly live without knowing that one day we will die. Pleasure would not be nearly as enjoyable except that we know pain. Our understanding of good would not be as clear if it were not for the fact that we have experienced evil. It is the yin and yang of life. We live in a world of duality. And understanding of one state invariably results in our experience of the opposite condition. The richness of what we know is because we understand both sides of the experience; the good and the bad. And so, in this light, our negative experiences might not be something that should be avoided, but rather embraced because it enriches our experience of the positives that life offers.

Moses teaches Israel that God had humbled them. Moses argues that God was the origin of their hunger. He made them hungry because he already had the solution to their hunger in his mind. He was going to feed them in a way that could only reveal the providence of God. He was going to feed them with manna, bread from heaven. No group of people had ever been fed in this way before. And the giving of manna would end when Israel left the wilderness and entered into the Promised Land. Neither Israel nor any other nation on earth would ever be fed in this way ever again. For this moment in time, God was going to step into history to change the conditions of their lives. He would allow them to be hungry so that they could truly understand what it meant to be filled and have their hunger satiated.

But that was not the only purpose of this unique bread from heaven. God was going to show them what life would be like without him so that they would know the possible difference that following God might make on their lives. God could feed them from heaven, but that was not all that they were going to require from him in the coming years. Life was going to demand so much more.

Too often we would be content with God feeding us and taking care of our basic needs, often so that we can go on and live our lives as we might want. But God wants more than just to provide us with the basics. He still wants to teach us that life depends on more than the things that we put into our stomachs. Life depends on everything that comes out of the mouth of God.

It is no accident that Jesus quotes this verse during his wilderness temptation. Satan’s temptation was that Jesus could fill his stomach by turning a rock into bread, an act that would not be all that different from God’s feeding of Israel with manna in the wilderness. But for Jesus, manna was neither enough nor what he needed. In this desperate moment in the wilderness, and the many desperate moments that were to come, Jesus craved the presence of God. The hunger of Jesus and his experience with Satan in the wilderness only made him desire the good of God even more.

And it is this craving that we need in our lives as well; through all the moments of our lives.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 9