Lessons Still To Be Taught

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There Are No Shortcuts to Anywhere Worth Going

 

Beverly Sill's Tombstone 

I wrote out some notes on Leviticus yesterday – carefully saved them. (I thought) And I prepared to email them to a friend who asked me to develop a few points on chapters 8-10, not the happiest story Scripture records. Only, when I attached the file – I saw there was no file – no record of any notes – no nothing. I could not retrieve them. Nor, could Doug. It was as if the computer said, I ate them and they are gone.

I’ve never lost any file so completely since my computer crashed this time last year.

So, back I went into Leviticus, Chapters 1-10. I reworked the notes, reviewing once again the unhappy end of Nadad and Abihu, the first priests, men who took shortcuts in worship, and the consequent grief of Aaron, the high priests and his other sons and priests, Eleazar and Ithamar. (Leviticus 10:1-3) And for the first time, I thought how their fiery death affected Moses and the people of Israel who saw fire blaze forth from the Lord’s presence and upon these two men, outing them to death.

 

But the story did not end with the first priests’ fiery execution.

Moses was careful to record how God reestablished Aaron and his sons and what He said:

⁸ The Lord then spoke to Aaron, saying, ⁹ “Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you will not die—it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations— ¹⁰ and so as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean, ¹¹ and so as to teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them through Moses.”

God also made provision for Aaron’s family in subsequent generations, understanding and even affirming Aaron’s grief.  

I am tempted to turn away from such a deity – for I know many shortcuts I take in my spiritual life.  And for all those I remember, means I surely have forgotten or ignored many, many others.  So, given my propensities, maybe I needed to reconsider how God wants His priests to behave. (1 Peter 2:4-10) 

My habits –or preferences -- may make me think I am worshiping when I’m not.  Maybe I needed to reread what holiness and right worship look like – and maybe I needed a goad to remember that if there are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going, (Beverly Sills) there are even fewer shortcuts to holiness or worship.  

·      A well-beaten path does not always make the right road. (Author unknow)

·      There is no pleasure in life equal to that of the conquest of a vicious habit. (Author unknown)

·      We are quite ignorant of the real power of our habits until we try to give them up. ~ Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963)   (Source of quotes)

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers.

 We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin.

So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give.

Take the mercy, accept the help. (Hebrews 4:16-19, The Message)

Other People’s Opinions

An early “boomer,” I know that whites must needs be put away today.

. . . [E]ven though the rule was originally enforced by only a few hundred women, over the decades it trickled down to everyone else. By the 1950s, women’s magazines made it clear to middle class America: white clothing came out on Memorial Day and went away on Labor Day. (Why you CAN’T wear white after Labor Day)

No kidding – nobody I knew in Maryland ever wore white after the first Monday in September. Even as a hippie, I put away the white. But in Texas, where weather is hot, hot, hot sometimes until mid October, that rule has some flexibility in it.

But I can’t shake the idea that wearing a white watch, shoes or slacks, or using a white bag is a faux pas.  Me, who managed to ditch much bigger social conventions so that I might be me. Choosing to be hide bounded to silly “rules,” while ignoring God’s Law isn’t an impulse that disappeared when I became a Christian. Other people’s opinions are powerful and personal influencers.

I [still] want to be liked.

In these times when folks are quick to spot my hypocrisy, I need a continuing education class on conduct and conscience.  A blogger* collected several descriptions of how Solomon saw fools, and said as one reads the verses, they should ask: 

• In what ways am I like the fool?

• How can I learn not to be a fool but instead to be wise? *What is a Fool? 
  
  

The first three descriptions from Proverbs 1 follow and remind me I never to old to learn better ways to live  --

·      1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

·      1:22
“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

·      1:32
For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them.

Be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brains fall out. 

~Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

Another rumination on the “End” of Summer  

A Mother’s Advice Remembered: Never talk about religion or politics.

But she liked arguing about the candidates, leaders and issues of her times – from the McCarthy hearings to impeachment trial of Mr. Clinton. She was a C-span junkie, and had she lived, she might have been an avid blogger.  She and my father taught me to read newspapers, Time, Life, and THINK, (IBM’s magazine). At dinner we often listed to Edward R Murrow, Patrick Swayze, and Eric Sevareid; later, we transferred our meals to trays, watching David Brinkley and Chet Huntley – and of course Walter Cronkite. So, when she spoke, held forth, she was well armed and passionate!

She rarely discussed religion privately or publicly.  

Shortly before she died in 1996, I asked her if things were as bad in her day as they were now – abortions, child murders, violence in marriage, cheating, embezzlements, fraud – Rwanda, Kosovo . . . Watching too much news, I was despairing. Coming through WWII, she’d known about the kinds of horrors that happened in Uganda, Rwanda and Kosovo, and she said that everybody knew somebody who beat their wives or kids – or who had had an abortion – or had stolen company funds. The difference to her was nobody back then was proud of it.

The unspoken restraint in her generation was “Nice people don’t talk about _________.”  Such reticence may have made for more civil discourse, but it forced many soul sores to fester.

My generation felt obliged to let it all hang out – giving rise to the current warning: TMI! TMI! (Too much information!)      

Television – network and cable – serves up a cornucopia of stuff – that makes alternative lifestyles as well known as Ozzie & Harriet were to my generation. Nothing is bleeped on cable TV; the Supreme Court is hearing arguments on regular television’s right to provide everything that traffic will allow. (Information on Supreme Court Hearing)  

But the networks are pushing the envelope:  On Modern Family, the adorable toddler   will use an expletive, “the bomb,” on a smash hit TV series – the audience will not hear it, but will see her saying it.  (See article)  The child actors on the series and the children who watch it may learn a good lesson on not repeating everything they hear – but they will also learn the power profanity has in getting laughs.

The series has won kudos for its realistic but amusing presentation of family life in 21^st century America – primarily for the warm and accepting presentation of   a multiplicity of marriage styles, from traditional to same-sex marriage.  The characters are 3-dimensional, funny, and engaging; the writing on the episodes was excellent. 

 

A spoonful of sugar really does make the medicine go down.

When I realized I was laughing about stuff I know breaks God’s heart, and enjoying watching the folks who were caught up in it, I decided to go off the meds – the inoculation was working too well. 

Believing today that marriage is between a man and a woman because God said so may be evidence of a phobia. Believing in chastity before and after marriage may be evidence of a delusion. Believing the church can rise above sexual temptations, and make a difference in this culture may also be a stretch of rational thinking. 

The topic of what’s fair game for family hour TV series might not be any quieter a dialogue if I brought up a discussion of Modern Family  at the dinner table than the ones my mom used to ignite when she didn’t follow her own advice. But I am glad for the opportunity to write about what I think – and if you read this to the end, dear reader, thank you. 

"Elucidate, when one can, rather than advocate." Eric Serareid. 

 Using Ovens as Dishwashers

*Photo:    BOB D'AMICO/ABC

Thoughts on Oscar Wilde

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Oscar Wilde’s humor and insight are as amusing and often as astute as his life was a warning – warnings that reverberate in my heart:  

No man is rich enough to buy back his past

Experience - the name men give to their mistakes.

A poet, novelist and playwright, Oscar Wilde, in The Portrait of Dorian Gray, portrayed a man whose outward appearance of unchanging youth and beauty shrouded a soul, caught on canvas, so marred by his debauchery it was grotesque and musts need be destroyed when his sins had found him out. I can read neither Oscar Wilde’s life story nor this novel without sorrow.  Oscar Wilde’s life cautions me about the pursuit of passion and pleasure in an age that was as complicated as the 21st century, and often winked at decadence while extolling virtue.  His legacy shows me a better choice for where to place my hope, for his end was as dreadful as his writing had been successful.

What hope and help were the church – is the church, today? And how helpful am I?

Wilde rightly described how and why we misplace hope. (Jeremiah 17:9; 1 Samuel 16:7)  And how and why the church and its flock seem hopeless;  he nailed the religionists of his day  and ours as well with a description  that is apt and biblical. 

People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards.

Yet, Oscar Wilde sought the blessing of religion and the church when he was dying from cerebral meningitis, disgraced, exiled and impoverished. Wilde was baptized and accepted into the Roman Catholic Church; it was not a deathbed conversion – but one grown from uncommon seed.  

The seed was nourished and sustained by a faithful friend.  We need such faithful friends. And I need to be such a friend.  Yet we mess up – and our message, though muffled sometimes by our own noisy sins, should speak clearly of an unfailing Friend.

And this Oscar Wilde did in a short story, “The Selfish Giant.”  Meant to be read aloud to children, the story formed a portrait of what a changed life can look like.  And why. 

The church today may seem as sore oppressed and oppressive as the late 19^th century English one was.  And my Christian witness may be as fair a target for satirizing  as Gwendolyn or Cecily’s were in “The Importance of Being Ernest.” But Christ, my hope, is as kind, easy to talk to and resolute as Wilde portrayed Him, so even a child might desire a friend like the Lord.  And that’s what I want my friends to know.

 My life is no longer than my hand! My whole lifetime is but a moment to you. Proud man! Frail as breath! A shadow! And all his busy rushing ends in nothing. He heaps up riches for someone else to spend.   And so, Lord, my only hope is in you.

(Ps 39:4-7 TLB) 

Telling the Truth While There is Time

Last week he said he was hacked; he didn’t do it. This week, Rep. Anthony Weiner   broke down and said he did do it.  He takes full responsibility for sending compromising pictures of himself and thus harming others. He will not resign his public office however, because he doesn’t believe he broke the law.    

We have invented technology to help us serve mankind but we use it  to sin deeply against each other and God.   We can take pictures while sinning – That’s something King David couldn’t do.  (2 Samuel 11)

Pornography and all that flows from it is a river as mighty as the Mississippi – a river that has churned up so much chaos in recent weeks. That river’s source appears tranquil, pristine. Its end into the Gulf of Mexico is often fraught with angry, muddy floods. So, too, the source of sex is good: God.  Sex is a good, and pure gift from God – never meant to be a source of shame, or pain.  But because we choose our own way, we use His gift selfishly. What was intended for procreation and pleasure is too often a source of death and grief, and a powerful moneymaker.    

The psalmist urged God’s people, if they love God, hate evil. (Psalm 97:10) Strong language for a generation of Christians who are trying to appear non-judgmental and reasonable. But God’s bluntness shook David out of his denial. (2 Samuel 12, Psalm 51) 

Watching Mr. Weiner, I ached for how I think he felt.  There is no satisfaction in seeing people fail. It was another warning to me. Not that I have done what the disgraced U.S. Congressmen, and others, have done with technology. But I have flirted with and courted dumb stuff – wrong stuff – that would leave me as humiliated if I were caught in the excuses (a.k.a lies) I wove to protect myself.  

Confessing privately to God now how wrong I have been is a great privilege. Owning my full responsibility in the privacy is a great blessing. But being publicly humiliated  -- even in a smaller circle than a press conference – is a distinct probability for refusing to look at what I am doing wrong.    (2 Peter 4:17)

The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying- lying to others and to yourself. FYDOR DOSTOEVESKY, The Brothers Karamazov

Image courtesy http://www.officeclipart.com/

Taking It Personally

Jeremiah 18

Lots of politicians this week will make a public oath with their right hands on the Bible. The Bible seems an anchor of sorts, linking words and deeds. But most politicians will speak and do what they think right – with little heed to what the Bible teaches about political leaders, much less spiritual needs. So, I can spot their hypocrisy – can I spot my own?

The older I get, the more helpless I see that I am, no matter my good intentions. The closer others invite me into their lives – the fewer answers I have to their deeply felt needs: Singleness, a marriage coming apart, infertility, debt, disease, unruly kids, loss of a job or vision – old age. Knowing God and using His word to speak to Him, and to hear from Him are just about all I know for the troubles I face – that and having the courage to actually do what He says! (Micah 6:8)

Studying the Bible and learning to pray sound like dissembling solutions – and they may be. But, I offer the following introduction to women in the Bible to women who feel helpless and hopeless. God helps the helpless – including powerful politicians and the wealthy, which most American women are, comparatively. (Isaiah 25:4) In the midst of our pain, you and I are just the kind of women God seeks out!

Can you use this to get started studying your Bible this week?

God has shown us what HE wants HIS women to be like, so he carefully recorded information about many women for a reason. They were not perfect — they had problems — they struggled with unbelief — but they obeyed at a critical point in their walk with God — and HE blessed them. Their faith was the assurance of the things they hoped for, the conviction of things they could not see. For by faith in God the women of old gained approval. (Heb 11:1-2)

What He said about these women may help you to pray more intelligently. What about her life impresses you?

How does the record of her life encourage your prayer life?

Pick one or two women and listen for God to form some specific prayers about issues in your life:

Tamar: Overcame came a dysfunctional family. Her name may mean "like a palm." Because of the value of palm trees in the East, the idea of this name connotes wealth and beauty
Scripture references Genesis 38:6-30; Ruth 4:12; 1 Chronicles 2:4; Matthew 1:3

Rahab: A “working girl” changes professions
Scripture references: Joshua 2:1, 3; 6:17-25; Matthew 1:5, Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25

Ruth: An outcast’s faithfulness
Scripture references: The Book of Ruth, Matt. 1:6
What about Naomi's life impresses you?

The wife of Uriah, Bathsheba: An adulteress restored
Scripture references: II Sam. 11:2,3; 12:24; I Ki. 1:11-31; 2:13-19; I Chr. 3:5; Matt.1:6

Here's more:

Hannah: Giving over her most treasure possession – her first born son.
Scripture references: I Samuel 1; 2:1-21
How does her prayer life inform yours

Abigail: The woman with beauty and brains — and a troubled marriage
Scripture references: I Samuel 25:1-42; II Samuel 3:3

Sarah – Married to a difficult man
In Gen 21:1: "Then the LORD took note of Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had promised." What do you know about Sarah's life? Her life was recorded by Moses in Genesis. She became the mother of nations. Look up Isaiah 51:2; Romans 4:19; 9:9; Hebrews 11:11; I Peter 3:6

Mary: The mother of our Lord Jesus Christ
Scripture references: Matthew 1;2; 12:46; Luke 1; 2; John 2:1-11; 19:25; Acts 1:14
Read the Magnificat. (Lk 1: 46-55) What do you learn about prayer from Mary?

Keep reading! Read about these women —

Deborah, (Judges 4 & 5; Hebrews 11:32-34;)
Dorcas, (Acts 9 36-43)
Jeosheba, Joash's aunt, (2 Kings 11) and
Salome, who wanted the best for her boys. (See Mat.20:20-24; 27:56; Mark 10:35-40; 15:40, 41;16:1,2)

Build your own list! A good resource is All The Women in the Bible by Herbert Lockyer.

Remember: "The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them. (Ps 145:18-19)