Lessons in Deuteronomy

Just quickly wanted to share a thought I had while reading Deuteronomy this morning. I think it's timely since the 2020 election has just been called. We have lived 4 years of ugliness directed toward immigrants - or rather, toward certain immigrants. Reading chapter 10 in Deuteronomy just shook my heart up.

He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Deut 10:18-19)

 The Hebrews had been treated badly in another land. Now they were being told to be kind to anyone sojourning in their land. Sound a bit familiar? 

By the way, this command to be kind to sojourners comes after reminders about how the Hebrews had been blessed. They were reminded not to forget that it was God who blessed them with any wealth and comfort.

We Americans are so fat and happy (most of us) that we forget where we would be but for the grace of God. I'm talking to my Christian siblings here. While you all are so busy crowding the churches and trying to earn a place behind the pulpit, you seemed to have forgotten that, unless you are First Nation people, you are immigrants.

And let me answer your next argument: you know, how the Bible teaches that God often let the Hebrews go in and possess the land of others. Okay, but He still commanded what He did in verses 18 and 19. 

Nothing bothers me more about the ugliness of the hatred we show toward certain immigrants more than the phony self-righteousness behind it.

So, there. I just had to get that rant out of my system. The election is over and I am being told to stay in my house by family - just in case some of the upset Trump supporters cause problems. I pray they aren't waving any Christian flags if they do.

Peace

--Free

Worse Than Death

 In the past couple of years, I have had to accept the grief of 4 deaths - each spaced about 3 months apart it seems. People say there is nothing worse than death but there is.

Worse than dying is when someone dies alone or sad or unfulfilled or just lost. 

I heard about the death of someone recently who I was once very close to - about as close as one could get. We had not been in touch for a long time. Over the past 40 or so years, we'd only kept in touch sporadically. We kept in touch so rarely that every time we did speak it was like another lifetime had gone by. 

What I always regret when someone dies is what I did or did not say. I was able to apologize to this last person a few years ago. Of course, we'd fuss or just not be nice and on a couple of our last calls, things got really unpleasant. But I hate that this person died alone. I hate wondering if he felt relief or fear or just not caring at all. I hate that I never pushed harder to confront him with the Gospel. I hate that I only heard what he said and didn't pick up on what he might have been feeling or really trying to say. I really hate that I didn't hear the unspoken sadness or despair. Most of all, I hate that he felt he couldn't let me know about any of those feelings. That's what's worse than death.

If you have someone in your life with whom you have a complicated relationship - maybe you don't always get along or maybe you don't get along for reasons that you can't fix. If there is someone like this in your life, when you do talk to them, talk as if you might never talk to them again. Listen to what they say with their words and with their silence. If they get angry with you, try to understand where the anger comes from. Don't hang up wondering. Ask. Talk. Listen, listen, listen.

I think that I have told here or on my other blog about how my mother saw with her eyes and with her heart. Even if she was mad at you - or maybe didn't even know you - she saw you.

Once my mother and I passed by a young woman sitting on a bench at the mall. I have a habit of looking unfriendly unless I am smiling or trying hard not to look unfriendly. There's a common and crass phrase for this. My mother had the same kind of facial expression. However, there was something about her that people could see. They never saw her as scowling or unfriendly. People almost always smiled at or nodded to her in passing. I don't know what that was about.

When we passed by the young woman that day (I can't remember at this particular moment whether or not she was alone or with kids; I think she was with small kids), I had my usual passive expression (yeah, the mean one) and my mother had hers, After we passed the woman, my mother reminded me how important our interactions with people are - even those we just happen to pass by. She made me understand what even the briefest smile or frown can mean to someone, how it might impact them. And then she told me to smile more. Once I realized how mean I looked when I wasn't smiling, I walked around smiling like a maniac. 

I know now what my mother was trying to teach me. I know that your whole day can be lifted or dashed by a smile, a frown, a look of contempt, or non-acknowledgment. I know that I have been having really bad bouts of depression - that no one could see because a lot of depression hides behind big smiles - and ran across someone just for a moment and was made to feel either suicidal or refreshed.

Do any of us want to be the last unfriendly face someone sees? Or that ours is the last angry, unkind,  or indifferent voice someone hears? 

Since I have been studying the Bible lately, when I think of what my mother said about our attitude and how it might have an effect on others, I always remember my favorite part of the Book of Numbers - it's Numbers 6:24-27. I have been planning on sharing favorite passages here on the blog, so I will end this post with one.

Since I didn't speak to my friend about the Gospel, the only comfort I have is that I don't know the last thing that was in his heart. I don't know if he cried out to God. What I do know is that once someone is gone, there is nothing we can do but mourn. We can't fix what was broken, we can't speak or un-speak any words. Regret is so much worse than death.

 Peace

--Free

**BIBLE STUDY** Leviticus Raised Questions & Gave Answers

 I have finished Leviticus in my yearly reading plan. It was a rough book for me. It's the one that made me ask a lot of questions. There are some topics in the Bible that apologists call "difficulties" and I ran into a few in just that one book.

The first struggle I had was understanding why God excluded certain people from serving as priests based on their physical afflictions. The second was about whether or not God was condoning slavery. 

Both those difficulties stirred up unpleasant emotions for me. As a black woman, the granddaughter and daughter of southerners born before and during the great racial stresses of the 1890s and on and on, I know that some people justify their social ignorance on Bible verses. Of course, those Bible verses are taken out of context or molded to fit some personal ugliness of the heart but...

For those of you who have run into these particular Bible difficulties, I would like to share the answers I found.

Regarding why certain people were excluded from the duties as priests, I had jumped to a major conclusion: that the disabled were excluded from being priests at all. Not true. They were excluded from offering sacrifices at the altar. The David Lamb site has a great post about this. After I thought more about it myself, I came to one conclusion: that many things in the Old Testament are foreshadowings of things in the New Testament. The priests offering sacrifices in the O.T. were unblemished as was Jesus when he became the perfect sacrifice for us. You may need to find your own peace over this one but I am fine.

Next was the big thing for me, especially since racism has been much more visible in our current society. 2020 is going to go down in the history books for creating as much spiritual stress as social stress...

Once again, I took all my hurt feelings and jumped to conclusions about the Bible's view of slavery and racial injustice. I read through a few commentaries and checked Got Questions, then I calmed myself and thought logically. Got Questions has a page addressing the slavery question very specifically. Of course, they do because I am not the first person to wonder about the subject.

As I continued reading and coming up with questions on topics that I personally find "triggering", I realized that I was falling into a trap. Instead of remembering that God has a purpose for everything, I was busy questioning His motives and ways. How amusing. As if being reminded of my tendency toward pride, as I neared the end of Leviticus, some verses gave me serious food for thought.

In Leviticus 26, God is reiterating some laws and rules to be obeyed. I noticed that He would remind Israel how serious He was about this. 26:23, 24 hit me with just how serious. God is not to be played with:

 "And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;   Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins."

Wait. What? 

"Then will I also walk contrary unto you." That does not sound good.  It's almost like God saying "If you feeling froggy, jump." 

And if Israel insists on being disobedient (like I so often do), there is more. When I got to 26:36, well... 

"And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth." 

Uh... I had seen that threat before and I know enough about the Bible to know that God is always serious, but when He repeats things, you better watch yourself.

So, who am I to question or doubt God? He loves His children - even the hardheaded and so often disobedient ones of us. We just have to know of His love and humble ourselves. 

After all that we do, in our pride and in our fleshly stubbornness, He will love us. 

Remember how much the children of Israel fussed and complained and griped and groaned and continually disobeyed? Well, this is how Leviticus ends with 23:43-46 - 

"The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. 

And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD. 

These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses."

So, I am saying that this is God who loves me. Me - the one who is always questioning and ready to doubt at the least little provocation. For every question I have, there is an answer. 

Peace

--Free