PULL UP A CHAIR: Stories on Mode

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the fourth week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

Zack Dean is the team leader for Impact Campus Ministries at our location at SUNY Albany. Being an alumni of that university and our campus ministry there has always given Zack a unique perspective. None of this should take away from the fact that Zack is such a unique person! Zack has been on two BEMA Trips and was able to take his wife Melanie on the most recent trip in 2016. I thought it would be insightful to ask Zack about his perspective of "MODE" as it pertains to his experiences in Israel and Turkey.

In July of 2014, a conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip began. Within a week, I and 25 others landed in Tel Aviv and traveled south to the Negev Desert to begin the first Bema trip to Israel and Turkey. After 24 hours of air conditioned train, plane, and automobile travel, we were dropped off in the desert wilderness. I used to live in the Mohave Desert in California. I was used to jackrabbits, Joshua trees, cactus, and tumbleweeds. You know, desert. It’s a dry heat, so it isn’t as bad.

This wasn’t southern California.

There aren’t jackrabbits or Joshua trees or cactuses (cacti?). There is nothing. No plants. No animals. No shade. No water. There aren’t tumbleweeds, because there aren’t plants that grow then die and roll around.

The heat was terrific. It was the type of heat that is impressive when you first feel it; we stepped out of the bus at 9am and said wow. The sun is beating down and the rock is radiating heat up. There is no escape. Again, it is 9am. Wow.

I think Marty wanted to take it easy on us the first day. We walked the desert with what will later be seen as minimal hill climbing. As we walked this scorched earth, our shoes began to fall apart. Literally. Our soles were peeling away. Some people pulled out tape to try to coble their shoes back together, while other people started vomiting. People were coming close to passing out... from walking flat terrain.

The condition of our group was unexpected. Here we are, people who have trained to hike 7-12 miles a day while hiking thousands of feet of elevation change each day, prepared for an intense trip.

We were ready.

Day 1: We were falling apart walking on flat ground.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wildernessthese forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was inyour heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbledyou, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, whichneither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does notlive on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth ofthe LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell duringthese forty years. 

Deuteronomy 8:2-4 

Today as we look at Mode from the Mx3, we look at how we open the story of God for students. Mode is defined as engaging the mind, heart, and body.

As I read this passage from Deuteronomy, I see that God takes care of His people. Intellectually, I know that our God is good and takes care of His people. That has been taught to me. It is clear from scripture. This has engaged my mind.

I used to live in the desert, so I can relate to the toughness of desert living. Our air conditioned home was on the edge of town. When we drove to the store for food, it was hot as I walked between the air-conditioned grocery store and the air- conditioned car (at home we parked in the attached garage because we aren’t animals and didn’t deal with the heat if we didn’t have to). My heart can be engaged because I can relate to the situation more than just intellectually. I have lived in similar situations as the Israelites walking the desert for 40 years...

The Bema Trip is an experience of engaging the body. I knew God took care of His people. I knew what it was like to be in the desert. Going to the Negev Desert and learning from experience why people accept lying down and dying changes the whole idea of what that passage is talking about. On day one, our shoes had fallen apart. God took care of their clothes for 40 years and mine only lasted a few hours? There is no food of any kind, or water or anything. God provided food on these hot rocks? It is hot enough to bake bread, so that makes sense.

If I were to just walk this desert, my shoes would fall apart. I would be hot and tired. I would be feeling all the same things. My body would be engaged, but that’s it. Only one aspect of mode isn’t the best way to teach or learn. Without engaging the mind and heart, without knowing the story of how God watches over His people who would normally struggle to survive, the lesson is missed.

If I know the story of God in my mind, if I can engage my heart and emotion to empathize with the people of the text, and if I engage my body by trying to step into their world, I will learn in a way that I’ll remember for years to come.

I know this to be true, because the mind, heart, and body engagement of the Bema trip has been life changing. Four years later, I still talk about it all the time. It still influences how I understand the narrative of scripture. I have spoken about it so much that two years after the inaugural Bema Trip, I brought four people with me as I went on the trip again in 2016. This year, 2018, someone who I brought is sending a friend of his on the Bema trip. Life change is infectious.

We might not all lead trips to Israel, but we can all find ways to engage the mind, heart, and body. When we teach and learn about the biblical prerogative to care for the alien, orphan, and widow, we can remember a time when we were seen as an outsider. We can engage the body to serve these people who are marginalized in a multitude of ways in our hometowns.

The mode in how we teach is greatly important. Each mode by itself can be good, yet incomplete. The best and most difficult mode is to combine all three, but it is also the greatest experience for both the teacher and the student.

ROMANS: Beautiful Feet

This message from Paul about a Potter and His clay is tough to wrestle with when you find yourself sitting on “the inside” of the conversation. But Paul also wants to be crystal clear that this is not some wholesale rejection of God’s partners who struggle with the purposes and intentions of God — far from it. Paul longs for God’s people to fully understand what God has been up to from the beginning.

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Paul says the Jewish people have an incredible zeal for God and a tenacious commitment to follow after Him. It is actually this zeal that has the tendency to provide distraction, for while they attempt to follow God so passionately, they can find themselves trying to establish a righteousness of their own — something Paul spoke about in the opening chapters of Romans. Paul reminds the readers that Jesus is the culmination of the law — he is the very fulfillment of the law, and he shows us that this righteousness from God is for anyone who is willing to have faith.

Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

People who live by the Law (please note, not “under the law”) find life when they walk in obedience to God’s commands. (The exact same point was made by Paul in Galatians, as you might remember.) However, Paul uses Deuteronomy to remind them not to be deceived into thinking that righteousness is this complicated thing that must be parsed and explained and assisted. No, it is something we have on our lips and written in our hearts.

But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

Paul says this message is already in our mouths and hearts. Paul then rips off a first-century imperial propaganda slogan to express the message of the gospel. Rome had a saying for whenever Caesar was about to go on one of his bread and circus stunts. “Bread and circus” was a public relations effort by the Empire to build allegiance to Caesar and his throne. Caesar would go throughout the empire and with great public pomp (aka circus) and would give away bread and blessing to the people of Rome. The saying would be circulated throughout the empire: “If you proclaim with your mouth that Caesar is Lord, you will be saved.” The message was clear: If you give your allegiance to Rome, you will benefit from Caesar’s kingdom; if you do not… well, all bets are off.

Paul says we have a message we proclaim about God’s Kingdom. If we declare with our mouth that “Jesus is Lord!” and believe in our heart the truth and promises of resurrection, then we will be saved. Paul says this message is not complicated, but something we understand. Paul then makes a distinction between the heart and the mouth. While the mouth is obviously about proclamation, the “heart,” in a Jewish sense, is about our will and obedience. Paul says this message is about the union of our statements and behavior.

As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Still working off of the remez mentioned previously, Paul says this same belief/faith/trust is available for any person — Jew or Gentile. If they have this authentic belief, they will respond with their own professions and obedience. Their salvation will not be denied them.

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

However, how will they ever make sense of this faith unless those who are rich in faith are sent to tell them? Paul calls on his Jewish brethren to take ownership of the story to which they are ambassadors. He calls them to take hold of God’s amazing grace and glorious plan and become heralds of this good news to the Gentiles — to go and invite them in! And just for some Textual icing on the cake, Paul then quotes Isaiah 52, a passage which speaks about Israel learning her lesson in captivity and hearing about the goodness and greatness of their God. (It’s incredibly fitting!) The Isaiah passage ends with a description of “all the nations” seeing the salvation of God and His plan being laid bare to the “ends of the earth.” Brilliant!

The takeaway is that it is crucial for God’s people to accept the story God wants to tell and not the version of the story they hope He tells. It is important that we understand God is not simply working with a chosen and redeemed group of people so they would be “more right” than everybody else. No, instead, God has put this awareness in the hearts of all of mankind and it is His people’s privilege, honor, and calling to go and spread the word — to make His mercy known to the very ends of the earth!

But sometimes it is hard to go and spread the Good News that we long to keep for ourselves.

GALATIANS: The Curse

The next section of Galatians seems to undo everything that we’ve been talking about up to this point.

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”

At first glance, this appears to say that anyone who follows the Law is cursed. (And this has certainly been taught in far too many Christian circles!) But a closer inspection of the Text (especially when translated appropriately) reveals what Paul has just said within a Jewish context. That same phrase which refers to the “works of the Law” (remember the miqsat ma’asay haTorah, or ergu nomu in the Greek) is used here. Paul’s statement in context clearly says that those who rely on the miqsat ma’asay haTorah for their justification are under a curse. He then quotes Deuteronomy to make his case. Whenever a book is quoted like this, it is important to ask ourselves about the context of the quotation in order to understand what the author is driving at.

In the context of this Deuteronomy quote, the people of God are being reminded of their charge to carry the Law as they enter into the land God is giving them to possess. The story has the people of God being split up on two mountains; one party shouts out the commands of the Torah and the other party shouts back their agreement to follow the commands of God (see the story in Deuteronomy 27). The clear implication of Paul’s quotation is that if you are relying on the “works of the Law” for your justification, you have to live under this dark cloud that follows you everywhere you go; such reliance ends up being a curse.

Mt. Gerazim, where the people of God stood to renew their covenant

Paul continues to say (again) that we understand this, in fact, is not where justification comes from:

Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.”

This time, when Paul wants to make the case that they are justified by faith, he goes to Habakkuk for his quotation. This is a brilliant move employed by Hillel when making his arguments about justification. Hillel noted that when Habakkuk talked about righteousness, he talked about “living by emunah”; this Hebrew word for “faith” refers more to “faithfulness” and putting your faith into action. By following the Habakkuk passage with another quotation from Leviticus connecting the idea of “living by,” Paul (employing a rabbinical interpretation method called gezerah shavah, something only the most educated could do) ends up making a case that the Law is not there for our justification; it is there to teach us how to live faithfully.

I realize all of that was probably incredibly confusing, so I’ll sum up Paul’s point like this: If you try to find your justification in the “works of the Law” you will find yourself under a curse. But the Law wasn’t given to find your justification; on the contrary, the Law was given to teach you how to live by faith.

Paul continues:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

By employing another gezerah shavah, Paul connects the idea of the curse to Jesus. By referring to Christ’s crucifixion in reference to being “hung on a pole [tree],” Paul says that when Jesus subjected himself to crucifixion, he redeemed us from that faulty way of thinking and showed us what God’s true plan is. When we properly understand where justification comes from and what God desires from that redemptive process, it opens us up to welcome the Gentiles into the family of God — not as theosabes, but as full-fledged children of Abraham.

Paul then uses an example to go back to his larger idea introduced in the last section:

Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

Paul's illustration demonstrates how he views the story of God. Just as you do not undo a covenant (we might think “contract” in our world) by entering into a new one, so this is the case with God’s story. Paul makes the point that God’s story is aboutpromise. The story of Abraham is a story about promise and not a story about Law. Just because God enters into a covenant relationship with his people through the Law over four centuries later, it does not undo the larger story of God as a story of promise. This is a story about believing in God’s promises — it always has been, and it always will be. This story is not about following rules; it’s about living by faith in the promises of God.

This will have extraordinary implications for the Gentiles.

But Paul has to explain why God would give the Law in the first place.

A Naked Thing

Having already addressed the parable of the unmerciful servant back in the story of Samson, we’ll keep moving through to Jesus’s teaching on divorce. However, one thing we never did was wrestle with the remez or drash within that teaching. We do have the tools now, so I challenge you to wrestle with those questions on your own.

Jesus ends up being challenged on the issue of divorce. This is a topic widely discussed in the world of Jesus, and it is brought up more than once in his ministry. In Jesus's day, rabbinical debates were driven by two main schools of thought. One school of thought was driven by the interpretive lens of obedience (more on why and how this worked in a later post) and the voice that led this worldview was a rabbi named Shammai.

The other school of thought was driven by the interpretive lens of loving others and was led by the voice of a rabbi named Hillel. All throughout the first century, the rabbinical debates were driven by these contrasting worldviews of Shammai and Hillel. Each rabbi would be confronted on key issues of biblical interpretation: How do you read the Text on this issue? How do you read the Text on that issue?

Every time in the gospel accounts that Jesus is questioned on a rabbinical debate, Jesus sides with Hillel (and sometimes he even pushes Hillel's stance even further). This happens to be the only argument that he sides with Shammai on. What gives?

This wrestling match will actually be very important for us to properly understand a very important teaching. Divorce is obviously an important and prevalent topic in our culture, and dealing with this teaching appropriately will greatly affect people’s hearts. I have heard Jesus’s positions on divorce wildly abused and the results are incredibly destructive.

Jesus’s first response is to make sure we are getting the first things first:

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Jesus responds by pointing out that God doesn’t want divorce at all; man shouldn’t be separating what God brings together. But life isn’t this easy, so — with the point being made — they press for more:

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

What most of us miss, is the context of the argument. The positions held by Shammai and Hillel were taken because of a discrepancy in the Text. Some texts apparently had Deuteronomy 24:1 reading that a man may divorce his wife for ervat dabar. However, other texts stated that the man may divorce his wife for dabar ervat. Apparently some scribe made an error and we have a rare issue within the Text. The Dead Sea Scrolls had one version and the Masoretic Text (which Christians predominately use for our Scriptures) said another.

The order of the words makes a great difference, for the word ervat means “nakedness” and the word dabar means “thing.” If the phrase is dabar ervat, then the phrase means “a thing of nakedness,” which in the Hebrew would imply sexual immorality. Therefore, Shammai claimed that a man was only permitted to divorce his wife for reasons of adultery. However, if it is ervat dabar, then it means “a naked thing,” which in the Hebrew is very ambiguous and could basically be read as “anything out of place.” Hillel took this position. His famous statement is, “If she happens to burn your biscuits in anger, you may hand her a get (divorce certificate).”

Don’t ask me to explain why the progressive, “love your neighbor” rabbi took this stance. Some historians have suggested he must have had one heck of a home life. Others have suggested that he put the responsibility of “loving” on the wife. However, it is also true that Hillel was the rabbi to argue the divorce court should be located on the farthest side of the town, so that the man’s neighbors will try to talk him out of it the whole way there.

Nevertheless, Jesus sides with Shammai and, from his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, we can deduce he taught the issue of divorce wasn’t about the man in the first place. The issue of divorce was about protecting the woman who, in a patriarchal culture, would be left with no provision, belonging, or care. It would be pushing her to the boundaries of the culture and forcing her to fend for herself, now an outsider. Notice Jesus’s words from earlier in Matthew:

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Notice that Jesus says the man is the one committing the sin.

The disciples are beside themselves in this teaching. They respond with disbelief that Jesus would suggest the man is held to such a standard:

The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

The way of the Kingdom is the way of love. The way of love is a hard way. Marriage is the most intense experience of dying to self and serving the other.

I have heard and witnessed this passage being used time and time again to condemn divorced parties (mostly women) who were on the “pushed aside” party. We let them know with no uncertain terms that they have disobeyed God through their unacceptable divorce. May God help us to redeem the heart of Jesus in this teaching, who was not trying to establish a moral standard of holiness, but a measure of protection for those pushed to the margins.

In this very conversation, it is easy to see Jesus recognizes the reality of divorces in this life. Because we are broken and selfish and stubborn — because true reconciliation requires two willing parties — divorce will be a reality that we have to deal with. But it should not be taken lightly and it should never be used to oppress other human beings. They should be protected.

And we should help them find healing and restoration.

“Not everyone can accept this word.”

It’s a tough word.

Truth and Light

** I am completely indebted to my time with Ray VanderLaan for the insight into this teaching.

The story of the Mount of Transfiguration has been a story of great orthodox significance and personal quandary. Other than the glorification of Christ (which is an incredible moment, no doubt), this story seemed to be missing a meaningful aspect driving it like so many other stories in the gospels. Not only this, but there is a case to be made that more than one of the gospels is chiastic (I’m not completely sold on this idea, yet); if this is the case, then the story of the Transfiguration would sit at the center of those chiasms.

Nevertheless, since we’re used to asking the question, I’m sure we can waste no time in diving right in.

Let me identify the following seven characteristics in the story of the Transfiguration:

1) There is a “high mountain.”

2) There are three people taken with the leader.

3) A cloud covers the mountain.

4) Glory is on the mountain and a figure’s appearance is changed.

5) The glory “settles” on the mountain.

6) This all happens after “six days.”

7) God speaks.

Do these details remind you of any other story in the Tanakh?

These are all details that are shared in Moses’s journey up Mt. Sinai.

Enter into the story Peter’s voice, declaring a desire to build three Tabernacles.

And this is where we butcher Peter. In lesson after lesson and sermon after sermon, we talk about how Peter — the bumbling idiot — doesn’t know what to say and so he just blurts out idiotic nonsense.

Not the case here. Ironically, I think Peter knows his Text better than we do.

What is the next thing to happen in the story after Moses spends time on Mt. Sinai? They build the Tabernacle.

Whoops! Sorry Peter.

A lot of people assume God interrupts Peter in an effort to chastise his loose tongue. However, if you check your Text, you will find God never addresses Peter at all; there is simply God's voice from the cloud. Not only this, but the voice from the cloud says, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well-pleased. Listen to him!” What many of us don’t realize is that God shows up and quotes all three parts of His book!

“This is my son” — Psalm 2, from the Ketuvim (the Writings)

“Whom I love … [and] I am well-pleased” — Isaiah 42, from the Nevi’im (the Prophets)

“Listen to him” — Deuteronomy 18, from the Torah

The midrash taught that when Messiah comes, one of the ways we would know it’s him is that all three parts of the Tanakh would testify about him.

I love that when God speaks, He quotes His own book. Awesome!

Now, I know it says in Luke that “Peter didn’t know what he was saying,” but that statement in the Greek can be applied in a few different ways, not to mention that the entire statement seems to be a marginal (or at least parenthetical) addition to the story itself. Not only this, but let’s talk a little about the midrash and see if you think Peter isn’t a genius (maybe without even realizing it).

The story makes a point of telling us that Jesus is seen hanging out on the mountain with Elijah and Moses. What’s interesting about that is there are lots of stories in the midrash about Messiah and Elijah being together. There are also lots of stories about Messiah and Moses being together. However, there are only two stories of all three being in the same place at the same time. One of those stories is the New Testament account(s) in the gospels. The other is a midrash that predates Jesus by about 80 years.

This particular teaching comes as a conversation surrounding Psalm 43 (and 42). In it, the Psalmist says the following:

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause    against an ungodly people,from the deceitful and unjust man    deliver me!For you are the God in whom I take refuge;    why have you rejected me?Why do I go about mourning    because of the oppression of the enemy?
Send out your light and your truth;
    let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
    and to your dwelling!
Then I will go to the altar of God,
    to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
    O God, my God.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.

As the Psalmist cries out for deliverance, he pleads for God to send him His truth and His light. Now, what is the Psalmist asking for in that? The midrash teaches that God’s truth is seen in Moses, the giver of Torah, and in the prophet Elijah, who had such great passion for truth. But who is light? Well, the midrash quotes Isaiah 42 (the same one God quoted) and says Messiah is the “Light” of God that is sent forth. So, the midrash concludes, when you are in trouble, pray for Moses, pray for Elijah, and pray for Messiah.

The next line of the Psalm says these figures will lead the Psalmist to God’s holy mountain, the place where He dwells. The word for dwell is the same root word for “tabernacle.”

Maybe “Peter didn’t realize what he was saying.” Maybe he did. But… whoa.

That’s an amazing teaching buried in the story of the Transfiguration. And while I still don’t know exactly where to land the plane (so be prepared for an awkward blog post ending), I do know there is A LOT MORE going on in this story than I ever realized. 

I do know that I need to know my Text more. So join me as I try to follow in the footsteps of a disciple who could — in the midst of seeing Moses and Elijah — have the awareness to realize he’s experiencing Text and wants to enter into the story.

A Donkey Herder to Lead Us

As we come closer to the end of the book of Judges, we feel a definite shift in the momentum of the story.

We are confronted with a story about a Levite and his concubine (I know — a blog post ready to be written, but not today) who are traveling through the land of Israel when they need to find a place to stay for the evening. The servant, who could very possibly be a foreigner himself, suggests that they stop in Jebus for the night. The Levite, however, refuses and says they will continue on until they reach a town that is inhabited by Israelites. The Levite is perfectly aware of how foreigners can be treated by pagan nations and has put his trust in the people of God to be people who remember where they come from and take care of the aliens.

When they arrive in the land of Benjamin, an old man invites the travelers to enter his home and care for their needs. During the evening, the people of the town come to take advantage (sexually) of the Levitical guest. The host, in typical eastern fashion, valuing hospitality, urges the men not to make such demands. The host is attempting to save the life of the Levite. By the time the conversation is over, the crowd is distracted by the concubine — whom they rape all night and leave for dead.

This is an ugly story.

But did you notice? We’ve been in this ugly story before.

This story mirrors the story of Sodom and Gomorrah so closely one has to check and make sure they are two different stories. And if you remember, this idea of hospitality in the ancient Middle East is a major, major deal to God.

The Levite knows this and is enraged by their actions. He takes the body of the murdered concubine and cuts it up into twelve pieces and sends it to all twelve tribes of Israel, spreading the word of what has been done in one of the towns of the LORD’s own people. The people of Judah will end up marching against the tribe of Benjamin and, eventually, enacting punishment for the ways of the Benjamites. Then they make a pact to ensure that the remaining Benjamites have wives to preserve their line and not cut off a descendant of Jacob forever.

This is a momentum shift in the story. We aren’t just dealing with a people struggling with how to follow God. We are now seeing the people of God become so bad they mirror the horrible acts of Sodom — acts that caused God to come down and rescue the oppressed. Instead of partnering with God at the crossroads of the earth, being people who trust the story, this nation of Israel is beginning to become what I will call the ANTI-story. They are losing the plot and starting to do everything contrary to their call. They are starting to look like the very Canaanites whom they dispossessed.

This story is followed up by the book of 1 Samuel, which begins with the story of Eli and his sons, a family of priests. The sons have taken up residence at the entrance to God’s tabernacle and are sleeping with the women there (a likely indicator for an introduction of the practice of shrine prostitution) AND they are taking advantage of those who come to sacrifice to YHVH. If you remember the roles of the priests, they are there to help people navigate their atonement and put God on display. But Eli’s sons are being the ANTI-priests; they are the ANTI-story.

There is a momentum shift in the story of God’s people. They are forgetting their call to be a kingdom of priests who put God on display and they instead want to be like all the other nations around them. So, when they come to ask for a king to rule over them, this is their sin. The request for the king is not the problem. We know this by reading Deuteronomy 17:14–15.

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite.

It’s not the request for a king that displeases God — it is the kind of king they want. Listen to what they say in 1 Samuel 8:

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

And again a few verses later:

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”

Then Samuel said to the Israelites, “Everyone go back to your own town.”

They have forgotten the story.
“… such as all the other nations have … Then we will be like all the other nations …”

They are supposed to be different. They are supposed to put God on display. They are supposed to be a kingdom of priests.

And so God gives them the kind of king they want — but not without trying to give them a message at the same time. God chooses a man who is good-looking, head and shoulders taller than the average man. Saul is the man who looks impressive to the eye (does this remind you of a particular desert tree?) and appears to be mighty, just like all the nations around them.

But we are introduced to Saul as he is chasing some lost donkeys. He loses the donkeys and decides to go and see the man of God instead.

Saul is a donkey herder. And not even a good donkey herder — he loses donkeys!

Are you catching God’s tongue-in-cheek teaching lesson?

Who is Israel supposed to be? Sheep.

And who is supposed to lead sheep? A shepherd.

And so if God chooses a donkey herder to be their king, what is God saying they are? Stubborn and stiff-necked like jackasses.

And not only this, but what tribe is Saul from? Benjamin. The tribe with a big nasty history of disobedience. The stench of the Benjamites’ sin is still in the nostrils of Israel. This is God’s way of saying to the Israelites: You can have the kind of king I choose or the kind of king like everyone else. One of those will work out well for you and the other will not.

Will Israel hear the voice of their Shepherd?

This introduction to Saul will typify the kind of leadership and story we will read about with him. Saul, who will always be in it for himself. Saul, who won’t know how to lead God’s sheep to green pasture. Saul, who, instead of leading people through the “valley of the shadow of death,” will sit in a war camp while his people cower in fear under the taunts of a mighty giant.

This is no shepherd. And he’s no leader.

He’s certainly not a priest.

He’s a donkey herder.

Standing Stones

Before we leave Deuteronomy, we want to make sure that we don’t skim over this idea of remembering where we come from.  This is an important concept.  There’s an image that God employs — a tactile practice — that helps us remember our stories.

They are called standing stones.

The stones you see above are found at Tel Gezer in southern Israel.  The concept behind a standing stone is that you erect a monument where a big event happened.

An event you will need to remember.

One of those Red Sea moments.

The idea of a standing stone is that the stone itself demands a witness.  It is different than a ‘stele,’ which will actually have writing on it, describing the event in detail.  A standing stone is simply an out-of-place installment and causes the youth or the foreigner to say, “What is that?  What happened here?”  You are then forced to stop and tell the story.  Not only does this cause you to remember the story of God in your life, but it also forces you to share that story, spreading it to the next generation.

Because it’s important to pass the stories of God onto our children.  The book of Judges will make this stunning statement over and over again: “They did not remember the LORD their God and what He did for them…”

Because we have to tell our kids about what God has done.  Do you?  Did your parents?  Could you tell the stories of your family, about how God showed up for your grandfather?

This idea comes up again and again in the Scriptures.  Remember Jacob?  When he had that amazing dream from God, he took the stone he was sleeping on and stood it up, anointing it with oil.  A standing stone.  Then later, in Genesis 35, Jacob takes his whole family to Bethel, where the story took place.  Why?  To tell them the story.  When the Israelites cross the Jordan, what do they do?  They take rocks and pile them up to remember the story.

It’s important to remember where we come from.  It’s just as important to pass where we’ve come from on to our children — or they’ll probably go back.

What standing stones do you have in your life?

On my desk sits a collection of rocks that I’ve brought back from Israel.  Each one reminds me of a different story I brought back from my time in the Middle East.  There’s a piece of rope that I brought back from Hadijah’s house; she was a Muslim woman who gave everything she had in her cupboard to show me hospitality.  I have a dirty old sprinkler head on my shelf that reminds me of the day that I decided to give up on the American dream and follow God’s dream for humanity instead.  And a belt that I stole from my football uniform in high school, marking the decision I made to pursue the call of God into the ministry.

As my children grow older, they will hear these stories of mine.

Because I need to remember where I’ve come from.

Because my children need to know where I’ve been.

Because we need to know and remember what God has done.

These stones continually call us to trust the story.

Remember Where You Came From

After the wandering in the desert, the Israelites stand at the threshold to the land that was promised them and a future of unseen possibilities.  Yet, before they get to walk into their tomorrow, God desires for them to remember their yesterday.

Enter the book of Deuteronomy.  The call of Deuteronomy is to remember where you’ve come from.  Just look at all the calls to remember in this one book:

“… do not forget the things your eyes have seen … teach them to your children … Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God …” (4:9–10)
“Be careful not to forget the covenant …” (4:23)
“… be careful that you do not forget the LORD …” (4:31; 6:12; 8:11)
“Remember that you were slaves in Egypt …” (5:15; 16:12; 24:18; 24:22)
“Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness …” (8:2)
“But remember the LORD your God … if you ever forget the LORD your God …” (8:18–19)
“Remember this and never forget …” (9:7)
“Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God.” (11:2)
“… so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt.” (16:3)
“Remember what the LORD your God did …” (24:9)
“Remember what the Amalekites did to you … do not forget!” (25:17–19)
“Remember the days of old; consider generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell, your elders and they will explain to you …”  (32:7)

That’s 25 references, in case you were keeping track.

It’s important to remember.

But it’s also interesting to note WHAT the Israelites are being called to remember.  So many times, these calls to remember are connected to the alien, the orphan, and the widow.  God keeps telling the Israelites to remember their story.

Because they were foreigners once.
And orphans.
And widows.

They are to remember their own stories and become people who see the oppressed.  Because God saw them when they were oppressed.  And God heard their cry.

They are being invited to remember, so that they will hear the cries of others.  And it’s not too long before this becomes an endless cycle of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” syndrome.  Do I remember my story and therefore take care of the alien, orphan, and widow?  Or do I take care of the alien, orphan, and widow and it reminds me of my story?

YES.

And in case you were wondering, here’s the list of references to the alien, orphan, and widow:

1:16
5:14
10:18
10:19
14:21
14:29
16:11
16:14
23:7
24:14
24:17
24:19
24:20
24:21
26:11
26:12
26:13
27:19
31:12

This is important.

Because when you forget your story, you begin to feel entitled.  When you forget your humble beginnings, you begin to be proud.  When you forget your Egypts, you begin to be self-righteous.

And so God tells us to remember where we’ve come from — because it keeps us humble.

And God tells us to take care of the oppressed — because it helps us to remember.

And remembering is a big part of trusting the story.