Reason Breeds Insanity

Deuteronomy 26:16-19
In verse 16 we read, “The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.” The next two verses contain a threefold explanation of our commitment to God. The Israelites declared that they were going: (1) to walk in the way, (2) to keep the decrees, and (3) to obey the Lord. In response the Lord promises that the Israelites are: (1) [Their] people, (2) going to be set in praise, fame and honor, and (3) a people holy to the Lord their God. For me, the challenge is not believing in God’s promises, the challenge is lving my life in a way that is worthy of God’s promises. To walk in the way of the Lord, to keep the Lord’s decrees, and to obey the Lord are no small tasks.

When ancient people were trying to implement a certain belief system into their lives, they would walk around chanting or mumbling the words of their holy stories to themselves. Because the stories or scriptures were passed down orally, the memorization of the texts was important. I think it is interesting that the scripture that informs my spiritual life and daily decisions are the passages of scripture that I know by heart. I may not know then verbatim, but I have meditated on them enough that the general gist of their text is firmly implanted in my heart and soul. One of the spiritual disciplines that intrigues me the most is saying the Jesus prayer. In the book The Way of the Pilgrim, a man is taught that his prayers should be constant and never ceasing. In Psalm 1 the text says, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” The word for meditate literally means to mumble or to recite to yourself. The Hebrew word hagah literally means to moan, growl, speak, or mutter. In the Jewish Publication Society’s translation of the Tanakh, the word is translated as study.

All this to say, that I think for me, part of upholding my end of the bargain with the Lord is to absorb the Scriptures so that I can’t help but be influenced by their meaning in my day to day life. This brings me closer to realizing my dream of living on Venice Beach, literally on Venice Beach. I could walk around mumbling Scripture to rhythm of the oceans lapping waves, the seagulls calling their praises, and the soft sand cradling my every step. Please, understand that I am being serious: I plan one day to live on Venice Beach. I only hope that when the time comes, I am stil sentient enough to hitch a ride across the country without too much problem. Despite its problems, what a free way to live, with none of the societal pressures, the only concerns are bodily and spiritual. Interesting to me that many of the booming spiritual revolutions are happening in homeless communities. Something to ponder.

Matthew 5:43-48
I can’t say anything better or more intelligent than some words from the Dalai Lama in his book, The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus. He says in a chapter called “Love Your Enemy”:

If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience, and understanding. By developing greater tolerance and patience, it will be easier for you to develop your capacity for compassion and, through that, altruism. So even for the practice of your own spiritual path, the presence of an enemy is crucial. (49)

It is important to concentrate on the negativities of anger and hatred, which are the principal obstacles to enhancing one’s capacity for compassion and tolerance…God created you as an individual and gave you the freedom to act in a way that is compatible and in accordance with the Creator’s wishes—to act in an ethical way, in a moral way, and to live a life of an ethically disciplined, responsible individual. (50)

There is an idea in Buddhism of something called offering of practice (drupai chopa): of all the offerings you can make to someone that you revere—such as material offerings, singing songs of praise, or other gifts—the best offerieng you can make is to live a life according to the principles of that being…One of the great yogi’s of Tibetan Buddhism, Milarepa, states in one of his songs of spiritual experience, “As far as offerings of material gifts are concerned, I am destitute; I have nothing to offer. What I have to offer in abundance is the gift of my spiritual practice.” (51)

All is well. He looks good, and he is working a normal schedule. We are back to normal, which if you know my family, means abnormal.

Has anyone ever read Jude? What a weird book: 3 verses of greeting, 16 verses of talking about these particular men who come to destroy the church, 4 verses of encouragement, and 2 verses of a beautiful benediction. While containing one of the most beautiful greetings (2) and, in my opinion, the most beautiful doxology in the New Testament (24-25), I think it could possibly be the foremost text on gossip in the church and it even contains namecalling. The men are called dreamers, ungodly, unreasoning animals, blemishes, shepherds who feed themselves, clouds without rain, trees without fruit, uprroted and twice dead, wild waves, wondering stars, scoffers, near sighted gynocologists…wait I slipped into Hook there for a second. They are compared to unbelievers, angels who have been cast out of heaven, Cain, Balaam, Sodomites, Korah, and the Devil. They “pollute their own bodies, reject authority, and slander celestial beings.” The online commentaries say that Jude is referring to men who were trying to infiltrate the church by disguising themselves as believers but then leading people astray from the true gospel. The biblical scholars are much kinder than I am to Jude. Still. Really? There are seven verses that are edifying; the rest seems to be hate speech about “certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago.” I think I could get the notes from a church staff meeting and possibly pass it off as Jude.

Ever wonder why some books are in the Bible? Jude, eh, anyone? Seriously. Jude is holy writ. Okay, I’ll stop.

Ezekial 18:21-32 and Matthew 5:20-26

I am not a really big fan of this passage. I am not a big fan of Ezekial. Period. Dry bones? God smiting the righteous because they sin? Big wheels in the sky? Are you sure this isn’t an African Folk Tale? Well…actually, wait….

Incidentally, to smite and to love are two sides of the same coin…get it…smitten…like our brains shrivel up and we die when we fall in love…we have been smited (is that a word?) by love. I am sure I could go all sorts of theological places with Paul about being smited (smitten) by our love of Jesus (dying daily, etc.). That was dumb but true. I digress.

Okay, Matt and Zeke. I think the meaning of this passage is really wrapped up in verses 30 through 32. Ezekial isn’t really saying that God smites the righteous if they commit a sin; he is saying that sin, and consequently the conditon of the heart, is the problem: “Rid yourselves of the all offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel?” (See again Psalm 51) They will die, as will we, if they don’t repent: if their hearts aren’t changed. By this time, Israel is in deep with other cultures that they were specifically told not to intermix with. They are burning incense and worshipping Asherah poles, which decidedly do not lead them to YHWH. Their hearts have become so corrupt with sin, that even the righteous are turning from the Lord and their lives, part and parcel, have become sinful: “Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die.” Were the righteous willing to turn a discerning eye toward their own lives and re-evaluate and repent? Are we willing to look at ourselves and repent?

EDIT: (This is really long already, but I just read the rest of the chapter of Ezekial and it seems to be about generational sin. Please if you read this passage, read all of chapter 18. It makes these few verses so much clearer. I would write a bit about it to remind myself later, but I must move on to Kate Chopin and Mary Cassatt. Please, really, read all of Chapter 18. It even makes sense when you think of the Pharisees in Matthew as spiritual fathers. Food for thought.)

Which leads me to Matthew, who says: “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus is not only calling out the Pharisees, although he does not say they aren’t righteous, but he is calling for those who are listening to his words to go above and beyond the righteousness of the Pharisees: to live the spirit of the law not only the letter of the law. To evaluate their lives and find the ways their souls are stuck in auto-pilot and reeking of internal unholiness. Jesus is saying that it isn’t about outer posture, but it is about inner holiness.

What today’s readings boil down to for me is this: It is wonderful to be righteous (more wonderful to not sin), but within that righteous attitude must be righteous action. We also cannot live lives degraded by a posture of consuming sin. Of course, it is wonderful to give money to a youth group, but how much more wonderful would it be to actually form a relationship with the kids in that youth group? While it is great to go to church and sit in the pew every Sunday, wouldn’t it be more amazing to let your heart be transformed by God and to live out that transformation? In Matthew, Jesus is calling us to go deeper. It isn’t enough to not murder. We are to realize that at the very heart of it all our words can be instruments of destruction, our attitudes can be instruments of destruction, our lives (think about Ezekial and sinning) can be instruments of destruction. Even the way we handle ourselves in disputes is evidence of our inner lives. We are called to live in the Spirit, to evaluate our lives, and to turn from the unrighteous toward the righteous. To be holy as God is holy.

Both of these passages are asking us to re-evaluate and cleanse our hearts, spirits, lives, minds, and actions from sin: “Repent and live!”

Mostly I have recovered from my mid-night tirade about the BUX. I do love my customers. I am compassionate to their individual needs; I suppose that is why I would never say the things I sometimes think. I would love to get to the point where I am disciplined enough to be immediately compassionate.Now, if I could just get to the point where I don’t even think those things. Maybe I was supposed to be a desert-dwelling nun, or a hippie. Maybe I was both in former lives. I told Becs the other day that I was going to drop out of society, maybe buy a VW bus and live wherever it breaks down. She asked me: “Do you know how bored you would get?” I don’t think I would get bored. I am very self-entertaining. I can spend hours with myself.

Do you know how freeing it is to be able to just read and contemplate? I love having time to meet with people, read, think, write, and just be alone with God. Part if my contemplative adventure, right now, is to learn the art of compassion: to rid my body of anger. I don’t want to think the worst about people but the best: I want to give of myself freely. I don’t want to be the person that assumes, but I am. I assume the worst.

I am coming out: I am a pessimist.

I prefer the term realist. But I am a pessimist.

At best I am a cynic. I had a professor in seminary that once told me there are worse things than being a cynic: at least a cynic cares. “You could just be apathetic like a lot of people,” he said. He is the only facet of seminary that I truly miss.