Choking to Death on Camel Stew

If you’ve read Matthew 23, you may remember that Jesus is described as confronting the Pharisees of His day in ways that no other gospel can match. He isn’t in the best of moods and sounds a bit like a Hebrew prophet bringing a law suit against Israel for their unfaithfulness.  The series of sayings that begin with “woe to you,” or “Woe betide you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” as N.T. Wright translates it in his Kingdom New Testament, is a powerful reminder of the need for a serious course correction.

The woe that I personally keep coming back to – perhaps out of some need to make sure it couldn’t be said of me – is the saying found in verses 23, 24. Here it is from Wright’s translation:

               "Woe betide you, scribes and Pharisees, yhou hypocrites!" Jesus went on. "You tithe mint and dill and cumin, and you omit the serious matters of the law like justice, mercy, and loyalty. You should have done these, without neglecting the others. You're blind guides! You filter out a gnat, but you gulp down a camel.

 

We first meet the idea of tithing when Abram gave Melchizedek a tithe of the spoils of war gained from victory. (Genesis 14) In the Law – Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy all insist that a tithe should be given to the Lord. Most would assume that means a tenth of all of one’s income. From the comments Jesus makes to the Pharisees – it sounds as though they took the principle of tithing in an extraordinarily serious manner. They tithed their herb gardens – mint, dill, and cumin included. With scrupulous detail, they made sure “they paid their tithes” as I’ve heard some believers describe the process.

Jesus is not opposed to such a detailed and determined approach to tithing. “You should have done these” is how He responds to it. 

Yet, that isn’t all that Jesus said.

“You omit the serious matters of the law like justice, mercy, and loyalty.” They are “blind guides” because the rigid legalism with which they tithe is not matched with a commitment to issues more important than making sure you gave a teaspoon of mint, dill, and cumin to the Levites. 

The Law had much to say about justice, mercy, and faithfulness (covenant loyalty). The prophet Micah  would have shouted a fervent “Amen!” to this criticism Jesus offers. Do you remember what he said, summarizing much of what the Law pointed toward, in Micah 6:8? “He has told you, O man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (ESV)

For Jesus, focusing on minutia at the expense of the weightier matters is as though we strain out a tiny little gnat (unclean for sure, Lev. 11:41) while gulping down a camel, also unclean (Lev. 11:4) and the largest of the beasts common to Palestine.

It doesn’t take an advanced degree in theology to figure out that Jesus wants us to pay attention to all that God has asked of us, even in areas where we might think “no big deal, it’s such a small matter.” So this isn’t an invitation to become a libertine about such matters.

But neither doesn’t it take that advanced degree to realize that when my focus on such relatively minor issues convinces me that justice, kindness, and walking humbly with our God don’t matter, I’m little more than a blind guide who fastidiously strains out a tiny gnat from my soup but ends up choking to death on camel stew.

Pick up a daily newspaper or spend thirty minutes watching your favorite media news source and you will see issues related to justice, mercy, and faithfulness all over the place. Walk or drive around the town or city you live in – and it won’t be hard to find issues related to justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

Unfortunately – it isn’t unusual to hear self-proclaimed Christian leaders straining gnats while choking on camel stew when it comes to how we address these important issues. 

The Pharisees seem to be more focused on maintaining a preferred way of life than on taking the good news of the kingdom of God seriously. Perhaps it was some political theory that they adopted over and above the gospel.

May we not follow their steps and one day hear Jesus say, “Woe betide you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!”

The Great Reversal

Several years ago a YouTube video of Bono and Eugene Peterson was downloaded and played thousands of times. It is about twenty minutes or so long and showed a great friendship and respect the famous singer and famous Bible scholar and translator had for one another. It is well worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l40S5e90KY  

One of the things I remember Bono saying was that he wished contemporary Christian artists were as “honest about life as the psalms are.” They talked about the proper role of lament in the lives of God’s people

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We don’t do well with lament.

A contemporary Christian song I hear often is I Called, You Answered. It is a Hillsong United song based on Psalm 138:3, which says, “On the day I called, You answered me; You emboldened me and strengthened my soul.” (ESV) The lyrics of the song are nice and the tune to which they are sung, at least to me, has a kind of haunting quality.

Obviously this isn’t a “song of lament!” Its recurring theme is “you came to my rescue and I wanna be where you are.” (I’m too old to be fond of “wanna be” as a replacement for “want to be,” but those are the lyrics!)

But recently, in my personal reading of Scripture, while reading from Isaiah, I came across two different texts that are a bit of a reversal from the hope, joy, and thanksgiving of Psalm 138. Isaiah 65:12 says, “I have destined you for the sword, and you all shall kneel to be slaughtered, since I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not hear, and you did what was evil in My eyes, and what I did not desire you choose.” And then, in Isaiah 66:4, “I, too, will choose their rank acts and what they fear I will bring upon them. Because I called and none answered, I spoke and they did not listen, and they did what was evil in My eyes, and in what I did not delight they chose.” (Translation from Robert Alter, A Translation with Commentary.)

That sounds like Lament!

Isaiah introduces a kind of great reversal at the beginning of Isaiah 65 – “I yielded oracles when they did not inquire, I was found when they did not seek Me. I said, ‘Here I am, ere I am’ to a nation not called by My name. I spread out My hands all day long to a wayward people that walked on a way not good after its own divisings.” (Alter) God speaks when we don’t ask, is found when we don’t seek, prays (spread out my hands) for wayward people who travel a path that isn’t good. God will have a people, but it may not be the people who think they are His people. 

What would a Hillsong United tune and lyrics on these texts look and sound like?

I’m certainly not suggesting we go around in “sack cloth and ashes” twenty-four hour a day, nor am I suggesting that somehow it is less than spiritually appropriate to celebrate the presence of God in our lives as Psalm 138 does. But . . . shouldn’t it break our heart that in these Isaiah texts, it is God who calls, but we don’t answer. It is God who speaks, but we don’t bother to hear.  Instead of “answering and listening” we choose “to do what is evil in His eyes.” 

Robert Goldingay (The First Testament, 648) suggests that the message of Isaiah 56-66 “relates to the situation of Judah when people have been free to return there after their exile but where things are not as wonderful as they might have expected.” It seems certain that Judah has experienced a kind of forgiveness out of the exile but has returned to its former way. 

In a great reversal – rather than Israel calling on God, He calls on them. They don’t answer.

Lament.

Rather than Israel praying, it is God whose hands are spread out all day long for a wayward people.

Lament.

I look forward to the next time I am with God’s people and we sing, I Called, You Answered.

But I’m wondering if our culture – church-going and non-church going – couldn’t use a song or two of lament and repentance.

Perhaps Bono was right. We need contemporary artists who are as honest as the psalms – and as Isaiah is!

Creation and Reboots

For Christmas this past year, my wife gave me a “squirrel-proof hanger for my bird feeders.” It’s deluxe! In fact, it is so nice that I decided I had to buy new feeders to use, the old ones looked too tired and worn. It really works – squirrels are yet to find a way to the feeders.

Since late December when I installed it and filled the new feeders with really good bird seed, I have seen all sorts of birds. I’m writing this is mid-August and I am still putting seed in the feeders and seeing an impressive gathering of God’s original orchestra and choir: birds!

I can step out of the garage onto the drive way and quietly stand and watch. There is a kind of rhythm to their eating that is impressive. Certain birds prefer certain feeders. The murder of crows (yes, a “flock of crows” is a “murder of crows.”) are too big for the feeders so they are around the feeder on the ground eating what the smaller birds scatter as they eat. Two different species of Woodpeckers have visited us during the summer.

If you go out just before sunrise, the music is amazing.  Little wonder Psalm 19 begins with “the heavens are recounting God’s splendor, . . .day by day it points out speech.”

Another early morning practice for me is Scripture reading. I am striving to be very disciplined about this. If Scripture really is what God says it is, then there is no reason I should ignore it. The more I pay attention to creation and Scripture, the more convinced I am that I should be doing at least some reading outside – in creation. When I do that, I am hearing the heavens (creation, even birds!) declare God’s glory as I read His Word, which this same Psalm (19) says “The Lord’s instruction has integrity, bringing life back . . . is trustworthy, making the naïve smart.”

I love that phrase “bringing life back.” That sounds like a worthwhile kind of reboot. What I have finally learned is that when I pay attention to the world God made and take time to engage His word that the Spirit gave – that can “bring life back.” It is the kind of daily reboot that makes life worthy living and allows us to experience a kind of significance that beats achievement any day of the week.

Not surprisingly, Psalm 19 ends with “May the sayings of my mouth be acceptable to you, and the murmur of my mind before you, Yahweh, my crag and my restorer.” That is from The First Testament a new translation of the Old Testament I’ve read through this summer. In more familiar terms, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and redeemer.”

What if the reboot moments in our lives at Point this year brought us to next May where our every word and every thought honored God?

                                                Best of any song

                                                is bird song

                                                in the quiet, but first

                                                you must have the quiet.

                                                                Wendell Berry