Post by Mark on Dec 20, 2008 6:38:31 GMT -8
One of the things that are difficult for us to remember when reading these "great old biblical stories" is that we are reading the lives of real people: people who had to get up in the morning even though they would have preferred to spend the day in bed, people who suffered from bouts of loneliness and discouragement, people who spilt coffee on their keyboard and lost the ability to type… okay, maybe not so much. We tend to picture the lives of the early patriarchs as scripted: that they were invited to Adonai’s weekly staff meetings and were able to discuss and plan for future events. The truth is that we have more at our disposal, describing the nature, the character and the future plans of God than they could have ever imagined. They knew that the Messiah would come. Beyond that things were a bit fuzzy.
The Parashah this week is about great men of our faith being just guys trying to live from day to day as painlessly as possible.
Israel had good reason to be concerned for his boys taking the flocks to graze at Shechem. Shechem is where Levi and Simeon mutilated the people for the sake of their sister Dinah. It was not a place that was naturally accommodating to them and Israel had left the region in fear.
Judah had married a local girl and probably taken a wife from among the same clan for his son, the first deviations from the practice of gaining a bride from the father-country. When his first two sons died inexplicably, there must have been some doubt as to the wisdom of this. He tried what fathers try to do. He tried to save what remained.
The brothers of Joseph didn’t want anything that wasn’t already theirs; but they saw the potential of this young up-start to take away everything that had. The haggadah (stories) of Jewish tradition are not very complimentary of Joseph during this time. He is painted as somewhat as a dandy, a weakling, who couldn’t physically handle the rigors of a shepherd life. Yet, his proximity to Dad by staying around the house, he used to his advantage and against them.
An old co-worker of mine, years ago, used to remind me, "It’s hard to remember to drain the swamp when you’re up to your… let’s say ‘waist’… in alligators." Walking with the Most High in our daily experience is not as easy as we might like to think that it was for these men, way back then, who didn’t have the distractions of cable television and microwave chimechangas. …who also didn’t have the completed written Word of God in Audio, video, digitized and written forms and nearly every language on the planet. They didn’t have the historical evidences of how the God of all Creation would walk with them as His chosen people and never fail them against the most horrific of odds and circumstances. They didn’t have the testimony of Job. They didn’t have the example of Jeremiah. All they had was faith in what He had said to them and what had been handed to them by their fathers.
I think, sometimes, we get burdened down by the great cloud of witnesses of our religion and honor those testimonies in the distance of academia. We become focused upon the Word, forgetting to experience the God of our fathers for ourselves. He is no less God to us than He was to them. He is no less available. He is no less in our midst. They were no less sinful and arrogant and selfish than we are today. We have no excuses.
Sometimes we need to close the Book, not ignoring the truth and doctrine and instruction that it is designed to give us; but to come out of our hiding places of religious learning and start walking with Him in our daily experience. We are inclined to keep our theology trapped in the Sabbath day and our faith in our appointed times of worship; but the rest of the time busy draining the swamp.
It’s easy to judge the patriarchs in what they did or did not do: if only they had been walking with God instead of doing their own thing, how things may have been very different. It’s harder to ask, "Lord, what would you have me do," then wait for the answer, as your daughter drives off with a guy with more piercings than hair or your son considers the colleges on the other side of the continent.
Our faith is about putting our money where our mouth is. It is about really, really, really believing that God is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And when we miss and go our own way, we are no different than our fathers who have come before us. And God is still God.
The Parashah this week is about great men of our faith being just guys trying to live from day to day as painlessly as possible.
Israel had good reason to be concerned for his boys taking the flocks to graze at Shechem. Shechem is where Levi and Simeon mutilated the people for the sake of their sister Dinah. It was not a place that was naturally accommodating to them and Israel had left the region in fear.
Judah had married a local girl and probably taken a wife from among the same clan for his son, the first deviations from the practice of gaining a bride from the father-country. When his first two sons died inexplicably, there must have been some doubt as to the wisdom of this. He tried what fathers try to do. He tried to save what remained.
The brothers of Joseph didn’t want anything that wasn’t already theirs; but they saw the potential of this young up-start to take away everything that had. The haggadah (stories) of Jewish tradition are not very complimentary of Joseph during this time. He is painted as somewhat as a dandy, a weakling, who couldn’t physically handle the rigors of a shepherd life. Yet, his proximity to Dad by staying around the house, he used to his advantage and against them.
An old co-worker of mine, years ago, used to remind me, "It’s hard to remember to drain the swamp when you’re up to your… let’s say ‘waist’… in alligators." Walking with the Most High in our daily experience is not as easy as we might like to think that it was for these men, way back then, who didn’t have the distractions of cable television and microwave chimechangas. …who also didn’t have the completed written Word of God in Audio, video, digitized and written forms and nearly every language on the planet. They didn’t have the historical evidences of how the God of all Creation would walk with them as His chosen people and never fail them against the most horrific of odds and circumstances. They didn’t have the testimony of Job. They didn’t have the example of Jeremiah. All they had was faith in what He had said to them and what had been handed to them by their fathers.
I think, sometimes, we get burdened down by the great cloud of witnesses of our religion and honor those testimonies in the distance of academia. We become focused upon the Word, forgetting to experience the God of our fathers for ourselves. He is no less God to us than He was to them. He is no less available. He is no less in our midst. They were no less sinful and arrogant and selfish than we are today. We have no excuses.
Sometimes we need to close the Book, not ignoring the truth and doctrine and instruction that it is designed to give us; but to come out of our hiding places of religious learning and start walking with Him in our daily experience. We are inclined to keep our theology trapped in the Sabbath day and our faith in our appointed times of worship; but the rest of the time busy draining the swamp.
It’s easy to judge the patriarchs in what they did or did not do: if only they had been walking with God instead of doing their own thing, how things may have been very different. It’s harder to ask, "Lord, what would you have me do," then wait for the answer, as your daughter drives off with a guy with more piercings than hair or your son considers the colleges on the other side of the continent.
Our faith is about putting our money where our mouth is. It is about really, really, really believing that God is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And when we miss and go our own way, we are no different than our fathers who have come before us. And God is still God.
