Demonstrating a New Quality of Life Within and Through the Church

Be the Church 6

Photo by Elevate on Unsplash

Intro

So real talk, this theme is hitting me a little different this week. I have been for the last few weeks embroiled in a challenging church drama situation. A former leader in the church (who ostensibly stepped down from their position, but has continued on the periphery) has been sending increasingly hostile and accusatory emails to myself and some of the session (leadership board). I am the main target of these accusations: my tenure has been cited as one of the top three catastrophic events of the church’s history (a list that also includes the complete burning down of the sanctuary and a natural disaster) and my ‘calling’ as a minister has been called into question. I have some good support, but it is pretty overwhelming and disheartening to say the least. So thinking about the call for members of the congregation to demonstrate a new quality of life within and through the church sounds pretty good to me. I lift up the hope along side of a true understanding just how broken we can be as people, communities, and systems. 

Possible Scriptures

Psalm 133

Behold how good and pleasant it is when siblings live together in unity! You note that this is a psalm of ascents, meaning that it is one of the psalms recited during the tri-annual pilgrimage to the Jerusalem Temple, and especially recited when ascending Mt. Zion on which the temple rests. 

The image used for how very good and pleasant unity is, is that of oil poured on the beard of Aaron. As a bearded Aaron myself, I can tell you the importance of such conditioning, especially in an arid climate. However, the deeper image is of the anointing and ordination of Aaron, brother of Moses and first High Priest. The unity of God’s people is like the start of a new covenant, before anyone has the chance to not live up to it. 

This unity is also compared to the dew that falls on a mountain, which waters the plants and brings refreshing coolness. Hermon is the highest peak in Syria, on the modern-day border of Syria and Lebanon, and forms a part of the Golan Heights(!). In Deuteronomy it is listed as the northern edge of the kingdom of the Amorites, listed as the inheritance of Manessa. Zion, of course, is one of the names for the mountain on which Jerusalem and its Temple were built.

Deuteronomy 14:1-8, 22-23, 15:1-5

I was recently turned onto this particular passage by the Bible Worm Podcast in their rebroadcast of a summer series on economic justice. It begins with a call on the people as God’s children, holy and chosen. This echoes the consecration of the Hebrew people at Mt. Sinai, before the giving of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 19), and had recently been brought up as Moses begins his ‘second telling’ of the Covenant to this people (Deuteronomy 5). 

What then proceeds is a list of ways that the Hebrew people are to be different, set apart, literally ‘holy’, than the Canaanite people. The Covenant/Law itself is to outline a way of being in right relationship and action with God, with their neighbors (both Hebrew and non-Hebrew), and the land itself. 

First there are instructions on cultic practices, namely self-cutting and shaving hair off the top of one's forehead. Self-cutting was a Canaanite practice meant to invoke and garner sympathy from their god (namely, Ba’al for this practice). We see this self-cutting in Elija’’s showdown on Mt. Carmel (1 Kings 18). Interestingly enough, self-harm and cutting is a rapidly growing practice among young people today, linked to the desire to ‘feel something.’ Could it be that there is a deeper spiritual component? Cutting of the ‘forelocks’ (a term usually used for horses, and the hair that falls over their face) was connected to a Canaanite belief that their recently dead ancestors would watch them from the shadows to make sure that they were properly grieving. The practice of cutting off the hair on the front of their heads was a cultural sign of visible grieving meant to appease these spirits. This belief of the dead was inconsistent with a Hebrew conception of death. 

Next is the introduction of the ‘Kosher’ rules around diet. There are animals that are clean, and others that are unclean. This again would be a shared distinction that the Hebrews would have with the other people in the land of Canaan. These rules would ‘set them apart’ (or make them holy) from the various people groups around them. Note: This section ends with the command not to “boil a kid in it’s mother’s milk” which has been commonly interpreted to mean that meat and dairy should not be in the same meal (or even cooked in the same pot). There is a more recent suggestion (noted in a podcast, so I don’t have a reference) that this was also linked to cultic practices of the Canaanites. 

The next section is beginning the economic responsibility to the poor in two ways. First is the setting aside one tenth of your field (obviously affecting those who have fields) so that those who are without fields (or who have fields but whose crops have been affected, etc) are able to share in it. Interestingly, the way this is accomplished in this passage seems to be that you throw a party, at the Tabernacle, Temple, or closest Livite city to celebrate the goodness of YHWH, and (implied) to share it with those who are there. This may be the celebration that Elkenah, Hannah, and Peninnah are having at the beginning of 1 Samuel. The other side of this law (or perhaps coinciding with it) may be seen in the story of Ruth; with Boaz setting aside part of the field of gleaners like Ruth, as well as the harvest festival where Ruth ‘proposes’ to him. This practice also provides for the Levites who do not get land for fields in the allotment, and so therefore must be provided for. Every third year, they were instructed to set aside this tith to be stored in the town for the feeding of the Levites, foreigners, widows, orphans, and other marginalized individuals. 

The final section (of this reading) is about the every seven year remission of monetary/resource debt. This pictures the very real possibility of a family with an allotment of land, but for whatever reason (locusts, rot, etc) is unable to support themselves. They may ask for a loan from a more fortunate neighbor. Of course, they will make every effort to pay back that loan, but every seven years, those debts are wiped away. This would serve to make sure that one bad year does not snowball into generational debt. It would also keep those who are wealthy from enriching themselves on the misfortune of others. There is even a note that you don’t get to calculate how long it will be until the next sabbath year, if it’s year six, then it’s year six. Later there will be an explanation of the Jubilee year, where every seven of those sabbath years (so after 49 years) there will be a year where all debts, including also the selling of land and the enslavement or indenture of others, would be wiped away. Note that this remission is only for their own people (foreigners can be charged interest, but their debts will still be remitted), which can certainly make us feel some sort of way, but even with this restriction, it is an incredibly sustainable and community focused policy.

This text mentions that if they were to follow this commandment specifically (and by implication the others as well) poverty will literally not be a thing for them. Imagine that. Surely, this is what the writer of Acts has in mind when in both Acts 4 and 5 they say that there is not a single person in need in the early Christian community. 

The rest of Deuteronomy lays out other major distinctions that the Hebrews are to have with the other people groups they are living among. The way that they eat, the way that they dress, the way that they live in community, everything serves as a way of being called to a new quality of life within their community and outside. 

Ephesians 2:1-10

This new quality of life is one that is so extreme, that the Apostle here compares it to a literal death to the assumptions, practices, morays, and systems of your former life. Paul uses here one of his favorite images of living accordion to the flesh (sarks) or the Spirit (pneuma) noting that all of us at one time lived according to the passions and desires of the flesh. We can easily slip into a scarcity mindset where there is never enough, and we need to fight for what is ours. We can worry only about ourselves, and those like us, ignoring the plight of those who do not have our privilege, resources, generational wealth, prestige, etc. We can be more concerned with our creature comforts than what they may mean for our neighbor and nature. Those lead by this fleshly desire Paul calls ‘children of wrath’ “like everyone else.” We will leave aside the ‘us/them’ mentality of this bifurcation, and think into the positive side of this comparison. In his mind, the natural state of humanity is this fleshly, self-serving, scarcity-minded existence, or as Thomas Hobbes put it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” 

The contrast that Paul is trying to get his readers to see, not unlike the ‘holiness’ that the Hebrew people were called to, was for the purpose of living differently. God has richly blessed us, and given us a life beyond this death to our fleshly nature. We are called to live as ‘children of light’ instead of wrath, we are called to live differently with one another and with everyone around us. They (anyone else) are to ‘know us by our love’ as Jesus says. Just as the Hebrew people were called as the chosen children of God, we have been adopted into the household of God. We are no longer members of the household of Caesar (or America, or the Democrats, or the Republicans, or Millennials, or Baby Boomers, or white, or black, or hispanic, etc, etc, etc.), we are called to be a part of the family of God, and that means that we live differently. It means that we demonstrate a new quality of life within and through the church. 

To be sure, we have not always lived up to this high calling. There have been shameful periods of the Church’s history where we have been far more interested in the power and prestige of an institution, than the poor and the marginalized. Many of the problems that we have in the church today are the after-effects of us not being the church in the past. People are leaving organized religion in droves, partially at least due to our churches, leaders, and members proclaiming to be better than everyone else, and actually being so much worse (or even just as bad). Our call is to actually be better, to actually live a life worthy of the gospel, to love one another and those around us deeply, to serve others through the ‘good works’ that God has pre-ordained for us. We can and should be better. 

Additional Other Texts

New Commandment, to Love one another (John 13:31-35) 

Love One Another (1 John 4:7-21)

Worship Resources

Call to Worship (2 Corinthians 16-17)

ONE: From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

MANY: So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new!

Prayer of the Day

Jesus Christ, you have come to give us life, a life overflowing with your grace. You call us to right relationship and action with God, with one another, and with all creation. But we too easily fall back into the patterns of this world, exploiting neighbor and nature for our own ends. We do not always live as your servant people, or display the unity that we have in you. Help us to demonstrate a new quality of life both within the church, and in the world around us. Amen.

Hymn Suggestions

The Church’s One Foundation (GTG 321)

Men of Faith Rise Up and Sing (Shout To The North) (GTG 319)

Come, Live in the Light (We are Called) (GTG 749)