A Touch of Identification

Reading through the book of Leviticus might seem like a trip to an alien land.  The elaborate instructions regarding proper sacrifices may strike us as unnecessarily detailed, perhaps even silly.  Of course they were anything but silly to the people of God in Israel, who understood that their connection to God depended on the protection of their holiness before God.  The sacrifices enact and maintain that desire for holiness–a human life appropriate for a Holy God.

One aspect of the animal sacrifices described in Exodus and Leviticus strikes me:  the laying on of hands.  ”You shall lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be acceptable in your behalf as atonement for you” (Leviticus 1:4).  Laying hands on the sacrifice enacts the identification of the worshiper with the sacrifice.  This animal’s life represents my life; my life now stands before you, O Lord, through this sacrifice.  A hand on the head accomplishes this identification and seals the deal.

Laying on hands has enjoyed a rich history in the worship of God’s people.  We note the practice at times of blessing, to confer bodily the sense of God’s power; at times of choosing, when leaders are set apart for ministries and empowered with God’s gifts.  As we read through the Bible, note the times in which this laying on of hands occurs; each instance is important.

Last Sunday our church’s worship had a lot of hand-laying-on.  At the baptism the pastor’s hand descended upon Penn’s (drenched) head, gently imparting a touch that signified and expressed the touch of God’s Spirit upon him.  And hundreds of hands lay upon the heads of our newly-ordained officers (okay, some hands were on their heads, other hands were on their shoulders, and some were on the shoulders of others).  But spiritually as well as bodily, the hands of many were on the heads of God’s servants:  expressing both God’s and our own identification with these leaders, proclaiming the unfathomable mystery that the Spirit of God rests upon them, and embodying our faith that God will impart the gifts for their ministry through the Holy Spirit.

Come to think of it, there were lots of hands laid on this Sunday at church.  A number of children were greeted by smiling, caring adults with a hand on the head–affection, not condescension.  A few rowdy teenage boys received the sturdy hand-clasp behind the base of the neck, grips applied by men who remembered being rowdy boys themselves.  And if you count pats on the head or shoulder during hugs of greeting, there were likely hundreds of hands laid on the head, or thereabouts, all sharing in the same function as the Biblically-attested, liturgically-fomalized laying on of hands:  identification of one with another through the gesture of touch.

Is it too much to hope–to claim–that God’s Spirit dances among us and works through us as we lay on hands?  Whether the connection is obvious and immediate–as with celebrating the sacrament of baptism or the ordination to ministry–or whether the connection is implicit–the love of the baptized for one another–it is fundamentally the same love we share, the same Spirit we claim and impart, the same God whose life we give and receive.

When we lay on hands in church–liturgically or informally–God’s touch enters our worship.  And the identification we enact is not merely that of one human being with another; it is the infinitely more precious identification of God with each of us beloved children.

Reading the Bible, Reading Our Lives

For far too long I’ve read my life and our world all wrong.  Reading the Bible helps me to read the world aright.

Now, I like to think of myself as a fairly accomplished “reader” of life.  I pay attention to the flow of events and the narrative they express or imply.  The meaning of things in their human context naturally engages me.  This characteristic probably accounts for why I woke up one day in college as an English major, not the Pre-Medical whiz I had wanted to be.  My work ever since–as English teacher, then pastor–has taken me into the stories of characters fictional and real.  As I have taken in these stories–of others and myself–I like to think that I have grown in my ability to interpret and understand the lives we live and the world in which we do so.

What I have come to see about my interpretation, however, is that all too often it has been all too wrong.  I’ve been accustomed to seeing the world primarily as the context for human action:  the blank canvas upon which human beings paint bold brushstrokes; the frontier for our exploration and self-discovery.  Looking at life this way, one sees oneself as the protagonist of all the meaningful action in one’s life.  The narrative of our three-score-and-ten will be a story of our self-actualization.  And it depends upon us to make it happen.

The Bible provides us a different picture of human life, the inverse of this humanistic perspective.  As we read through the scriptures, we see that the world is God’s creation, and its purpose is not my heedless consumption.  And my life is not my own:  it belongs to the Lord, the Creator.  The events of the world occur under God’s providence; human action does not define and describe history except as God intends or allows.  Indeed, the story of our world is the story of God’s mighty acts, this Lord who rules in sovereign love and enters into the creation to share immediately the life He gives and redeems.

The Bible teaches me to discern this God in the world and hence to understand the world aright.  It is almost like a photographic negative.  Everything I would understand as my initiative or credit belongs more properly to God.  The blessings of my life are mine not because of my talents and accomplishments but because of God’s love and grace.  Conversely, the challenges of my life–even the failures–are not merely judgments upon me or signs of my shortcomings; they are opportunities for me to claim and experience the redemptive power of God.  The whole sweep of my life becomes the story of God’s mighty power made visible.  My narrative becomes an occasion to discern and to declare the victory of God’s saving love.  I exist for Him and for His glory.

Seeing our world this way–seeing our lives this way–frees us from the trap of narcissism and the inward-curving trajectory of our sinful selves.  Israel looked at its history and discerned that the protagonist, the hero, was the Lord.  The role of God’s people was and is to see how God has acted to call us into life-giving relationship with Him.  Reading the Bible invites us to look at our own lives in the same way.  Do we dare to define ourselves not according to our own accomplishments, but according to God’s?

Getting Our Worship Right

The last part of Exodus offers a different kind of reading than what we had been sharing.  In the first half of the book we read the active narrative of the events of Israel’s liberation:  Moses’ confrontation with Pharaoh, the Passover, the rescue at the Red Sea, and the grumbling and second-guessing in the Wilderness.  These events lead toward the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai (and the subsequent law-breaking by Aaron and the people in the making of the Golden Calf).

At this point the action virtually stops.  The action-packed narrative slams on the brakes to offer us a number of chapters of laws and an impressively-detailed description of the construction of the tabernacle for Israel’s worship.

What do we make of this elaborate description of the worship apparatus of God’s people?  A few ideas strike me about this part of the story.  One is that the scripture is positing an historical basis for the readers’ current experience of priestly worship.  That is to say, by the time of the writing of Exodus, Israel had an established worship tradition and priestly class.  As the story takes form, the writer is careful to detail how important this priestly worship is from the beginning of the nation’s life.  The forms, practices, and means of Israel’s worship are established by God’s decree from Sinai.  The story communicates the centrality of worship in the life of God’s people.

Impressive in these elaborate details is the overriding sense that in and through worship, God’s people could interact dependably with God.  Today’s worshipers might not find that idea surprising, but it is clear that Israel maintained a sense of God’s holiness, transcendence, and awesome power.  That God invites Israel to construct a tabernacle, a tent of meeting, means that God wishes to interact with God’s people.  The Lord will accompany the people on their trek through the wilderness; God will continue to relate with those whom he has called.

Priests serve as the representative intermediaries between God and the people.  Each time he offers sacrifices, Aaron brings the people vicariously into God’s presence.  His vestments explicitly carry the names of the tribes engraved on embedded stones (Exodus 28:6-12; 28:29), so that as he approaches the Lord in worship, the people are present, too.  The sacred rituals of tabernacle worship regulate this encounter between the people and this powerful God, but the encounter occurs nonetheless, at God’s initiation.  Through the tabernacle God devises a place and a means to visit his covenant people, and the people offer their praise, acknowledge their blessings, and receive expiation of their sins.

These lavish details about worship in Exodus suggest that this people understood the importance of the gift God had given them in worship.  So that every new generation of the faithful would understand this deep, life-giving gift, the story emphasizes every aspect of the foundation of Israel’s worship tradition.  As later generations of God’s people would read their history, they would understand that from the outset God created us for worship.  God’s gift at Mt. Sinai is not merely the law to rule our life together; it is also the establishment of worship that will please God and bind us dependably to the Lord in covenant love.

Now We Are God’s People

It is hard to overstate the importance of the Exodus in the identity of Israel.  When we read this book, we hear not only the events by which Israel emerged from slavery in Egypt; we also receive the interpretation by God’s people of their founding moment.  Israel’s enduring memory of the Exodus shapes subsequent generations of God’s people and expresses Israel’s sense of who they are and, more importantly, who God is.

Stories of a nation’s origins carry great power for a culture.  Think of the beginnings of our own nation.  Even today, we hearken back to the founding of our nation as a touchstone for our national identity.  Politicians invoke the founding fathers to score political points against their opponents.  We make judicial arguments based upon the intent of the framers of our Constitution.  We observe a national holiday around the birthday of our first president.  The story of our nation’s origins continues to confer power and meaning upon the United States.

It was no less the case for God’s people, Israel.  Though the scriptures give us stories set earlier–humanity’s prehistory (Genesis 1-11) and Israel’s prehistory (Genesis 12-50)–the political genesis of God’s people occurs in Exodus.  In Egypt the worshipers of YHWH grew to a critical mass that provoked a political crisis in Pharaoh’s rule.  The Lord leads Israel out of bondage, through the Red Sea and the wilderness, and into the Promised Land:  the Exodus event crystallizes God’s people into a political entity, a nation of people worshiping the Lord.

As we read through the Bible this year, notice how frequently the scriptures refer to the Exodus.  The event reverberates through the subsequent history of Israel.  Psalmist, prophet, and storyteller invoke the Exodus to remind later generations of the definitive revelation of God’s identity as a saving God.  Whenever God’s people need the encouragement to trust God, whenever threatening circumstances cloud the horizon and diminish our hope, the Exodus stands as a reminder of both God’s power and God’s intention to save those whom He calls.

Ponder the power of this pivotal story of God’s people.  Israel understood that it was this moment in history that forged them into a nation.  As the Hebrews gather around Mount Sinai three months after their escape, the Lord declares through Moses that “you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).  The New Testament picks up this language in 1 Peter 2:9-10:  ”you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

The Exodus formed Israel into a nation, and it revealed to Israel its essential identity.  This nation is a people formed by God’s saving power and called to bear witness to this God.

Freedom Starts with Listening

The Exodus starts with listening.   Moses notices the burning bush and hearkens to God’s voice.  Moses hears God’s compelling him to confront Pharaoh and lead out the Israelites.  Moses and Aaron proclaim this message to the people, and the Israelites hear God’s call to claim their freedom.  The entire Exodus event consists of God’s command and Israel’s response–the Word proclaimed and received.

Without the listening, their would be no hearing, no following.  God’s call goes out, but it is enacted only in the recipient’s attending to the call, responding to the call, and fulfilling the call.  Without the listening, there is no Exodus, no freedom of life for God’s people.  We can read the story of the Exodus (and perhaps of our own and others’ lives) in terms of who listens to God and who ignores God.

It takes a lot of effort to claim one’s freedom.  It is usually easier to ignore the call, to accept the status quo, and to decline the assignment to move toward freedom.  Freedom means more responsibility–our own agency in the face of our circumstances, rather than our passive acceptance of them.  And before we can act to change, we must see clearly our current situation and the better alternative.  How do we discern the need to change?  How do we determine what change to seek?  Where do we discover the power to impel us toward the goal and sustain us on the journey?

It starts with listening to God.  Moses’ attention to God’s voice ignited within him the dry tinder of his circumstances:  his family heritage as one of the Hebrews, the bondage of his people in Egypt, his unique status as one who was raised in the Pharaoh’s palace, and his growing identity with the Israelites and their God.  The more closely he attended to this call from the Lord, the further the Lord compelled him, until God’s vision for Israel’s freedom became Moses’ vision.  Then the power of God to fulfill this vision worked through God’s servant, who had heard and responded to the call.

Is it too much to say that every completed act of liberating grace from God starts with our listening to God?  The addict’s bold movement from sickness toward health; the worker’s discernment of a new vocation amidst economic and personal challenges; the mobilization of people to challenge injustice and embody social righteousness–all of these start with human beings considering the God-given alternative to the bondage we experience.

Moses and the Israelites listen to God’s call and respond in faith.  Pharaoh hears the same demand and refuses to acknowledge the Lord’s sovereignty.  God’s victory over Egypt demonstrates the Lord’s superiority over every human power that would defy God and bind human life.

But for us to experience the victory, we must claim the promise in faith.  And before we can hear the call, we must first choose to listen to the One who speaks.

Teaching Them a Lesson

As the family of God’s people grows in size, the task of living together in faithful community becomes more challenging, not less.  The story of Joseph and his brothers explores the threat of sibling rivalry to the cohesiveness of the community of faith.

Joseph is his father’s favorite:   the eleventh of twelve sons, and the older of the two sons of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel.  Joseph wears the special garment that signifies his favored status–the “coat of many colors”–and he predicts his preeminence among his brothers.  When the opportunity presents itself, the brothers “take care of” Joseph, staging his death and selling him into slavery.  We see the brothers’ murderous potential.  Jacob thinks himself bereaved.  The reader sees how destructive are the internal threats against the unity and blessedness of Israel’s family.

Joseph’s miraculous ascent to power in Eqypt attests to God’s blessing.  But it also allows Joseph the opportunity to wreak upon the brothers the revenge that they deserve.  They come to Egypt as beggars, asking for food for themselves and their family.  Joseph recognizes them, but they do not recognize him.  All they know is that he has the power to save them from starving; we know he has the power to kill them in revenge.

So Joseph chooses to teach his brothers a lesson.  But the lesson is not the murderous revenge that anyone would expect.  Rather, it is a lesson in how to treat one’s little brother.

Joseph cleverly choreographs the brothers’ return to Egypt with their youngest brother, Benjamin.  Having lost one son already, Jacob has resisted allowing Benjamin out of his reach, but the brothers pledge their lives as security.  Joseph’s ruse invites them to make good on their promise.

As the brothers return to Canaan with their sacks full of grain, Joseph instructs his servants to plant his silver cup in Benjamin’s sack, then to apprehend and arrest the brothers for the theft.  As he confronts the brothers with their supposed crime, he threatens to enslave Benjamin–the brother they had pledged to protect.

Judah steps up, asking Joseph to accept him in the place of Benjamin.  At this point, Joseph drops the deception and reveals himself to his brothers.  He has accomplished his task, teaching his brothers the appropriate way to treat the vulnerable youngest sibling.  Instead of taking advantage of the least, Israel’s family has now learned the self-sacrifice through which family love thrives among God’s people.

Joseph could have taught his brothers a lesson with his revenge.  Instead, through his own forbearance he teaches them a lesson in family love–the self-sacrifice that characterizes God’s love and God’s family.

The Birth of Two Nations

Genesis 25 records the birth of twin sons to Isaac and Rebekah.  During her difficult pregnancy, Rebekah inquires of the Lord about the children struggling within her.  She receives from the Lord this prophecy:

Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.   (Genesis 25:23)

Heavy words to ponder, but also a good interpretive key for thinking about the business between Esau and Jacob.

Esau is the older twin:  strong, vigorous, red and hairy.  He grows to be “a skillful hunter, a man of the field” (25:27) and the favorite of his father, Isaac.  The narrator tells us that he is called Edom–”Red”–because of his desire for the red stew that Jacob offers him.  It seems likely to me that it could as well be from his red hair noted at his birth.

Red’s little brother enters the world holding onto the older brother’s heel, and so he is named Jacob–”he takes by the heel” or, more figuratively, “he supplants.”  Jacob lives up to his name, craftily finding ways to get the advantage on Esau that his birth did not provide.  ”A quiet man, living in tents,” Jacob compensates for his lack of hunting prowess by developing his culinary skills, presumably with his mother, Rebekah.  Twice he will use his cooking to defraud Esau:  first selling him a bowl of stew for Esau’s birthright, then feeding Isaac his favorite dish in stealing Esau’s blessing.

Two brothers, Esau and Jacob.  One powerful and preeminent, the other crafty and resourceful.  Their contention with one another marks not just their birth but also their life.  In Jacob we see the clever trickster who desires God’s blessing enough to outmaneuver Esau and supplant him in the covenant.

Reading the brothers’ entire story reveals how appropriate is the prophecy from their birth.  By the end of their contention (Genesis 33), Jacob has received a new name:  Israel, the one who strives with God.  The story of Jacob and Esau, then, is actually the story of Israel and Edom–two nations descended from these brothers and embodied in their struggle.  Centuries later, the Israelites would read this story and see the struggle with their neighbors, the Edomites.

What distinguishes the nations, presumably, is what distinguishes the brothers: the story lifts up Israel’s persistence and resourcefulness as national characteristics.  But the decisive distinction is God’s blessing:  Edom does not value the Promise as much as Israel, so the Lord chooses to bless Israel instead of the Edomites.  And the Promise, with its blessing, secures the success of Israel–the unlikely patriarch as well as the Chosen People descended from him.