We need to consider whether we actually believe the Bible or not.
Jesus said, “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” (Luke 10:19)
Here’s the test question: who has the authority to stop the power of the enemy? Who has the authority to stop what he’s doing, to stop the stealing, killing and destruction?
Now here’s the hard part: Who has the authority to stop evil from happening around us? Who has the ability to limit what the devil is trying to do? Who has the responsibility to put boundaries on what the devil does around our cities and countries, around our families and neighborhoods?
I suspect that solving the problem is easier once we determine where the break is: it’s not on God’s part. (No, it’s not just black & white, but the black & white are a big part of it.)
Brothers & Sisters, let’s pick up the authority, the assignment that Jesus has already given to us, and let’s take our responsibility seriously, and let’s trample on snakes & scorpions; let’s overcome the enemy and his nasty work.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, here, in my neighborhood, as it is in Heaven. For Thine is the glory, the Power and the. Honor, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Thursday
The Ministry of Broken People
Here's an interesting observation. I've been with a number of broken people recently. Some of them are regular folks, and some broken people are leaders, occasionally famous leaders.
I'm noticing a trend about some of the broken, messed-up and damaged Believers: God doesn't appear to give a rat's hindquarters about their brokenness. He doesn't seem to be offended by the outcasts, the rejects, the jerks.
If they’re hungry (and that seems to be a clue for all of us!), he is really happy to fill them and use them and empower them. He makes a freakin' mess changing the world through them. He's downright extravagant in showing out through them.
I've been with a number of clean and tidy and well-educated people recently. I'm noticing a trend about some of them, too. They look good, they sound good, they are comfortable to be around.
And there's a whole lot of us in between there.
But really, I see more of God's signs and wonders, more people healed and delivered, more completely unexplainable "coincidences" in the aftermath of the first group. They go places I don't like to go. They take on circumstances that make me uncomfortable. And the glory of God drools out from their brokenness, their foolishness, their awkwardness in ways that most of us aspire to.
It's interesting how our culture labels the beautiful people as the big successes. There's more of us in-betweeners, so we win the popularity polls.
But it's the broken, socially inept, rude, crude and socially unacceptable ones, the ones who actually believe God and His Book, the busted ones trying to do the stuff: these are the ones I think are actually getting it right.
I'm noticing a trend about some of the broken, messed-up and damaged Believers: God doesn't appear to give a rat's hindquarters about their brokenness. He doesn't seem to be offended by the outcasts, the rejects, the jerks.
If they’re hungry (and that seems to be a clue for all of us!), he is really happy to fill them and use them and empower them. He makes a freakin' mess changing the world through them. He's downright extravagant in showing out through them.
I've been with a number of clean and tidy and well-educated people recently. I'm noticing a trend about some of them, too. They look good, they sound good, they are comfortable to be around.
And there's a whole lot of us in between there.
But really, I see more of God's signs and wonders, more people healed and delivered, more completely unexplainable "coincidences" in the aftermath of the first group. They go places I don't like to go. They take on circumstances that make me uncomfortable. And the glory of God drools out from their brokenness, their foolishness, their awkwardness in ways that most of us aspire to.
It's interesting how our culture labels the beautiful people as the big successes. There's more of us in-betweeners, so we win the popularity polls.
But it's the broken, socially inept, rude, crude and socially unacceptable ones, the ones who actually believe God and His Book, the busted ones trying to do the stuff: these are the ones I think are actually getting it right.
Learning About Partnering With Angels
I hold an opinion that makes a lot of Christians, a lot of Christian leaders, very, very nervous: I believe that God gives new revelation in some seasons, which previous centuries of Christians may not have had, or may have once had and have forgotten.
One of the topics that it seems that God’s talking about – and it’s terribly uncomfortable to the traditions I was raised in – is the topic of angels. I believe that God is speaking to his children about angels, who are “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation.”
There are some reasons that this topic has scared people in the church: some leaders have feared that people would be more enamored with the angels than with the God who created them. And some believers have become so angel-centric that they can’t even spend time with their Heavenly Father without invoking angels.
Sure, there are legitimate concerns to avoid. (There are always legitimate concerns to avoid.) We’ll avoid the dangers, but avoiding the dangers isn’t our goal. Our goal is receiving what Father gives us, because if the Creator of the Universe thinks we need it, then who are we to argue? We need it.
I have a couple of these fellows who live at my home. They guard the peace and the people of my home. They’re also eager to do stuff, so they roam my neighborhood, terrorizing any demons they find. And frankly, they provoke me to press into Father, to dig into the Word, to learn more about how to live with angels.
They didn’t teach me this stuff in Sunday School.
One of the topics that it seems that God’s talking about – and it’s terribly uncomfortable to the traditions I was raised in – is the topic of angels. I believe that God is speaking to his children about angels, who are “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation.”
There are some reasons that this topic has scared people in the church: some leaders have feared that people would be more enamored with the angels than with the God who created them. And some believers have become so angel-centric that they can’t even spend time with their Heavenly Father without invoking angels.
Sure, there are legitimate concerns to avoid. (There are always legitimate concerns to avoid.) We’ll avoid the dangers, but avoiding the dangers isn’t our goal. Our goal is receiving what Father gives us, because if the Creator of the Universe thinks we need it, then who are we to argue? We need it.
I have a couple of these fellows who live at my home. They guard the peace and the people of my home. They’re also eager to do stuff, so they roam my neighborhood, terrorizing any demons they find. And frankly, they provoke me to press into Father, to dig into the Word, to learn more about how to live with angels.
They didn’t teach me this stuff in Sunday School.
A Rookie Believer
Some years ago, a friend of mine died.
She was a baby Christian, very young in her faith, and
frankly, pretty immature, but she was growing.
She was 94, a 94-year-old baby Christian.
So she had a most unusual combination of character traits:
some aspects of the wisdom that comes from nearly a century’s experience with
life; some aspects that were wet-behind-the-ears fresh and immature. What an
interesting person!
Donald Trump reminds me of her. He’s by no means a young or
immature man. But he displays signs of what appears to be both sincere faith,
and immature faith. I won’t get into what signs I see; you can see them for
yourself if you look for them.
If it’s true that Mr Trump is an immature believer (keep in
mind that maturity is a condition of the heart, not of the calendar), then we
should expect to see some signs of immature faith moving forward.
We should expect to see a whole lot of zeal for the work he’s
been given, with maybe a little more optimism than the real world allows for.
We should expect him to see inconsistency in the maturity of
his moral and ethical choices. Note that he may or may not be immature of faith
but he certainly is immature in politics, and he is not at all immature in
business.
We might expect to see mistakes that he needs help cleaning
up.
But it would be completely foolish to expect to see him
follow the model laid down by your pastor, or by a famous religious leader. He
ain’t never been a religious leader, and doesn’t aspire to be.
Christian Judgment
I confess that I’m haunted by Psalm 122. You know, the one that begins with,
“I was glad when they said to me,
‘Let us go into the house of the LORD.’“
I get it when the Psalmist gets excited about going to hang out with God! What a delight! But a couple of verses later, in the middle of his rejoicing, he explains,
“For thrones are set there for judgment,
The thrones of the house of David.”
One of the reasons he’s excited about going to hang out with God is because he looks forward to the judgment there.
What?
That tells me that among other things, I don’t have a good handle on what judgment is supposed to be. I can tell when it is used wrong, and that appears to be a lot, but we already knew that. Let’s be honest: Christians have earned the judgmental, condemning reputation we’ve picked up. (Sure, hell has reinforced the reputation, but as a community, we earned it.)
Today, I’m struck by this: if judgment is part of the work of the saints, then it’s subject to the same restrictions as the rest of the work of the saints. Judgment is to be an act of love. It’s to be for people, not against them. It’s to be something that builds people up, not tears them down, something that draws them in, not what pushes them away.
I don’t see much of that sort of judgment yet. Not among saints, not anywhere.
But it’s coming.
Fulfilling the Law and the Prophets
Abolish is a strong word.
People quote Matthew 5:17&18 at me, to say “See! We
still need to be under the Law! Look! See!”
These verses read, “Do not think that I came to abolish the
Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say
to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke
shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
I have to admit, if you grab that verse, yank it out of its
context, ignore the bit about the Prophets, and try to use it as a club to
support a need for the Law (or at least the 10 Commandments), then it kind of
fits. If you close one eye and squint the other.
Let’s look at this a little more closely, a little more
objectively, shall we? Is Jesus really saying, “Psych! I’m not really freeing
you from the Law!”? Or is Jesus saying something else.
That “Something else” could be several things:
- Perhaps
the context tells us some things?
- There
may be a Jewish metaphor here that we’re not catching because we’re not
first century Jews. That might change the meaning here.
- He
might be talking about a purpose of the Law and the Prophets that he’s
going to fulfill.
- He might be talking about and end of the Law, but one that is not His doing.
Let’s look at these possibilities one by one.
1. First, what does the context tell us? This is in the
middle of a sermon where Jesus is completely re-interpreting their
understanding of the Law. The entire chapter is about Jesus saying, “You’ve
heard the Law taught this way…. But I tell you this other thing instead.”
So it’s not reasonable to assume that suddenly he breaks his train of thought and talks about
submitting to the Law, at least not without some more evidence to work with. It’s
more reasonable to infer that Jesus is doing away with how that Jewish culture
has always understood the Law, and replacing that with a completely new
understanding. That is the context.
2. Is there a Jewish metaphor here? I’m glad you asked. Yes
there is. Jesus says the Law is valid “until heaven and earth pass away.” Well,
when is that?
We, in our 21st century, science-based world
interpret that literally, scientifically, and if Jesus were speaking on CNN or the Discover
Channel, that would probably be a reasonable interpretation. But that is not how
his audience at the time would interpret it. So it’s not permitted for us to
impose a 21st century interpretation onto this first century
document.
If you look at the phrase in scripture (http://nwp.link/2idn9Ml), it’s used more
than 120 times (NKJV). In general, the words are used to describe “Pretty
much everything we know” (which was *much* less than what we know today!),
but when used together, it’s specifically addressing the abode of God (see: http://nwp.link/2j2nNR5, especially Isaiah
66:1 and Jeremiah 23:24). This is describing the Jewish temple.
In fact, this view was so prevalent that eventually the temple
and its courtyard in Jerusalem became known as “Heaven and Earth,” and was spoken
of as immovable. The temple itself, the “dwelling place of God” was Heaven, and
the courts, particularly with the court of Gentiles, was “the Earth. In more
poetical language, it was described as “Where Heaven and Earth meet.” (https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/grawhe)
So the Law and the Prophets are still valid, under Jesus’ new interpretation, until the temple was destroyed. That’s what it meant to the writer and the original readers of the Gospels. We cannot impose our 21st century cosmology onto the text.
So the Law and the Prophets are still valid, under Jesus’ new interpretation, until the temple was destroyed. That’s what it meant to the writer and the original readers of the Gospels. We cannot impose our 21st century cosmology onto the text.
3. The structure of the sentence clearly points to the
fulfillment of “The Law and the Prophets.” We’ve taught for generations
(correctly) that the Law and the Prophets point to Jesus, and this passage in
Matthew has been part of that teaching. Certainly, the reference to “the
Prophets” would not be part of a declaration of keeping the Old Covenant Law.
These verses are clearly saying that the Law was still in place
as Jesus made the statement; it hadn’t been fulfilled yet. Recently, I fulfilled my obligations on a loan.
Until that loan was fulfilled, I kept making payments. If I missed even one
payment, even the very last payment, then the loan was in default, and the bank had
the right to seize my property and sell it off to cover my failure.
But when I fulfilled that loan, when the payments were done,
then the loan no longer has any power over my behavior (“Payments are due!”) or
consequences (“…or we’ll seize your stuff!”). I was now free from that law.
Jesus was declaring that the fulfillment of everything the Law and the Prophets spoke about was upon them: they were about to see the realization of everything they’d been waiting for for the last couple of millennia!
Jesus was declaring that the fulfillment of everything the Law and the Prophets spoke about was upon them: they were about to see the realization of everything they’d been waiting for for the last couple of millennia!
4. The Old Covenant Law was still in place when Jesus spoke
these words about the Law being fulfilled. It was already “obsolete and growing
old is ready to vanish away,” (Hebrews 8:13), but it didn’t finally “vanish
away” until the last possible second: exactly one generation (40 years) after
Jesus’ death, when the Jerusalem, the temple (“Heaven & Earth”) and perhaps even most significantly, the genealogical records of Israel were all destroyed.
Without those records, it was impossible to determine who was a descendant of
Aaron, and therefore qualified to be a priest and to make the sacrifices the
Law demanded. Legitimate sacrifices could never be re-instituted.
When Jerusalem was destroyed in 70AD (a description of which
is in Matthew 24, in answer to the question of “When will the stones of the
temple be thrown down?”), the Old Covenant finally breathed its last and died,
completely fulfilled in Christ.
So these verses are not a statement that Believers need to
keep the Old Covenant Law. They were a warning that while the Law was still in
force when the words were spoken, but that Law would end soon. Romans is blunt: “For
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness….” Done.
And Jesus didn't just end Ten Commandments. He ended 613
laws; he ended all of them. All of that is dead. It was obsolete. It wasn’t
needed any more.
You see, all of those commandments were the "terms and
conditions" for the Old Covenant. And Jesus ended the Old Covenant. (The
Epistle to the Hebrews describes that termination pretty well, better than this article has
room for.)
So when that broken down, obsolete covenant was replaced
with a New Covenant, the terms and conditions of the first covenant (all those
laws, and the priesthood, and the sacrifices) were all replaced with the terms
and conditions of the New Covenant as well.
So anyone who names the name of Christ is not under the Old
Covenant, and not obligated – not even a smidgeon – to the terms and conditions
of that obsolete covenant. We share in a New Covenant, and no man can serve two
masters. Don ’t try.
Running Ahead of the Pack
Forerunners move out from the crowd they've been running
with, to a place ahead of the crowd, where they are an example for others. As a
result, it is not uncommon for forerunners to feel isolated, alone.
You need to know that that’s not isolation: that’s
forerunning: it’s part of the job description of a forerunner – running ahead
of the crowd, not with it – and that solitude is part of God’s provision for
you. (Remember how Jesus sought it out? eg. Mark 6:45-46)
Others among the crowd see your example and move forward to
join the forerunner or to even move beyond you. So the forerunner will have an
empty spot, a vacuum, behind you, where others used to be, where others used to
be. The more effective a forerunner is at bringing others forward, the greater
the vacuum. Anyone trying to pull away from that vacuum will feel the vacuum pulling
back.
Forerunners, that’s one of the things you’re fighting: you
need to stay out of that vacuum; you may feel forces pulling you back. Resist
the influences trying to pull you back to where you used to be. You need to
keep pressing forward, keep reaching for the high calling in Christ Jesus.
That’s who you are; that’s how you’re made.
There are others who need to move forward to fill that space
behind you, who need to draft behind you, who will be encouraged to keep the
pace you set.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of
witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…. (Hebrews
12:1)
Prophetic Exercise: The Chair by the Fireplace
Here’s an exercise, if you’re willing.
Imagine a comfortable room, a quiet room. There’s a big
fireplace in the room, with a roaring fire, and next to the fireplace is a big
chair. A Papa chair.
Father is sitting in that chair, relaxed. His eye, with a
sparkle in it, is on you. He reaches a hand out toward you.
You can curl up on his lap, if you like, and rest your head
on his mighty shoulder. Or you can curl up at his feet if you prefer. But this
is a good time to be quiet and to rest with him, however that works best for
you.
In the silence, you can hear his heart beating gently,
peacefully, strong. His hand is on the back of your head, fingers in your hair,
caressing gently.
You can feel the stuff of your day drain out of you, like
dirty bath water vanishing down the drain: gone, never to be seen or heard from
again, and in its place, you feel the presence of peace on you, like the warmth
of the crackling fire.
Be still. Shhh…. Maybe you drift off to sleep for a bit. The
quiet is all around you.
After a long time, you realize it’s not quite absolutely
silent; you can hear his soft, deep voice whispering your name, over and over.
Do you hear him?
Then he speaks to you, quietly, his words like a warm
blanket over you. That feels nice.
What do you hear him saying to you?
Lukewarm Laodicea?
I’m tired of people looking at Jesus’ letter to the Church
in Laodicea and
misinterpreting it.
“So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor
hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”
So many preachers preaching from this passage, saying it’s
better to be hot or cold. That’s fine, but then they drive right into the
ditch. “Hot,” they say, is a person who’s “on fire” for God. And “Cold,” they
say, is the opposite, someone who’s turned off on God. But people that are just
“meh,” people who aren’t really passionate one way or the other are said to be “lukewarm,”
and, they proclaim boldly, “God hates lukewarm!”
The encouragement to be passionate for God is wonderful. The
thought that God likes atheists or passionately anti-Christian activity more
than half-hearted Christianity? Yeah, that’s balderdash. You can argue that a
half-hearted lover of God is better than a hater of God, or you can argue that
God loves ‘em all the same, but you CAN’T argue that God loves haters better
than folks that are tired of trying.
The root of this whole metaphor comes from Laodicea ’s city water supply. This isn’t
about half-hearted people. This is about water.
They imported water from two other cities: Hierapolis
(about 6 miles south) and Colossae ,
about 10 miles east.
Both sources of water had a fair bit of minerals in them:
they actually invented something like manhole covers to get into the pipes and
clean them out regularly, because the minerals would build up and keep the
water from running freely. When the pipes were clogged, the water sat in the
pipes, rather than flowed through the pipes.
If the water had been sitting, stagnating, in pipes or in a
pond or cistern somewhere, it was neither hot nor cold: it was lukewarm. It was
also probably unsafe, so spitting it out is a really good thing to do.
But the statement here isn’t that God vomits out people who aren't passionate enough, though the call to passionate following is appropriate.
The statement here is “Be who you’re called to be.”
If you’re going to be a healing person, where broken people
can come and soak away their pains, great. Be that!
If you’re going to be a bracing drink of cold, mountain
water, that’ll wake folks up and get them motivated, great. Be that!
Don’t sit in the pipes so long that you just gum up the
works and nobody gets good ministry. And don’t sit and stagnate. That’s not
good for anybody.
Whatever you’re called to do: do it. Be passionate about it!
Don’t just sit and stagnate.
Prophetic Exercise: The Judge's Bench
Since the prophetic gifts are for
the real world, think of a real world person that’s going through some trouble,
someone you’ve been praying for recently. Write down their name.
Now look in the Spirit, and look
behind you. You see there a tall, oak, judge’s bench. Jesus is standing there,
smiling, waiting for you.
He takes you around to the far side
of the bench, and up the stairs behind it. But rather than sit down himself, Jesus
sits you in the great chair behind the bench. When you take your seat, you’re
find that you’re wearing black robes, and you have a wooden gavel in your right
hand. Are you wearing a white wig, too?
Take a moment, if you need to, to
deal with the emotions of being in a place like this. Ask him questions if you
need to, but don’t argue with him. This is your assignment today, if you choose
to accept it.
Now look out over the judge’s
bench. From your new vantage point, see your friend, whose name you wrote down.
Observe them for a minute as they go about their day. As you’re watching them,
let Jesus show you his love for them, his compassion for the crud they’re going
through. Rest there for a moment, feeling his heart for them.
Then Jesus reaches over and touches
your eyes. And now you can see more clearly from the bench, and with his help, you
begin to see the cloud of miserable, filthy, little spirits that have been
harassing your friend. Recognize their crimes, their trespasses, their
rebellions against their rightful king and against your friend.
Jesus leans over and whispers, “Judge
them!” Identify them, their names and their crimes. Recognize, by the Spirit
who’s in you, the name, the assignment, the work of one of the demons harassing
your friend. Speak that name out loud, and bang the gavel as you do name it.
Write it down if that helps.
Then watch what happens next. When
I did this, as I spoke the name, as I named each spirit, it was as if my gavel
moved on its own, gently tapping, “Guilty as charged” to each of my charges,
and with each tap, a beastie was bound. Soon, I got into it, reaching into my
spirit for the discernment of each spirit and shouting its name, its crime. The
gavel would bang and the demon was bound.
Look around. Do you see angels in
the courtroom? What do you see them doing? Consult with Jesus: what is his
counsel on the work you’re doing?
This isn’t a game. This is
literally life and death, but don’t interpret that to mean that you can’t enjoy
the work you’re doing. Get into the work. Reach deep within your spirit to
accurately name each spirit, and as you name it, watch as it’s snatched from
the air around your friend and bound. Observe what happens to it next, if that’s
revealed.
You may or may not have gotten to
each of the demons harassing your friend when you feel that you’re done, when
you feel the grace for this work lift, or when you hear Jesus say, “OK. That’s
enough for this time.” Don’t stay there beyond the grace for the work. Your
friend is destined to be an overcomer; they need something to overcome.
It helps me to go back through the session’s
work: declare your friend’s freedom, thank God for your friend’s freedom from
each of the spirits that you bound today. And when you’re done, perhaps as an
act of worship, burn the list: don’t keep a record of hell’s work in their
life.
Now, by my counsel, I’d recommend
that you don’t talk to them about this experience, not for a long, long time,
and this is for your benefit, not theirs. We tend to think, “Well, I bound up a
spirit of self-pity, so they won’t be falling into self-pity any more!” Yeah,
that’s not how it works.
If you bound the spirit of
self-pity, then that spirit of self-pity isn’t plying its trade in their life
any longer. But that doesn’t break years of self-pitying habits, or generations
of self-pitying traditions. It means that spirit isn’t working there any more, not that they’re perfect now.
And of course, don’t stop praying for your friend.
The Exodus: a Memoir
Four months ago, we was all slaves in Egypt , building bricks for a
living, seven days a week, from before dawn till after dark. Our slave lords were so
very cruel that they made us kill the baby boys that were born, leaving a
generation that was mostly women.
Three months ago, this shepherd guy shows up, speaking both
Egyptian & Hebrew, and announcing that there was a god who cared about, and who
said it’s time to leave Egypt .
Seriously? Who cares for slaves, anyway?
That pissed off the slave lords of course, and they made our
lives miserable for a while, but then things got kind of interesting. It was
like the gods were even more pissed off at the slave lords. Nature was out of
control: disaster after disaster beat on the whole slave lord nation.
Two months ago, the worst disaster: a whole lot of the slave
lords’ children died in a single night. We smeared our huts with blood and had
this weirdly symbolic meal, and they said that was why our kids didn’t die.
Seriously? I mean, how does that work?
But the slave lords backed off, and the Egyptian shepherd
guy – I guess his name is Moe – said it
was time to go, and then it got really interesting! The slave lords “loaned” us
slaves their gold dishes and jewelry and stuff, and we left. There was a really
big crowd of us. I never knew there were so many of us slaves there. And the
sheep! That was a lot of sheep!
And we headed out of town, with Moe up there at the front
like he was Charlton Heston or something, with his big brother walking next to
him. We had some carts, but mostly, we was carrying our stuff, dragging our
stuff behind.
There was this dust storm that always seemed to be at the
front of the parade, but even freakier, every night, there was a firestorm
boiling up in the middle of the camp. It was really weird, but it did keep us
warm, seeing how we was camping in the wild, and we didn’t even have decent
tents yet.
Then one day, we went through this wet place where I thought
I’d seen an ocean the day before. Sure enough, there were still fish flopping
in the mud, starfish and seaweed alongside the path, but they was rushing us so
much, and I was carrying two kids and a sack with all their clothes and stuff,
so I didn’t get to pay much attention.
When we got past that wet place and hiked up the hill on the
other side, we stopped to rest, and I heard this huge crash of waves behind us.
I looked around, and by golly, there was the ocean, right where we’d just hiked
through. The funny thing was that there were dead men, dead horses, and what
looked like chunks of the slave lords’ chariots floating in the waves. Somebody
started singing, and it turned into a regular party.
Then it got real. Now we had an ocean full of dead bodies
between us and civilization, and we were stuck in the outback and it didn’t
seem like anybody knew what was going on. Some days, we hiked, some days we
didn’t, and I never did understand why. I was more concerned with the fact that
we had no tent, no food, not even a freaking water bottle for the kids! (We got
busy right away, making tents from sheepskins and camel hair any anything else
we could get our hands on, and making other camp stuff.)
The kids were crying, the sheep were dragging their tongues,
we were all hot and tired all day, or cold and tired all night, and it was
miserable. The bugs were thick, the food was scarce, and all that walking! A
few days after the ocean incident, we found an oasis with some standing water,
but it was polluted. I was so thirsty, we were all so thirsty, I got on my
knees to get a drink, but I couldn’t do it: it stank, and there was bugs and
crap in it.
So Moe throws a stick in the water and says, “OK, it’s all
good. You can drink it now.” It was still kinda funky, but it wasn’t so bad as
before, and the sheep really liked it. They just waded in and drank and drank.
We got our water out of the other end of the pond.
And still we hiked. Oh,
how we hiked! And there was always that cloud bank during the daytime,
and the fire storm at night. Pretty soon, folks was real eager to claim there
spot in the middle of the camp where it was warmest at night, but it wasn’t so
bad even at the edge of that huge campground where me and the boys camped and
talked every night.
And it was in the desert, so food and water was always an
issue. I don’t know which was weirder: the couple of times Moe got mad and
whacked one of the rock outcroppings, and out pops a waterfall, or the fact
that every morning, me and the boy’s would go out of the camp into the bush,
and gather up rice or quinoa or something off the twigs and bushes and have
that for breakfast. It was pretty good, kind of spicy sweet. We’d go gather it
up every morning, and save some for lunch and dinner. Except Saturdays. It was
never there on Saturdays, which was even weirder.
But the jostling for the best camp spaces got weird. Some
folks wanted to be by the firestorm where it was warm, and others wanted to be
at the edges, so they didn’t have to walk so far for breakfast. It seems that
weird stuff was all we ever ate any more, and who can blame ‘em: slaves don’t
know how to hunt, and we didn’t want to eat the sheep. They were pretty scrawny
and disgusting sheep nowadays anyway, but we drank the milk, or mostly the
little ones did.
And then we arrived here, camped around an active volcano. It’s
been weird here. First, Moe’s family showed up from wherever it was they had
been, then Moe formed some sort of committee of leaders while there. It looked
like we were going to be nomads for a while. Better make more tents.
This is a scary god on a scary mountain. |
But then Moe decided he needed to go climb that volcano,
just as a storm was settling in over the mountain. We heard the thunder, but
after a while, it sounded more like a thundering voice, and the voice was
talking to Moe, and the voice was telling Moe what to say to the crowd, to us.
‘You have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on
eagles’ wings and brought you to me. If you will listen obediently to what I
say and keep my covenant, out of all peoples you’ll be my special treasure. The
whole Earth is mine to choose from, but you’re special: a kingdom of priests, a
holy nation.’
We all heard the voice, and then Moe came and said the same
thing to us, and we was all real excited! Us being a special treasure to a God
who beats down slave lords, feeds us in the wilderness and makes a bonfire for
us every night and breakfast for us every morning? What’s not to like about
that, and me and the boys, and I guess just about everybody, told Moe, “Yeah,
we’re all in on this!”
But we got thinking about it over night. This is also a God that killed the slave lords’ animals and crops and eventually some of their kids. This is a God that chases his “special treasure” into the desert and then leaves us there to starve, to die of thirst. This is the God that I guess lives in an active volcano, and damn, he’s scary. You know, the more me and the boys talked about it, the less excited we are about hearing this God talk to us, hold us accountable to some “covenant.” And stuff like us all being “priests,” or being “holy,” now that’s not for us.
But we got thinking about it over night. This is also a God that killed the slave lords’ animals and crops and eventually some of their kids. This is a God that chases his “special treasure” into the desert and then leaves us there to starve, to die of thirst. This is the God that I guess lives in an active volcano, and damn, he’s scary. You know, the more me and the boys talked about it, the less excited we are about hearing this God talk to us, hold us accountable to some “covenant.” And stuff like us all being “priests,” or being “holy,” now that’s not for us.
Then we had this great idea: Maybe we can get the best of
both worlds going on here? We’ll do the covenant thing, but we’ll make Moe go
talk to the scary God in the volcano. He can be the priest, and he can tell us
what the God wants us to do, and we’ll do what he says. More or less.
We can have a go-between! He’ll give us some token list of
rules. Keep the rules, when it works out, and we’re on easy street. The God
thrashes on any slave lords, and he keeps feeding us, and we don’t have to deal
with the scary stuff!
What could go wrong with that? Right?
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