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Chapter-a-Day

Love & Punishment

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I will not carry out my fierce anger,
    nor will I devastate Ephraim again.
For I am God, and not a man—
    the Holy One among you.
    I will not come against their cities.
Hosea 11:9 (NIV)

As a child, I remember noticing patterns in life. There was a certain flow to how things happened. One of these patterns was how my parents exacted punishment. When I was caught doing something bad, my parents anger was aroused. The punishment was carried out, and I was typically remanded to my room to think on both my infraction and the shame of my punishment. A short time later, my parent would come to my bedroom much calmer and full of compassion. Hugs were then doled out as I expressed my remorse. I was given a reminder of their love for me and wanting the best for me.

Jesus used multiple metaphors in His parables to share about God’s Kingdom and how it works. He spoke of a woman tearing apart her house looking for a lost coin. At another time it was a man selling everything he had to acquire a field that held buried treasure. More famously, He used the example of father who graciously, and lovingly welcomes his lost son home.

In the same way, the ancient prophets would use different metaphors to deliver what was. basically the same message. Hosea has repeatedly used the metaphor God gave him of Israel being like a promiscuous and adulterous wife. In today’s chapter, Hosea switches to a completely different metaphor and prefigures Jesus’ parable of the lost and prodigal son. Hosea describes God lovingly delivering his son Israel from slavery in Egypt, teaching the boy to walk, lovingly leading and feeding the lad as he grew into a nation. But the boy foolishly rejected his Father and, like Jesus’ prodigal, will find himself broken and destitute in the “distant land” of Assyria.

Once again, like I experienced with my own parents, Hosea mixes punishment with both grace and hope. Yes, Israel will find itself in captivity and exile. Yes, the boy will suffer the consequences of his hard-hearted rebellion. But, just as I learned that after the punishment and remorse came grace, compassion, and restoration, the boy Israel will return from exile and punishment, the relationship between boy and Father restored.

In the quiet of this morning after Thanksgiving, I find myself grateful for loving parents who modeled God’s love in the way they parented and punished. I hope that my children might say the same as they look back on the example I set as a father. I am also grateful that Jesus ultimately fulfilled Hosea’s prophetic vision of a loving, gracious, and compassionate Father by by coming not to condemn the world, but to graciously save the world.

In a world that is currently tearing itself apart with hate and prejudice, and reeling from the consequences of that vitriol, I pray that I can be a living example of God’s love, grace, and compassion that both Hosea, and Jesus, proclaimed.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day, Wayfarer Podcast

Tent to Temple to Table

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Tent to Temple to Table (CaD Ex 25) – Wayfarer

And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.
Exodus 25:8 (NRSVCE)

Our children posted a rather hilarious video of Milo over the weekend. At first, we couldn’t figure out what he was doing shaking his bum towards daddy’s legs. As we listened to the audio it became more clear that Milo was making like the Stegosaurus on his shirt and shaking his spiky “tail” to protect himself from the predator, played by daddy, whom I presume was cast in the role of a T-Rex. Yesterday, on our Father’s Day FaceTime, we got to witness Milo reprise his role for us a shake his little dino-booty for Papa and Yaya’s enjoyment.

It’s a very natural thing for us to make word pictures and games for our children and grandchildren to introduce them to concepts, thoughts, and ideas that are still a little beyond their cognitive reach. Even with spiritual things we do this. Advent calendars with numbered doors help children mark the anticipation of celebrating Jesus’ birth. Christmas gifts remind us of the gifts the Magi brought the Christ child. Wendy often recalls the Nativity play she and her cousins and siblings performed each year with bathrobes and hastily collected props which helped to teach the story behind the season.

In leaving Egypt and striking out for the Promised Land, Moses and the twelve Hebrew tribes are a fledgling nation. Yahweh was introduced to Moses in the burning bush. Moses introduced the Tribes to Yahweh through interceding with Pharaoh on their behalf and delivering them from Egyptian slavery. Yahweh has already provided food in the form of Manna and led them to the mountain. In today’s chapter, God begins the process of providing a system of worship that will continue to develop a relationship of knowing and being known.

As I described in my podcast, Time (Part 1), we are still at the toddler stage of human history and development. The Ark of the Covenant (yes, the one from Raiders of the Lost Ark) and the plan for a giant traveling Tent to house God’s presence, are all tangible word pictures that their cognitive human brains could fathom revealing and expressing intangible spiritual truths about God.

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve observed that as humanity has matured so has God’s relationship with us. Jesus pushed our spiritual understanding of God. “You have heard it said,” he would begin before adding, “but I say….” I have come to believe that Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection were like the “age of accountability” in which we talk about when children become responsible adults. Jesus came to grow us up spiritually and to mature our understanding of what it means to become participants in the divine dance within the circle of love with Father, Son, and Spirit. On a grand scale, God is doing with humanity what Paul experienced in the microcosm of his own life:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

1 Corinthians 13:11

I have also observed, however, that human beings have a way of getting stuck in our development. Many adults I know are living life mired in adolescent patterns of thought and behavior. Many church institutions are, likewise, mired in childish religious practices designed to control human social behavior, but they do very little to fulfill Jesus’ mission of bringing God’s Kingdom to earth. Again, Paul was dealing with this same thing when he wrote to Jesus’ followers in Corinth:

And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh.

1 Corinthians 3:1-3a

There is a great example of this from today’s chapter. God provided the Ark of the Covenant, and a traveling tent called the Tabernacle, as a word picture of His presence and dwelling with the wandering Hebrew people. It was a physical sign that God was with them. Once settled in the Promised land, the temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem became the central physical location of God’s presence. When Jesus came, however, He blew up the childish notion of the God of Creation residing in one place. Jesus matured our understanding of God’s very nature and the nature of God’s presence. With the pouring out of God’s Spirit to indwell every believer, Jesus transformed our understanding of God’s dwelling and presence. “Wherever two or three are gathered,” Jesus said, “I am among them.” The place of worship transitioned from the Temple to the dining room table. After the resurrection, Jesus was revealed during dinner in Emmaus, making shore-lunch for the disciples along the Sea of Galilee, and at the dinner table behind locked doors where the disciples were hiding.

Wendy and I have this quote from Brian Zahnd hanging on the fridge in our kitchen:

“The risen Christ did not appear at the temple but at meal tables. The center of God’s activity had shifted – it was no longer the temple but the table that was the holiest of all. The church would do well to think of itself, not so much as a kind of temple, but as a kind of table. This represents a fundamental shift. Consider the difference between the temple and the table. Temple is exclusive; Table is inclusive. Temple is hierarchical; Table is egalitarian. Temple is authoritarian; Table is affirming. Temple is uptight and status conscious; Table is relaxed and ‘family-style.’ Temple is rigorous enforcement of purity codes that prohibit the unclean; Table is a welcome home party celebrating the return of sinners. The temple was temporal. The table is eternal. We thought God was a diety in a temple. It turns out God is a father at a table.”

In the quiet this morning I find myself thinking about the ancient Hebrew people struggling to mature their understanding from a polytheistic society with over 1500 dieties to the one God who is trying to introduce Himself to them in ways they can understand. I am reminded of the ways Jesus tried to mature our understanding of God even further. I find myself confessing all of the ways through all of the years of my spiritual journey that I have refused to mature in some of the most basic things Jesus was teaching.

As Wendy and I sit down together to share a meal together this week, my desire is to acknowledge Jesus’ presence. To make our time of conversation, laughter, and daily bread a time of communion with God’s Spirit. I think that’s a good spiritual action step.

Bon a petite, my friend. May you find God’s Spirit at your table this week.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Evolution of Conversation

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Evolution of Conversation (CaD Jos 10) – Wayfarer

There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!
Joshua 10:14 (NIV)

Communication between parent and child changes so much over time. Wendy and I are loving watching our kids parent a four-year-old, and hearing the silly things that our grandson comes up with. The last I heard, Milo’s recommended name for the little sister in mommy’s tummy was “Harry Houdini.” Hey, the kid has a point. She does still have yet to escape the womb.

Conversations with my daughters changed and evolved over time. From the simple discussions with a toddler to the incessant “why” phase and then the years of instruction to navigating the life changes of adolescence. Then come the years of parental exile when it becomes obvious I’m not high on the conversational priority list. As they leave the nest, there begins a phase of requesting help and answering questions about the functional “how-tos” of life on your own which leads also to more adult conversation in which more complex topics are addressed, including the hard conversations required to address unresolved issues from the past.

I have always talked about the fact that humanity’s relationship with God across time reflects the development of the relationship between a parent and child from birth to adulthood.

In today’s chapter, we’re still in the toddler stages of humanity’s relationship with God. Joshua and the army continue their conquest of the land of Canaan. First, their new allies, the Gibeonites, are attacked by a coalition of neighboring forces and cry out to Joshua for help. After defeating this coalition of forces, the army continues a campaign to subdue the region.

In one fascinating aside, Joshua cries out to God to stop the sun and moon. Interpretations of this event vary. Literalists believe that God miraculously stopped time. Others argue that the sun and moon in the sky together were a bad omen for their opponents and Joshua wanted to extend the fear. What struck me, however, was the author’s observation that this was a first, that God would listen to a human being.

This being a momentous event, that of God listening to a human being, struck me because, in my post-Jesus reality, I am encouraged to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). Jesus encouraged His followers to literally “ask, seek, and knock” in prayer, explaining that a good father wouldn’t give a stone to his child if asked for bread (Matt. 5:7-11). Prayer is such a continuous part of my inner dialogue and my daily life, that it is hard for me to fathom a reality in which I didn’t think God would listen, and respond.

Humanity’s relationship with God has changed drastically between the days of Joshua and today. The very act of prayer has developed and evolved over time. I also can’t forget that with a Creator God, everything that He makes is layered with meaning. This development and evolution of communication also took place within my spiritual life cycle. From the moment I was “born again” in spirit to the place I am on my spiritual journey 40 years later, my relationship and conversations with God have grown, developed, and matured.

God’s relationship with humanity. My relationship with my parents. My children’s relationship with me. My relationship with God. My relationship with others. There is a natural growth and development of communication that takes place over time. In each relationship, I have a responsibility for the communication on my end. If I fail in that responsibility, the relationship suffers and may even die.

Thus saith the Mandalorian: “This is the way.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Life-Long Lessons

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Life-Long Lessons (CaD Jos 7) – Wayfarer

Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions.
Joshua 7:11 (NIV)

There is a legendary family story that happened when our daughter, Madison, was only about four or five years old. On my way out of the house to run an errand, I heard our older daughter, Taylor, screaming in the backyard. I walked around the back of the house to see Madison hitting Taylor repeatedly on the head with a whiffle ball bat.

I yelled at Madison to stop and immediately scooped her up in my arms in parental frustration. I decided to put her in the car seat and give her a talking to while I ran my errand. I forcefully and sternly told her that hitting someone on the head with a baseball bat was a naughty thing that you should never do. From the car seat, Maddy softly said:

“But, daddy, how do you know?”

I told her that she could hurt someone by hitting them on the head with a baseball bat.

“But, daddy, how do you know?”

My already angry voice rose to a new decibel level, and I told her that I know because it has happened. I told her that people have died by getting hit in the head with a baseball bat!

“But, daddy, how do you know?”

Now I was really frustrated. “BECAUSE IT WAS IN THE NEWS!” I shouted at her.

“Daddy?” Maddy asked.

“WHAT?!?!” I replied.

“Grandma said you can’t believe everything you hear in the news.“

Ironically, just as I finished typing this, our adult daughter Madison called me. That stubborn, willful little child bent on vigorously defending her act of assault and battery on her big sister grew into a lovely, well-behaved adult. But that was the point of my sometimes being a stern and disciplinary parent. A four-year-old doesn’t always understand the larger implications of their actions and, if I want them to learn some of the basic behavioral rules of life, I had to demonstrate the hard side of love.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that what God is doing with the Hebrew tribes is showing them a different way. Ultimately, God reveals this eternal vision through Jesus and His followers. Everything and everyone is connected in love that can’t be explained or understood in human terms. Everything that flowed from the Creator flows back to the Creator and the only word we have for it is holy, and that human term doesn’t do it justice.

I’ve come to believe that the entire Great Story is like one lifetime. From humanity’s birth in Genesis to our death and resurrection in Revelation. As I read Joshua, I have to remember that humanity is in the toddler stage of history and God is trying to explain some basic rules of Life to His children. God is saying,

“Everything in this world that you think is yours actually belongs to me. I love you and will gladly share all good things with you. but first, you have to give up any claim on it. Oh, and realize that when you act disobediently out of pride and selfishness it negatively affects everyone in the family, including me. It’s all connected.”

In today’s chapter, God deals pretty harshly with a man from the tribe of Judah who disobeyed God’s command and took plunder for himself and then hid it in his tent. That was the way all the other human tribes operated. Conquest was about plunder, power, and pillaging. “I’m teaching my children a different way. It’s something you don’t quite comprehend at this age, but someday you will grow to understand.”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about my own failures and shortcomings in terms of how they affect everything and everyone to whom I’m connected. I enjoy the vantage point of living in the adult era of human history, but I observe we’re still struggling to fully understand the way Jesus came to teach us we’re all connected, and how we treat one another is how we treat God. I’m still learning the lesson. The way I think, behave, and relate affects the whole. I’m still working on it, and I’ll continue to do so until the end, just as humanity does the same thing on a larger scale. The promise is that I will one day fully experience what God has been trying to reveal to us.

Until then, I press on one day at a time, endeavoring to follow the way Jesus shows me. One day, I’ll experience it fully.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Me and Messy Family

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Me and Messy Family (CaD Gen 28) – Wayfarer

Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.
Genesis 28:8-9 (NIV)
Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
Genesis 28:20-22 (NIV)

I’ve written a couple of posts recently in which I touched on the fact that the Bible really doesn’t specify any type of ritual or tradition around marriage. In fact, the closest it gets is right in the second chapter of the Great Story. A man leaves his father and mother, is united with his wife and two become one.

As I’ve meditated on this over the years, I’ve come to observe that the focus is almost always on the two becoming one. But rarely do we think about or discuss the pre-requisite of leaving the parents, which happens for both spouses even though only the male is specified in the text.

In today’s chapter, we find the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob, on divergent paths. Esau is already married to two Hittite women who have brought chaos and conflict within the family system. Having been cheated out of his birthright and blessing by his twin brother and mother, Esau is understandably bitter. Realizing how much his parents hate his wives, Esau decides to double-down and marry two more Hittite women and bring even more disruption into the family system.

Jacob, on the other hand, goes into exile with his mother’s family in order to find a wife from within the tribe. While on his way, Isaac meets God in a dream, receives the blessing God gave his grandfather and father, and chooses in. He makes a vow to follow and worship God and embraces Abraham’s covenant.

Welcome to the mess.

There was a specific stage of my own life journey when I thought long and hard about what it meant to be my own person, establish my own house, and separate from the family system of my childhood. I made a couple of key discoveries during this stage of my life:

It’s hard not to play the role one has developed as part of a family system. I leave home. I do my own thing. I follow my own path. Then I go to my parents for the holidays and I find myself thinking, acting, and behaving within the family system as I always have since I was a kid. This isn’t necessarily unhealthy, but neither is it necessarily healthy. I discovered that it was important for me to see it and work through it myself.

Parents are part of the entire equation. Both Isaac and Rebekah played a role in the conflict between the brothers. Parents can help or hinder their children’s “leaving” and the establishment of their own lives, homes, and family systems. The past decade has been crucial for both Taylor and Madison as they are in their own stages of establishing their lives. It’s not always easy to let go. It’s hard to watch them stake their own claims and feel the separation that naturally happens when one becomes independent of the system I established and controlled for so long. I am constantly having to have talks with God, myself, and Wendy about how best to bless our children by repeatedly choosing to let them go.

While Isaac, Rebekah, Esau, and Esau’s four foreign wives live in the messy consequences of Isaac and Rebekah’s own meddling, I have a feeling that twenty years of exile from that family system will be good for Isaac. He needs time and distance to establish his own relationship with the God of his forefathers, to become a husband, to become a father, and to make his own way.

In the quiet this morning, I can’t help but think about this life journey. Once I was a child learning what it meant to leave home, to be one with another, to be a father, to establish my own family system. Now I’m a parent learning to let go of daughters who are one with another and establishing their own family systems. It’s all part of the journey with its mess, mistakes, chaos, crazy, blessing, joy, laughter, and beauty.

I just want to do each stage well, and I’ve learned that I give myself some grace because I’m always a work in progress. I want to progress. I want to bring more sanity than insanity to the lives of our children and grandchildren. I want to make relational choices that will allow for more health than dysfunction. I desire that I can be more gracious and less demanding. I pray that I can increasingly trust God with the lives of my adult children so as to avoid meddling in their lives out of my personal fears and mistrust.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Devastation, Dinosaurs, and Spiritual Development

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Devastation, Dinosaurs, and Spiritual Development (CaD Ps 79) – Wayfarer

Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times
    the contempt they have hurled at you, Lord.
Psalm 79:13 (NIV)

It’s Christmas season! Yesterday, Wendy and I had the blessing of hugging our children and our grandson for the first time since last December. Milo got to put the ornaments that celebrate each of the four Christmases he’s been with us on the tree. Around the base of the tree is my father’s Lionel train set, and Milo became the fourth generation to experience the joy that train chugging around the tracks.

As I experience Christmas anew this year through the eyes of a three-year-old, I’m reminded of my own childhood. Each year I would get out the Sears Christmas Wish Book catalog and make my bucket list of all the toys that I wanted. It was usually a big list and included a host of big-ticket items my parents could never afford and probably wouldn’t buy for me even if they could because there’s know way that the giant chemistry set was going to accomplish anything but make a mess, require a lot of parental assistance, and probably blow up the house. I couldn’t manage such mature cognitive reasoning in my little brain. All I knew was it was really cool, it looked really fun, and all my friends at school would be really jealous.

Along this life journey, I’ve come to understand that my finite and circumstantial emotions and desires are often incongruent with the larger picture realities of both reason and Spirit.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 79, is an angry blues rant that was written after Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians. It is a raw description of the scene of devastation after the Babylonians destroyed the city and razed Solomon’s Temple to the ground in 586 B.C. Blood and death are everywhere. Vultures and wild dogs are feasting on dead bodies because there aren’t enough people alive and well to bury the bodies. The strong, educated, and young have been taken as prisoners to Babylon. The ruins of God’s Temple have been desecrated with profane images and graffiti. The songwriter pours out heartbreak, shock, sorrow, rage, and desperate pleas for God to rise up and unleash holy vengeance in what the ancients described as “an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth.”

As I read the songwriters rant this morning, there are three things that give me layers of added perspective:

First, when God first called Abraham (the patriarch of the Hebrew tribes and nations), He made it clear that the intent of making a nation of Abraham’s descendants was so that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through them, not destroyed.

Second, God had spoken to the Hebrews through the prophet Jeremiah warning them that the natural consequences of their sin and unfaithfulness would be Babylonian captivity through the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, to whom God referred through Jeremiah as “my servant.” It appears that the songwriter may have missed that.

Third, I couldn’t help but read the songwriter’s plea for God to pay back their enemies “seven times” the contempt that their enemies had shown them, and think of the time Peter asked Jesus if he should forgive an enemy who wronged him “seven times.” Peter was trying to show Jesus that he was beginning to understand Jesus’ teaching. To the Hebrews, the number seven spiritually represented “completeness.” When the songwriter asked for “seven times” the vengeance it was a spiritual notion of “eye-for-an-eye” justice would be complete. Peter’s question assumed that forgiving an enemy seven times would be spiritually “complete” forgiveness. Jesus responds to Peter that a more correct equation for forgiveness in the economy of God’s Kingdom would be “seventy-times-seven.”

I come back to the songwriter of Psalm 79 with these three things in mind. The first time I read it, like most 21st century readers, I was taken back by the blood, gore, raw anger, and cries for holy vengeance. Now I see the song with a different perspective. I see a songwriter who is devastated and confused. I hear the crying out of a soul who has witnessed unspeakable things, and whose emotions can’t reasonably see any kind of larger perspective in the moment.

This morning I am reminded of what I discussed in my Wayfarer Weekend podcast, Time (Part 1). Humanity at the time of the ancient Hebrews was still very much in the early childhood stage of development. The songwriter is expressing his thoughts, emotions, and desires like a child desperately asking Santa for a real dinosaur for Christmas. Not just any dinosaur, a real T-Rex to put in the backyard.

Today’s psalm is another example of God honoring the need that we have as human beings of expressing our hearts and emotions in the moment, as we have them, no matter where we find ourselves in our spiritual development. As my spiritual journey has progressed, I’ve gotten better at processing my emotions and having very different conversations with God about circumstances than I did when I was a teenager, a young adult, a young husband, and a young father. It doesn’t invalidate the feelings and conversations I had back then. They were necessary for me to grow, learn, and mature in spirit.

In the quiet this morning, I’m identifying with the songwriter of Psalm 79, not affirming blood vengeance and “eye-for-an-eye-justice,” but affirming that it was where the songwriter was in that moment, just like I have had some rants and prayers along the journey that I’m kind of embarrassed think about now. This is a journey. I’m not who I was, And, I’m not yet who I will ultimately become in eternity. I’m just a wayfarer on the road of life, taking it one-step-at-a-time into a new work week.

For the record, Milo. No, you can’t have a real dinosaur. Sorry, buddy.

Chapter-a-Day

Lament (and Parenting)

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Lament (and Parenting) [CaD Ps 55] – Wayfarer

If an enemy were insulting me,
    I could endure it;
if a foe were rising against me,
    I could hide.
But it is you, a man like myself,
    my companion, my close friend,
with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship
    at the house of God…
Psalm 55:12-14 (NIV)

Thus far, in my entire life journey, I discovered that the process of releasing my adult children on to their own respective paths of life to be one of the most surprisingly difficult things I’ve ever experienced. It’s not just about the loss of control and the fact that my child may choose paths unfitting my dreams, desires, and expectations. It’s also the experience of catching glimpses of my own weaknesses and shortcomings as a parent, and the useless wonderings of “What if I had only….”

The greatest challenge of David’s life was not the Bathsheba scandal which I talked about in the podcast on Psalm 51. Bathsheba gets top billing and is better known because it has all of the classic plot elements we love in a steamy Harlequin Romance. The greatest challenge of David’s life is lesser known, but I personally find it even more fascinating because it is more intimate and complex. Late in David’s life, he faces a coup de tête finds himself fleeing for his life, and almost loses his throne and his life to his very own son.

The story is found in 2 Samuel 13-19. Let me give you the Reader’s Digest condensed version. The seeds of the rebellion are in David’s own shortcomings as a father. Marriage and family looked very different for a monarch in ancient times. Not only was polygamy regularly practiced, but a monarch had the added layer of nations wanting to marry off daughters to other kings to establish diplomatic ties. David had eight wives, and at least 10 concubines. Which meant the palaces were teaming with princes and princesses who were half-brothers and half-sisters. Long story short, Prince Amnon had the hots for his sister, Princess Tamar. He rapes her, and then in his shame, he shuns Tamar and wants nothing to do with. He treated her like a prostitute. King David is furious according to the record, but he does nothing. He passively seems to ignore the whole thing.

Princess Tamar’s older brother is Prince Absalom, and Absalom bottles up his rage against his half-brother Amnon, who raped his sister, and against his father who did nothing to justly deal with Amnon. The seeds of Prince Absalom’s rage take root and grow into a plot to kill his brother and steal his father’s kingdom. He succeeds at the former, and nearly succeeds with the latter.

In the process of his scheming to steal his father’s throne, the Great Story records that Absalom spent a lot of time establishing allies among the rich, noble, and powerful people in the kingdom. Quietly, slowly he used his position and influence to create both debts and alliances so that when he pulled the trigger on his coup David had virtually no one supporting him.

We can’t be certain, but the lyrics of David’s song that we know as Psalm 55 seem as though they could very well have been penned during the time of Absalom’s rebellion. David expresses that Jerusalem is a boiling cauldron of deceit, treachery, and violence. He feels the sting of an unnamed “companion” who he thought was a friend and ally, but turns out to have sold him out. It is certainly reasonable to think that he’s referring to someone that Absalom convinced to aid in his rebellion.

Like many of David’s songs, Psalm 55 is a personal lament. He is pouring out all of his emotions from despair, hurt, anguish, fear, confusion, and the desire to fly away from all of his troubles. In the pouring out of his deepest emotions he also is reminded of how faithful God had always been and the song ends with a simple proclamation of his unwavering trust.

One of the fascinating threads in the story of Absalom’s rebellion is David’s unwavering love for Absalom. Despite the fratricide, the rebellion, and the attempt to destroy David and take everything that was his, David ordered his men to be gentle with Absalom. When he heard Absalom had been killed, David wept and mourned to the point that his own General called David out for humiliating all of the soldiers who had been loyal to him.

In the quiet this morning I find myself contemplating the complex relationship between parents and children, especially as children mature into their own selves and lives. The whole story of David and his children Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom is a hot mess. There is so much of the story that is not told. Nevertheless, it reminds me of the intense and infinite love a parent feels for a child no matter the differences, conflicts, or chasms that emerge in the relationship.

Once again, there is no concrete evidence to directly correlate Psalm 55 with the story of Absalom’s rebellion, nor is there concrete evidence to the contrary. Some mornings, I find that this is the way the chapter-a-day journey goes. The text connects me to one idea which leads down another path of thought, and I end up in an unintended destination of thought and Spirit. C’est lav ie.

Parenting is one of the grand adventures of this life journey. It has produced the greatest of joys and the deepest of sorrows. It has humbled me to my core, and has equipped Lady Sophia with some of the most powerful practicums for teaching me wisdom.

Chapter-a-Day, Wayfarer Podcast

Tent to Temple to Table

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Tent to Temple to Table (CaD Ex 25) – Wayfarer

And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.
Exodus 25:8 (NRSVCE)

Our children posted a rather hilarious video of Milo over the weekend. At first, we couldn’t figure out what he was doing shaking his bum towards daddy’s legs. As we listened to the audio it became more clear that Milo was making like the Stegosaurus on his shirt and shaking his spiky “tail” to protect himself from the predator, played by daddy, whom I presume was cast in the role of a T-Rex. Yesterday, on our Father’s Day FaceTime, we got to witness Milo reprise his role for us a shake his little dino-booty for Papa and Yaya’s enjoyment.

It’s a very natural thing for us to make word pictures and games for our children and grandchildren to introduce them to concepts, thoughts, and ideas that are still a little beyond their cognitive reach. Even with spiritual things we do this. Advent calendars with numbered doors help children mark the anticipation of celebrating Jesus’ birth. Christmas gifts remind us of the gifts the Magi brought the Christ child. Wendy often recalls the Nativity play she and her cousins and siblings performed each year with bathrobes and hastily collected props which helped to teach the story behind the season.

In leaving Egypt and striking out for the Promised Land, Moses and the twelve Hebrew tribes are a fledgling nation. Yahweh was introduced to Moses in the burning bush. Moses introduced the Tribes to Yahweh through interceding with Pharaoh on their behalf and delivering them from Egyptian slavery. Yahweh has already provided food in the form of Manna and led them to the mountain. In today’s chapter, God begins the process of providing a system of worship that will continue to develop a relationship of knowing and being known.

As I described in my podcast, Time (Part 1), we are still at the toddler stage of human history and development. The Ark of the Covenant (yes, the one from Raiders of the Lost Ark) and the plan for a giant traveling Tent to house God’s presence, are all tangible word pictures that their cognitive human brains could fathom revealing and expressing intangible spiritual truths about God.

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve observed that as humanity has matured so has God’s relationship with us. Jesus pushed our spiritual understanding of God. “You have heard it said,” he would begin before adding, “but I say….” I have come to believe that Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection were like the “age of accountability” in which we talk about when children become responsible adults. Jesus came to grow us up spiritually and to mature our understanding of what it means to become participants in the divine dance within the circle of love with Father, Son, and Spirit. On a grand scale, God is doing with humanity what Paul experienced in the microcosm of his own life:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

1 Corinthians 13:11

I have also observed, however, that human beings have a way of getting stuck in our development. Many adults I know are living life mired in adolescent patterns of thought and behavior. Many church institutions are, likewise, mired in childish religious practices designed to control human social behavior, but they do very little to fulfill Jesus’ mission of bringing God’s Kingdom to earth. Again, Paul was dealing with this same thing when he wrote to Jesus’ followers in Corinth:

And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh.

1 Corinthians 3:1-3a

There is a great example of this from today’s chapter. God provided the Ark of the Covenant, and a traveling tent called the Tabernacle, as a word picture of His presence and dwelling with the wandering Hebrew people. It was a physical sign that God was with them. Once settled in the Promised land, the temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem became the central physical location of God’s presence. When Jesus came, however, He blew up the childish notion of the God of Creation residing in one place. Jesus matured our understanding of God’s very nature and the nature of God’s presence. With the pouring out of God’s Spirit to indwell every believer, Jesus transformed our understanding of God’s dwelling and presence. “Wherever two or three are gathered,” Jesus said, “I am among them.” The place of worship transitioned from the Temple to the dining room table. After the resurrection, Jesus was revealed during dinner in Emmaus, making shore-lunch for the disciples along the Sea of Galilee, and at the dinner table behind locked doors where the disciples were hiding.

Wendy and I have this quote from Brian Zahnd hanging on the fridge in our kitchen:

“The risen Christ did not appear at the temple but at meal tables. The center of God’s activity had shifted – it was no longer the temple but the table that was the holiest of all. The church would do well to think of itself, not so much as a kind of temple, but as a kind of table. This represents a fundamental shift. Consider the difference between the temple and the table. Temple is exclusive; Table is inclusive. Temple is hierarchical; Table is egalitarian. Temple is authoritarian; Table is affirming. Temple is uptight and status conscious; Table is relaxed and ‘family-style.’ Temple is rigorous enforcement of purity codes that prohibit the unclean; Table is a welcome home party celebrating the return of sinners. The temple was temporal. The table is eternal. We thought God was a diety in a temple. It turns out God is a father at a table.”

In the quiet this morning I find myself thinking about the ancient Hebrew people struggling to mature their understanding from a polytheistic society with over 1500 dieties to the one God who is trying to introduce Himself to them in ways they can understand. I am reminded of the ways Jesus tried to mature our understanding of God even further. I find myself confessing all of the ways through all of the years of my spiritual journey that I have refused to mature in some of the most basic things Jesus was teaching.

As Wendy and I sit down together to share a meal together this week, my desire is to acknowledge Jesus’ presence. To make our time of conversation, laughter, and daily bread a time of communion with God’s Spirit. I think that’s a good spiritual action step.

Bon a petite, my friend. May you find God’s Spirit at your table this week.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day, Wayfarer Podcast

Parental Covenant

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Parental Covenant (CaD Ex 19) – Wayfarer

Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.
Exodus 19:5 (NRSVCE)

Our daughter, Madison, just closed on her first house this past week. We’re so excited for her and her husband, Garrett. What an exciting waypoint in their journey.

As we were discussing home ownership, the subject of paperwork and bureaucracy came up. I told Madison, “Just wait until you close!” There is nothing like sitting there with a stack of paper that requires your signature and initials everywhere for everything. Even if you’re trying to be careful and understand what you’re signing it all becomes a fog. By the end of it my brain was fogged over and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome had permanently settled in my left hand. The closing agent just kept thrusting papers in front of me and I kept signing.

All the paperwork, of course, is part of a complex contract between buyers, sellers, real estate agents, government, and financial agents. It is an agreement between parties.

In ancient times, this type of contract was known as a covenant. It was the ancient form of a binding contract between parties. It’s already come up in the Great Story. God made a covenant with Noah after the flood. God made covenants with Abraham. In today’s chapter, God makes a covenant with the Hebrew people. The concept of a “covenant” between God and people was unlike any other religion of that day. But the Hebrews would have understood the concept because covenants were common in personal, familial, business, and international relationships. Two parties agree to binding terms and obligations. While the “Sinai Covenant” in today’s chapter is like other ancient covenants, scholars point out that it is unique and has no direct parallel in antiquity.

The covenant in today’s chapter is quite simple. God agrees to make the Hebrew people His “treasured” people, a priestly kingdom, and a “holy” nation. In return, the Hebrew people agree to be obedient and keep their obligations as will be set out in the commandments and laws given through Moses.

In the quiet this morning I find myself mulling over one of the commentaries I read about this text:

Typically, both parties to a contract, treaty or similar legal agreement could expect to benefit from their commitment. It is not at all clear that the Biblical text wants its readers to believe that Yahweh will receive some benefit from this relationship with the Israelites that he would not otherwise be able to obtain. The text speaks of great benefit awaiting the Israelites for their consistent obedience to their covenantal obligations. For Yahweh’s part, his actions do not appear to be based in self-interest but in a willingness to be gracious and to extend freely his blessing.

What is Yaweh getting out of the covenant? “His actions do not appear to be based in self-interest but in a willingness to be gracious and extend freely his blessing.”

I couldn’t help but think of these words from Paul’s letter to Jesus’ followers in Philippians:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
    he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

God is establishing and foreshadowing the core theme of the Great Story. What was lost in Eden? Relationship. How does the prophesied story end at the end of the book of Revelation? Restoration and relationship. In my podcast Time (Part 1) I talked about the Great Story being like a human life-cycle from birth-to-death-to-rebirth.

What is a parent’s relationship like with a toddler? The parent dictates the rules and asks the child to obey. Rules and obligations. Parents graciously extend protection and provision. They expect obedience. While the child can’t cognitively understand just how graciously his or her parents are being, they simply understand that when they obey things are okay and when they disobey they get in trouble.

At Sinai, I believe that God and humanity are in the toddler stage of relationship.

I’m looking at it, of course, from 2000 years past Jesus’ death and resurrection. We’re much further in the life-cycle of the relationship between God and humanity. There are a couple of things I’ve learned in my parenting journey now that our daughters are grown and have established their own adult lives and families.

First, the desire and willingness to be gracious and extend blessing never ends no matter how old your children are. Second, the desire for relationship with them does not end, but only gets stronger. When they come home, reach out, call, or write it is the best blessing ever.

The bottom-line. God desires relationship with me. The Father graciously sent His Son to suffer on my behalf. The Son willingly did so. The Father and Son sent their Spirit to abide in me. Everything is about inviting me into this relationship, this circle of love, this divine dance.

I just have to choose in.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day, Wayfarer Podcast

Whining Then and Now

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Whining Then and Now (CaD Ex 17) – Wayfarer

But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”
Exodus 17:3 (NRSVCE)

It’s been so much fun over the past six months to watch our grandson, Milo, as he’s made so many developmental leaps. He’s carrying on actual conversations. He’s making discoveries and connections. His vocabulary is growing exponentially. He’s learning all about dinosaurs (and will be happy to share). He’ll even demonstrate a T-Rex roar if you ask.

Of course, with this stage of development also comes the natural human penchant for whining. The repeated wailing at loud decibel levels. Emotions run amok and bereft of any governor of logic or reason. The passionate translation of momentary light affliction into problems of heinous and lethal proportions.

One of my observations along life’s journey is that humans have a penchant for whining at every stage of life, it just looks different in adults than it does in childhood. It transforms from emotional tantrums in children to adults wallowing in grumbling, complaining, and lament. Please don’t read what I’m not writing. I’m not making an editorial comment about current events.

In today’s chapter, the Hebrew nation (remember 1-2 million people and livestock) is camping in the wilderness. There is a lack of readily available water. So they grumble and complain to Moses to the point that Moses is afraid they’re going to stone him to death. What I noticed in this was the pattern that has been emerging:

They grumbled when Moses’ first meeting with Pharaoh resulted in more work and persecution. God miraculously sent the plagues and delivered them from slavery.

They grumbled when they were caught between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea. God miraculously parted the Red Sea, swallowed up their oppressors, and delivered them from their enemies.

They grumbled when they feared there wasn’t enough food for everyone as they entered the wilderness. God miraculously sent quail and manna to provide daily sustenance and delivered them from hunger.

Today they grumble because there isn’t enough water…

I see the pattern.

One of the most difficult spiritual lessons I’ve learned along my journey is that spiritual maturity requires that we respond to difficult circumstances with gratitude, praise, and trust:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and don’t lean on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5)

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! (John 16:33)

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings… (Rom 5:3)

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds… (James 1:2)

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials… (1 Peter 1:6)

…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thess 5:18)

Earlier in this chapter-a-day journey through Exodus, I was reminded that this entire Exodus epic was about God wanting the Hebrew people to know Him. He heard their cries. He was acting to deliver them. He wanted a relationship with them.

In my own spiritual journey, I’ve learned that my knowledge of God doesn’t increase when things are easy, when everything is going my way, and when I am sitting pretty in life. Paul said in his letter to Jesus’ followers in Rome that in the end there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love.

Faith is only developed when trusting and believing is a necessity because circumstances are uncertain. Like when you’re stuck between a sea and your enemies.

Hope is only developed when the outcome is uncertain. Like when there’s not enough water.

Love is developed when there is an exchange between two parties in which protection, trust, hope, and perseverance through difficulty are experienced.

The evidence of the Hebrews’ repeated whining suggests that there is little spiritual or relational development happening on their end. Get ready. This pattern is going to continue.

In the quiet this morning, I’m left contemplating my own spiritual journey and spiritual development. Do I grumble perpetually, or have I learned to trust? Do I whine about my circumstances, or have I learned to have faith that God has something for me to learn in them? Am I mired in gloom and pessimism thinking that God is going to pull the rug out from underneath me, or am I hope-full that God is leading me to good places on this journey and there is a Promised Land ahead?

I’d like to say that I’m perfectly exemplifying the latter of these, but I confess I’m not. I have made progress, though, if I think back to where I was ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. That’s called development. Hopefully, I have grown out of the spiritual child stage and am gaining some maturity. I’m reminded this morning that this is a journey. A journey is about progress, not perfection.

And so, I’m lacing them up at the beginning of this another day. Time to press on into faith, hope, and love.

May the God of Love bless you where ever you find yourself on life’s road today.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.