This week I finished Deuteronomy and sadly said goodbye to Moses and his storytelling, but Joseph is quite the guy as well. I am loving how scripture is giving texture to my life and there is increasing depth to the words and stories in the bible based on my carrying them into my daily living. Scripture has come alive for me in a way I never thought possible.
I have a special place in my heart for the law concerning marriage in Deuteronomy 24:5. God provides a year for a newly married couple to be at home and happy together before he can be called away for military or social service. Oh how wonderful that would be! My lovely new bride and I have spent the past nearly three months apart and will likely have to spend more months apart before our first anniversary. It would be amazing to have had the first year of our marriage together!
I am, however, completely baffled by the next law. D 24:6 “No one shall take a mill or an upper millstone in pledge, for that would be taking a life in pledge”; my best guess here is that an agrarian people in a geographic area given to sandstone and limestone is dependent on durable millstones to grind their grain into flour so that they may eat it. The life in question here pertains to the central necessity of a millstone for a family’s daily bread. So, in my baffled state I turned to the collective wisdom of Google, and it says that “taking in pledge” is analogous to “holding as collateral” as in for a loan. A moneylender can’t take a family’s ability to make bread as collateral for a loan. More laws regarding loans follow; that a moneylender may not enter a man’s house to get his collateral, nor shall he take the cloak from a poor man’s back. There is a line here “lest he cry against you to the Lord and you be guilty of sin”. This separates man’s justice from God’s justice and may serve to realign priorities in the day-to-day world. A person in contemporary Canada can put his house up for collateral for a loan, it is the most common way to own a house (via mortgage)! Having grown up in the prairies, if a person lost their home they would perish come winter. Yet the principle of the millstones is lost here as is the law against taking away a poor man’s only possession and shelter (his cloak). Imagine for a moment if the bankers and mortgage companies declared their losses in the US and let people keep their houses. I don’t know very much about economics or how the bail-out actually worked but I wonder what that would do for the nation by way of building faith, community and a sense of responsibility to love thy neighbour. Taking the collateral is expected and accepted as right and just by the laws of society today, what is right and just in the eyes of the Lord often takes a back seat to business sense and the bottom line. Giving the collateral of a poor man’s cloak back to him before sunset that he might have shelter to sleep in shifts the concern and priorities from the bottom line and “looking out for number one” to caring whether Israel is the sort of nation that would allow a poor man to lose his cloak to a moneylender and sleep exposed to the elements. These laws again speak to the kind of person that God wants His chosen people to be.
Deuteronomy 30 is a beautiful reminder that we hold the power in our minds and bodies to devote ourselves to God and the service of His will at every turn. Moses reminds the people that they don’t have to wait for another messenger from heaven to bring them the Word, nor for a messenger from far away lands; God has come to the people of Israel in pillars of cloud and fire to guide them and give them the Word. D 30:14 “But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it.” God has come with guidance and encouragement, all that Israel needs to do is to acknowledge that the Lord has put His word in their mouths and in their hearts. The stipulation here that the word is in their mouths and their hearts emphasizes that all of these laws and rules that God has set out are not an exercise in tyranny. These laws are the word of God, and they rest not only in the deeds and actions of the people but in their hearts and mouths. It is a living law, a living word that depends on the people of Israel to perpetuate it, and the people, in turn, depend on the life-giving guidance for their survival. The word in their mouths implies teaching the law to children, debating it with peers and reflecting on it within the cherished relationships of families, communities, tribes and the nation. The word in their hearts implies a relationship with the word itself; one that I imagine to be full of struggle, gratitude and the deep-running current of security that comes with knowing and accepting the love of God. The laws are complicated and require devotion to their cause, they require a change of heart and different ways of being. They require the people to abandon themselves to this new conception of who they ought to be, but rather gently, the Lord does not ask that they commit themselves to this new life without the benefit of carrying the burden of change with their brethren in love. With the Pentecost we take this one step further, every one of us has the word in our mouths and in our hearts but we also have the indwelling Christ. This flame burns bright within us when it is fanned by the conversation between pilgrims whether in doubt, petition, repentance, confession or gratitude.
Deuteronomy 32 and 33 are the song that Moses wrote to keep the law alive and well amongst the young of the nation, in order that they be protected from the grumbling of their parents. Before he dies at the age of 120, Moses leaves a song and a final blessing on the people of Israel. They mourn him 30 days and follow Joshua of Nun into a time of conquest, bloodshed and victory. God is careful in how He proceeds with Israel and Joshua, I think He takes great pains to ensure that Israel knows that they follow a holy leader into Canaan. Israel had a difficult time staying faithful to the laws and the word as Moses dictated to Israel and he had a face-to-face relationship with God as no one ever had. Joshua was once-removed from this kind of intimacy with God, so there was fodder for doubt and rebellion amongst a grumbling people. So Joshua was consecrated before they crossed into Canaan, the Lord parted the waters of the overflowing banks of the Jordan so Israel could pass through under their new leader, the nation was circumcised anew keeping the covenant established with Abraham, Passover was shared, and the commander of the Lord’s army appeared before Joshua on the path stopping him in his tracks and ordering him to remove his sandals for he walks on holy ground. These are all major events in the life of a people crossing a river into spiritual maturity. They are hearkenings back to their roots and to the undying faithfulness of their God demonstrated by past covenants and the realization of the conquest of the Promised Land. The Jordan and the Red Sea, the commander of the Lord’s army and the burning bush; reminders that although there is a new human face to the leadership of Israel, the true leadership of God has not changed or faltered.
There is such a sense of excitement and unapologetic jubilation as the people cross into these new lands and take up the yoke of service to the Lord in earnest. I felt overjoyed for these underdogs who second-guessed themselves and their divinely protected fate at every turn, they have arrived! They have celebrated Passover in their new home; what an incredible homecoming to share the sacred meal in celebration of God’s faithfulness at the beginning of their journey in Egypt, in place of destination of that journey. The manna ceases to fall after Passover, and how eloquent that is! They have arrived in their Promised Land of milk and honey and are able to live off the land no longer dependent on the food of exile. It feels like a coming of age. All of this comes crashing down as Joshua tears his clothes and falls on his face in desperate repentance for the sins of Israel on the sacred soil of Canaan. Israel disobeys and keeps plunder for itself; a beautiful cloak and some silver buried in the dirt floor of a warrior's tent is enough to remind us, Israel and Joshua that the Promised Land does not promise that following the Lord will be easy. It is promised only in that it was destined to be the place in which they could live peacefully and devote their lives to following God; the rest is up to them. This may be the oldest version of the dilemma of the “Sunday Christian”; a believer who goes into a place believing that just being there at a certain time on a certain day will redeem them and grant them the inner peace and closeness to God that we all crave. Of course a safe, comfortable space devoted to worship and service of God makes it far easier to tend to our relationship with our Lord, but the location alone will not suffice even if it is miraculous and beautiful. God reminds us with this story that we must be vigilant in the beautiful, peaceful places too, to work with and for God so that we will carry Him with us in our hearts and mouths, hands and feet, bodies and communities when we move about in the world. Arriving in the Promised Land, Israel is reminded that it is not a free ride to salvation, they must work and follow the word.
May we know the goodness of God through the blessings in our lives, May we work to carry the living word in our hearts and mouths and bear witness to His goodness in our families and communities, May we keep our blunders as calls back to the service of God rather than personal failures, and May we use this lenten season of feasts, ashes, tradition and sacrifice to remind us of the Lord's faithfulness to His children today as ever before.
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