Introducing Deuteronomy

            The word “Deuteronomy” means “second law,” so the title of the book gives us some sense of what we’re in for.  We can expect three things in this book.  First, there will be some recapitulation of the specific laws that Israel is supposed to follow (especially in the middle of the book).  The second and third things we can expect are related to the fact that Deuteronomy takes the form of an extended pep talk, as Moses prepares to hand leadership over to Joshua and to steel Israel for the coming task of conquest.  So, the second thing we can expect in Deuteronomy is a review of Israel’s recent history, especially in their interactions with the Lord.  (That’s what we see in ch. 1, our reading for today.)  However, the third thing we see is that this retelling of their history is not just for historical knowledge but to motivate them to obedience and faithfulness to the covenant the Lord made with them.  For these reasons, we’ll see that the book of Deuteronomy is a bit more pointed in its presentation than we have seen.  So, let's try not to read it as, "Here we go again."  Let's try to read more as, "Let's get going!"

Settling

            Reuben and Gad were ready to settle.  They saw the land on the east side of the Jordan, observed that it fit their needs very well, and were ready to stake a claim.  Moses sees it as an act of rebellion:  it’s just this refusal to fight that caused the 40 years in the wilderness!  A compromise is struck, and the fighting men of God and Reuben will fight alongside their brothers, but they will take as their inheritance the land across the Jordan.

            Seems to me that there’s a bit of connection to Christians and the Church.   Too often, we have a hard time thinking past our own interests.  You see it in discussions over worship:  I like this style, I like that style, I’ll stake my claim here, and you all do what you want.  You see it in a sort of Sunday only attachment:  “As long as my spiritual needs are met, I guess I don’t have any responsibilities to the Body beyond that.”  You can probably come up with other examples, but it’s late and I’m tired.

            Of course, thinking only of one’s own needs undermines the unity with which the Lord has knit us together in the Body of Christ.  It’s the kind of misalignment that can really damage what the Lord has in mind for His people.  The letter to the Ephesians is a sort of manifesto on Christian unity and in it we are brought to together and called to build each other up in word and deed.  Can’t hardly do that if you’re content to have your own needs served! 

            Israel was called to be a people who all together showed forth the power of the Lord and who all together demonstrated a national life that testified of their oneness in Him.  The Church bears a similar call.  True, we’re stripped of the national aspects, so we don’t have to conquer lands militarily.  Nor are we bound by the Mosaic laws.  But we are called to be a people who through our love and our oneness demonstrate what it means to be made in the image of a loving, forgiving God.

            So, even if we have found a land that suits us, let us never lose sight of the greater people to whom we belong and to whom we are called to live in support and service.

Structuring Time

            Once again, we have a listing of Israel’s ordinary worship:  daily sacrifices, Sabbath (weekly) sacrifices, and annual festivals.  (We’ve seen this before!)  I think there’s an important lesson here, namely, humans thrive on structure and order.  Now, obviously, a person who is too structured, too rigid, isn’t healthy, but maybe we don’t think often enough about the fact that a person who is too unstructured isn’t healthy, either.  With our children, we’ve practiced it this way:  there is a usual, expected pattern—bedtimes and waking times are regular, meals are at about the same times, there’s a pattern for homework and for evening routines.  Within that usual, expected pattern, we can make exceptions as circumstances arise.

            We observe the same phenomenon in Israel’s worship and we see it arise very quickly in the early church.  Acts 2:46 tells us that the earliest Christians gathered everyday in the temple and presumably in homes, too.  In the first generation, they were setting aside the first day of the week as their special day of worship (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10).  By the mid-2^nd century, Melito of Sardis is able to talk about an annual celebration of Easter that is a well-established custom already.

            We all mark time.  Financial sorts are dominated by quarters and fiscal years and tax seasons; parental sorts are often driven by school calendars.  I’d like to just suggest today that we should make a little more of an effort to have our lives structured around the church calendar.  It’s no biblical command, that’s for sure.  But letting the rhythm of our weeks flow into and out of Sunday might change the way we see ourselves, and taking seriously the rhythm and flow of the church’s calendar, flowing into and out of Easter, might also have that same sense.  (It’s one of the reasons I have tried to tie several elements of our new Faith Crossroads children’s ministry to elements of the Church Year—for instance, first communion at the outset of Holy Week, so the newly communing can partake at the height of our year.)

            Here’s a challenge for you:  if Lenten midweek services or Holy Week services aren’t part of your customary practice, let this be the year you make them part of it.  Ash Wednesday is just two weeks from today; Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter are in the offing.  What a great time to let your time be structured around the celebration of the central facts of your faith!

New Numbers/New Leader

            As the people of Israel complete their 40 years in the wilderness, the Lord plans for their impending conquest of Canaan.  In today’s reading, Numbers 26-27, He first orders a new census of the fighting men.  Lutheran Study Bible has this note regarding the census:

In the following list, the numbers in parentheses are from ch. 1, allowing easy comparison of the change Israel experienced during the wilderness wanderings.  Reuben, 43,700 (46,500); Simeon, 22,200 (59,300); Gad, 40,500 (45,650); Judah, 76,500 (74,600); Issachar, 64,300 (54,400); Zebulun, 60,500 (57,400); Manasseh, 52,700 (32,200); Ephraim 32,500 (40,500); Benjamin, 45,600 (35,400); Dan/Shuham, 64,400 (62,700); Asher, 53,400 (41,500); Naphtali, 45,400 (53,400); all of Israel, 601,730 (603,550).  Despite living in the wilderness and the experience of several plagues (chs. 11; 14; 16; 25), Israel’s population had dropped only 0.3 percent.  However, the tribe of Simeon suffered great loss, 63.5 percent of their male population.  This was likely due to persistent unfaithfulness, as specifically described in the idolatry of Baal of Peor (25:4).  The tribe of Ephraim suffered greate losss (19.8 percent), but their brother-tribe, Manasseh, experienced the greatest growth (64 percent).  Judah remained the strongest tribe.

Attentive readers will remember that Judah was the son of Jacob who received the birthright and the blessing, so it makes sense that they would be the strongest tribe.

            Interestingly enough, the reason for the new census is for the impending distribution of land, not for purposes of military conquest.  Israel’s strength is irrelevant as long as she is doing the Lord’s bidding; as long as she does the Lord’s bidding, He provides the military victory.  Also interesting is the fact that, in a hugely patriarchal world, daughters are given a chance to receive inheritance.  (How much impact this had in terms of the real, day-to-day life of Israel can be debated; you don’t give up on patriarchy all at once!)

            Finally, we see God’s judgment on Moses reaffirmed:  he will not enter the land of promise because he ‘failed to uphold the Lord as holy’ at the waters of Meribah.  However, the Lord continues to provide for Israel’s leadership, and Joshua is designated heir-apparent in the presence of the priest and of the whole congregation.  Given Israel’s checkered history with honoring their leaders, there’s no need to take chances about Joshua’s credentials.  (On a tangent, that’s one of the reasons that Lutherans emphasize ordination for their pastors.  That kind of leadership is not exercised in private, nor does a private call qualify one for the office.  The office is public, therefore the declaration of election to that office is public.)

The Curious Case of Balaam

            A long, powerful, bewildering reading today!  Balak, king of Moab, is frightened of the sheer magnitude of the people of Israel.  He fears he can’t defeat such a horde militarily and summons a mysterious—what?  a shaman?  a prophet? a diviner?—Balaam’s never really described.  Balaam, though, consults with the Lord, the God of Israel.  Apparently Balaam has at least some knowledge of Israelite religion, but he seems to communicate with the Lord in ways unlike Moses—through divination and augury.  At first, the Lord tells him not to go; then, the Lord allows him to go.

            There’s the first question this reading raises.  If the Lord allowed him to go, why did the angel of the Lord block his path and threaten to kill him?  We have to read between the lines here, but it seems as if the Lord is testing Balaam to see if he will do what is right and good.  After all, the Lord has already told him not to go.  But when Balak’s messengers come a second time, Balaam sure seems to want to go with them.  Balak’s offering good money!  That seems to be a theme throughout the readin:  Balaam really wants the payday!  Why else would he go with Balak’s men and why else would he attempt to curse them three times?  I suppose a decent analogy might be a parent who tells his child, “Here’s what I really want you to do.  But you choose if you’ll honor that.”

            Lutherans put it this way:  God doesn’t tempt us to go evil, but He may test us to see whether we’ll choose the good.  That can get pretty complicated as we try to sort through how the failure to do good can often lead us to choose evil.  But it seems to be the case with Balaam.

            A second bewilderment is the repeated relocation of Balaam to try the cursing again.  By my count, they made 21 altars at three separate sites.  Why?  Lutheran Study Bible suggests that Balak thinks Balaam is intimidated by the sheer magnitude of Israel, so in the second instance, Balak insists, “You’ll only see a small portion of them,” and in the third instance, Balaam looks toward the wilderness, perhaps not looking at Israel at all.  That may be the case.  I suspect that part of the story is that ancients conceived of deities as localized.  So, by moving Balaam around, Balak is hoping to move him outside of the Lord’s circle of influence—close enough to pronounce a curse, far enough away to not be influenced by Israel’s God.  Neither Balak nor Balaam seem to know whom they are dealing with!

            A third thing that bears commenting is the content of Balaam’s eventual oracles, especially the third one.  Considering how much trouble Israel has given the Lord up to this point in the story, it’s a little surprising to hear how Balaam describes Israel.  He notes that he is seeing things as the Almighty sees them, and he describes Israel as lovely, prosperous, and powerful.  We read Numbers, and we see in Israel a stiff-necked people.  The Lord looks at Israel and sees a stiff-necked people whom He continues to delight in!

            It’s good to know that the Lord can see us both as we really are—sinful, stiff-necked, broken beings—and as He has declared us to be in Christ—forgiven, restored sons and daughters.

God is No Pragmatist

Numbers 20 often befuddles us.  After all, the story is pretty straightforward:  Israel needs water, God provides water.  All that Moses does is to strike a rock instead of speak to it, and for that he is told that he will never enter the Promised Land.  I don't know about you, but to me that seems a little out of proportion.

Several things present themselves to help me get my head around the incident.  Let me just ponder the most important one: Moses is Israel's leader, and leaders are always held to a higher standard.  That's the responsibility of leadership.  After all, if a person wants the ability to influence people for good, they need to be aware of how easy it is for them to influence them for ill, too.  Leaders, by the nature of their position, can set good or bad examples, with consequences far beyond their apparent meaning.

Here's an example.  I grow up in the shadow of Nixon's Watergate scandal.  Now, on the surface, it's kind of small potatoes:  a bothced break-in and a badly conceived lie.  But the ramifications have been enormous--the hastening of an entire era of lost confidence in institutions and authority.  (I'm not saying Watergate is the only event that undermined our confidence, but it surely helped that loss of confidence get rolling.)  How do a minor crime and a lie have that kind of impact?  When they're perpetuated by the leader of the free world!  If the President does that sort of thing, it sets an example for lesser government officials and for all sorts of people in power that power can be used for personal benefit.

Anyhow,  leaders--in the world and in the church--are held to higher standards, and this is especially true in Moses' case.  If God's favorite can so casually disregard His Word, surely everyone else can, too!  So, parents, bosses, pastors--everyone in authority ought to recognize that they wield that authority to lead on God's behalf, and with that responsibility comes responsibility.

Honor Your Leaders

            Numbers 16-17 remind us that bad times and bad news often create crises of leadership.  After all, Hosni Mubarak managed to rule for 30 years, but food shortages and inflation finally created conditions in which his leadership couldn’t be sustained.  I follow any number of friends in Wisconsin on Facebook, and many of them are up in arms about Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposals:  lost tax revenue means lost services and benefits and people don’t want to take that lying down.  (I suspect we’ll see the same sort of things around here in the next week or so when Gov. Snyder presents his budget.)

            I don’t have a horse in any of those political examples, I’m just trying to point out that bad times lead to shaken confidence, especially in leaders.  Now, Israel had had a bad run.  Tired of their time in the desert, in the cusp of entering the land the Lord had promised, they found themselves heading back to the wilderness.  Now, we know that they were heading back into the wilderness because of their own problems—complaining, lack of faith, etc.  But Korah managed to cast it in terms of Moses’ poor leadership:  “Who are you?”  The Lord answers that question with an earthquake and fire, but still the people grumbled and blamed Moses for the disaster.

            What ought we learn here?  First, we might learn to take Jesus’ advice and look at the log in our own eyes before removing splinters from someone else’s.  Korah (and a great number of Israelites) should have considered that the reason they were heading into the wilderness was their own failure to honor the Lord by going into Canaan.  Second, we might learn to look take a more honest appraisal of ourselves:  did Korah really think he could have brought about a different result than Moses?  I find that it’s much easier to criticize and complain than it is to offer solutions that work.  (I don’t like how the cost of health care has risen over the last 15 years, but, as a matter of honest appraisal, I have no idea how to fix it.)  Finally, this kind of reading might make us consider the ways that the Lord has told us to honor our leaders—whether secular (Rom. 13; 1 Pet. 2) or spiritual (1 Tim. 5).