UMC20230226 - Falling in love with the Old - Part 1¶
This year I have started a "read the Bible in two years" program and I have been learning so much. Calling the Bible the "Living Word" is so apt. Each time we read it, it feels like it has changed, morphed into something new. Yet, it has not changed. We have changed, we have grown and our eyes are more open. One thing that I am learning this time round is that we discover deep truths about life through embodying them in actions more so than just thinking about them.
Jordan Peterson makes this observation in his lectures on the development of norms and traditions in our culture. He says in order to create norms or traditions people first observe or notice a pattern in our society, they then align their behaviour to the pattern and act it out, and only after that, and through the hard work of a few creative people, are they able to articulate it consciously and express it to others. For example, the concept of holiness is a difficult concept to just intellectually invent and then discuss and understand and then live out. How did the Israelites learn about it?
Towards the end of Exodus and into Leviticus, we read detailed plans on the building instructions for the Tabernacle. A portable kind of temple for the Israelites. It included gold worth millions, skilled work on ornate tapestries, detailed metalwork, very specific layouts, and rules for who can enter and how to conduct offerings. And what did this Tabernacle practically offer the Israelites? Nothing. It had no utility. But through building it, giving it value, and separating spiritual ritual from daily life, the Israelites learned respect, awe, sacredness, and righteousness, that there exists something larger than themselves and the value of life and blood. All the ingredients for holiness.
We are in the season of Lent. Through the practices of giving something up (something that we value) and taking something up (normally a spiritual practice), we learn about the "death of self" and the "life in God", not intellectually, but in our bodies.
Love,
Cliff