Kill God! Pick Up Firewood Any Day of the Week!

I was reading Numbers 15 in the Bible the other day and wow, I was reminded not to gather and pick up the firewood in my side yard on a Sabbath (for me, a Sunday) for a driveway SoloStove fire lest I be executed for divine irreverence.

[By the way, this is what daily reading of the Scripture directed by some other source beside your own personal predilections does to you. I use what’s called the Revised Common Lectionary for my readings and, well, it can take you places you don’t want to go or would not go if you had your druthers but need to go if you want the full breadth and depth of a Word that speaks into and out of your total life’s experiences. That day I had Numbers 13 on the lectionary schedule but kept on going. You’d think in these days of raucous injustice and assault on democracy in America that I would want to be going to Matthew 5-7 or Romans 12 or Philippians 2 or Micah 6 or Amos 5 or other Scripture for some hefty inspiration. Well, I do go there, but that has to be in addition to this daily dose of a Word coming out of nowhere (or at least not by my direction) to which I need to apply the filter of Law and Gospel in order to see what it is doing to me]

This command about firewood and execution is at God’s bidding, no less. What is going on here? The tribes of Israel had paid attention to the incidents of calm and the incidents of calamity in relation to the Words (aka Commandments), in this case regarding Sabbath, and figured it had better not roll the dice.

My humble opinion: it’s absurd, abusive and atrocious to be taking random consequences in life as divine retribution or reward and then, the same, no, worse, absurdity, abusiveness and atrocity to be carrying out debasement, marginalization and punishment, to say nothing of execution, in the name of obedience to divine direction.

Yet, this is what we do. This is what we do. And so, any real and authentic spiritual life and faith in God is relegated to the trash heap by so many because of such absurdity and atrocity.

What can counter this? What can bring life out of this Word, and not death, while not at the same time simply picking and choosing writings that are calm and peaceful?

This: God is not the Law. God indeed does give laws. And, if we pay attention, let’s say starting with the Big 10 (Commandments) we see they are for the benefit and health and well-being of human community. Killing, Stealing and Coveting: not in the list of healthy practices the last time I checked. But God is not the Law. The huge mistake made is to see the Law as God and the story of Jesus as living and dying in and by that Law (he said, “I am fulfilling the law,” Matthew 5-7, right?) so that the Law reigns supreme and rightly judges and punishes all who trespass. The usual Christian response to this scenario is that the “judging” and “punishing,” however, now only happens if and when you don’t believe (and, by the way, demonstrate too, but “ok, just have it in your heart, that’s enough!”) that Jesus did that obedience to the Law for you. But how and why is it that we don’t see the bald continuance of God as the Law, not just giving the Law, in this Christian belief in a Jesus who obeys for us? The how and why is too obvious: if you don’t have skin in the game of salvation then the whole thing is left up to God. We can’t have that! Kill God!

Oh, yeah. We did that didn’t we.

And all of this because I ran across Numbers 15. Picking up firewood on the Sabbath. Wow.