Thursday 17 February

Exodus 21:1-22:31

It’s quite an insight into the bickering, almost anarchic nature of Israeli society that the Lord felt the need to set before them laws on what to do when two fighting men injure a pregnant woman or when someone burns down another’s grain.  It is my hunch that these were exactly the sort of issues that were being brought to Moses on a daily basis and that Jethro counseled him delegate to others.  These laws, then, rather than being the guiding principles for covenant living on the level of the 10 Commandments were probably more akin to laws that were held by the courts and which the common Israelite may never have read (lucky them!).  There is in here though a few key phrases that gleam like diamonds in the ruff.  Firstly, we see where the “eye for an eye” principle is derived from (and we note that it is a legal, not a personal, guide for retribution). Secondly we see the betrayal price for Jesus being the equivalent of recompense paid for your bull goring to death my slave (there’s some interesting mileage in exploring if there’s any theological meaning in that).  And, thirdly, we get this glorious final section on ‘social responsibility’ which is richly underpinned by the principles of mercy and holiness .  It is almost offensive to modern ears to hear God claim that he is compassionate while also saying that if anyone sacrifices to any other god they must be destroyed.  This, I think, it the critical difference between holy compassion and the current fashion for tolerance.  Compassion seems to extend to those (seduced virgins, aliens, orphans, widows) who are trapped in conditions where their choices are limited and prospects are grim, whereas tolerance seems to extend to those who have many options and who have decided to walk away from God’s requirements for living.  We need to be careful that we ferociously uphold the true concept of compassion, refusing to let it turn into a softness on sin, but rather storing it like fire in our bellies, driving us to actively care for the disadvantaged around us.

Mark 2:18-3:30

We concluded yesterday that Mark understood Jesus as being a super-healer, coming to make straight any crooked paths that he found.  We now come onto the question of who has given him the authority to perform his healing.  If you like, Mark is looking at which school of medicine Jesus is practicing under.  The natural assumption was that Jesus had come as a Jewish healer-prophet but, he didn’t seem to be wearing their uniform correctly or following their standard working practices.  When challenged about this Jesus claims not only that he comes on his own authority but also that he is redefining the whole concept of what it means to be a Jewish healer-prophet.  This seems to be equivalent to a BA employee showing up to work one day wearing a different uniform, treating customers in a different way and claiming that they were now the boss of the company.  I suspect that neither the shareholders, nor the BA CEO would not stand for such activity for long, especially if it made headline news.  So it is not surprising that the Pharisees and the Herodians plotted both to kill Jesus and to smear him as an agent of Beelzebub.  What is surprising is that Jesus neither completely ignored nor pre-occupied himself with winning this ideological battle but rather got on with his job in hand; healing diseases, exorcising evil spirits, appointing apostles and teaching about the authority of his kingdom.  Mark shows that Jesus was about so much more than just proving the authorities wrong; he is about tying up Satan and robbing him of all of his possessions, be they the sick, the possessed or the ideologically-misguided.  As the gospel of Mark unfolds it becomes increasingly clear that Jesus’ call is for us to become fellow-robbers with him.

Proverbs 5:1-14

I love the way that the proverbs just put it all out there.  No inhibitions or qualms about addressing a major issue that could be the downfall of the people.  Beware of the flirts; they always take more than they give.