Deuteronomy 26:1-28:14
“My father was a wandering Aramean.... now become the people of the LORD your God”. We come back to the idea of actively remembering and celebrating the work of grace that God has performed among his people. It pays to continually remember that we were nothing - just insignificant wanderers - but that now we really are something, and not in any way due to our ability or to luck. God, the most powerful ruler who has ever existed, has actively sought us out and drafted us into his personal team not because we are any good but just because he wanted to. Gratitude and a sense of privilege really are so foundational to our walk with God. I need to spend more time reflecting on the past.
One thing that starts to appear here though that I really do wonder about is when Moses and the Levites start promising Israel that God will set them in “praise, fame and honour high about the other nations”. I wonder if this actually starts to distort the promise that God has given Israel. Is it not enough for them that they have been tied close to the heart of the King of Peace? Do they have to start setting themselves above others as well? I believe God’s heart for Israel was that they would distill the grace and compassion of God out to the nations of the world, not claim superiority over them. That was one of the major points that Jesus seemed to correct - he wants he people to serve the world, to be the light to the Gentiles. This crazy Grace-giver still has more wanderers that He wants to draft into his team.
Luke 17:11-37
My boys have been to various groups (not the amazing Vineyard Kids I hasten to add) where they have been read this 10 lepers story and then told that this means Jesus wants them to say thankyou when people do nice things for them. What a load of crap. This is just absolutely not about politeness and it angers and distresses me so greatly that anyone would feel that they should tell kids that it is. What our children, and us, need to know is not that God wants us to sit calmly at the dinner table but that he wants us to acknowledge that all saving and healing power flows from Jesus. Jesus is perplexed by the other 9 lepers because they have failed to see who he is. These 9 lepers have been wasting away outside of the city, cut off from all prospects and relationships, permanently ringing a bell and saying “unclean, unclean” and watching their body decay before their eyes. Now they can live again - they are healthy and pure, they can marry and gain employment, they can rejoice and converse with others. How can they not see that this points to Jesus as the Healer, to Jesus as God with Us bringing hope to the hopeless and life to the lifeless? Jesus expresses surprise not because he wanted recognition of himself but because the 9 lepers have chosen only to go 1 step along a 10 mile journey. The 9 have received the tiniest scrap of grace and have been too thick or too self-obsessed or too distracted to come back for some more. The greatest gift this 1 leper received was not his healing but his faith in Jesus. That is what we should be teaching our children. That is what we should be acknowledging ourselves.
Psalm 46:1-11
God sounds so majestic! The God of Jacob is our fortress!
