God's Great and Terrible Things

http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081219.cfm
Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Matthew 17:22-27

Most stories about fallen yet holy people in scripture are analogous to our own lives. That’s how we should always hear the word of God. The things that happen to a small group of people, like the Israelites, in relation to the whole world of peoples parallels what happens to each of us. We are both fallen and holy. 

The Lord, your God, shall you fear, and him shall you serve;
hold fast to him and swear by his name.
He is our glory, he, your God,
who has done for you those great and terrible things.

The great and terrible things of God reflect our holy and fallen world. 

The “great” things begin to be revealed as the Israelites enlarge with Jacob’s family — Abraham’s grandson — when he enters into Egypt with barely 70 people. Then 1200 years later, as the Israelites stood upon the precipice of mountains above Jordan, Moses surveys the land he won't see and the people that will inhabit it. They already number over a million. 

The “terrible” is about to be revealed as they will enter Jordan and take the land from those who already live there. They are told to destroy anyone who won’t leave. The Israelites are about to become the beacon of God’s holiness. They’ll do it by preparing a place for David’s throne and Solomon’s temple. To the world, God is horrible. To the Kingdom, God is holy.

After another thousand plus years and generations of great and terrible things, this same home, survived by the reigning tribe of Judah — we call them the Jews — is where Jesus will be hung on a cross and where he will conquer death with his resurrection. He is the one we should follow as the apex, the culmination of the great and terrible things of God.

How do these great and terrible analogies apply to us? We can see in every tale of scripture two interwoven tales. There is the recurring tale of what people do for themselves according to the ways of the world. And, there is the tale of what God wants us to do for him according to the glory of God. Even God himself lives these two tales. Jesus is hung. Jesus is raised.

We each have two running stories throughout our lives. One of us in the world, and one of us in the Kingdom. Our stories reveal that we are two people. The old person, the previous us, who did not know God. And the new person. The one whom God has transformed. In truth, one is slowly replaced by the other. This is not a binary, on/off occurrence. As Steve Leininger would say, it's a journey.

We begin our lives in the world. We don’t know any of God’s teachings; nor do we know him. We build a life that follows the rules of this world — ownership of things and land, fairness weighed by success and failure, deference to other’s experience and to those wealthier than us, and discipline to refrain from falling prey to evil. The world knows evil more than it knows God, and it warns us of the seven deadly sins - lust, pride, envy, gluttony, greed, sloth, and wrath.

In the world, each person is in charge of themselves. We collect things. We carefully choose relationships that enhance success. We make our way in the structure of work for our reputation, in order to fear no one. We learn the tools of different trades in order to be honorable and useful. We watch out for dangers, keep death’s inevitability at bay for as long as we can. We are cautious, crafty, cunning, and concerned for our health, wealth, and well being.

The old person is not a bad person. It is just the person who does not operate under the aegis of God. Aegis is the Greek word for living according to a sponsor, a patron — one who provides protection, supervision, and acts as our champion. We show our allegiances to something else than God — the military, the family, the country, our city, our work, our education, our source of income, and so on. We exchange protection for our loyalty to these things. We exchange commitment for guidance from the rules. Our aegis mostly belongs to these things of the world. It’s called common sense.

The Israelites, though, did not follow the world’s ways. In their day they were the new people. Their aegis was to the true God, not the many gods and rules of the world. Their transformation into new people, the chosen people, did not come easily. Their God did great and terrible things to show the world who he was by interacting with his people. 

Like the Israelites, our new transformed life also struggles to leave our old life behind; our life under the aegis of the gods of the world. As Christ-followers we parallel the Israelites as beacons of light. The struggles of the Israelites parallels our transformation. The transformation from old to the new is both glorious and painful. Few of us complete this transformation here, in this life, as we hold onto the world's ways with a steel grip. It’s common sense battling with a mystical God.

Rather than build a life that follows the rules of this world, we now must live a life that is already filled with the wonders of God’s kingdom. One requires our control. The other is at hand, requiring our collaboration with God. One world keeps us in line. God's Kingdom loves us first. Through this struggle we experience great and terrible things. 

Our concentration upon God will force us to reject much of the world’s ways of competition, acquisition, power, and consumption. By not playing along we lose favor and stature. These worldly rewards are precarious at best anyway. And, in all our attempts to to ward off death, our demise can come at any time. No matter what we do. Our transformation into the Kingdom life, however, with guidance under our aegis for God transcends death. We awaken us to a modern day version of the Israelites land of milk and honey. Our coming heaven, mirrored by the kingdom here on earth, supersedes any worldly concoction of Nirvana. 

Our new life cannot be matched. We see miracles rather than coincidence. We are drawn to each other rather than thrown together. We are not harassed into conformity, but rather called to witness and testify in the strangest and most exciting of times and places.

These two lives of conflicting protections from God and from the world take place for most of us in tandem. Many of us were born into Christian homes, yet ones extremely conscious of properly learning the ways of the world. We lead two different lives with varying degrees of success. 

We’ve spent or own 40 years, wandering in the desert, lost as we flail between the world’s gods, and the holy Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit. God has been frustrated with our whining, yet gracious in his blessings. He’s been angry at our obstinance, yet loving in our pain. We all know the brutality of his allowances for evil to surround us, which we only slowly realize takes place to shift all our allegiances to him. His continual miraculous dealings with us form us and mold us as the beacons of light he desires.

We know that God respects our ownership of things and land; but they are passing. He does not glorify these things more than his eternal self. God will allow decay to wear away everything we are in charge of to show us the temporary nature of things. He will allow thieves to come, bullies to bother us, lusts to tempt us, and taxation to vex us. Our lives are symmetrical to those of the Israelites. We are kindred spirits in all that vexes us and blesses us. All the while, God calls us to turn our hearts to him and not to wrestle first with the ways of the world. 

“Now, therefore, Israel, what does the LORD, your God, ask of you but to fear the LORD, your God, to follow in all his ways, to love and serve the LORD, your God, with your whole heart and with your whole being …”

Our old self considers our allegiance to fairness, to our reputation, and to our honor. Our new self turns to God first, and sets aside our favor in the eyes of the world. Life is not fair, anyway. Our reputation is surely already trashed. Our honor is certainly fleeting. We store up medals and awards and commendations that will mean little when we are gone. 

God’s plan more certainly relies upon our example in the face of horrible things than our heroism and courage in conquering evil. How can we reveal to the world who God is if our lives are about how important we are, and how essential our presence is to the world? That tells the world about us, and nothing about God.

Rather than live in a world measured by success and failure, and disciplines to mark our avoidance of sin, God asks for our hearts. His success comes from our faithfulness, and his teachings are only revealed in the holiness of those who follow him.