Shiva

There are two cats howling outside my window. They were so loud I thought that they were some breed of hound dog at first. I wanted to go out to investigate but got a sudden fear of rabies. I instead chose the safe side and looked up what is called "feline vocalization" on Google.
Cats, for whatever reason, cry and whine really loudly when they are in distress or grieving. The hurting cat outside my window has a friend huddled with him in the bush, shielding themselves against the cold. Whenever his cry crescendos, the other cat joins in. Their constant howling made me want to run outside to scare them away at first. After putting on my coat, I got this sudden feeling like I would be intruding on something sacred. As much as I hate cats, their meowing in unison has a sense of comfort. It is almost as if they are grieving together.

It is an understatement to say that Job was grieving after all he knew and possessed was taken away from him. The Hebrew word nud describes his reaction-- swaying back and forth, nodding his head, much like we see today with trauma victims. Job's friends come along and are so filled with compassion and grief for their friend that they sit next to him in silence. For seven days.
Imagine sitting with someone for seven days. Job's friends reaction was brilliant. It was a gift. It was so powerful, in fact, that the Jewish people adopted it as a grieving practice. To this day many Jews will perform the practice of shiva (literally, "sitting seven") and mourn with their loved ones for a period of a week.

Job needed this kind of support from his friends. But after the seven days were over his friends finally opened their mouths and talked -- a lot. They did so much talking that the book of Job is filled primarily of their speeches. They also got in trouble for it.

What does it look like for us to practice shiva today? What would happen if we avoided empty words of comfort and simply strove to listen and grieve with those who are hurting?

Just yesterday my husband practiced shiva. We were checking out at Odd Lots when Aaron looked up at the cashier, studied her face, and sincerely asked how she was feeling. What followed surprised me. With tears in her eyes, she explained that her sister was in the hospital dying and probably wouldn't make it until the end of the week. Turning to me, she commented that it felt like Aaron knew something was wrong. He seemed to be able to see right through her. She could see it in his face.

Shiva happens when we make ourselves available. It occurs when, instead of the casual "How are you?", we look in a person's eyes and ask them how they are really doing. It happens when we are intentional about making people, even cashiers at Odd Lots, a priority. This makes me uncomfortable. I see someone crying by themselves on my college campus and want to do something about it, but wimp out. I fear what they will think of me. I fear that I won't know what to say. I get uncomfortable thinking that I'll be making them uncomfortable.
In Romans 12:15, Paul simply says to mourn with those who mourn. He doesn't tell us to give a theological answer as to why that person is suffering. He doesn't tell us to say that everything is going to be ok. We don't have to have all the answers or worry that what we are doing is "weird." God uses uncomfortable situations like these to meet with people. All we have to do is be.

Maybe, just maybe, the best way to communicate God's presence and love to someone who is hurting is by simply sitting with them, being quiet, and meowing in unison.

Judgmental Conditioning

"In our national surveys we found the three most common perceptions of present-day Christianity are antihomosexual (an image held by 91 percent of young non-Christians), judgmental (87 percent), and hypocritical (85 percent). These 'big three' are followed by the following negative perceptions, embraced by the majority of young adults: old-fashioned, too involved in politics, out of touch with reality, insensitive to others, boring, not accepting of other faiths, and confusing. [...] This is what a new generation really thinks about Christianity" (Kinnaman - UnChristian, pg 27).

And so pattern many of the other books I have been reading lately.

None of these perceptions are new. Nonchristians and Christians alike know these things. Problems is (well, a good problem), I do not know very many (if any) Christians like this. Perhaps that is because I am a religion major on a Christian college campus. I still would like to believe that the majority of Christians do not match up with these perceptions. Where do people get all of these ideas? The media? What other people say? Personal experiences? Why do they assume that all Christians are like this? You don't have a bad experience with one (or even a few) Russians and assume that all Russians are bad. Today we would call that "discrimination." Why do we generalize all Christians?

Here's the irony: These books are critiquing Christians for being judgmental, which in turn is making me judgmental toward Christians. I am tired of being angry and critical of other believers. I am tired of thinking of myself as more "righteous" because I am not like those judgmental Christians. Sometimes I think I may have been taught to be more judgmental toward my own family than unchurched people are.

Can I please read something positive? Hear some good things that Christians are doing? Please?

Divisions in the Church (that Paul did not address)...

Theology is not a private reserve of theologians. It is not a private affair for professors... Nor is it a private affair for pastors... Theology is a matter for the church. It does not get on well without professors and pastors. But its problem, the purity of the church's service, is put to the whole church. The term 'laity' is one of the worst in the vocabulary of religion and ought to be banished from Christian conversation.

- Karl Barth, Theologische Fragen and Antworten

It is safe to say that unbalanced notions about either clergy or laity are due to unbalanced notions of the Church. Indeed, to be more precise, too low a view of laity is due to too high a view of clergy, and too high a view of clergy is due to too low a view of the Church.

- John Stott, One People

What do you think are the main points these theologians are trying to make? What are the dangers when there is dividing line between "laity" (ministers, pastors, missionaries, theologians, etc.) and "clergy" (everyone else)? Is the Western church still stuck in Gnosticism, where worldly things (ie - eating, working, playing, buying, selling) and bodily nature are a "lower level" than the spiritual?

More thoughts on these topics later...

Lead me to Your heart.

Light

I recently purchased a menorah to display in my home. Hanukkah just ended last week, so my purchase was a little late (but it was on clearance!). The story surrounding the Jewish Festival of Lights fascinates me. It has recently caused me to think of Christmas in a very different way.

During Christmas we usually focus on Jesus’ birth, but I want you to imagine back with me to 165 years before Christ was even born. If you were a Jew during this time, you would have been living in Palestine under the rule of the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes. Now Antiochus hated the Jewish people from the very beginning of his reign. He issued orders forbidding the observance of Jewish ritual laws. Not only did he construct statues of Greek gods all over Jerusalem, Antiochus even convinced the High Priest to participate with him in the sacrifices to these idols. Although all of these actions were horrifying to the Jewish people, the vilest thing Antiochus did was when he laid siege to the holy Temple in Jerusalem. After dedicating it to the Greek god Zeus, Antiochus sacrificed a pig, an unclean animal, on the Temple altar. He drained its blood and smeared it all over the Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the Temple. As if this was not horrifying enough, the Greek army confiscated the sacred Temple menorah.

Once the menorah was taken, the Jews were thrown into complete hopelessness. The confiscation of such a holy instrument was a direct insult to the Jewish people. Before, the Hebrews had remained steadfast in their faith without confrontation. Now that the menorah had been taken, they could no longer tolerate anymore of this torment. A Jew named Matthias Maccabbee finally stepped up and retaliated against the Greek’s oppressive rule. Matthias was definitely a zealot. He slit a couple of Greek officer’s throats, declaring that the Jews had been standing by for far too long. “If we would just take action and fight back,” he said, “if we had the courage to start a revolt, God would give us the power to do it. Think of all of our ancestors—David, Moses, Joshua, Gideon. Whenever Israel was threatened, they resisted and won. If we attack and stand our ground, God will have mercy on us and deliver us.”
The Jewish people were immediately filled with fervor. Taking up their arms, they joined Matthias and raged war against Antiochus and his Greek army. They were determined to defeat the invaders and win back the sacred menorah.

After winning back the menorah, victory seemed sure. The Israelites returned to the Temple to clean up the mess that the enemy had wrecked on it. Altars were overturned an smashed in two, blood was smeared over the walls, scrolls were torns and lying among the dust. But before anyone begins purifying the Temple, before anyone starts cleaning up the mess, everyone searches the Temple for oil to light the menorah. This is the first thing that needs to be done, before anything else. All the priests sift around through the rubble until a small flask of oil is found. It doesn’t contain much, but at this point it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that the menorah must be lit. Now. Eagerly, the High Priest sets flame to the candles, and a warm glow settles over the Temple, casting shadows on the walls. With the lit menorah back in the Temple, the Jews were filled with a sense of peace and confidence. Now that the menorah was lit, there was hope. The Jewish people knew that they were finally safe.

When I first heard this story of the history behind the Jewish festival Hanukkah, I wondered what was up with the menorah. The only places where a menorah, or a lampstand, is mentioned in the Bible are in Exodus and Leviticus. God issued specific descriptions to His people about how the tabernacle was to be constructed, and among these descriptions were instructions about the menorah. The High Priest ritually attended the lampstand, making sure that none of the candles had been extinguished. God commanded that the menorah be lit all day and all night. It was to never go out.
To the Jewish people, this menorah was a symbol of God’s presence among them. As long as the candles were lit, God was taking care of them and dwelling among them. If the flames were blown out, the Jews believed that their God was no longer with them.
Now can you understand the devastation the Jews felt when the menorah was taken from them? Their enemies had extinguished the candles and removed it from God’s Temple. The symbol of God’s presence was absent, and because of this, it seemed to the Jews that He was no longer with them.

The desire to experience and connect with God is one of the deepest longings in the soul. We all have menorahs, symbols, with which we measure our favor with God. Many times its our wealth and financial security. Other times its our emotions, our "spiritual progress," our sense of worth. When we put stock in these symbols, we are as C.S. Lewis terms it saying “encore” by demanding that God reproduce an experience or an emotion.

That menorah was supposed to be a symbol of God's presence, not a gauge of God's presence. A symbol’s value lies only in its ability to lead to the spiritual. The menorah and the temple became worthless when the people were content with the symbolic representation of Yahweh instead of Yahweh Himself.

We are content with our wealth as an indicator of God's presence. We are content with our emotional well being and happiness. We are content with all our comforts and securities. We have made all of these elements symbols, and instead of directing us to God, they replace Him.

In Isaiah 9:2 the prophet promises that one day God would send a permanent Light. This Light would outshine the light from the menorah. Whereas the menorah’s light was transient and unreliable, this Light would be permanent and dependable.
Symbols will let you down. They will fail you. If you have not already experienced it, your menorah will be taken away from you someday.
But there is good news. God promises over and over again all throughout Scripture that He will never leave you. Regardless of whether you are aware of it, God’s presence is always with you. This is the reason why God sent the Light, because He wants to be with you.

The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him.
He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of
God.
John 1:9-12

The birth of Jesus marks the permanence of God’s presence among His people. The light that the Jewish people had longed and desired for was now attainable. And unlike the light produced from the menorah, this Light, God’s presence, could not be blown out.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness can never extinguish it (John 1:5).

May comfort, peace, and joy direct you to God's Gift of Light this Christmas season.