In the blogosphere, it appears as if I've taken a one-year sabbatical. If I said I used that time in a consistently productive manner, I'd be lying.
Just finished chapter 3 tonight. Of significance for me was the latter half of the chapter on land: Its gift & responsibility. Here's what I appreciate:
Worship of this God was not some mythical or ethereal matter, but it was literally 'earthy'. If worship is merely devotional, there's not much to show for that. If worship is a recognition of God's acts in history, there is something to be said of that. But if one adds to their worship--and ethical behavior for that matter--that God is Lord over all the earth, and has given you a spot in it as in inheritor--then it becomes immensely important.
The weather here is windy, mostly dry, with high temperatures in the 50s. Farmers are capitalizing on this, and the harvest is in full swing. I'm not a farmer--I'm not even a good gardener!--but as I was reading this, I was wondering: If a local farmer read this book, what would he think of some of the ethical stances/principles noted? Here's what I think they might take notice to:
1--Times have changed. It seems as if no one leaves their land fallow unless they're getting paid for it. We're not leaving the edges of our fields for the unfortunate to glean from; most of us don't even know who the 'unfortunate' are. And we are certainly not hiring people to work the fields.
2--Worship of the 'timeless'. Even if those practices seem dated and impractical today, God's people are still left to consider the land as gift & responsibility. Wright says, "Covenantal loyalty required submission across the whole realm of human life on earth, on the farm as much as the altar."
Our next big holiday is Thanksgiving. Even though I'm not a farmer (did I say that already?), the chapter has caused me to ask:
1--How can I give God my 'firstfruits'?
2--What does 'harvest' look like for me?
3--Gift & responsibility go hand in hand with the land. Can that principle apply to other areas in my life?
Sorry if this disjointed and such...hopefully I'll find a rhythm as we go along.
Can't wait to hear on your end what you're picking up!
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Michael,
ReplyDeleteI definitely appreciated this post and can certainly echo much of what was said here.
I think we've now read a couple things that have really sought to align the land and the covenant together, but potentially none more convincing as Wright does in this chapter. He really went through and lined up everything to show how intrinsically tied it was passage by passage and that was extremely helpful to see how numerous the occurrences were. Brueggemann has a book called The Land which I think I've brought up before that would probably be amazing to go through eventually.
I really felt that he sought to take out any current-day social angles and seek to really understand what the approach should be to the land. In doing so, it was exciting to see throughout Israel's story there being so many points where we find out the land is still "owned" by God and is basically on loan to us to honor. He was able to give so many important references which really highlight how their relation to the land was parallel to their actions in regards to God. Additionally, to hear from him a good explanation of what the exile was and explaining that time more was very helpful, because some of those parts are the hardest in the Bible to understand. The big story is crucial to understanding the nature of God and he explains this well.
I also feel like that was pretty disjointed, but those are just several of my thoughts for that chapter. There was something in the book before this I was really interested in talking about some too, so eventually I'll take some time to write up a new post on that as well. I'm finding in just doing this that it helps to pace myself in this rather than making it a huge deal because otherwise it's too daunting a task.