Returning To Shechem

One trip ought to have sufficed.

Genesis 12:6-7
Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

The deal of a lifetime. Abram gets another piece of it at the great oak of Shechem. We already know from the preceding text that God has called Abram out of the world he knew and away from the gods he knew and on to a new adventure with God. The true God. Here at the great oak of Shechem God revisits Abram and reminds him again of his great plans for Abram.

But strangely, Abram's offspring have a hard time remaining true to this awesome and generous God. They have a strange penchant for "little g" gods. The kind you can cut out of hunk of wood or stone. The ones that cannot really help anyone. The false gods.

In due time, therefore, it becomes apparent that a return pass by the great oak tree of Shechem is in order. To ditch a few false gods. To get tight again with the great God of the universe. To hopefully renew the deal of a lifetime. But is God willing? Still interested?

Yes. He is not only great, but he is also merciful. In fact, he calls for and arranges the trip. One can see, however, just a hint of frustration and jealousy in the way that God provides his travellers with a not-too-subtle hint about which God does the helping when times get rough. (Jacob, who happens to be one smart cookie, catches the hint.)

Genesis 35:1-4
Then God said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau." So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone." So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem.

All right, then. That settles that! Glad to have that done. Move on? Yes.

But not for good. The cycle repeats. It seems those false gods have more staying power than they ought to, because a gazillion years later, Jacob's descendants, now a mighty nation, find themselves again at Shechem, and for good reason.

Time to renew the agreement. And ditch some false gods... Again.

Nearing the end of his life, Joshua (the man who led the conquest of the land God had promised Abram) exhorts the people:

Joshua 24:14-25 (condensed)
"Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living."

Then the people answered, "Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods!... We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God."
...
"Now then," said Joshua, "throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel."
...
On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them decrees and laws. And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the LORD.

Great! All done! Now the whole nation has recommitted themselves to the one God.

But not for long. In due time the Israelites were back at it with the false gods once again.

I'm tempting to mock the Israelites and scorn the thought that I could be as foolish as they were. 500 years have passed! And they are still tempted by the false gods Abram left behind when he crossed the Euphrates? Seriously?

But in my heart I know better than to smirk too quickly. It's serious business getting rid of false idols. Terribly hard to do. Hard to do permanently, anyway.

I know this because I too have my hard-to-lose idols. As the Israelites did then, I do now. I worship God. But not Him alone. Money, the opinions of others, prestige, honor, safety, security... You name it. I worship these things too from time to time.

I try to renounce those extra gods. Send them packing for good. But they are never gone for good. On this day I may renounce all idols, all competitors for the love, trust and affection I owe to God and to God alone — but without fail a tomorrow arrives when I discover they have returned and set up shop in my heart.

Why is it we all have to keep returning to Shechem?

I don't have a good answer for that question. What I do know is that I need to return to Shechem regularly to do some business. To bury a few things.

And I am unspeakably grateful, because the Lord God who waits for me under that beautiful oak tree is merciful and kind.

And He always has two shovels at the ready.

The Word That Isn't There

Matthew 21:31
Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

What radical words indeed.

Radical first because the Pharisees are not even in the kingdom yet.

These words have lost a lot of their original shock value. Back in the day... back when Jesus walked the earth... Samaritans were scum. And Pharisees were saints.

Thanks to Jesus, those two labels have swapped definitions. We forget that. Jesus had a way of changing the meaning of words, and we're living today in the 2,000 year old wake of his corrections.

The word Pharisee is nowadays so imbued with wickedness and harsh judgmentalism... we naturally don't blanch when Jesus says they do not belong to God. But at the time!

Radical words? Heck yeah. I think we too often forget just how radical they really are.

But there's more to it even than that, and this is where I think we are even more blind. Jesus' words were radical because of the missing word. If the word had been included, he would have been quoted as having said this: "Truly I tell you, the former tax collectors and the former prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you."

But that bit about former? Yeah. Not there.

Hidden in this missing word is a mystery which deserves our rapt attention.

What does it mean to say that an active prostitute is entering the kingdom of God? That an active tax collector is entering the kingdom of God?

I don't think the church today understands much of this mystery. A few simple questions. Stop me where I get off track.

If a practicing prostitute can enter the kingdom of God, can she enter my church? Is that OK with God?

If a practicing prostitute can enter the kingdom of God, can she take communion? Is that OK with God?

If a practicing prostitute can enter the kingdom of God, can she enter my home? Is that OK with God?

Can she play with my kids?

The general answer is Yes. But the church, more often than not, is living out a No.

What I see in the church and in Christian homes is not the bold advance of the powerful kingdom of God (into which prostitutes enter and – yes – eventually are indeed transformed by God's redeeming Spirit) but rather a great deal of fear about what the entrance of sinful people might do to our fragile edifices of effete holiness.

Fear and loathing.

We don't place our children in the arms of prostitutes. We only place them in the arms of former ones. We don't have room in the church and in our homes for tax collectors and prostitutes. We only have room for former ones.

But that's not what Jesus said. And it's not what he did.

But we ignore Jesus and worry more over protecting the purity of our surroundings than we do about welcoming prostitutes. And when we do so...

...we prove that Pharisees still walk the land.