The Cycle of Forgiveness

          Maybe it is because I just finished watching “The Wheel of Time”, but thinking about how patterns repeat is on my mind.  (Maybe a review of “The Wheel of Time” will make a separate post).  It is a good thing to have our point of view, our perceptions, challenged sometimes, to consider other ways of how things occur.

          Under the Covenant that God has made with us, there is a cycle of forgiveness.  It is built into the structure that we, as humans, will be in need of God’s forgiveness.   And that structure of God’s forgiveness has certain pieces that have never changed, from the Old Testament into the New.

          First, it is ongoing.  There is never a time in this life when we can say “I am a sinner no longer.”  The idea of ‘original sin’ has been interpreted in many ways, some helpful and some not so helpful.  But it does help us to understand that sin is original to our very being.

          Second, forgiveness too is ongoing.  As we sin, we are called upon to confess.  We ask for God’s strength, we ask for God’s favor, we ask for God’s healing.  As we pray for those things, we receive them.  Our sinful inclinations and actions can be tempered, we can align ourselves more to the example of Christ.  But that is an ongoing process.

          Thirdly, ‘the wages of sin’ are death.  Paul says that in Romans, but it is the truth right along the history of the covenant.  It goes back to ‘an eye for an eye’, ‘blood for blood’.  Disobedience of God’s law, sinning, is first and foremost disobedience to the Almighty, calling for death as the penalty.  In the Law of Moses, the blood sacrifice was the means of atonement, was the means of providing the blood of an animal in place of the demand for the blood of the sinner.

          This is where the biggest change took place in Jesus.  Instead of the animal sacrifice, the blood sacrifice happened once for all in the perfect sacrifice, the blood of Jesus (the Lamb).  Jesus, the Son of God, who called equality with God as something not to be grasped, was the one whose sacrifice is sufficient for all people.  Thus, instead of the ways of the Old Testament, an entire industrial-religious complex of animal slaughter and meat distribution, which was never enough on its own, because the sacrifice always demanded the desire of the changed heart, we come to the Way of Christ.  We confess our sins, we desire the changed heart, and in the sacrifice of Christ, payment for our sins has been made.

          The Cycle of Forgiveness is ongoing.  To understand the vengeful and angry God of the Old Testament is to understand that this Cycle was no longer being followed.  Or was being followed out of rote and ritual, instead of true repentance and desire of change.  It is when the people turned away from God, stopped the Cycle of Forgiveness, that God’s intervention took place.  And it was never the final judgement. 

          When Israel was invaded or exiled or otherwise punished, it was for ending the provisions of the Covenant.  This happened most often when they turned to other gods, but there were moments of great prosperity in the lives of the people when they fell into the trap of believing in themselves to the exclusion of God.  Thankfully, God never used that as an excuse to end the Covenant.  God was always faithful, even if we were not.  Because if God were no so, if the Cycle of Forgiveness was not in place for us, we all carry the death sentence. 

Understanding Marriage as a Covenant to Understand the Biblical Covenant

           Talk about covenants and treaties and so on can sound like we are talking about the relationship between nation-states.  And that is the basis of the covenant in the Old Testament, between God and the people of Israel.  In fact, one fascinating interpretation of the book of Deuteronomy is that it is, as a whole, a treaty of a specific, ancient type.

          My Old Testament professor called it a “Suzerainty Treaty”.  In was a treaty made between two kingdoms or nations, each with its own king.  But it was NOT a treaty between equals.  One nation was far more powerful than the other.  So they needed a word for the stronger king, who also pretty much dictated the terms of the treaty.  Thus, the term “suzerain”, the higher ranking, a way to establish rank among titles that were technically equal.

          The point is, such a treaty, or covenant, is in terms of magnitude above that of God and the individual believer in general consideration of the term.  With one notable exception in my experience.  That is the covenant of marriage.

          Two people make exclusive, binding, and public promises to one another.  Marriage is ‘an institution’.  And a quick glance at national statistics contained the ‘good news’ that the rate is trending downward toward 40% instead of the usual 50%.  As, as an institution, not a solid track record for something that general includes “till death do us part”.

          The structure of Covenant between God and humanity has shifted over the history of the writing of Scripture to be more of an individual covenant than a national one.  It was with Abraham that the covenant began to be one with a ‘specific’ lineage, that of Abraham.  From his call, the nation of Israel came into being.

          SIDEBAR: the evidence of God’s side of the covenant through the history of the Old Testament is to be referred to as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the first three generations of the nation.

          So the covenant is an exclusive relationship depending on faith and trust and love on both sides.  Honestly, in Scripture, that is the basis for both the individual and the nation-sized covenants with God.  Reading the bible from this point of view, that of God’s covenant with us, gives it an interpretive structure that, for me, draws the very divergent elements together.  Looking for a comparison from our own lives, I hope that helps to deepen the understanding of what the covenant is for us.

Peter Hofstra

Why a Covenant?

           The Covenant is the tool of freedom of choice.  If we were not free to choose, the defining characteristics of our relationship with God seem to me to have two options.  One, according to Paul, is that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, because in the revealed glory of God, there is no way to stand against that.  The second, everyone carries the consequences for their sins, and, according to Paul, the wages of sin is death.

          In other words, God could reveal the Divine Majesty and we are all bowled over into belief and praise.  Or God could let us bear the consequences of our fallen natures.  No freedom of choice. 

          But that is not how God created us.  The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a very sophisticated way of trying to explain human nature.  Without free will, our options are either the Ultimate Good, God’s Glory, or the Ultimate Evil, punishment for what we have done against God.  In this dichotomy, God created a middle way.

          The human being is an amalgamation of good and evil.  There are very good and very evil people who have claimed Christianity as their faith.  There are very good and very evil people who have nothing to do with our faith.  And we have the ability to choose how we will behave.  But we are more than just choice.  We are inclusive of instinct, addiction, environment, and circumstance.  And the rules of Good and Evil change.  And there are exceptions.  The classic?  One does not lie, but, in the Second World War, if one were hiding Jews, one would lie to the Nazis who came knocking to save their lives.

          It is this messiness called Humanity that God has chosen to deal with.  God begins with a promise, I will be your God…  And this is a good promise because God is love.  Then God establishes the parameters of the Covenant, what we generally call ‘the Law’, as the measure of right behavior.  Then God establishes grace, a way of restoring our right standing with God when we breach the terms of the Covenant.  Which we will as humans are flawed, fallen beings.  This is the consequence of free will. 

          That grace finds ultimate expression in Jesus.  By His death and resurrection, He carried the consequences of our sins and He descended into hell.  But He rose again from the dead and, in his resurrection, opens the way to bowing knee and confessing freely that He is Lord. 

          That’s why a covenant.  A tool for allowing people of free will, even when that free will cannot measure up to the perfection of our God, it brings us to the God who loves us.

Peter Hofstra    

The Covenant as an Interpreter of Scripture

           A Covenant, a treaty, an agreement, a negotiated contract between two parties.  That is the basis of my understanding of Biblical theology.  On the one side is God and on the other is us.  There were covenants made with Abraham, with Moses, with David, each on behalf of the people.  The final covenant is that which came to us through God Incarnate, in Jesus.

          The basic theme of the covenant is pretty consistent.  “I will be your God and you will be my people.” 

          This is definitely NOT a treaty between equals.  There is the senior and the junior partner to be considered.  God is the senior, humanity the junior.  Which makes sense, considering God made us. 

          There is a reason for the string of treaties that can be found across the Scriptures.  That reason is us, humanity.  The basis of this promise is faithfulness between partners.  God faithful to us and vice versa.  But that covenant gets broken, by the junior partners, us, continuously. 

          Until Jesus, the way of the Covenant was the way of Works, of Obedience, of us working obediently to hold up our end of the Covenant because God, all-perfect and all-powerful, always did.  This was defined in blessings and cursings.  We people of the covenant would be blessed when we were obedient and cursed when we were not. 

          For much of Biblical history, these were tangible effects.  Blessings were rather specific.  Like sufficient rain to turn the Promised Land into a Garden.  Like material prosperity and empire-building (as under David).  Cursings were also specific, drought and foreign incursion, finally even Exile for seventy years in Babylon.

          But in Jesus, the covenant shifted.  Instead of being cursed and punished for our disobedience, Jesus took on those curses and that punishment.  So, in Jesus, God is the giver of blessings AND God is the recipient of cursings. 

          Which leaves humanity in a very interesting position.  Instead of our proper actions indicating our proper heart of obedience in upholding the covenant, we enter with the proper heart to uphold the covenant and our proper actions follow.  Good works become the illustration of our covenant commitment instead of the requirement for that covenant commitment.  Which is a good thing because the one thing that humanity proved through all the covenants before is that they could not carry the work of the covenant. 

          Tomorrow, why a covenant at all?

Peter Hofstra

To Bible or Not To Bible…but How?

          So what is it about Biblical interpretation?  How can some Christians welcome and some condemn homosexuality and homosexuals?  Much less the questions of acceptance or rejection of gender self-identification?  How can theology swing so far back and forth in its treatment of people?  In the name of Jesus?   

          Who is our Biblical interpreter?  Is it our local pastor? Some other leader, perhaps of a denomination or a large church?  Local?  On television? 

          Does someone reading this feel like they can begin to develop the tools for how to interpret the Bible for themselves?

          I have not posted for the last couple of days because this very issue has jammed up my thought processes.  I have put down a lot on what I think the Bible says and how I think the Bible should be interpreted.  And maybe if somebody likes what I have to say, they will go with me on this journey. 

          This does not even begin to get at the source material.  The Bible is quite the volume.  In my Bible, there are 66 “books”, running from half a page to a hundred and fifty chapters.  There are ‘chapters’ that are two verses long and chapters that are dozens and dozens of verses long.  There are ‘verses’ that are two words long and some that are run on sentences.

          Then there is the problem of history.  The same church/denomination/faith group can see its interpretation change over time. 

          Then there is the problem of consistency.  Is it an interpretive fallacy to claim that the Bible speaks with one voice?  I presuppose that one voice is consistent with Biblical interpretation, although with very particular caveats. 

          But wait, there’s more!  For the PCUSA, there is an entire book of Confessions, documents written at various places and times that speak to the truth of the Scriptures as understood in those moments.  Does not mean they are Bible-grade God-stuff, but as good as the Humans could put together in their times and places. 

          And there are things that read as fairly contradictory on first blush.  But God wrote it…didn’t He (is it He? She? Them? What does the Bible say about that?)

         They say the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging that there is one.  So I suppose this little stream of consciousness did that.

Peter Hofstra

“How Do We Use the Bible as a Legal and Moral Guide?”

         Or “To Bible or Not to Bible”

So there is a principle that says “You can prove anything from the Bible.”  That is not a theological principle, that is a worldly cultural principle.  Because the Bible has been used to justify some extraordinarily cruel and vicious things.  Like Slavery.  Like Fascism.  Like Extremist Terror.  Like highly sexist, genderist, and misogynist principles of behavior ‘in the imitation of Christ’.

          So what do we do about that?  On the one hand, the Bible is ‘the Word as inspired by God’.  Even that will cause a ruckus about how best to state what ‘inspiration’ is, what ‘literal meaning’ is, what kind of absolutism can be adopted in how we interpret the Scriptures. 

          The push of this post is a conversation with a lovely couple who have run into issues of their public participation in the commercial and personal life of their community because they are both female.  The reaction to their purchasing a business was that it was being taken over by a ‘gang of lesbians’ that would tarnish the reputation and memory of the previous owner, all from a Christian and Christian guided means of thinking.

          So what do we do?  Because there are verses in the Bible that condemn homosexual behavior on first sight.  This is not a place where I am going to go verse by verse.  “The Children are Free” by Rev. Jeff Miner and John Tyler Connoley is a resource to look at six key Scriptures used in condemnation of homosexuality and verses that bring consolation to those so injured by misinterpretation of the Bible’s message.

          My place of focus is not the Torah, but the Sermon on the Mount.  It is not the Beatitudes, probably the most iconic sermon opening in the history of sermon openings.  Rather, I want to go to Matthew 5:18, where Jesus doubles down on the law.  “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”  The earlier translation goes ‘not a jot or tittle shall pass away…”

          But the thesis statement of this section of the sermon, this portion that tightens up laws concerning murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, and retaliation to insurmountable sins of people’s thoughts and desires-not their actions, it begins with “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

          For me, it all turns on the phrase of ‘fulfill’ the law.  Jesus takes us from the actions to the personal motivations for the actions, what sparks the actions, what in the heart and mind presses sinful thoughts that lead to sinful actions.  What was Jesus’ fulfillment of the law?  Punishment.  Taken upon himself.  For every punishment of the law-for sin-back to its original motivation.  This is to give every sinner (all of us) several things:

1.   A fresh start.

2.   Assurance of pardon (the promise of Jesus’ forgiveness)

3.   The primacy of faith unto salvation (we are not working our way into heaven)

This fulfillment of the law in Christ realigns our perspective to understand Jesus’ summary of that law, “Love God with all, love neighbor as ourselves.”

This is so important because love does not change, but the law does.  Oops, there is the other key piece.  The law changes.  How many death penalty offences are to be found in the Law of Moses?  According to Google, citing a BBC source, there are 36 capital offences.  A piece I had not drawn together, from a Google lead citing Wikipedia, is that there are four means of execution, stoning, burning, strangulation, and beheading. 

36.  For the morbidly minded, the Bible is there for you to read about them, the law of Moses being the first five books, Genesis to Deuteronomy.

But what is legal and what is illegal, broadly, and what is a capital offence and what is not, has shifted in time and place.  The civil authorities, whom we are called upon to obey, represent different sets of legal systems and codes over time.  What does not change is love.

Now, there is a lot more detail that could be argued over.  But, for me, the law as understood in the bible, is the means by which we understand what is NOT loving behavior.  And our knowledge of the power of love has only been enhanced over time. 

So, Rule 1 when invoking law and the bible, where is the love?  That becomes the measure for everything else.

Peter Hofstra

So Where DOES Politics Belong in Worship?

          Last Sunday, the sermon considered the question of the place of national politics in the worship life of the Church.  The conclusion, for me, was in the Prayer of Confession.  That is the place where we can confess the sinful behaviors and attitudes that are so integral to the polarized political landscape of the present day.  But that was not enough for me.  There were questions and issues remaining.  Where does one step off the pulpit and into life?

          Honestly, what I have been seeking is a theologically and heartfelt place of comfort for the church in this political landscape. 

          There was a triggering event.  On June 1, 2020, former President Trump walked across Lafayette Park, cleared of protesters ahead of time by law enforcement, for his photo op at St. John’s church with a bible in his hand.  Until that moment, compartmentalizing things of politics and things of faith was manageable.  But through the remainder of his term in office, into the insanity that was the transitional process, through the present time, I have struggled to fit these things together. 

          I have very strong beliefs politically.  I will make no secret of that.  But there was a huge disconnect.  I know what Jesus teaches-not to every jot and nuance, but love God and love neighbor is a summary of a way of new living in Jesus Christ.  But to preach about the political mud pit is to get pulled into the political mud pit. 

          Our political system is classic high-level conflict.  It is not about issues, which marks a low level of conflict, and one where compromise can lead to solutions.  It is about personalities.  Once it gets there, a huge will to find resolution is needed to move things back to a place where we can talk about things without attacking one another. 

          That’s where Jesus’ power is needed.  The sinfulness of this political climate of name calling, lies, and horrible personal attacks needs something more.  That’s the stuff we need to leave at the door of the sanctuary when coming to worship the Living God. 

          Humanity sins, God forgives.  Then God brings resolution in ways we cannot even imagine.  What’s a Christian to do?  Open the doors wide to forgiveness.

Peter Hofstra