True Religion

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

True Religion
By Rev. William Dohle

A few weeks ago, in a conversation around "Give us this day our daily bread" I sat our Confirmation kids down to show them just how blessed they truly were.  In a video made by Bread for the World, they watched as pictures of children, all starving and suffering from malnutrition, were paraded on the screen.  Each of the pictures seemed worse than the previous one.  And I watched their faces drop and their shoulders slump.

In the end, I asked them all what they thought of what they saw.  They had a few questions, mostly about whether it was real or not.  I explained how children throughout the world suffered from starvation and gave them some of the startling statistics.

World Hunger Statistics
Total number of children that die every year from hunger	1.5 million
Percent of world population considered to be starving	33%
Time between deaths of people who die from hunger	3.6 seconds
Total number of people in the world who suffer from hunger and malnutrition	800 million
Total number of people who do not have enough to eat	936 million people
Total percentage who do not have enough to eat who live in developing countries	98%
Total percentage of world’s hungry that live in 7 countries	65%
Number of people who died of hunger today	20,864
Total number of people who will die of hunger this year	7,615,360
Total percentage of U.S. households that are at risk of hunger	11%

Sadly the video only highlighted the children and the impact hunger had on them.  Most videos go that direction, showing pictures of the children rather than the adults.  Unfortunately, hunger and poverty affect all ages.  No one goes unscathed.  Parents who are hungry raise children who are hungry.  And the cycle continues.

The Bible takes on this cycle head on.  Not only are widows and orphans, the two groups at the bottom of the biblical social scale, mentioned specifically by God to be cared for.  But their cries are the cries God hears most.

"Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.  If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.  My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.

"If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest.  If you take your neighbors cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body.  What else will he sleep in?  When he cries out to me, I will hear for I am compassionate."  (Exodus 22:22-27)

 This is not the first time, and certainly not the last time, orphans and widows are specifically mentioned in the Bible.  Care for them is absolutely important.  Commanded by God in fact.  When the poor cry out, God hears them.  God shows compassion for them.  And God acts to turn the world around to care for them.

We too are to join God in his care for the poorest among us.  According to St. James, this is what true religion is.  Caring for the orphan and widow.  That's it.  That's what it means to be a Christian.  To be "Christ-like".  We are to care for the needy, as Christ did.  As Christ fed the multitudes, so we are to join him in feeding the multitudes.  As Christ reached out and touched the untouchable, so we too are to touch those our society deems untouchable.  As Christ healed those who could not repay him, so we too are to heal those who have no power to repay us or anyone.

Is that what True Christianity is?  Caring for the orphan and widow and not allowing ourselves to being polluted by the world?  What if that's it?  It seems so easy and yet so hard.  In church circles, we pride ourselves with things like converting or church planting.  We secretly look up to those with the biggest church, the best car, the largest home, and those who invoke God's name the most.  If we are to take God seriously in Exodus and St. James seriously in his epistle...we're going to need to change our ways some.

What if every "Christian" politician was to produce a record of deeds done to the least and the little and the lost before we believed they had faith?  What if every church was measured by their acts of mercy to those around them?  What if we looked up, not to the congregations and pastors with the largest attendance, but with those who had done the most good in their communities?

We may not be saved by our good works...but we are still called to produce them.  Faith without works is dead, another kernel of wisdom from St. James.  Caring for the least and little is what it means to be a Christian.  That's what it means to have faith.  And if every person of faith in every land reached out to just one widow or orphan, the world could turn around one widow and orphan at a time.

Your eye, O God, is on the widow and the orphan, the hungry and the alien, the wanderer and the outcast.  Open our eyes that we might see them through You.  Amen.

Bending the Rules

"If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him." Leviticus 24:19

Bending The Rules
By Rev. William Dohle

Ahh!  My children are getting too smart now!

They have learned that sometimes when I give them a rule I will break that same rule myself a little while later.  Like...

I tell them to stay out of the cookies...but I sneak a cookie when they're not looking.
I tell them to pick up their stuff from the floor when they come home...only my stuff is all over the floor too.
I tell them to clean up their room...when my room is a mess.

The list goes on and on.  Invariably, it seems, there is always something that I'm doing(or not doing) that my kids should(or should not) be doing.  It just works that way.

They've tried to point it out to me.  They say, "Hey!" and "But you don't...".  I try to shrug it off and still keep the rule firm...but I think they're starting to catch on.  You see...

Rules are not as absolute as we think they should be.

This thought applies to biblical rules too, or so it would seem.  Take, for example, that one we know so well quoted from the book of Exodus.

"...if there is serious injury you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." Exodus 21:23-25

We usually know this rule as the "Eye for an eye" rule.  It says, in a sense, "Do to others what they have done to you."

The rabbis quickly point out that this rule is not meant to be taken literally.  It refers to a monetary fine imposed on people for the injury.  A "just" fee for injuries sustained.

And Christians will point out too that Jesus addresses this very command in the book of Matthew.

 "You have heard it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'  But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person."(Mat. 5:38-39)

And so we both assert: The rule doesn't mean what it says it does.  Either Jesus has thrown it out or we should just take it metaphorically.  One way or the other...the rule doesn't apply.

But still the rule is there.  "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth..." And we face the question: do we ignore it?  Do we dismiss it?  Do we make it into a metaphor?  How do we handle this?  People all over the world still live by this rule.  Do we adopt it as truth?

I think it should be said first that when this command was spoken it was one of grace.  In a society where an offense might not only get you, but your whole family and clan killed, a limitation on the punishment afflicted is a gracious one for the victimizer.  Only what is done to the offender may be done back.  Their family and their clan must be left alone.  Everyone pays for what they do themselves.

So the rule is good in some ways...but not good in others.  As Gandi has rightly pointed out, "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind."  Even this commandment cannot apply in all situations.  For who of us have not offended our neighbor somehow?  Who of us have not burned them with our words, abused them in our thoughts, or hurt them with our actions?  If we were to take this command literally, each one of us should be left blind and hurting.

Even this command from God needs its exceptions.

Forgiveness is the exception to this command.  Forgiveness breaks this commandment in pieces.  It says: "You owe me an eye, but I will not take it from you.  I will forgive you the offense."  Forgiveness shatters this "eye for an eye" principle in pieces.  It refuses to take restitution, though it is owed it.  It refuses to punish, though it can.  Even a gracious punishment is unthinkable to forgiveness.  An eye for an eye goes unclaimed in forgiveness, for it is the grand exception to the rule.

If this is the case, then the greatest rule breaker of them all is God!  For we believe that in Jesus Christ, God forgives the world of its sin.  God forgives every single person.  God doesn't take an eye for an eye, a life for a life, or any other form of restitution.  Instead, God says: "I forgive you!"  God sets our sins from us, as far as the east is from the west we are told.  And God refuses to exact punishment upon us for them.

All thanks to Jesus Christ, we get to keep our eyes, our hands, and all our members because he is forgiveness in the flesh!

You gave the law at Sinai, Lord, and we struggle to understand and keep it.  Help us see and experience your forgiveness so that we may forgive others, instead of inflicting upon them the pain they have inflicted upon us.  Amen.

God of the Itty-bitty Details

I will never forget your precepts for by them you have preserved my life.  Psalm 119:93

God of the Itty-bitty Details
By Rev. William Dohle

I like details, especially in school.  I like to know what the teacher expects, when they expect it, and how they expect it to be presented to them.  I like to know the formatting, how they want things to be cited, and what things should be cited how.

I have learned how important instructions are to me as my children grow into more complicated assignments.  It's often they come home to say, "I need a poster board for a project..." but they don't have any details about the project or what is expected of them in completing it.

Details... that's just where it stands.

One of my favorite college teachers was a guy named Dr. Tonsing.  Tonsing(or Tonz to the students) was a religion professor at California Lutheran University.  Tonz was known to have a very specific way he wanted things presented to him.  He wanted them in an outline.  Each point in the outline had to have so many sub-points and every sub-point had to be documented in a specific way.  Every paper in his class would look exactly alike.  That's just how he liked them.

I remember one of my fellow students struggling with that formatting.  She would leave his class disappointed in her grade.  "Why did he give me this?" she'd say.  Looking over her paper, I knew exactly why.  She didn't format it right.  When the professor says, "Do it this way with these details" you listen to him, especially if you want a good grade out of his class.

Details.  That's just where it stands.

God too is notorious for details.  Small details.  Itty-bitty details even.  Scripture is jam packed full of details of how he wants his people, Israel, to live, and what they are to do in every situation, down to the last detail.  Here are a few of those detailed passages from the book of Exodus...

If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist and he does not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held responsible if the other gets up and walks around outside with his staff; however he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed.(Ex. 21:18-19)

If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows.(Ex. 21:22)

If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull must be stoned to deaqth, and its meat must not be eaten.(Ex. 21:28)

If a man grazes his livestock in a field or vineyard and lets his animals stray and they graze in another man's field, he must make restitution from the best of his own field or vineyard.(Ex. 22:5)

There are more.  Many more.  Check out Exodus 21 and following for many many more detailed instructions.

As Christians, we might feel tempted to skip over these passages.  I know I do.  I want the "good stuff", the stories and things out of Scripture.  As far as these little itty-bitty detailed laws of God...I'll call them artifacts of the past.  They have no relevant meaning for me today...right?

But what if they did?  What if the Word of God was present just as much in these little itty-bitty details of how to live a good life as the Word is in the Gospels or the Epistles?  What if these laws have something to say to us today?

I think they do.  I think they tell us a little about God himself.  I think they remind us that God is a God of the details, even the itty-bitty ones!

Our God, the King of the Universe, cares about the details of life just as much as he cares about the big picture.  Many of us might be "big picture" people or just "detail orientated" people.  Our God is both.  He cares for the cosmos in the big picture, our galaxy in the big picture, our solar system and even our world in the big picture, but he also cares just as much about the details of our lives.  How we live.  How we walk through life.  What we say or do not say to our neighbor.  How we care for the environment.  Even what we do in the privacy of our own home.  God cares about all of this!

And these laws prove it.  God could have left his people with the beginning of the law, the part we call the Ten Commandments, and let THEM sort it out.  "There you go!  I've said all I need to say.  You figure out the rest..."  But he didn't.  God got involved in the details of law.  He jumped into the details of his people's lives.  And then he jumped, with both feet, into our flesh in Jesus Christ!  That's a God of the itty-bitty, teeny-weeny details for you!

Thank you for caring for how we graze our livestock, how we quarrel, and even how we live our lives in our most private moments.  Help me see your hand in all the details of my life.  Amen.