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https://youtu.be/V0wLD04rrxQ

Hespeler, 27 February 2022 © Scott McAndless
Exodus 34:29-35, Psalm 99, 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2, Luke 9:28-43a

Moses sighed. He knew that this time of quiet and reflection would soon be over. Every moment he spent outside of this tent seemed to be a moment filled with requests, frustrations and endless demands. People were constantly looking to him to solve their disputes and fix their problems, tell them what to do and say the words that would bring them all together to face the daily challenges of a wandering life.

They would ask him to make decisions that would affect the lives of men, women and children. If they turned this direction, would they meet a dangerous enemy? If they turned that way, would they find themselves in a wasteland in which there was no water and no fodder for the animals to eat? The latest complex question they’d come up with had been about a matter of the inheritance of a family that had had no sons.

Escaping into the Tent

And this tent was the only place that he could go to escape all of that. He knew that no one would ever follow him into this place because they were all too afraid. They knew that he met with God in here – with Yahweh who had first been revealed to him at the burning bush – and they much preferred to let Moses wrestle with their demanding God on their behalf alone.

Moses knew that it was true, that he did indeed meet his God in this sacred space. But it didn’t happen in the ways that they all imagined that it did. It wasn’t really about spectacular lights and resounding voices. Most of the time, what happened in here was that Moses was able to quiet all of the thoughts that were in his mind. As he eased into a quiet state, pushing aside all of the worries and fears that he struggled with out there, it sometimes happened – by no means always, but sometimes. A word or a phrase or a thought would come into his mind that he knew did not originate from himself. He knew that it was a word from Yahweh.

Uncertainty

But even then, he still struggled with the messages that he received. He was not always sure that he understood them. He was not always certain that he had the interpretation or the application right. And, when God is involved, it seems really important that you should be able to get it right. People think that having some kind of divine experience makes things easier, but Moses knew from long experience now that it usually makes things harder.

And one of the hardest things about it was that people outside of the tent didn’t understand that. When he came out of the tent, when he spoke to them of the will of God, they expected him to speak in absolutes. There was no room for doubt or questions out there. There was no room for shades of gray; they wanted it all laid out in black and white. Moses couldn’t show himself as a fallible human, but rather as a spokesperson for the divine. And so, when he went out, it helped that he put on the veil.

How it All Started

There was a bit of a story behind the veil. It went back to the time when Moses had gone up to the top of the holy mountain all alone. There, on top of Mount Sinai, he had had the most extraordinary experience of his life. The encounter he had had with Yahweh up there was unlike anything that had happened to him before or since. Everything had been so clear up there and there had been no room for doubt. He had been given a keen insight into what measures were needed so that this people, who had so recently been freed of a life where everything had been controlled for them, could live together in peace and prosperity. He had been able to distill it all down to a series of laws that he knew would guide the people for generations to come.

It had been so exciting and exhilarating and, in those first few days afterwards, everything had seemed so very clear. But, when he came down and met the people, all of it was frightening to them. It was so clear to them that he had been in the very presence of God that they said that it was as if the skin on his face was putting off this strange radiance. They were afraid that they would die if they came too close to him. And so, Moses realized that he needed to tone it down a bit. He covered his face to put a little distance between himself and the people. It helped them to manage the fear and it helped him to moderate the way he was speaking to them. And so, they had been able to communicate in those heady days.

After the Mountain Top

But in the time since, the veil had come to be deployed differently. The kind of clear experience of the presence of God that Moses had had on that mountain was not repeated. Honestly, Moses was glad of that because it had left him drained and weary. People don’t actually manage that well with absolute certainty over the long term. It was replaced now with this seemingly endless struggle in the tent as he sought out the brief flashes of clarity in the midst of all the questions and the doubts.

But the harder the struggle in the tent became, the more important it seemed to hide that struggle from the people outside. If they were expecting him to come out of the tent every time with the same certitude that he had brought down the mountain, that was not going to happen. If they were looking for that same sense of radiance coming from him, they were likely going to be disappointed. But by pre-emptively donning the veil before he went out, he managed to maintain both the illusion of certainty and the inspiration of fear. Both of these things simply made it a whole lot easier for Moses to lead these stubborn people.

Back to Reality

And so, with yet another deep sigh, Moses opened his eyes. The time of quiet meditation was over. He felt as if he had been able to sort out some of the problems and challenges that were facing the people. Somewhere in there, he was pretty sure that he had heard a genuine word from Yahweh. He uttered a prayer of thanks, acknowledging the God who had allowed him to lead these people thus far. As he turned, he plucked the veil from the hook by the door and carefully covered his face. He could see very little through it, mostly just shadows and shapes. He knew that the people would see almost nothing of his own features. That was as it needed to be.

He stepped outside and all over the camp he saw the people turn towards him. All noise and conversation fell away as they waited to hear a word from Yahweh. And so Moses began to speak through the veil regarding the difficult question that had been posed to him. “This is what Yahweh commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad,” he cried. “‘Let them marry whom they think best; only it must be into a clan of their father’s tribe that they are married, so that no inheritance of the Israelites shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for all Israelites shall retain the inheritance of their ancestral tribes.’” (Number 36:6-7)

An Ancient Religious Practice

The story of Moses and the veil in the Book of Exodus is one that has always struck people for its strangeness. It has long been thought that, somewhere behind this story, are ancient religious practices that may stretch back to prehistoric times. The idea was that the ancient priest or shaman would put on some kind of mask or face covering and, in so doing, be able to impersonate and speak for the god.

Such an ancient practice may indeed lie somewhere behind this story in the Bible, but I’m a little less interested with how it may have contributed to the creation of this story than I am in what such a practice tells us about it what it means to be human beings trying to relate to the divine. I see two key forces at play. On the one hand, we have the experience of the divine and on the other we have the practice of religion.

Religious Experience

There is a simple reality and it that is that people have been experiencing God for a long time. There are varying experiences, of course. And the God that people experience can be wildly different. But the reality that people have such experiences cannot be denied. I know we often are tempted to dismiss such things because personal experiences, almost by definition, cannot be independently verified. You cannot scientifically prove that somebody experienced God. Nor can you really disprove it.

But people have been having such experiences for centuries and they have sometimes had huge impacts on historical events. I have also had such experiences in my life, and I know a number of other people who have as well.

Fear and Authority

And there are two big problems that arise because people have such supernatural experiences. One is fear. People have a very natural reaction to be very afraid of such experiences and the people who have them. The other problem is the question of authority. How do we tell if someone’s experience of God is something that we should trust and listen to?

We see both of these problems being addressed in this story of Moses and the veil. We are told, first of all, that the veil is placed there to create a kind of distance between Moses’ powerful experience and the people because they are afraid. And we are also told that when Moses speaks through the veil, it becomes a sign that he is speaking for God and that, therefore, everything he says is authoritative.

The Function of Religion

In many ways, I would say, this veil is a symbol of the function of religion. Human religion is there in order to accomplish two things: to manage our human fear in the face of the experience of God and to sort out which pronouncements have authority. We don’t use symbols like a mask or a veil anymore to manage these things, but that does not mean that they are no longer important aspects of our religion.

Because here is what is at stake. No matter what happens to religion and the state of religion (and I realize that religion has been going through some rough times lately) these are issues that are not going to go away. People are going to continue to have experiences of God along with all of the fear and the difficult questions of authority that come with such experiences. It seems to be something that is built into our human nature.

Why we Need Religious Tools

And religion in all its various forms has been something that we have developed to help us manage those very problems. And I know that the history of religion has had its horrible moments. All kinds of terrible things have been justified by religious belief down through history. But I honestly do not think that just getting rid of all religious structure is the solution.

I believe that religion, done well, can give us the tools to manage and interpret these very frightening and powerful experiences in helpful ways. I believe that that is what Moses and other figures like him managed to do, not perfectly, but they at least tried to direct these powerful impulses in more productive ways.

What Paul has to Add

There is one other aspect to this story that is added in the New Testament. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul makes reference to this story of Moses and the veil and he says that in Christ, the veil is set aside. The point he seems to be making is that because Christ revealed to us the very nature of God in human form, the old constraints of fear, authority and religion are no longer necessary.

I do have some reason to wonder whether Paul got that completely right. There is no question that Christianity has never stopped setting up religious systems to manage those very things throughout its long history. But Paul’s point is still rather helpful. So long as we are ruled in our religious practices by our need to manage fear and our desire to project authority, I don’t think we will fulfill our fullest potential as human beings seeking to relate to the divine.

The Problem with Religious Authority

In particular, that desire to project absolute authority from our religious experience has been particularly problematic throughout our history. The fact of the matter is that our experiences of God are rarely absolute. Oh yes, very occasionally, someone will have that top of Mount Sinai experience when everything is absolutely made crystal clear. But most of our experiences of God come when we are in the midst of our doubts and questions. That need to put on a veil and project absolute certainty means that we often hide the true nature of our encounters with God. And that is a problem.

I think that if we were truly honest, we would admit that much of our struggle to work out our relationship with the divine is in there, with Moses as I have imagined him, in the tent. We are often consumed with more questions and doubts than we would like to admit. But I do think it’s time to lay aside that temptation to hide that struggle behind a veil in order to project absolute certainty about our beliefs to the world. That doesn’t serve us, and it doesn’t serve the world. And it actually serves to obscure the real power of religious experience that I believe is our heritage as the children on God.

For children & families for the week of February 27.

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Hespeler, 20 February 2022 © Scott McAndless
Genesis 45:3-11, 15, Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40, 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50, Luke 6:27-38 (click to read)

On Saturday, January 30^th, as we are all very aware at this point, a huge protest descended upon the city of Ottawa. As a nation’s capital, Ottawa is hardly a stranger to protest, and many citizens have gotten used to taking them in their stride. But this one was different. It quickly turned into a long-term occupation as tractor trailers were positioned to lock down the streets of the core, filling them with diesel fumes and the incessant blaring of truck horns.

Now, I am quite aware that those who went to Ottawa to protest had their reasons. There were policies that they opposed and that they felt were infringing upon their freedom. I don’t personally agree with their specific concerns nor, apparently, do a majority of Canadians, but I don’t intend to debate their concerns or their demands. I do believe that people, even people that I do not agree with, have the perfect right to air their grievances and seek to have them addressed. But I do have some concerns with how those grievances have been expressed and I also have concerns about the response and what it has been. I do not think that I am alone.

Who are the Enemies?

In our reading this morning from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus speaks about what it means to have enemies and how we are to deal with our enemies. And I think that that gives us a helpful way to approach these events. “Enemies” is a good way to describe many of the people who have engaged in the drama in our nation’s capital. I know that they are not all one monolithic group, but one thing the convoy people share is apparently their enemies. They would name as their enemies certain political leaders, certain public officials including public health officers. Many would name certain political parties and the policies of those parties. And they have certainly sought to target their enemies with their rhetoric and their actions.

Most would probably not name the citizens of Ottawa as their enemies, but these are the people, especially those that live near Parliament Hill, who have probably suffered the most as a result of their actions. They have seen their freedom of movement and their ability to work curtailed, they have been assailed with non-stop high decibel noise pollution, often so loud that it would be considered torture if prisoners of war were subjected to it. There have been many allegations of harassment and even of attempted arson. As a result of this, it is perhaps not surprising that many of the people of Ottawa have come to see these occupiers very clearly as their enemies, leading to a very strong desire to retaliate against them.

Jesus’ Teaching Looks Different Today

All of this means that we have been given a very clear illustration of the kind of situation that Jesus was apparently trying to address in his teaching this morning from the Gospel of Luke. The question, quite simply, is what do you do when you have an enemy?

And it is kind of interesting. I have been reading and preaching on this passage of scripture (and other parallel passages) for a very long time. I have preached on this passage when our country has been at war in places like Afghanistan and also when we have been engaged in some very dangerous peace-keeping missions. But I’ll tell you something. I don’t remember a time when I opened this passage and could be sure that everyone would have as clear an understanding of who was their enemy than at this particular moment in time.

And the enemies that we think of are not particularly people who live on other continents. They are a whole lot closer to home. Go up to just about anyone in Ottawa over the past couple of weeks and ask them, who are your enemies, and chances are that they can point one out to you.

We All Think We Know How to Deal with Enemies

So, in many ways, that question of how we deal with our enemies is much more urgent today than I can ever remember. But I would also notice one other thing. There really isn’t any discussion about how to deal with them. We’re all pretty sure that we know what needs to be done. You can see that, once again, on the streets of Ottawa. We have seen people directing a lot of anger against their perceived enemies, of course. But, beyond that, we also seem to see a whole lot of anger being directed against those who are dealing with enemies in what we see as the wrong ways.

And so, for example, people have been heavily criticizing the police for what is seen as appeasement or for failing to come down hard on the enemies. Others have expressed their anger at the media for failing to represent “our side” with sympathy or for failing to demonize the other side. These sorts of attitudes make it clear that everyone understands that the only way to deal with an enemy is basically to fight fire with fire, to defeat them with strength and power.

Objectionable Advice

That seems to be the context where we find ourselves today, not just in relation to this one occupation, of course, but in many of the events that have taken place in the last couple of years. So, it seems that the topic Jesus is dealing with in our gospel reading has never been more relevant to us than it is right now. And yet, at the same time, the actual advice that Jesus gives for dealing with our enemies has never been more objectionable.

Jesus says, “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” And, really, can you imagine somebody getting up and making such a request to any group facing off against any other on the streets of Ottawa? They would be laughed out of the city. It just seems to be absolute foolishness, at least when the enemies we are talking about are not hypothetical but are actually standing right in front of us.

No Way Out of Hate

But I really do think that we need to give some consideration to what Jesus is saying here because here is the real problem. Once we get into that kind of battle where no one is willing to give even basic humanity to their enemies, we very quickly get into a situation where there simply is no way out. When all we can do is hate our enemies, we only end up constantly raising the stakes on each other.

At some point, it actually doesn’t matter who is right or who is wrong. It doesn’t matter who started it. At the end of the day, we actually need to be able to live with each other once this is all over because otherwise, it’s never going to be over, and no one wants to live in a world surrounded by enemies forever. So, even though what Jesus says seems like the wrong thing to do, we really ought to listen to him.

What Jesus isn’t Saying

And I would also note that, when he teaches us to love our enemies, he is not simply saying that we should let them have their way with us. For example, Jesus doesn’t just say that when someone strikes you on the cheek, you should just let them keep on striking you. No, what Jesus says is, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.” And I know that that might sound like the same thing, but it isn’t. What Jesus is saying is that you need to insist that, if someone’s going to strike you, you set the terms for what is happening to you.

The Other Cheek

In that world, the kind of people that Jesus was talking to were used to being struck in certain ways. Most of them were poor and many of them were slaves. And do you know how abusers struck people like that in the ancient world? They struck them with a backhanded blow of the right hand which meant that they were striking you on the right cheek. It was the kind of blow that told you that you were nobody in their sight. So that meant that poor folk and slaves were constantly being struck with backhanded blows on the right cheek. They all knew it. They had all felt it often enough. And, what’s more, if you look at some of the other variations of this saying of Jesus, Jesus actually specifies that the first blow is on the right cheek.

But it is very significant that Jesus does not say that you should just let your enemies continue to strike you as they have been. No, Jesus says, you are to invite them to strike you on the other cheek. And that is significantly different in that culture. For them to strike you on the left cheek would mean them striking you with the front of their right hand (because, for reasons I’m not going to go into, you do not touch somebody else with your left hand in that culture).

So essentially what you’re inviting them to do is to strike you, and perhaps to strike you harder, with the front of their hand or their fist, but you are insisting that they do so not as a social superior but as an equal. And, in that culture, that was actually something that did more dishonour to them than it did to you. You had essentially shamed them by forcing them to declare that you were their equal.

About the Clothing

Jesus’ other advice is very similar. He tells them that if someone takes away your coat, you should give them your tunic as well. Well, in that society people only wore two pieces of clothing, a coat and a tunic. So essentially you are stripping naked in front of your enemy and, once again, in that society that did more damage to their honour than it did to yours.

Now, of course, the specific advice that Jesus is giving here is very much dependent on that culture and how it worked. Obviously, to do the exact same actions today would not have the same results. So, we would accomplish absolutely nothing by going around today inviting our enemies to hit us on our left cheek or take away our tunics. That would have nothing like the impact that Jesus is looking for. It’s not the specifics that we should follow but the principles behind them.

The Principles

So, what are the principles, and how might they apply in the kind of situations we are seeing today? I think it does mean that we should not counter our enemies’ misbehaviour, abuse or even violence by returning the same back to them. If they force us to become like them by adopting their tactics, then they have won, and we have no victory. But, at the same time, that doesn’t mean that we must just let them have their way. If they are going to continue to be abusive or hateful, we are going to have to force them to do that in ways that demonstrate to everyone exactly how dishonourable they are being.

In some cases, that can be pretty straightforward. If someone is being abused in a domestic situation, for example, the course of action is pretty clear in my mind. The abused person first of all needs to get safe and to get anyone else at risk to safety. And secondly, they need to take the steps necessary that expose to the authorities what their abuser has been doing. To simply continue to be abused in the same way, is actually something very different from what Jesus was talking about when he said to turn the other cheek. And I certainly wouldn’t pretend taking such matters to the authorities is not a very difficult and painful thing for an abused person to do. But it is a painful thing that you do for a purpose, and it is so much better than just continuing to be abused.

Making it Apply in Ottawa’s Streets

Now, a complex situation like the occupation of your city is obviously going to be more complex than that. I realize how difficult it is to apply Jesus’ advice to that kind of situation. But we still shouldn’t forget the overall principle. You cannot defeat your enemies by becoming like them. You need to give them the space to show who they really are.

None of this is easy. In fact, I believe Jesus made it very clear that loving your enemies is about the hardest thing you will ever be asked to do. It is actually a whole lot easier just to enter into a never-ending cycle of retribution and returning violence for violence and hatred for hatred. But that is really not a way to move forward when we actually have to live in the same country and continue to be neighbours and find a way to build a better country for everyone.

So, I would like to end this morning by posing the question and even suggesting that you take some time to discuss it. My question is this, however you define the enemies you see in our society today, how would you apply Jesus’ teaching to situations like what we’re seeing in Ottawa?