Washing?

 

If I told you that I was dipping my hand into warm liquid and then splashing it around on the corners of the furniture and around the floor, you might think I was getting ready to scrub things.  But then if I told you that the warm liquid was blood, you’d probably think I was insane or having a nightmare.  Reading about the Old Testament temple rituals is kind of like that (Leviticus 9, for instance).   There’s blood everywhere.  In some of the rituals they even sprinkled it on the priest’s clothing.  My first thought in reading about that was, “That’s going to be really hard to wash out.”  I know, because I’ve had to work at getting it out of my family’s clothing.  If you don’t get to it quickly enough with cold water and hydrogen peroxide, it’ll never come out.  Seriously.  Never.  Oh, wait . . . maybe that’s the idea.

In our modern state of hyper-cleanliness it’s hard to imagine blood as something that cleans, but that’s exactly what it meant to the ancient Israelites.  One of the reasons I think this is so hard for us to understand is that we think of cleaning as something we do to wash off the dirt on the outside.  Often it’s dirt we can see—mud, food remnants, ink, grease—leftovers from our daily activities.   In our modern sophistication we’re even aware of washing away things we cannot see—germs, viruses, bacteria—but those are also on the outside.

Have you ever had a tangible feeling of being dirty on the inside?  Often our response when that happens is to take a shower.  And depending on how disgusted we’re feeling on the inside, that shower might take a little longer than our regular shower.  Sometimes afterward we find that the shower didn’t really help quite as much as we’d have liked.  This is sort of like what the Israelites were doing with the blood.  They weren’t washing away dirt on the outside, they were washing away the dirt on the inside, the guilt for the things they’d done or missed doing. 

And just like we wash sometimes solely to get rid of germs we can’t see, that only might be there, they also washed to take away guilt they only might have incurred.  They atoned for their ignorance.  Maybe that’s the most important kind of washing.  Acknowledging our ignorance means admitting that we don’t know everything, despite our great advances in all kinds of learning, and that there are things that only God knows.  This washing also means that we trust God to do what he says he’ll do.  If he says to do certain things to make up for our shortcomings, then we have to trust that this is true, even though we can’t see it happening.

But we don’t have to slaughter animals anymore to accomplish this inside washing.  Jesus was the last sacrifice, the one-time-covers-everything blood washing.  There’s a lot less work involved in receiving forgiveness now—virtually none, actually.  Believe that Jesus already did the work, and acknowledge our need of that work.  Have faith that God does what he says he’ll do.  And just to make it even easier, God gives us that faith.  We just need to use it.

Our modern sensibilities get in the way here, too.  Or maybe just plain old human nature.  The proverb “seeing is believing” rings true because it is true.  We want proof.  Empirical evidence.  But faith isn’t about having empirical evidence.  Faith is having confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1).  Trusting that in Jesus all the promises God makes to us in the Bible are true, and living out those promises in how we think and act and interact with other people.

Want empirical proof?  Put some blood on a piece of cloth and let it dry.  Then try to get it to come off.  Some of it might, but probably not all, unless you’ve found some super high-tech cleaner. (And if you have, let me know!)  Or better yet, ask God to show you how he changes hearts and lives.  And then keep your eyes open.  What you see might just surprise you.

The Eyes Have It

I was going to write today about how regardless of your location, your age, or your situation, it’s still true that the most effective way to grow your church (or any group, really) is by personally inviting people to come with you.  But there are already plenty of places to read about that (here, here, or here,  for instance).  Meanwhile I also like to try to get to the root of things, so it was interesting to me the past couple of days to see that maybe there’s a problem underlying the problem.  (Isn’t there always?)   I was thinking about this underlying problem because I recently read an essay called “Being Ubuntu through Relationship” by Terrance Jacob in Renew 52.  He talks about his experience in consulting with churches that are wanting to do multicultural outreach.  Jacob notes that people tend to focus on the differences between us, and that difference becomes an obstacle to building relationships.  Jacob mentions Ubuntu but doesn’t explain it very much, so I turned to Google (of course) which inevitably lead to Wikipedia.  But unlike usual the Wikipedia article didn’t help me out much.  It did, however,  mention that Ubuntu has African origins.  This got me to thinking about my African friend from my seminary days and how he struggled to connect with his American classmates.  At first his difficulties were language based, but as those difficulties eased the hurdles became more about culture.  He is a very friendly guy, and has a warm greeting for everyone he meets.  But, as he explained to me, in his culture people don’t just breeze past each other with a quick hello like we do.  They stop and talk to each other.  The problem is that we Americans are too busy for that and he was feeling dismissed.  And that got me to wondering whether this busyness isn’t our underlying problem with inviting people to church?  Connecting sounds easy enough, but it’s a bit of a time commitment.  First you have to put yourself in a position to encounter people you don’t know, and then be willing to take the time to talk to them and get to know them.  But what if that other person doesn’t look like me?  Doesn’t act like me?  Doesn’t want to talk to me?  What if they hate me?  What if they pull out a gun and shoot me?  Ok, so that last one is highly unlikely, but it does happen, doesn’t it?

Jacob suggests that we need to be seeking to have conversations with people, and not because we are trying to help them or make them feel welcome, but just because we want to get to know them.  It sounds easy, but I know that it’s not always so simple.  For me part of the key has been just being willing to make eye contact and connect with people.  I spent years avoiding eye contact—always having a book to read on the bus, for instance.  And I know just how to walk with forceful intention so that I look like I’m too intent on getting something done to be distracted by any people that happen to be in the way—you know, looking busy.  And these days we all carry around eye-contact deterrent devices that are just as effective as my book. It’s even become socially acceptable to deliberately ignore people by continually staring at our pocket-sized screens.

Nevertheless, I think it’s possible to overcome these obstacles.  The place to start is with a desire to learn how.  Some prayer will help.  And remember, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible, right? 

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,” -Ephesians 1:18

Blindness and the Unseen

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

It amazes me…and maybe it shouldn’t, but it does…how easily we lose track of this truth from 2 Corinthians, that “what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal,” and become focused on the “seen,” the physical. We get bogged down in the issues of our bodies and the world around us, as if that which we cannot see does not exist. In reality, so much more is going on in the realm of the unseen than we can possibly fathom, but we forget how to use anything but our eyes.

Mine aren’t always my friends. They have often been the source of trouble and great expense because I am severely myopic and my glasses always cost a fortune. I’ve been blessed to have parents who graciously help me with this, and, although I hate being a burden on them at this age, I am extremely thankful for their help.

I once had what I thought might be a little prophecy, a glimpse of a future in which I could no longer see well enough to read charts and sheet music. I thought that maybe God was telling me to learn to memorize and play more by ear and feel, so that I wouldn’t have to stop playing altogether when I became blind. In reality, I’ve had issues reading music for years, and, although I know some of that is rustiness from lack of practice, I know that if I’d heeded the warning and worked more on memorizing, I would have, in the process, achieved the proficiency I’ve always wished I had. Now I seldom play because I’m too busy studying. My eyes are constantly fixed on the “seen” pages of books, websites, and emails, and distracted by the condition of my house, my clothes, etc. These are the things that drag me down and take my eyes off of God and the unseen. Thankfully, He doesn’t need me to be watching to do His work.

I learned recently that I am a visual/tactile learner. Now I joke with myself that the tactile will be especially handy when I go blind and have to learn Braille. Seriously, though, I think another kind of blindness is more my issue—spiritual blindness. Often I am totally oblivious to it, but sometimes it’s as vivid to me as the blind spots that come with my visual migraines. With a visual migraine, no matter how hard you try to see through the blind spot, you can’t. It moves when my eyes move, so it’s always covering the spot I’m trying to see. Similarly, in those times when I have a sense of spiritual blindness, I cannot see through the blind spot, and in both cases I have no choice but to relax and stop trying, and trust that, in time, the spot will clear and I’ll be able to see again. Meanwhile, I take some Advil in the hopes of avoiding the headache that often follows the visual migraine and find something to do that doesn’t require detailed vision.

Unfortunately, Advil does nothing to relieve the pain that sometimes comes when spiritual blindness clears. But I think prayer does. And praise. And thankfulness. A good dose of scripture couldn’t hurt either, because it reminds me that God is good. Reading the Bible also reminds me about how He works, and that He’s always there, even when I cannot see. In fact, it was reading the verse at the top today that reminded me that even obedient Christians sometimes need help remembering that there is more to life than what we can physically see with our eyes…like love and relationships, and Jesus.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

Eyes

I can still remember when his eyes spoke volumes about the torment that filled the mind behind them. The worst of those days he barely spoke, and could barely respond when spoken to. It was a look I saw later in other peoples' eyes and recognized. I said a prayer for them, and made sure not to avoid looking in those eyes, not to avoid contact with the troubled soul like so much of the rest of the world does.

So much is said through the eyes. A joke said with a straight face is betrayed by the smile that shows itself ever so slightly in twinkling eyes. Sadness is hard to hide when the eyes are wet or red. Even a fully guarded heart is evident in the eyes, although what one sees there is the wall that blocks the world from anything more than passing contact. Drug-use is betrayed in the redness, the enlarged pupils, eyes that attempt to defy anyone from noticing but reflect the fear that someone might guess.

As we pass on the sidewalks, in the hallways, through the common rooms where we all congregate, some will meet eyes and some will avert theirs. Some will smile, even say “hi,” and others will pretend no one else exists. There are days when I seek out the eye contact, try to share a smile and a hello, and other days when I am lost in my own thoughts and forget to notice that I am not alone in the world.

The eyes of the tormented mind are something else altogether. Thankfully, he does not have them anymore; the voices that screamed at him day and night are silent now. But sometimes I still look for those eyes when he is having a day that is more quiet than usual, fearing the respite has ended, and I breathe a sigh of relief when his eyes answer back clear and untroubled: All is well.