20 June 2010
Psalm 66, 67; Num. 14:26-45; Acts 15:1-12; Luke 12:49-56

The penalty for lack of faith and disobedience is difficult. They have seen so many miraculous things done by the Lord and yet they somehow come to the conclusion that taking the land will be up to them. The anger of the Lord is clear in this passage, He does not treat lightly their failure and their cowardice. Those adults who came out of Egypt will not be allowed to enter the land, they will “wander” in the wilderness for the remainder of their days, all they have in life will come from His hand. This life is meant to be lived by faith and sooner or later we will be called to take some step in our lives that requires us to trust completely. Faith that has not been tested is not properly called faith.

The warning is that He will bring division not peace, and we will see that division in our own families. The more we choose to follow Jesus and become those people whose lives are patterned after His the more we will see that division in our lives. The Jews who became believers truly experienced this division in ways most of us can’t imagine. They were put out of the synagogues and ostracized from both immediate family and the community at large. They were required to be community to one another. The call of Christ is a radical one and we, in the West, have not realized that call because we have lived in a vaguely, or nominally, Christian society but the call is not to nominal Christianity. The call is to take up your cross and follow with not the promise of respectability but of being reviled and persecuted. We are those who are called to be prophetic voices to the world. Prophets are not generally honored in their times.

The first thing we typically want from new Christians or new people in our church is that they become like us, just like these who belong to the “sect of the Pharisees” wanted. We don’t ask them to become circumcised but we do expect them to dress like us, act like us, and have the same tastes and preferences we have. It makes our lives easier if we are of one accord on these things but they are secondary things. The early church had to determine its own distinctive, what made someone a Christian, and the answer Paul gave was the Holy Spirit. He saw circumcision as a barrier of sorts but not so much physically but in what it meant, a binding to the old covenant which entailed obedience to the law. It was not circumcision that brought someone into the community but rather the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives and for Paul, that was enough. He understood the prophetic word concerning the new covenant, it would be hearts that would be circumcised, and this was the sign. The church wisely agreed with Paul.

Bless our God, O peoples,
let the sound of his praise be heard,
who has kept us among the living,
and has not let our feet slip.
For you, O God, have tested us;
you have tried us as silver is tried.
You brought us into the net;
you laid burdens on our backs;
you let people ride over our heads;
we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.