Titus 2:7-8, 11-15
In Deuteronomy, Moses comes right out and says it: "God was going to leave you all in the wilderness... 'For forty days and forty nights I lay prostrate before hte LORD when the LORD intended to destroy you. I prayed to the LORD and said, 'LORD God, do not destroy the people who are your very own posession, whom you redeemed in in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin, otherwise the land from whihc you have brought us might say, 'Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and becuase he hated them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.' For they are the people of your very own possession, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.'"
The Israelites have made it. They have arrived. They have been redeemed from the wilderness and stand at the edge of Jordan. Moses has been preaching at them for several chapters; in chapter 5, we see a reiteration of the 10 Commandments; in 6, the Shema. Lest the Israelites think they have been chosen - out of all the people in the world - to be loved because they are more loveable, Deuteronomy 7:7 reminds them, "It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the LORD set out his heart on you and chose you - for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was becasue the LORD loved you..." Now they see the end of their suffering (not really, but for now). How easy is it to forget our deliverance once we have been delivered? Think about a difficult situation that you have been brought through. Once we have been delivered from it, it seems we so quickly and so easily forget the joy of that deliverance. Looking back, we fancy ourselves having made it through the tough times all by ourselves and have earned the good times by enduring the tough. Here, Moses takes the credit from the Israelites and places it in God's hand. God has not destroyed God's people; they have been delivered. They have not been delivered because they deserved it. God, in Exodus 32, says (essentially): "Moses, I'm done; let's get rid of these kids and start all over," and Moses calls God's bluff, interceding for the people, reminding God of the covenant made with Abraham, and that God is not in the business of not being true to the covenant. Here, we see it's not just God that loves these stubborn, hard-hearted people; Moses has come to love them as well.
Reading Titus on the heels of this makes for an interesting conversation between texts: "Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity, and sound speech that cannot be censured; then any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us." Now, it must be said that the concerns of Deuteronomy are not the concerns of Titus (not even close), but it is interesting that, in the narrative of the Israelites, when God is fed up with these people, it is Moses, the leader with integrity who refuses to be censured, who reminds God what it is to be a God of covenant. Moses holds God to God's promises.
Our deliverance comes from God and God being faithful to the promises that have been made. God resides with us, not in a tabernacle, but in a manger and on a cross. God resides in our memory, the memory that extends beyond history and time, the memory that makes us hungry for an experience we have never had but that connects us and those who have gone before us who have been delivered despite our sin, saved from our self-imposed wildernesses, and told, just we are about to walk out the door and leave it all behind, the disarming, "I love you."
No comments:
Post a Comment