Circumcision of the Heart

The subject of my sermon on Sunday was the sign of the covenant between God and the People of God.  The Old Testament reading pointed to the sign of the original covenant between Abraham and God as circumcision of every male, “Every male among you shall be circumcised.  You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you”.  The appointed reading actually skipped over that part of the passage.  Perhaps the men who developed the Revised Common Lectionary thought the congregations would not be comfortable hearing about the details of circumcision.  It does sometimes make men uncomfortable.

In any case, circumcision was the sign of the covenant between God and the descendants of Abraham and continues to be the sign of the covenant for the Jewish people.  It no longer represents that for Christians.  With Jesus as our saviour, we have a new covenant which does not have circumcision as a sign of the covenant between God and us.  We have the Eucharist which is a re-membering of the sacrifice of Jesus as our sign of that new covenant.

However, Paul proposed, or I should say proclaimed, that with Jesus Christ with have a new circumcision. As a good Jew and a Pharisee, he knew that circumcision was vital to the Jewish people who he believed should recognized Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah.  He also knew that if Gentiles were to be welcomed as followers of Jesus Christ, they would need a new sign to replace circumcision. He addresses this in his letter to the Romans; circumcision as an initiation right would certainly have discouraged some prospective members:

Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart—it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God. (Romans 2:29)

Paul is speaking of circumcision of the heart.  In effect it is a spiritual sign rather than a literal sign of the new covenant between God and God’s people.  It is unfortunate that this has not become a more prevalent symbol in Christianity today.  It is spoke of in some parts of our religion but it is not as prevalent as many symbols.  The heart if a very powerful symbol which does resonate as a symbol of love even in our scientific materialistic world today. 

The heart traditionally represented the feeling world of human existence at the deepest level and going back to ancient times.  Indeed, as noted by theologian Marcus Borg:

the heart in biblical tradition is an image of the elf at its deepest level.  For the ancient Hebrews, the heart was not simply associated with feelings or courage or courage or love, as in common usage.  Rather, the heart was associated with the totality of the human psyche: not only emotion but also intellect, volition, and even perception”. (The God We Never Knew 113)

So, when Paul speaks of circumcision as a matter of the heart, he is bringing a depth of meaning to his call for people to begin a new relationship with God.  It is a relationship which is not focussed on being praised by other.  He is calling us to do those things which are pleasing to God.

We all know what it means to be hard-hearted.  We probably know someone or perhaps more than one person who we consider hard-hearted.  We know how that person behaves towards others. 

Indeed, the news is full of examples of how people behave when they are hard-hearted.  Hard-hearted people do not let their feeling and emotions get in the way of how they behave towards others.  They do not show others compassion and believe that people should not be given a second or even a third chance when they don’t live up to the expectations they have for others.  They certainly don’t believe in forgiveness despite what Jesus says about forgiving someone seventy times seven.  If they forgive someone that person must earn their forgiveness and meet their terms which are probably very strict.  They are people who believe that the consequences of offenses should be retributive and they don’t really believe in punishment that is redemptive.  They are in support of mandatory minimum sentences for crimes. 

Well what is the opposite of being hard-hearted?  Of course, it is being soft-hearted which doesn’t always get very good press.  Being soft-hearted has the connotation of being a push over, of being an easy mark, of being taken advantage of. 

I proposed that a better way of conceiving of the opposite of heard-hearted is being open-hearted.   This is Jesus’ message in the beatitudes.  He doesn’t speak specifically of being open-hearted but for me that is behind much of the what Jesus is speaking of when he talks of righteousness and mercy and the pure of heart. 

I try not to be hard-hearted.  I make an effort to be open-hearted; I try but God knows I do not always succeed. 

So, there is a great deal packed into that short statement by Paul―real circumcision is a matter of the heart.  This Lent I invite you to practice a heart that is open.

Reading the Bible 29: Genesis 36 – Esau – There shall be Kings

I can’t say that I was engaged with the generations of Esau as described in this episode.  Then again I have not been one who is interested in tracing my family tree unlike someone close to me who goes steady with Ancestry.com at times.  I’m sure that the compilers of the bible had their very good reasons for including all this information on the generations of Esau.  I am sure it was necessary from their perspective.  This gives me a good example of how important perspective is in attempting to discern God’s will for us what was the importance of generations to the Israelites?  Of course it showed the connection between their history from Abraham to their time.  It gave them an understanding of the covenant that God made with the Patriarchs and how it was still active in their lives.  It may also have been a way of establishing their right to the Promised Land.  That claim is still being made by the Jewish settlers in Palestine today as they encroach on the Palestinian territory.  They are being permitted to do so by the government of Israel today for its own political reasons and not because it is part of the land promised to them by YHWH. 

One verse jumps out at me among all the list of descendants in this passage.  Verse 3:These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites.  There seems to be an ulterior motive for placing this information about the neighbours of Israel and by inference about Israel.  It implies that there will be kings in Israel.  It raises the question, will this or does this (is this now in terms of the compilers) a good thing or a bad thing?  Should Israel have kings as the Edomites do/did?  They will be clamoring for a king as their neighbours have in the time to come – with mixed results.  Their heritage can be traced back to Abraham through Esau.  Does it mean that Israel has lost its way by going this route?   

All in all it is a reminder that religion and politics are seldom far apart and we should always be aware and wary when we try to use religious justification for a political agenda.  Beware in recruiting God to your side in an argument It might just as easily be the devil as God that is making you do it.

 

Reading the Bible 27: Genesis 34 – The Sign of a non-Covenant

This episode in the story of Jacob is one which seems on the surface to be an old familiar one.  A young girl is abused – raped by someone in a neighbouring community.   This act is ultimately avenged by the girl’s family who see it as an affront to the family honour if not to the girl.  However, the events in between these two parts of the story are anything but simple.  It is stuff of obsession and stalking as well as family feuds and wars between tribes and nations. 

 On one level it rings true as an example of how human relations are complex and anything but simple; of how desire and lust can rule people and lead to acts such as rape and obsession and revenge and unintended consequences.  On another level the level there are events that clang in our ears as strange and unfamiliar.  Why would a tribe or nation submit to having every males circumcised as a condition of friendship with another group that has entered their territory?  You have to wonder what they were thinking when they agreed to what seems like an outrageous demand by what in effect were invaders albeit seemingly peaceful ones.  It raises the possibility of history being written by the winners or something being lost in translation over the generations.

What I find most intriguing is the use of circumcision in the story.  This was originally a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham and had been practiced by Abraham and his descendants.  This covenantal act is now used by the sons of Jacob as a strategy – a very cleaver one - to gain revenge on their enemies.  This has the flavor of an army marching into battle declaring that God is on their side.  OF course there was no question of YHWY being on the side of Abraham’s decedents but |I wonder how he felt about his sign of the covenant being used for this purpose?  Given his later declaration about how the inhabitants of the Promised Land should be treated it may not have bothered him in the least.  Putting aside that semi-serious possibility, it raises the serious issue of the danger of believing that we can use God for our own purposes.  It is very easy to fall into the trap of believing we know God fully and being absolutely sure that God approves of what we are doing.  This of course is hubris which has led to many people falling great distances.  It is always good to err on the side of humility rather that hubris. 

Reading the Bible 13: Gen 22 God wants me to do what!

Many things reverberate with this reading.  Sacrifice has been going on for a long time in human history.  This account of Abraham and Isaac has been considered in some circles as an account of the movement from human sacrifice and the tradition of offering (literally) the first fruits (first-born) to God.  This is reflected many times throughout biblical history – although not in the literal sense.  It became a symbolic offering.  It can be seen as the beginning of animal sacrifice as a replacement for human sacrifice.  There is also Isaac as a type of Jesus and the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus which ended the practice of animal sacrifice for Christians.   

That being said I have to wonder how Abraham felt during that three-day journey to the place appointed by God.  It must have been with a heavy heart that he made that journey.  Here was the promise – the proof positive of the validity of the covenant with God.  And now God is going to pull out the rug from under his feet and Abraham will be back to having Ishmael as his heir.  The promises of God must have turned to dust in his mouth.  On the other hand I have to wonder what the experience did to Isaac.  How would he have felt in the return journey?  What kind of an impact did the experience have on him in the rest of his life?  Perhaps this is historical relativism and such things did not have the same impact on people in the days of the Patriarchs. Perhaps the right of the father to dispose of his possessions was absolute and unassailable.  However, many of the emotions expressed by those people are very similar to what we experience today – jealousy, fear, envy.   I can’t help believing that Isaac must have wondered - at least to himself - about his close brush with death and the capriciousness of life if not both his fathers – his earthly one and his heavenly one. 

One question I take from this reading is, ‘what sacrifices does God ask of us?’  I have never been asked to make one that compares to the one God asked of Abraham.  Perhaps I have not been listening or wanting to listen that closely to God.  Then again, perhaps Abraham did not hear God clearly the first time and that is why God had to step in ad stop Abraham.  It seems to me that God’s communication with us today is a lot less clear and open to interpretation than in Abraham’s time.  Perhaps that is a good thing.

Reading the Bible 12 Gen 21: 22-34 Abimelech the Trusting

Abraham makes a covenant with Abimelech concerning a well that Abraham has dug.  He offers Abimelech payment as assurance to his claim for the well.  It is interesting that Abimelech, who is the King of Philistia, and who Abraham dealt with less than honourably concerning Sarah, would agree to enter an agreement with Abraham.  He certainly wasn’t what we could call a Philistine today.  He was either very gullible or very forgiving or very kind-hearted.  The people of Philistia certainly get a bad rap in the account of history presented by the scribes later.  Those who write the history get to give their slant on the truth after all.

Another point of interest is the covenant between Abraham and Abimelech.  There is a tendency to look at covenants as something God did with the people starting with Noah giving the sign of the rainbow that God would never again send a universal flood (that may change with global warming).  However, as we see in this passage it is very much a contract between any two parties.  I remember my wonderful Old Testament prof Gordon Hamilton talking about how serious a covenant was taken in biblical times.  If you broke a covenant serious things would happen – like having your eye plucked out.  And that was probably the least serious thing that could happen.  It is a good thing that contract law isn’t enforced that way these days but it is also a reminder of the importance we should give to entering into agreements or making vows .