The children of Israel were not your usual refugees. They were not poor by any means. They actually had quite a lot of wealth, including what they had "borrowed" from their Egyptian neighbors when they left the country. "And I [God] will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians." (Exodus 3:21-22 NIV) The problem in the wilderness was, of course, that you cannot eat gold and silver and fine clothing nor was there any place to buy it. Although they were rich by some measure, they would have perished had not God miraculously provided for them.
We sometimes envision that this huge throng was constantly trekking through desert, but this was not the case. They traveled when the cloud of God's presence moved, day or night, and they stopped when the cloud held steady. We don't know much about this wilderness life of theirs, but apparently while they camped, life took on some of its normal routine. Specifically, we know that they cooked and ate and did the laundry, engaged in battle against enemies and had disputes among themselves. (Exodus 16-18) All the while they held onto their valuables—with the notable exception of giving Aaron their gold earrings to make a gold calf-god to worship. Even at that, when the call went out for them to bring offerings for the construction of the tabernacle and all its accompaniments, they came, both men and women, bringing all that was needed. Earrings, nose rings, rings and necklaces, fine linen and colored threads, goats' hair, sheep skins and badger hides, precious stones, spices and oil. Not your usual refugees.
I am especially taken with the gifts bought by one group of women. The workers, with Bezalel in charge, made the bronze washbasin and its bronze stand from the bronze mirrors donated by the women who served at the entrance of the tent of meeting. (This is where Moses went to speak with God.) Can you imagine what it would be like to give up your mirrors?
"Do I look all right?" a woman questions anxiously. Oh, sure, sure, the husband says. She is not convinced, but she has no mirror.
"Do I look all right?" she wonders as she meets other women. "Or are they looking at me strangely?" She should have checked in the mirror—but she doesn't have one.
"Do I look all right? I'm not trying to be anything extraordinary, just okay." But she can't tell for sure. If there were just a tiny mirror . . .
Certainly, gold and silver and precious stones and fine textiles are wonderful to bring as offerings. But I have special admiration for those women who brought their precious piece of polished bronze and said, "Here, you can have my mirror." Each of them gave, in a special, unique way the costly gift of part of her self.
Marjorie
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label giving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label giving. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Serving or Subservience
Sometimes we hear Christian jargon batted about so much that we lose our grasp of what is meant by the terms. Because words like servant and servanthood have been used so much, I've chosen to use different ones.
If one has a spirit of helpfulness, it is easy to slip from freedom in serving into the bondage of subservience. Right away we can get a clue from the sub- prefix. It means "under," "beneath," "lower," "further down" or "less important." That meaning is useful, of course, when we talk about a subway or submarine, subzero temperatures, a subbasement, or a subhead. But sub- connected to service means, not retained and remunerated fairly for aid one has given, but service that is required because the server is under the other. He/she is beneath the one being served, lower and less important.
My purpose in pointing out this difference is that Christians sometimes confuse the two. (As I have done myself.) Too frequently, it can be seen in churches where officials use their position to assume a superior stance over others. They "deserve" their privileges and even if they do not require obeisance, they quite readily accept inappropriate deference. Sadly, it is found in home relationships too. The husband—backed by Scriptural teaching, he supposes, concerning the submission of his wife to his decisions and wishes—domineers or even abuses his family. The wife may not realize there is any other way to interpret those same Scriptures, and hates the position in which they have placed her. In these churches and homes, those who "under" are not able to give freely in serving, but are enmeshed in subservience. While risking oversimplification, I see the two sharply contrasted in these ways.
Serving allows one to understand and minister to others while retaining his/her own identity and objectivity.
Subservience requires one to give up autonomy, even one's own Spirit-led intentions.
Serving has genuineness about it; it is consistent with the rest of the giver's life.
Subservience means the giver may have to hide feelings of frustration and anger.
Serving is about honestly assessing need, not always yielding to what is wanted or demanded.
Subservience is allowing oneself to be manipulated by another, even when their agenda might not be particularly self-serving.
Serving means one chooses to be in a caring or giving situation.
Subservience requires one to co-operate or suffer negative consequences.
So what are people to do if they are caught in subservience rather than serving? Some situations can be altered so that the sub- part no longer exists to create an imbalance of power. That's why Jesus was so hard on the Pharisees. Some relationships have to enter a negotiation phase, where both giver and receiver act honestly and graciously. Remember Jesus washing Peter's feet? And some have to be ended. The Apostle Paul and Barnabas perhaps illustrate this when they went their separate ways, although thankfully, only temporarily. None of these are easy, especially if the inequality is firmly established. But serving is a Christian privilege, fully based on the Scripture; subservience is not.
Marjorie
If one has a spirit of helpfulness, it is easy to slip from freedom in serving into the bondage of subservience. Right away we can get a clue from the sub- prefix. It means "under," "beneath," "lower," "further down" or "less important." That meaning is useful, of course, when we talk about a subway or submarine, subzero temperatures, a subbasement, or a subhead. But sub- connected to service means, not retained and remunerated fairly for aid one has given, but service that is required because the server is under the other. He/she is beneath the one being served, lower and less important.
My purpose in pointing out this difference is that Christians sometimes confuse the two. (As I have done myself.) Too frequently, it can be seen in churches where officials use their position to assume a superior stance over others. They "deserve" their privileges and even if they do not require obeisance, they quite readily accept inappropriate deference. Sadly, it is found in home relationships too. The husband—backed by Scriptural teaching, he supposes, concerning the submission of his wife to his decisions and wishes—domineers or even abuses his family. The wife may not realize there is any other way to interpret those same Scriptures, and hates the position in which they have placed her. In these churches and homes, those who "under" are not able to give freely in serving, but are enmeshed in subservience. While risking oversimplification, I see the two sharply contrasted in these ways.
Serving allows one to understand and minister to others while retaining his/her own identity and objectivity.
Subservience requires one to give up autonomy, even one's own Spirit-led intentions.
Serving has genuineness about it; it is consistent with the rest of the giver's life.
Subservience means the giver may have to hide feelings of frustration and anger.
Serving is about honestly assessing need, not always yielding to what is wanted or demanded.
Subservience is allowing oneself to be manipulated by another, even when their agenda might not be particularly self-serving.
Serving means one chooses to be in a caring or giving situation.
Subservience requires one to co-operate or suffer negative consequences.
So what are people to do if they are caught in subservience rather than serving? Some situations can be altered so that the sub- part no longer exists to create an imbalance of power. That's why Jesus was so hard on the Pharisees. Some relationships have to enter a negotiation phase, where both giver and receiver act honestly and graciously. Remember Jesus washing Peter's feet? And some have to be ended. The Apostle Paul and Barnabas perhaps illustrate this when they went their separate ways, although thankfully, only temporarily. None of these are easy, especially if the inequality is firmly established. But serving is a Christian privilege, fully based on the Scripture; subservience is not.
Marjorie
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Self-Denial
A blogger friend who is a Catholic has been writing about Lent which begins next week on Ash Wednesday. I had already been thinking about the self-denial aspect of the season. My worship tradition is not Catholic, but even so, for several years I have found it a profitable spiritual exercise to observe Lent by forgoing the enjoyment of some small pleasure. Even this little bit of self-denial is not required, but it reminds me specifically and regularly of the significance of the approaching Easter Sunday, and so it has been worthwhile. One year it was chocolate, another year, "dainty" food--that is, desserts and other delicacies. Other times, other things. As Lent approaches, I always wonder, "Shall I 'sacrifice' something for Lent? What shall it be?"
I was brought up short by a book I'm reading, an in-depth study of I Corinthians 13, the love chapter. The author, in his exposition on "Love does not seek its own," sees much so-called self-denial as mere disciplines taken on for one reason or another. They are a denial of things, and not a denial of the self at all. The blogger would undoubtedly agree: because if you say, "I'm giving up desserts for Lent—and besides I need to lose some weight," then you are not really fasting for a spiritual purpose. Only if it cuts into the self-life one would choose for personal gratification can it be called a sacrifice. As for giving up gossip or laziness, we should have laid those aside already, just on principle.
We don't see the Jesus presented in the Gospels giving up coffee or cream on His oatmeal or turning off His cell phone, had there been such things then. He gave His real self every day—talking to people when He was tired and hungry, giving children access to His time and His lap, repeating Kingdom precepts over and over to twelve fellows who just didn't get it. Not to mention dying.
All of this is not to say that self-denial means denying that one has, and is, a self. There are those who make a great issue of how unworthy and undeserving they are; they are just non-persons with no ordinary, human needs. They use none of their resources to care for themselves, not realizing that the day is going to come—sooner than God intended—when there is no longer anything left of themselves to give. Women, especially wives and mothers, may fall into that trap more readily than other folks; we have sometimes exalted their self-sacrifice to the point of idolatry. (Which makes it self-centered, after all.)
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,
In whatso we share with another's need,--
Not that which we give, but what we share,--
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three,--
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me."
--James Russell Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal, 1848
Marjorie
The book I am reading is Love Within Limits: Realizing Selfless Love in a Selfish World by the late Lewis B. Smedes, a professor of Theology and Philosophy of Religion at Fuller Theological Seminary.
I was brought up short by a book I'm reading, an in-depth study of I Corinthians 13, the love chapter. The author, in his exposition on "Love does not seek its own," sees much so-called self-denial as mere disciplines taken on for one reason or another. They are a denial of things, and not a denial of the self at all. The blogger would undoubtedly agree: because if you say, "I'm giving up desserts for Lent—and besides I need to lose some weight," then you are not really fasting for a spiritual purpose. Only if it cuts into the self-life one would choose for personal gratification can it be called a sacrifice. As for giving up gossip or laziness, we should have laid those aside already, just on principle.
We don't see the Jesus presented in the Gospels giving up coffee or cream on His oatmeal or turning off His cell phone, had there been such things then. He gave His real self every day—talking to people when He was tired and hungry, giving children access to His time and His lap, repeating Kingdom precepts over and over to twelve fellows who just didn't get it. Not to mention dying.
All of this is not to say that self-denial means denying that one has, and is, a self. There are those who make a great issue of how unworthy and undeserving they are; they are just non-persons with no ordinary, human needs. They use none of their resources to care for themselves, not realizing that the day is going to come—sooner than God intended—when there is no longer anything left of themselves to give. Women, especially wives and mothers, may fall into that trap more readily than other folks; we have sometimes exalted their self-sacrifice to the point of idolatry. (Which makes it self-centered, after all.)
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,
In whatso we share with another's need,--
Not that which we give, but what we share,--
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three,--
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me."
--James Russell Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal, 1848
Marjorie
The book I am reading is Love Within Limits: Realizing Selfless Love in a Selfish World by the late Lewis B. Smedes, a professor of Theology and Philosophy of Religion at Fuller Theological Seminary.
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