Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. -- Genesis 13:11

As Lot learned through much suffering and loss, the path that looks easy in the beginning does not always end so pleasantly.  Sometimes, too, there are separations that need to take place.  The man who would become Abraham had been called to leave behind his land, his people and even his family to follow God and found a new nation.  Loyalty and love had caused him to keep his nephew, Lot, with him as he sojourned in Canaan.  We read how both Lot and Abram prospered and how the increase of their herds caused conflict that led to separation.

Before jumping too far ahead and saying, “Abraham good; Lot bad”, I note that both men had their weaknesses.  Abraham could be controlled by fear and be less than forthright in his dealings.  Meanwhile Peter’s Second Epistle calls Lot “righteous” and speaks of the torment of his “righteous soul” as he dwelt among the lawless in Sodom (2 Peter 2:7-8).  I’m reminded, also, of the conflict between Barnabas and Paul that caused their parting (Acts 15:36-41).  When the Lord divides us from a friend, associate, or family member, it isn’t always because one of us is pulling the other down or because one is right and the other wrong.  It may be part of a greater plan that He has, the ends of which are beyond our powers of speculation and discernment. 

I think about that a lot these days.  You may have seen that map of the United States where it is divided regionally into, I think, eleven different cultures like the Deep South and Greater Appalachia.  Whether there is much to that or not, we seem to be hearing more talk of secession and of unsustainability of the current national model.  We are seeing greater disagreement between the secular and the sacred, between Muslim and Christian, black and white, left and right, often with violence and bloodshed.  Jesus does say (Matthew 10:34-39) that He has come to divide, to sift and to separate, the believing from the unbelieving, the righteous from the wicked, the wheat from the tares, and the sheep from the goats.

We lament these divisions, conflicts and losses, in part because we do not see the destiny to which they move us, but also because of our natural human affection for one another, for the American dream, for a simpler time, or whatever it is we feel is slipping away.  Abraham never stopped caring about Lot.  He rescued him from the king of Elam (Genesis 14), and he interceded for Lot and his family when God was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Death, disagreement, or distance, partings of the ways are unavoidable.  Trust God.  Continue to love the departed and pray for an unbroken circle.

Scattered Thoughts on Holiness

And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. -- Ezra 10:2

The Lord requires us to separate ourselves from the world, not in terms of physical distance but in spiritual dimensions.  Thus the children of Israel were forbidden to marry outside of the Covenant People as a sign to us not to cohabit with or unite ourselves to the world’s matrix.  We corrupt our spiritual DNA by mixing it with apostasy, unbelief, and materialism. 

In John 17, as Jesus prays for His disciples, He acknowledges that they will remain in the world while declaring that, like Him, they are not of the world.  They not of the world, even as I am not of the world (John 17:16).  Jesus, however, sent them, and sends us, out into the world to encounter tribulation and persecution for the sake of the kingdom.   

The distinction and the dividing line between the Christian and the non-Christian is not that we inhabit different physical spaces but different psychic spaces.  Our souls are in different spheres though our bodies may interact.  The non-believer inhabits and lives according to the fallen, distorted, Adamic world still ruled by the satanic “powers and principalities”.  We live in the kingdom, and the kingdom lives in us. 

Marriage within the boundaries of the covenant produced righteous children leading ultimately to the Seed of Abraham, Jesus the Christ.  The significance – that is, the “sign value” -- of marriage transcends the relationship between a man and his wife.  The womb is a creative space, and we can find such space in our interactions with the world system and marry ourselves to it.  The products of that union may have some good qualities, but they also contain the seeds of corruption.  This is what we see over and over in the great tragedies, whether it’s Shakespeare, Wuthering Heights or Goodfellas.

We can avoid that by uniting ourselves with Christ.  Look at 1 Corinthians 7:14, For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.  We are the Bride of Christ.  We are made holy by Him. We become His creative space.  The Church has – or maybe, is a matrix, too.  The offspring of the union between Christ and His Bride does not have that built-in element of decay and degeneration. 

Nothing, Nor Anything

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  – Romans 8:35-39

I don’t have much to say today.  I probably need to sleep more.  This passage doesn’t need any help from me anyway.  It came up in the comments on One Cosmos yesterday as Kurt spoke of it, and it seemed like a good way to end the week.

What was it that caused the Lord such agony in the Garden of Gethsemane?  For eternity He had been with the Father.  Throughout the Incarnation, even as a man, He had never known the absence of His Father or of the Father's love.  He knew, though, He was about to experience the wrath of Divine Justice.  He was going to suffer the righteous and appropriate consequences of humanity’s sin.  He would be cut off from God’s love in death.  The thought of that caused such trauma in His soul that blood mingled with His sweat as He prayed. 

The Lord endured this suffering on our behalf, that we who were separated from the Father might be welcomed into His presence and experience, not His wrath and judgment, but His mercy and His love.  We are in Christ.  Because the Lord stepped in and took our place in being cut off by our sin, we can step into the Presence clothed in Him and His righteousness and remain, now and forever.

Passing through the door of death only brings us that much closer to Him. 

Divers

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?  What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. -- 2 Corinthians 6:14-16

Yesterday we talked about our witness to an unbelieving world, about hating sin while seeking to rescue those tangled in its snares.  We understand, too, that we each have our individual weaknesses and have to watch ourselves around certain situations.  We want to reach out to people, but can we be friends with those who reject Christ?  Matthew Henry thought not:

The caution also extends to common conversation. We should not join in friendship and acquaintance with wicked men and unbelievers. Though we cannot wholly avoid seeing and hearing, and being with such, yet we should never choose them for friends. We must not defile ourselves by converse with those who defile themselves with sin.

I have to disagree with that interpretation.  Too much in Scripture points a different direction.  Jesus was a friend of sinners.  Now it is true that those with whom He associated were often repentant seekers, or perhaps people seeking to repent; nevertheless, He broke with the pharisaic view of complete separation.  At the same time, those tax collectors and prostitutes were mostly Jews or sympathetic to the people and faith of Abraham, with the possible exception of the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was afflicted (Mark 7:24-30).

In our case, when the overall culture was more permeated with Judeo-Christian values, it was probably easier to be a friend of sinners.  At worst we were dealing “cultural Christians”.  I heard John Starnes, the gospel singer, give his testimony.  Before he came to Christ, he had someone ask him if he was a Christian.  He replied, “Of course.  I’m an American.”  That reminds me of a convict I was talking to one time.  He was a black guy, and he was wearing a scarf over his head, kind of Arab fashion.  Nation of Islam is extremely popular in prison.  I knew this guy, and we talked all the time, but I’d never seen him with that headgear, so I asked him if he was a Muslim.  He said, “Hell no, man.  I’m a Baptist!” 

However, it seems to me, perhaps because I am getting old and because I don’t get out much anymore, that our nation is becoming less “Christian” in its overall morals, ethics, and mindset.  The zeitgeist is not the Holy Ghost. Our public discourse is saturated with lies and deception.  We have become decadent.  The most egregious immorality is excused when it is not lauded and celebrated. 

In this world, in this society, the idea of separation starts to make more sense.  We do risk becoming contaminated when we allow ourselves to be immersed in vulgarity, lust, and violence, baptized in nihilism. 

Perhaps the balance comes in being open vertically only to God while searching for kindred and lost treasures in the horizontal.  It’s like being in a surface-supplied diving suit, tethered and connected to a source of fresh air and power by a diver's umbilical giving us light and life as we explore the murky depths looking for that which may be saved.  As long as we remain in the suit – having put on Christ, the new man – and don’t break our connection, we can stay down here and do our job.  Our life is always, though, above, and we can never forget that we are in -- but not of, this world.

Flying the Black Flag

And when they go out into the outer court to the people, they shall put off the garments in which they have been ministering and lay them in the holy chambers. And they shall put on other garments, lest they communicate holiness to the people with their garments. -- Ezekiel 44:19

Most of us would like to think that the Lord would want to "communicate holiness" to His people.  A stricture such as this seems, in our day, excessive and exclusive and elitist.  The priests are the only ones who get to go into the temple.  They don't earn the right to minister, but they are born to it.  The whole idea does violence to our egalitarian posture and democratic mindset.  Why should the people be denied the benefits of holiness?  Whatever that is.

The old model of the Aaronic priesthood served its purpose, but it was flawed by the weakness of man and limited by death.  Jesus is our Great High Priest who entered but once into the Holy of Holies, finished His work of expiating all sin, and sat down at the Father's right hand (Hebrews 4:14-16, 9:11-12, 10:12).  Still, it is a model which can tell us about our condition and about the remedy. 

The truth is that we must reject and abandon the old nature -- everything of the old nature.  That's hard to conceive of, especially for people who are naturally meek and mild and not given to rebellion or selfish ambition.  Some of us are born good.  OK, not me.  Some of you.  Growing up, I had a cute little blonde cousin, Deb, a few years younger than I was.  She was -- and as far as I know, is -- a sweet and gentle person, a throwback, perhaps, to her grandmother, my aunt, who was of a character radically different than any of her nine violent, vicious, hot-tempered siblings.  You couldn't offend Deb.  A harsh word never came out of her mouth.  If one of us accidentally hurt her, physically or emotionally, she would try not to cry in front of us, lest we feel regret for our roughness.  How could God say to a person like little Deb that in her flesh dwells no good thing?  On the surface, it doesn't seem right, but He does say it:  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail.

That's the message the rigorous separation of the sons of Aaron is meant to convey.  Light and darkness have no communion.  One is either in light or in shadow.  We are either living and walking by the Spirit in faith, or we are in bondage, in the shackles of the flesh.  There can be no alliance between the holy and the profane. 

Ah, but, I say, I have this strength, this talent, these resources, this wealth.  Surely my skill and intelligence are of some value.  Surely God does not expect me to abandon this and embrace only the poverty of spirit? 

He does. 

That "good" part of myself has to be purged and refined.  It must be abandoned to the sacrificial fires of judgment.  If what we see as good goes up in smoke, well, we misjudged it.  If it endures -- even if it endures, it may be unrecognizable, so transmuted as to leave us wondering as to its continued value or usefulness.  But we are free to take up whatever is left and make the best use of it in our obedience. 

We really can't live a mixed life.  There is weird stuff in the regulations Moses gave to Israel.  Don't yoke two different kinds of animals together to plow.  Don't wear "wool blend" suits.  How does that hurt anything?  It seems silly, but it's a picture.  A life that is mixed is a life that painful.  The spirit and the flesh contend, and one is always making the other to suffer.  If you ever get the flesh down, show it no mercy.  Finish it off.

Lifted and Separated

And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take oath in the name of God, saying, You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.  -- Nehemiah 13:25

This is not advocacy for racism or tribalism.  There is the aspect that Paul touches on when he tells us not to be unequally yoked, though the passage in 2 Corinthians 6 goes beyond marriage in its implications:  Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial?  Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?  What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God (vv 14-16).

As Christians we need to separate ourselves from the world, and it is not easy.  I go to some site that is otherwise useful and informative and find provocative pictures to generate more traffic.  I turn on the television to catch the weather report, and I am subjected to all sorts of images during the commercial breaks and endless celebrations of the latest revelations of skankiness among the skanks.  For somebody my age, the sexual aspects are less of a hook than they used to be.  I’m more likely to be entrapped by the snares of greed and acquisitiveness which is a constant in this age.

Sometimes I am afraid, even after all these years and all I have seen – afraid that I am missing out.  I suspect that I am not alone in this.  The Amish seem fascinated by my motorcycle.  I sometimes wonder if I am corrupting them just by riding through their country.  Fear of missing out drives the purchase of many things, including lots and lots of pills. 

James 4:4 asks, Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  It seems a little harsh, a little exclusive, maybe a little intolerant.  In fact, it is antagonistic.  We are at war.  [W]hoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  Nehemiah’s rather extreme reaction makes a lot more sense when we realize that he was dealing, in effect, with traitors, with rebels who had sided with the enemies of the Lord.  But I have to ask myself if I have not been guilty of the same thing.  I want to get along.  I don’t want to make the people around me feel bad.  I don’t want to be tagged as someone weird.  I’ve been called every name in the book just because I am less than excited about celebrating All Saints’ Eve. 

A few years back, one of the managers got me moved to another site because I didn’t go out the bars after work.  Oddly enough, it worked out to my advantage.  Some people don’t like outsiders.  They like agreement and consensus.  They like endorsement and confirmation.  Telling some folks that they can do as they please is not enough.  They are not happy until you join them – not because they care about you or desire your company in a personal way.  They crave the sense of approval they get when everybody joins in.  

When we follow God instead of the crowd (even if the crowd gathers in a church building), we become targets.  We can be as circumspect and cautious as we like.  We can try to avoid giving offense.  They still, for some reason, manage to be offended.  I have been asked if I think that I am better than other people.  The answer is no.  Perhaps I am worse and weaker, more easily shackled by a bad habit. 

I have to answer to God for what I do and with whom I associate.  There may be times when it is less critical, when we can afford to be a little less strict.  But when the darkness falls and the storm breaks, we had better be on the right side.