Rabbenu
A Discussion of Messianic Judaism, the Emerging Messianic Jewish Paradigm, and Related Leadership Issues from the Preoccupied Mind of Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, PhD.
All Contents ©2004-2007 Stuart Dauermann - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Monday, August 21, 2006
Why?
The following is a sermon on the Haftarah for Parashat Re'eh, presented August 17, 2006 at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills. It explores the questions, "Why do you do the things you do and what are you getting out of it?"
1 All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You without money, come, buy, and eat! Yes, come! Buy wine and milk without money - it's free! 2 Why spend money for what isn't food, your wages for what doesn't satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and you will eat well, you will enjoy the fat of the land. 3 Open your ears, and come to me; listen well, and you will live - I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the grace I assured David. 4 I have given him as a witness to the peoples, a leader and lawgiver for the peoples. 5 You will summon a nation you do not know, and a nation that doesn't know you will run to you, for the sake of ADONAI your God, the Holy One of Isra'el, who will glorify you [Isaiah 55].
The first question I have for us today is this: Why does Hashem ask “Why?” Doesn’t he know? He is asking “Why” because he wants us to ask “Why.”
So my second question is this: Why does he want us to ask “Why?” Because he wants us to examine what really drives our life and what we are really getting out of it.
One of the questions underlying this passage is this: What is a good investment of one's life—one's energies, and especially, the only truly unrenewable resource that we have—our time. In order to answer that question, we have to ask this: What profit do we really expect to gain out of all this effort?
Koholet, the Preacher, the author of Ecclesiastes meditates on this issue throughout his 12 chapter book. Two quotations will have to suffice for today.
Ecc. 1:1 The words of Kohelet the son of David, king in Yerushalayim: 2 Pointless! Pointless! - says Kohelet -Utterly meaningless! Nothing matters! 3 What does a person gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?
4 Generations come, generations go, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, the sun sets; then it speeds to its place and rises there. 6 The wind blows south, then it turns north; the wind blows all around and keeps returning to its rounds. 7 All the rivers flow to the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place where the rivers flow, there they keep on flowing. 8 Everything is wearisome, more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, the ear not filled up with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be, what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there something of which it is said, "See, this is new"? It existed already in the ages before us. 11 No one remembers the people of long ago; and those to come will not be remembered by those who come after them.
12 I, Kohelet, have been king over Isra'el in Yerushalayim. 13 I wisely applied myself to seek out and investigate everything done under heaven. What a bothersome task God has given humanity to keep us occupied! 14 I have seen all the activities that are done under the sun, and it's all pointless, feeding on wind. 15 What is crooked can't be straightened; what is not there can't be counted. 16 I said to myself, "Look, I have acquired much wisdom, more than anyone ruling Yerushalayim before me."Yes, I experienced a great deal of wisdom and knowledge; 17 yet when I applied myself to understanding wisdom and knowledge, as well as stupidity and folly, I came to see that this too was merely feeding on wind. 18 For in much wisdom is much grief; the more knowledge, the more suffering.
Ecc. 5:10 The lover of money never has enough money; the lover of luxury never has enough income. This too is pointless. 11 When the quantity of goods increases, so does the number of parasites consuming them; so the only advantage to the owner is that he gets to watch them do it. 12 The sleep of a working man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the overfullness of the rich won't let them sleep at all. 13 Here is a gross evil which I have seen under the sun: the owner of wealth hoards it to his own hurt. 14 Due to some misfortune, the wealth turns to loss; and then if he has fathered a son, he has nothing to leave him. 15 Just as he came from his mother's womb, so he will go back naked as he came, and for his efforts he will take nothing that he can carry away in his hand. 16 This too is a gross evil, that in every respect as he came, so will he go; thus what profit does he have after toiling to earn the wind? 17 All his life he eats in darkness, in frustration, in sickness and in anger.
Returning to our question as to what a person seeks to gain out of the investment of his or her life, especially his or her time, the short answer is this: a sense of meaning—significance—a sense that all the sacrifices that were made were worth it all.
Unfortunately, most people are only dimly aware of what drives them.
I know of a man who spent is entire adult life as an OB-GYN and hated ever minute of it. Why? Because he really wanted to be an artist, but became a doctor to please his father. And many people are like that: they live their lives to please others, and come to the end of their lives feeling, "What a waste." This man lived his life to please his father, others live their lives to please everyone else but themselves. In either case, it's a waste, isn't it?
The Prodigal Son was driven by a mistaken idea of what the good life was—wine, women and song—but he came to the point where he realized that living his life to satiate his desires was a waste of his life, and that the real satisfactions of life lie in being at His Father’s house where he was appreciated and where his labors counted for something, where life had connectedness and enduring meaning. His life has been dominated by a need to satisfy his desires, but, like the doctor who should have been an artist, he came to see that his life of given to pleasures was really a tragic waste.
Another mistake people make is investing their lives in diversions. The story is told in Luke 12 of the Rich Fool.
Luke 12:13 Someone in the crowd said to him, "Rabbi, tell my brother to share with me the property we inherited." 14 But Yeshua answered him, "My friend, who appointed me judge or arbitrator over you?" 15 Then to the people he said, "Be careful to guard against all forms of greed, because even if someone is rich, his life does not consist in what he owns." 16 And he gave them this illustration: "There was a man whose land was very productive. 17 He debated with himself, `What should I do? I haven't enough room for all my crops.' 18 Then he said, `This is what I will do: I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and I'll store all my wheat and other goods there. 19 Then I'll say to myself, "You're a lucky man! You have a big supply of goods laid up that will last many years. Start taking it easy! Eat! Drink! Enjoy yourself!"' 20 But God said to him, `You fool! This very night you will die! And the things you pre pared -- whose will they be?' 21 That's how it is with anyone who stores up wealth for himself without being rich toward God.
I like that quotation in verse 15: “even if someone is rich, his life does not consist in what he owns.” It's not that being rich is wrong. It's just wrong, tragically wrong, to make your riches the meaning of your life. This takes us right to the heart of today’s lesson, to the “Why” we are dealing with. Why do you do the things that you do? What, after all, is a worthwhile investment of your life?
Scripture would seem to teach us that we need two things to make our lives truly meaningful—connectedness and enduring [rather than transient] meaning. We spend our lives trying to please others, or in the vain pursuit of power, pleasure, and pride, and we are driven, driven, driven. And somewhere along the way we are destined to find that these things, as amusing and pleasurable as they are, are actually diversions rather than investments in a life of connectedness and enduring meaning.
Yeshua highlights all of these things for us as recorded in Matthew 6:
6:19 Do not store up for yourselves wealth here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and burglars break in and steal. 20 Instead, store up for yourselves wealth in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and burglars do not break in or steal. 21 For where your wealth is, there your heart will be also. 22 `The eye is the lamp of the body.' So if you have a `good eye' [that is, if you are generous] your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if you have an `evil eye' [if you are stingy] your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No 24 one can be slave to two masters; for he will either hate the first and love the second, or scorn the second and be loyal to the first. You can't be a slave to both God and money.
Although the passage sounds like “pie in the sky when you die bye and bye,” the meaning of storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven is this: the life of real satisfaction is one of connectedness to God and to the enduring meaningfulness of investing ourselves in the kinds of things that please Him and bring Him honor. All else is drivenness, desire, and diversion, and ultimately, a waste of time, money, and effort—for nothing else really satisfies--nothing.
Yeshua goes on to speak of worrying. Now when he says “don’t worry,” he is not saying “Be mindless and irresponsible.” Rather he is speaking to us about what preoccupies us, what drives us and keeps us awake at night. This is obsessive, preoccupied worry. Perhaps the key concept in this paragraph is the admonition: “Don’t be anxious about these things.”
Matt 6:25 Therefore, I tell you, don't worry about your life -- what you will eat or drink; or about your body -- what you will wear. Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds flying about! They neither plant nor harvest, nor do they gather food into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you worth more than they are? 27 Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to his life? 28 "And why be anxious about clothing? Think about the fields of wild irises, and how they grow. They neither work nor spin thread, 29 yet I tell you that not even Shlomo in all his glory was clothed as beautifully as one of these. 30 If this is how God clothes grass in the field -- which is here today and gone tomorrow, thrown in an oven -- won't he much more clothe you? What little trust you have! 31 "So don't be anxious, asking, `What will we eat?,' `What will we drink?' or `How will we be clothed?' 32 For it is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. 33 But seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Don't worry about tomorrow -- tomorrow will worry about itself! Today has enough tsuris already!
So we return to today’s Haftarah reading which asks us: “2Why spend money for what isn't food, your wages for what doesn't satisfy?”. Why do we invest our lives in what proves only to be a diversion rather than an investment?
Paradoxically, this passage reminds us that we ought to invest ourselves, and especially our time, in what is free—the life of engagement with God, with the things of God, with the everlasting covenantal relationship with God bound up in “the everlasting covenant, the grace God assured to David” which points to the Messiah, through whom we come into deep connectedness with God and a life of enduring meaningfulness.
The question then for all of us is this: Is your life driven [like the doctor I mentioned and the Prodigal Son], is it a life of diversion, like the Rich Fool, or is it devoted to the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?
In the words of Koholet, “all else is pointless, feeding on wind.”
At the very end of his book, Koholet draws the moral of our story in sharpest terms:
13 Here is the final conclusion, now that you have heard everything: fear God, and keep his mitzvot; this is what being human is all about. 14 For God will bring to judgment everything we do, including every secret, whether good or bad.
Some day God will bring into judgment what our life was really about.
Shouldn’t we do the same thing today?
Why do you do the things that you do? What is your life really about? Are you “feeding on wind,” desiring, driven and diverted, or are you devoted?
“Seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
posted by Stuart Dauermann @ 8:20 PM
7 comments
Open your ears, and come to me; listen well, and you will live...
The implication is that all can hear God's voice and respond. Therefore the most basic question facing Messianics is: Do we want to be told about what ADONAI and Yeshua has said or do we want to listen and follow what ADONAI and Yeshua said without the need of an interpretor/mediator/priest?
Anonymous,
At first blush, your comment sounds proper, but not on further reflection. In the Older Testament, God ordained prophets and also gave the priests authority to teach Israel [See Leviticus 10:10
for example]. The entire story of Korah's rebellion, in the Book of Numbers, is a dramatic refutation of the understandable error, "We don't need intermediaries." And in the Newer Covenant, we are told, are we not, "Eph 4:11 . . . he gave some people as emissaries, some as prophets, some as proclaimers of the Good News, and some as shepherds and teachers. 12 Their task is to equip God's people for the work of service that builds the body of the Messiah, 13 until we all arrive at the unity implied by trusting and knowing the Son of God, at full manhood, at the standard of maturity set by the Messiah's perfection."
I will not argue that there is not much to be gained by learning to listen to and heed God for ourselves, but this must be done in submission to Scripture and to the wisdom of the community, and in accord with the teaching and counsel of gifted and called teachers. The alternative, at best, is more of the rampant individualism which is so very American and yet so very unbiblical.
"Eph 4:11 . . . And he gave some...,
Are saying that the only Biblical way to understand what God has called us to do is to listen to the priest (who don't exist today as describe in Lev) or the rabbi (not emissaries, prophets, proclaimers, or shepherds) must mediate this assignment for ADONAI?
Or does ADONAI speak normally let His people know why He created them directly?
Anonymous,
"You asked,
"Are (you) saying that the only Biblical way to understand what God has called us to do is to listen to the priest (who don't exist today as describe in Lev) or the rabbi (not emissaries, prophets, proclaimers, or shepherds) must mediate this assignment for ADONAI?
Or does ADONAI speak normally let His people know why He created them directly?"
In Jewish community, the teaching role of the priests and prophetrs has been subsumed under the office or rabbi. The text used to justify this is found in Dt. 17:8-11. Yeshua echoes this text in Matt 23:3 where he tells his Jewish disciples to do all that the Pharisees tell them to do since they "sit in Moses seat" [that is, they have the authority to interpret Torah]. Again, Yeshua echoes the language of Dt. 17:8-11, giving tacit as well as explicit approval to the teaching office of the rabbinate, the ideological descendants of the Pharisees.
In addition congregational rabbis serve as "pastor-teachers" functionally, thus bearing the imprimatur of Paul the Apostle in Ephesians 4.
Finally, nothing was said or implied to say that this is the ONLY way God speaks to His people. My comments on these matters are clear. The either/or dichotomy you postulate is a straw man.
"...and in accord with the teaching and counsel of gifted and called teachers."
Are you saying that
"until we all arrive at the unity implied by trusting and knowing the Son of God, at full manhood, at the standard of maturity set by the Messiah's perfection."
is accomplished by knowing and trusting the Rabbi as you would the Son of God and not by any of the others list on the same list where "teacher" was listed last?
Are teachers the only ones who can hear what they were created to directly from ADONAI or since we are a "nation of priests" who are to stand before the throne of grace with confidence (a day the prophets longed for)do you think that ADONAI tell a priest what to do?
Anonymous,
This is my last response to you on this matter because it is clear you are not hearing me, and that this interchange is almost entirely fruitless.
You asked, "Are you saying that 'until we all arrive at the unity implied by trusting and knowing the Son of God, at full manhood, at the standard of maturity set by the Messiah's perfection.' is accomplished by knowing and trusting the Rabbi as you would the Son of God and not by any of the others list on the same list where "teacher" was listed last?"
Obviously not. Your question is either indicative of the fact that you have a reading comprehension problem or that you are being argumentative. It also implies that I am setting myself and my peers up as the voice of God, which is highly insulting and indicative that you have a bee in your bonnet that I did not put there.
As for "teachers" being mentioned last on Paul's list, there is no indication that this means they are therefore least important. Similarly, apostles is listed before prophets, but this does not mean either that they precede prophets chronologically or in ranking!
As for your question whether I contend that teachers are the only ones who can hear from God, I have already spoken clearly to that issue, which your reading comprehension problem or contentions attitude renders you incapable of accepting.
Yes, we are a kingdom of priests and a royal priesthood. So was OT Israel. Just as there was a priesthood within a priesthood for Israel, which was meant to model in purity and in microcosm the calling of the priestly people, so God has appointed pastor-teachers [rabbis in the Jewish context] to instruct and protect the flock of God, and to model fidelity to the priestly calling of people of God.
This is what Scripture says, this is what I say and believe, and this is what you appear unwilling ir unable to hear.
I will not interact with you further on this matter nor post your postings concerning it. Perhaps we should just agree to disagree.
Shalom.
At least one person has written me, in addition to many additional comments from the original Anonymous, suggesting that I have misconstrued his comments. Of course that is possible. OTOH, he/she is a person who has spent *considerable* time going through my blog to prove a negative--that I never take a moderating view. In the course of these perusals, he/she has seen my posting on "Hearing God" which makes it abundantly clear that I DO believe in the reality and propriety of the individual hearing from God.
With this in mind, and after a reread of his/her commnents on "Why," [both those published and the many I did not publish], I stand by my assessment that this particular Anonymous, otherwise obviously intelligent, is being contentious and seeking more to skew me than to clarify matters.
That is their right. And it is my right to keep such comments from seeing the light of day.
I may be wrong, of course. But I have that right too, don't I. [And yes, Anonymous has a right to be wrong also. I get it].
Shalom y'all.
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