Unclean Love

There is a clear standard in the Old Testament regarding clean and unclean, and all things considered, it is better for a man to be clean. In fact, I would venture to guess that most men and women in those times spent their entire lives trying to stay clean and not get into anything that would make them unclean. 

But then we come across verses like Numbers 19:14, and everything we think we know about clean and unclean changes.

These are your instructions for when a person dies in a tent: Everyone who goes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent will be unclean for seven days.

Well, yes, we say. That makes perfect sense. If a dead body is considered unclean, then anyone who comes into contact with that body in any way would then clearly become unclean, as well. Then we just keep reading as though the Bible is not completely crazy and nothing weird is going on here. 

Did you catch it, though? There's an unclean dead body in the tent, and there is a category of persons who go into the tent. They go into the tent knowing that there is something unclean in there, knowing that they will come out unclean, knowing that it's going to cut them off from the community for seven days and require from them this extensive cleansing and atonement process that Israel would become extremely accustomed to. Yet, they go into the tent.

This is love.

That's all that it can be. It's someone who loves the person who died. It's someone who loves the family of the person who died. It's someone who is taking some kind of responsibility for preparing the body, removing the body, comforting the family, cleansing the house, purifying the uncleanness of the tent. It's somebody who has a vested interest in being a presence of love in a place of grief that goes into that tent. 

Nobody else in their right mind would go in there. That place is unclean.

This is an amazing testimony to what it is that God requires of us, and it's a reminder that doing what God calls us to do doesn't exempt us from the ways that the world actually works. See, too often, we think that it ought. We think that if we're loving the way that God wants us to love, then it shouldn't be hard. It shouldn't be difficult. There shouldn't be any repercussions. But that's not what the Scriptures tell us. The Scriptures tell us that everyone who goes into the tent is unclean, but even in telling us that, it reminds us that there are those who will go into the tent. 

And maybe we ought to be some of those. There's something unclean in there, sure, but there's something holy, too.

It's called love. 

Clean and Unclean

There is a lot of talk in the Old Testament about clean and unclean - foods, relationships, materials, experiences, sacrifices, worship, etc. were all categorized as either "clean" or "unclean."

There were several categories of uncleanliness, even though they are all lumped together into the idea of ritual purity/impurity. The first category of uncleanliness included things that were clearly a threat to the entire community - things like diseases. If you had a disease, you were unclean and must be cut off from the camp until you were better. This had practical implications, particularly for a community in transition. When you've got hundreds of thousands of people marching through the desert, you can't have an outbreak of illness. It will spread like wildfire, many will die, and the whole journey will be jeopardized in many different ways.

Other ideas of uncleanness came through relationship. There were certain persons you couldn't have contact with and certainly a bunch of categories of persons you couldn't have sex with. There were things you couldn't do to your neighbor, things you had to do to your own house/life for the protection of your neighbor. These, too, make a lot of sense and have practical applications.

Some uncleanliness came from just the natural sorts of things that happen to all of us - certain bodily fluids were considered unclean. It was unclean to be around a dead animal or human, certainly unclean to touch the body of one. It was unclean to have mildew or mold in your house; it made not only your house, but you yourself, unclean. These things are largely inescapable; we just have to deal with them.

And then, of course, there are whole categories of unclean that don't make a whole lot of sense to us. This includes things like which kind of animals you can eat or not eat. (Bacon is unclean. Seriously.) It includes who can offer a sacrifice and when and why. And who can eat the sacrifice. And how to mix the special sacrificial perfumes, which you can't mix anywhere else. And a bunch of stuff like that.

The entire Old Testament law seems to be given in the context of this discussion. Israel was responsible, above most all other things, for keeping herself clean. Not only was it dangerous to be unclean (as in the case of illness, perhaps), but it was also shameful. Not only was it shameful, but it was kind of a hassle. A very large burden.

When you were unclean, you have to leave the camp. You had to go live outside the camp in a special place for unclean persons. You couldn't live with your family; they were clean, and you weren't. You couldn't go to work; there might be clean persons there. You couldn't do all of the things that you were accustomed to doing and neither could anyone who was depending upon you to do the things they were accustomed to doing.

In order to be free from your uncleanness, you had to wash. And be inspected. And often, shave. Bring a sacrifice to the Tent. There were twenty-three steps (not really, but it seems like it) that you had to go through to move from being unclean to being clean, which seems like a lot, especially considering that in an instant, you could become unclean again, even through no fault of your own. (Say a dead bird fell out of the sky next to you. Unclean. Bye.)

Clearly, the covenant of clean and unclean was a difficult way to live. And most of us read the Old Testament and come away understanding very well how adamant God was about all of this. All things considered, you want to be clean.

Or do you?

There's this interesting little verse tucked away in this discussion of clean and unclean that starts to change our perspective on the whole thing, and it starts to introduce an idea that will come to be prominent in the new covenant - the idea of Christian love.

It starts all the way back in the Pentateuch (that's the first five books of the Bible).

Dying on Mountains

At a few points this week, I have mentioned how willing we are to die on our mountains, those of us who stand and shout God's grace or truth from our own perspective, without even a glance to the valley where God dwells. Without even a whisper of an amen to those on the other mountain.

But this is not just some contemporary turn of phrase, this idea of dying on mountains; it, too, is a biblical example.

It's tempting to think that we're talking about big, bold, loud stories of mountains here, like Abraham and Isaac when they climbed up to sacrifice to God on the mountain, with Isaac unaware that he was about to become the sacrifice (there, but for the grace of God) or Jesus on the hill outside of Jerusalem. But those of us today who are willing to die on our mountains will not make such bold splashes into the landscape of God. 

Ours will be more like the quiet, heart-aching deaths of Moses and Aaron.

Moses and Aaron led the people of God through the wilderness; they led them out of Egypt and through the Red Sea and right to the edge of the Promised Land. But neither was allowed to actually enter the place where Israel was going, each due to their own sins that they committed along the way. 

When the time for Aaron's death came, God commanded him to climb the mountain with his brother, Moses, and his son, who would succeed him as priest. There, on the mountain, Aaron was able to look out and see the entire people of God, the people that he would no longer be able to speak to, no longer be able to minister to, no longer be able to guide in their journey. He had, on this mountain, a profound sense of having to let go. 

He had to let go of everything he had fought for. He had to let go of all the hopes and dreams that he had for them. He had to let go of any illusion that he might still play a role somehow in their formation. And for all our shouting, we, too, have to let go. When we are willing to die on our mountains, there comes a time when we know that that death is near, and we have to let go of everything we'd been fighting for, hoping for, working for. 

The people we can see from here, they may or may not ever come to understand what we were saying. But our time for saying it is up, and all we can do from this mountain is to look out over the people our hearts ache for, but whom we still just don't know about. 

When the time for Moses' death came, God commanded him, too, to climb the mountain, this time, with his servant, Joshua. There, on the mountain, Moses was able to see the Promised Land that they'd been working so hard for, the land flowing with milk and honey that God had promised them. But that was as far as he could go. He would never set foot on its soil, never taste of its fruit, never dip his hand in its honey. 

And this, too, is true for us. Most of us spend our whole lives shouting grace or truth, but from the mountain where we stand, we can only ever see what that is going to look like one day. Maybe. We can only ever look out and set out eyes on the place to where God is bringing His people. Because we cannot move off of our mountains, because we have set to die there, we sadly never set foot on the soil of the very things we proclaim. We never taste the fruit of either grace or truth, never dip our hands into their sweet nectar. 

Why? Because they have become the theological shouting points on which we have staked our claim and not the true promises of God that they were intended to be. If they are promises, then we have to step into them, but most of us are unwilling; we would rather die on our mountains.

So here we are, dying. Like Moses and Aaron, we're looking out over the people and the promise, able no longer to touch either, but shouting nonetheless. Not a shadow of community, not an echo of amen, but two camps shouting over the promises. It's tragedy at its finest.

For we are not two camps, but one people - one people of the living God. And we were not meant to die on these mountains. 

In the Valley

As we stand willing to die on our mountains of grace and truth, the story of Israel on her two mountains reminds us that God is not there with us; God is in the valley. And so, too, are His priests.

When Israel reached the Promised Land and took their places on two mountains, the Scriptures tell us that the Levites, the priests, and the Ark of the Covenant stood in the valley between them. Thus, when the group on one mountain spoke the promises of the blessings of God, they spoke through the presence of God to the group on the other mountain. And when the group on the other mountain spoke the promises of the curses of God, they spoke through the presence of God to the group on the other mountain.

And the presence of God itself dwelt in the place where the amens echoed. 

That is a powerful testimony, and a convicting one, particularly for a people who are so busy shouting from their mountains that they haven't stopped to consider the presence of God in any of it. Particularly for a people who have not once shouted amen. Particularly to a people who are so convinced that they are truly divided, even when the testimony of Israel is that they must still be one. 

The presence of God dwells not in the place where either grace or truth are being proclaimed, but in the place where they both are; in the valley where these promises of God echo.

And we cannot ignore here the presence of the priests and the Levites, either. These are the men who were chosen to serve God at the altar, those who were responsible for His house. Here they are, standing in the place where both law and mercy stand, where the very presence of God dwells between the mountains of blessings and curses, between the camps of grace and truth. 

This is the place where many of us, increasingly many of us, find ourselves today. We hear the shouts of truth from the one mountain, and we know that there is something to that. God certainly has said these things; He certainly requires them. These truths are nestled in the very heart of God, and we cannot ignore them. But we know this is not the whole story. This is not the whole testimony of God. 

We hear the shouts of grace from the other mountain, and we know that there is something to that, too. God has certainly said these things; He certainly provides them. This grace is nestled in the very heart of God, and we cannot ignore it. But neither is this the whole story. This is not the whole testimony of God, either. 

So what we find happening is that as the shouts from the mountains increase, more and more of us are finding ourselves down in the valley, called among the faithful, standing in the place where both law and mercy stand, in the very presence of God somewhere between the mountains of blessings and curses, between the camps of grace and truth.

And we're aching for an amen.

We're aching to hear those words that we know will mean that the camps are starting to turn back toward each other, that they are starting to look again into the same valley, that they are starting to see that the presence of God is not on their mountain, but between them. We're longing to hear that affirmation that God is not just grace and not just truth, not just blessings and not just curses, but both. Both because He requires to be both. Both because the Cross requires Him to be both. 

Maybe I've overestimating here. Maybe there aren't a lot of us in the valley. Maybe most of us really are willing to die on our mountains. But I have to be honest and say that I'm not one of them. I'm just not. I'm standing in the valley, and I'm aching. My heart is hurting. I'm longing to hear just one faint whisper of an amen, which will set this valley echoing in the affirmation of our God. I keep hoping, maybe foolishly, that one of the mountains will start it. That someone, somewhere, in one of these camps will hear the shouts of the other and say, "Yes. Yes, I know that to be true." 

But maybe I'm naive. Maybe I'm waiting and hoping and longing for a thing that's never going to happen. Maybe if it's really what I'm aching for, I've got to get it going. Maybe it will do something, maybe even some good. 

So I stand in the valley and draw my breath, and when the courage in my spirit has reached its peak, just before I lose heart altogether, I whisper amen. 

Amen. 

Amen

If it is true that we find ourselves in a similar place to Israel as she stood on two mountains - and I think it is - then there is something else that we need to take notice of in this narrative, and it is the response that each mountain has for the other.

When Israel split into two groups, six tribes on one mountain and six on the other, they still viewed themselves as one people of God. Though they stood in two camps, there was no real divide among them. And as the camp on the first mountain proclaimed the promises of God's blessings, those on the other mountain shouted in reply, Amen! As those on the second mountain proclaimed the promises of God's curses, those on the other mountain shouted in reply, Amen! They recognized very clearly the truth that stood on both mountains, and they affirmed one another - and God - in response.

This is so not our story.

We, too, are standing on two different mountains today. We're standing on the mountains of grace and truth, which have inappropriately been called "liberal" and "conservative" Christianities. (There's no such thing. It's terrible to politicize our faith in this way with this kind of language, and I have written about this before.) And the problem is that when we hear the other camp speaking, our response is something less than affirmative. We do not stand on our own mountain and shout, Amen!

No, we stand on our own mountain and shout, You're an idiot!

This...is a problem. Of course, when we see it written down, it seems so silly. So dumb. It's clearly a problem, and we're all tempted to say that we are not part of this problem. We're not the ones calling each other stupid, although we readily confess that we know persons who do. 

But how much of your time do you spend apologizing for Christians who have it "wrong"? How much effort do you put forth into explaining to others that that's not what Jesus meant? How often do you let your frustration with the other mountain spill over into the Pharasaical prayer - Lord, thank you that I am not like them; now, set them straight! 

Ah. Gotcha.

See, not all of us are so bold as to directly engage in the theological debates, but we die on our own mountains nonetheless. We stake out our ground and spend all of our time trying to pull the culture at large over to our side, trying to get them to come to our mountain. We tell them that the other side is wrong. We make apologies for them, since they clearly won't apologize for themselves (and neither will we). We preach our sermons and cannot escape the echoes of theirs, but instead of shouting in reply, Amen!, we simply just shout louder, and the message that the world hears us shouting to one another is not an affirmation of God's incredible glory but the less-worthy chorus of, You're an idiot!

And all the while, we're missing out on what is the most important detail in all of this, and that is this: even though we stand on our mountains shouting at one another, the Lord our God is actually in neither camp. As much as we want to say that He is, that God has chosen sides, that we are the righteous among Him, He's not on our mountains - either one of them. The Lord our God is in the valley.

Israel's story shows this full well. (Stay tuned.)