Threshing Floors

Recently, I proposed that if you want to have some biblical fun, you should trace the appearance of figs through the Scriptures. And that's absolutely true (and fun, for real). But if figs aren't quite your taste, here's another one for you: follow the threshing floors. 

Threshing floors are extremely important to God's story. The threshing floor was an open, flat space where a person would come and beat the grain in order to separate the wheat and the chaff, the good stuff from the bad stuff. Here, you'd end up with a pile of stuff to use and eat and a pile of stuff to burn. 

God found Gideon in a makeshift threshing floor, threshing grain in a winepress in order to hide from his enemies. It was from here that God launched him against Israel's opponents and secured him a great victory. It was here that Gideon tested God in the dew and the fleece and God showed up exactly as prayed for. 

It was on the threshing floor that the plague of God against His people stopped in the time of David. Remember this from not too long ago? David sinned, and God gave him options about how the Lord should punish this act, and David set Israel at the mercy of God's hand. God swept through, killing tens of thousands, but then stopped...at a threshing floor. David then bought the threshing floor, built an altar, and offered sacrifices there. These are the sacrifices he insisted on paying for because he said he would not offer to God something that cost him nothing.

And then we come to Solomon. Solomon was David's son who was promised to build the Temple for the Lord among His settled people in the Promised Land. And build that Temple he did...

...on a threshing floor. 

Jesus tells us in the parable of the weeds and the wheat to let both grow together; the day is coming for the harvest, and it is at that point that the good will be separated from the bad. You'll be able to pick out what's usable and what's not. What's valuable and what's not. It's a metaphor for a good God who doesn't come down hard on a fallen world, but gives it the grace to grow together - the good and the bad - knowing that the day will come when He will separate the two. 

We read that and think, oh, yes. Yes, of course. That sounds exactly like the kind of thing that God would do. And then we essentially move on with our lives and sort of understand this and sort of don't. 

But when you see how often the threshing floor comes into the holy places in the Bible, if you follow God from threshing floor to threshing floor, if you look at just how frequently He shows up here, you understand how much this is an essential part of who He is. Of who we praise Him to be. 

So if you're looking for some biblical fun, follow the figs and the threshing floors. It's incredible. 

An Abstract God

One of the challenges of modern Christianity is that we've attempted to center it in who God is, in the very heart of the One who created us and calls us to worship and intimacy. Saying that's a challenge to our faith may strike you as odd, particularly if you've been in the church lately. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? 

Yes and no. 

It's absolutely critical that we know God's heart, for we can judge our experience in the world by what we know of Him. He will not contradict or condemn Himself, so if we know His heart, we can trust what we experience of Him because it will be consistent with His nature. However, all of the emphasis we've put on His heart has separated us from His works. 

Again, I know what you're thinking - we're supposed to have a faith that move beyond what God does for us. He's not some kind of genie, you know. It's not about what we get out of it. 

Uhm...baloney. 

If you believe in Jesus for any reason besides that He died for your sins and redeemed you to the life you were always meant to live, then you don't believe in Jesus. The foundation of His life, His death, His resurrection, and our faith is this act - what Christ has done for us. The foundation of our faith is a "doing" - what God has done. 

Every time you see His people in the Scriptures coming back to God, turning back to Him, recalling His faithfulness, it's always concrete. They tell the stories of parting the sea, stopping the Jordan, defeating enemies, stopping plagues, saving lives, healing infirmities...and on and on and on. Not once in the Bible do we see His people turning back to Him and declaring, simply, "Oh, our Lord is just good. He's just good and amazing. And He's love. Yes, He's love. And grace and mercy and goodness and amazing love." 

They always put skin on it. 

In fact, God Himself put skin on it. 

But we are a people who have separated ourselves from His works, thinking them somehow to lessen our faith rather than to strengthen it. If we only talk about what God's done, the world might misunderstand who He is. They might think it's about us and meeting our own needs, rather than about Him. They might get the wrong impression about what faith is. 

What we don't understand is that this world, Christians included, understand God better when we put skin on Him, when we talk about concrete things He's actually done. Not because it changes the point or the message or the mission but because it means something deeply more than a series of characteristics that we can't ever seem to pinpoint. 

Ask a Christian a follow-up. What does it mean that God is good? Oh, that He's good. What does it mean that He's love? God is love, don't you know. We can only answer character questions by repeating them in the answer. What is grace? Oh, our God is gracious. It's not wonder our world, and even our Christians, don't really know who God is. 

God parts the seas. He raises the dead. He gives sight the blind and sound to the deaf. He casts out demons. He makes the lame walk. He forgives sin. He comes through on His promises. That's who God is. He's a God who acts on His character so that we know exactly Who we're dealing with.

So...what has God done for you lately? And how does that change the way you know Him?

Mattithiah

Having read the title of today's post, you're probably thinking to yourself already...who? Mattathiah? I have read my Scriptures faithfully, and I do not know this Mattithiah that you speak of. And that would be fair. After all, his name is mentioned only once, and there are a lot of men and women in the Bible whose names are mentioned only once, the overwhelming majority of whom we could not name again if asked. 

And yet, there's something about Mattithiah that draws me in, something that I cannot shake. 

If you know me, and especially if you happen to attend church with me, you know that I have a deep affection for Communion. The Lord's Table speaks to me in ways that nothing else in the church experience speaks to me. It touches the very depths of my heart. There's just something about this God that breaks bread with us that catches me in tenderness that I cannot shake. But it's not really just me. There's something about Communion that God loves, too. Something about it that is essential to His relationship with His people. He is a God who has always been about the breaking of bread.

In fact, when God built the Tabernacle and the Temple, one of the commands for it was that His people always have bread out on the table. It was called the Bread of the Presence, a reminder that God was present there with His people and that there was something about the breaking of the bread with them that was essential. That is essential. 

What does any of that have to do with Mattithiah?

We find this man is 1 Chronicles 9, where the author documents for us the people of God who were the first to re-settle on their own land in Jerusalem. We are told by name of the various tribes, of Benjamin, of the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers - a series of names, the kind of thing we're tempted to skip over when reading because we don't understand why these names matter to us. (They do, but that's another topic for another day). 

After naming a few gatekeepers, the text moves out of the list of names and into a general discussion of Levites and their duties. Some were gatekeepers, and they were positioned in such-and-such places around the sides of the towns. There were four principal gatekeepers. Some of the Levites were in charge of this, some of them were in charge of that. We've moved from names to getting a general rundown of duties and tasks. Some took care of the articles, some of the furnishings. Some were responsible for mixing the spices or preparing incense. Some were musicians, and they lived in certain rooms in the Temple. 

And in the midst of the listing of all of these duties by very general terms and by vague responsibilities, we're told about "a Levite named Mattithiah, the firstborn son of Shallum the Korathite...." 

He was the bread baker. 

We've got this ongoing list of duties of the Levites in the Temple in Jerusalem, of the things that they do and how they do them and where they live and how they're stationed and what they are responsible for. And in this entire list, only one Levite is mentioned by name - Mattithiah, the bread baker. 

It's because God doesn't want us to forget the bread. He doesn't want us to fail to notice it. In a place that smells like burning hair and fat and incense, in a place where prayers and atonement and sacrifice are offered, in a place just outside where mercy reigns over the Ark of the Covenant, it's easy, I think, to walk right by the table and not even notice the bread. Not even notice the Presence. Not even notice the Promise. 

Except that in a place where all this stuff is going on, where all these things are happening, where so much that seems essential to the worship of the Israelites occurs, God places special emphasis on this thing that we're most likely to miss by drawing our attention to only one man by name. 

Mattithiah. 

The baker of bread. 

Who Knows Better?

The problem with us as God's people is that we have always tended to think that we're pretty smart. We can look at a situation and figure out a good solution and know what it is that we think we're supposed to do. 

The trouble comes when we actually do it.

For example, look at the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh. As Israel approached the Promised Land - the land that God Himself said was good and was a gift to His people - these three tribes looked at the land they were already passing through and thought, you know, this is pretty good land right here. What we need is to settle down and build some cities here where it's good, where we don't have to fight off any more enemy nations, where there seems to be some peace. 

They got permission to do it, and so they did. All Israel waited for these three tribes to build, secure, and settle down in this land before moving on. We know that because part of the deal these three tribes got was that if they got to settle in this land, they had to lead the fight for the Promised Land to give to their brothers. They could not come back to rest here until everyone else was settled over there. 

Which means...Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh saw the full glory of the Promised Land, of everything God was going to give them, and they doubled down on their own plan by returning to the towns they had built on the other side of the Jordan.

And it's not like they couldn't foresee some potential problems with this. After everyone got settled and these three tribes crossed back over the Jordan to their own towns, the first thing they did was to build an enormous altar so that the rest of Israel could see it from their side and remember that these three tribes were part of them. They were still Israel, they insisted - just on this side of the Jordan. They didn't want to be cut off from their brothers.

Yet, this is exactly what happened. When Israel turned away from the Lord, these were among the first tribes to turn away. When she was sent into exile, these were the first tribes taken. 

Although they had the safety and security of the walls they'd built around their greener pastures, they didn't have the promise of the Promised Land, and they were sitting ducks. Literally. Backed against the Jordan on one side, cut off from their brothers, cut off from their God, cut off from their Promise. It doesn't take a lot to conquer a people like that, no matter how good they think their land is. 

We do this all the time. We look at the place where God is leading us, and it's glorious, but then we look around and realize that where we are isn't too bad, either. In fact, it's pretty good. It's even better because we're already here. It's the trap of contentment, among other things - a confusing theology that tells us we're better off to be content wherever we are, drawing likely on the words of Paul who said he learned to be content no matter what the circumstances. So we become content with where we are, and we lose sight of where we're going. We think we know best, since this is good, too, and we build our walls around what look like greener pastures - touring through the Promised Land only to come home to the beds we've made for ourselves. 

And we're sitting ducks. Cut off from the best God has to give us, backed against walls of our own making, we're here just waiting to be picked off because this wasn't God's plan for us; it was our own. We've lost out on not only His greatness, but His protection and His promise and His glory because we've settled for something that looks good. (And we've called it God, ironically, because, well, God is good, isn't He? Certainly, He wants us to have good things.)

Yes, He wants us to have good things, but He also wants us to have great things. Glorious things. Promised things. Amazing things. Grace. 

So we have to stop thinking we know better. We have to stop thinking we have it all figured out. We have to keep pressing on and pressing through and going to where God's leading us, all the way. Past good. Past green. All the way to glorious. 

Just a Building

Every now and then, Israel/Judah would find herself with a king who would undertake a series of reforms meant to bring the people back to God. Josiah was one such of those kings, and the first reform that he undertook was the rebuilding and restoration of God's Temple in Jerusalem. 

What's interesting about this is that Josiah undertook this project before he really understood the depths of the Temple's importance. He did it before he understood what made this place incredible. He did it before he knew the full law of the Lord. He did it before he understood the details of worship. 

How do we know? We know because it was in the process of rebuilding/restoring the Temple that servants in Josiah's time found the book of the Law in the Temple and brought it to him and read it for him. 

It's impressive, really. Josiah knew this building was important to the God of Israel. He knew it was magnificent and majestic for some reason. He knew, somehow, there was glory there, even though he didn't have a foundation of knowledge for understanding it. 

Maybe it was civics or politics. Maybe he was just trying to be a good ruler and restore some of the more dilapidated places in his kingdom. Maybe the Temple was an eyesore that he was just trying to clean up. Maybe someone came to him and whispered some things and convinced him it was important, someone with more understanding about these things. Maybe it was a favor he was doing for someone. There are all kinds of reasons that Josiah might have undertaken the Temple project without the knowledge of what he was really getting himself into.... 

And there are all kinds of reasons why someone might walk into our churches without knowing, either. 

There's some renewed tension in the church about the importance of buildings or even of things like meeting together at all. We understand that collectively, we are the church, and so what matters most, it seems, is our willingness to love one another, to serve our communities, to read our Bibles, and to worship our God. It's less important, we think, where exactly we do that or whether we have enough building space or whether we even have our own building space. A lot of churches are now even meeting in rented spaces - schools, movie theaters, community centers - living out of trailers and thinking it entirely unnecessary and a waste of money to actually have a building. 

All that upkeep...all those mortgage payments and utility bills and plumbing needs. It's all so...unnecessary. 

Yet, a story like Josiah's reminds us why our buildings are so important. 

Josiah didn't have to rebuild the Temple. He didn't know why it was so important. Maybe he suspected it, but it would have been just as easy to convince himself that the people of God already understood their rituals and requirements for sacrifice and prayer and community life, so the building? The building was moot. It was no longer necessary. He could have convinced himself of that and ordered his men to leave it alone, or maybe even tear it down. After all, those who had any real interest in it already knew what they needed to know. 

But Josiah didn't know. He didn't have a real clue. And it was only by undertaking the work of the Temple that he discovered what he didn't know. It was only by going through room by room that he found something that gave him life. Not just him, but his people, also. A whole new generation of Israelites learned what they never knew because Josiah was willing to invest in a building he didn't fully understand. 

It's an important reminder for our churches. People are going to come to our buildings. Our communities are going to come to our buildings. They may not understand much about them, may not know what exactly goes on there. Maybe they just get the sense that it's important, that it matters somehow. And it's in our buildings that they're going to find something life-giving. 

Our missions, our outreach, our "hearts as temple, lives as worship" mentality is important, beautifully important. Holy, even. But it only works for those who already know. 

Those who don't know...need buildings. They need a place to come and discover the book of the Lord. They need a place to gather together and learn how to do this thing called faith. They need doors to walk through, halls to explore, rooms to search. They need altars and pews and welcome centers. They need bricks and mortar. They need plaster and paint. They need buildings. 

It is for this reason that we need them, too.