Exodus 23:10-19

Transcript

00:00:00:34 – 00:00:21:23
Clint Loveall
Hey, friends. Welcome back. As we close out a week on Thursday, I’m Clint. This is Michael Pastor’s First Presbyterian Church as we’ve been going through the Book of Exodus. Glad you’re with us today or whenever you get around to this video as we move through, continue to move through the 23rd chapter of this book, a section that we’re in of legal code.

00:00:21:59 – 00:00:43:11
Clint Loveall
Kind of a little bit of a change of pace today. We’ve been going from some sort of personal ethical kind of laws. Now we move toward some ceremonial communal religious type laws. We’ll go through this fairly quickly because, again, there’s a lot of this in Exodus and we don’t want to bog down. But there is some interesting stuff here for us to talk about.

00:00:43:12 – 00:01:04:48
Clint Loveall
So let me start reading. I’ll go from verse ten and then we’ll have some conversation. Six years you shall soul the land and gather its yield. In the seventh. You shall let it rest in life fallow that the poor of your people may eat and what they leave the wild animals, mate, you shall do the same with your vineyard and your olive orchard.

00:01:05:16 – 00:01:28:37
Clint Loveall
Six days you shall do your work on the seventh. You shall rest so that your ox, your donkey may have relief and your home born slave and the resident alien may be refreshed. Be attentive to all that I’ve said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods. Do not let them be heard on your lips. Michael, we see this throughout the legal code of the Old Testament.

00:01:28:37 – 00:01:56:13
Clint Loveall
This kind of cyclical pattern that runs in sevens. Seven days of the week, you rest on the seventh, seven years you let the land rest on the seventh year. Later on, we’ll see even the seventh seven. The 49th year is called the year of Jubilee. It’s a year where all the debts are reset. But but there is in Israelite life this kind of cycle.

00:01:57:18 – 00:02:30:55
Clint Loveall
The idea that there are set times and places and we live with that to an extent. I mean, we’ve just come through a season where there’s holidays and there’s we mark by, oh yeah, that holiday party or that event or those lights went up, that kind of thing. But I don’t think for most of us, our own schedules have the sense of being divinely right set that, that the Israelites live with this expectation that God has literally appointed times for them.

00:02:31:21 – 00:02:48:52
Clint Loveall
And their obedience to God includes marking and honoring those times responsively, faithfully, religiously, so to speak. And I think that makes it different. I think that makes it interesting and adds it adds an interesting twist.

00:02:49:06 – 00:03:18:37
Michael Gewecke
I think that you’re absolutely right. I think where a lot of us would diverge in that conversation, Clint, is that we don’t attribute those times or seasons or markers to the divine action of God in the world. And so when you look at the creation story in Genesis, you know, we went through that together last fall. When you look at that story, it’s easy for us as modern people to reflect on that story scientifically as that is our own lingua franca.

00:03:18:37 – 00:03:43:55
Michael Gewecke
That’s the way that we process the world is through that chain of thinking that that way of processing ideas. But here when we come to this section, which to most of us, it just looks like a bunch of rules about when you need to take vacation and when you don’t. We are tempted to see in that a kind of very simplistic, even deterministic view of the world.

00:03:44:16 – 00:04:18:36
Michael Gewecke
But I would make the case that this is actually a deep sort of well of faith, because what is being instructed here is not when to take a break. It’s not like the federal government saying the 25th is a federal holiday or, you know, whatever. It’s rather saying when you take this time off, you will be rehearsing and remembering your God who took that time off, which is, I think, why we come at the end of verse 13 here, do not invoke the names of other gods.

00:04:18:36 – 00:04:44:58
Michael Gewecke
Don’t let them be heard on your lips. Because fundamentally, what came before, it wasn’t just about days off. It was about will you or will you not follow in God’s way? Will you are will you not be the kind of people who live by God’s time? Will you be the kind of people here at the end who are going to use other gods and their names to acquire or to secure your future?

00:04:44:58 – 00:05:05:58
Michael Gewecke
Or are you going? You trust your life, your family, your nation, to God who is called you and who has set a pattern for you to live. And so I think that this is actually quite a deep statement of faith. And though we might think it to be somewhat more simplistic, I think it actually lies deeply in being identified as the people of God.

00:05:06:32 – 00:05:30:59
Clint Loveall
I think the other aspect that is fascinating in these passages is there’s a deep communal thread that runs through it. You know, it’s not just that the land needs to rest. It’s not just that the people need to rest. In the seventh year, you shall let the ground go fallow that the poor of your people may. There is in these laws we saw some of this yesterday.

00:05:30:59 – 00:06:04:28
Clint Loveall
We saw it last couple of days. Actually. There is this constant awareness and concern for those at the bottom and the idea that, you know, imagine a farmer who said every seventh year, I’m just going to let it grow and I’ll let people go in and whatever it produces, they can just have they can eat, they can store up for themselves that that’s a tremendous act of faith.

00:06:04:28 – 00:06:38:15
Clint Loveall
That’s a tremendous act of generosity. And these things are mandated in the seasonal life of the Israelites. This is an expectation that those who have will practice a life that on regular occasions, seven days, seven years, makes room for those who don’t have to participate in the goodness that they experience and that, you know, it shouldn’t we shouldn’t separate these rules from the people who benefit.

00:06:38:15 – 00:06:55:37
Clint Loveall
And the people who benefit are not just the busy people who need to learn to rely on God and not their own efforts. There are also the people who need the generosity of those above them, and God has provided for that as well in the structure of these rules.

00:06:56:07 – 00:07:19:52
Michael Gewecke
I think that that actually may help us with a larger, overarching sort of narrative here. And I think I just want to be brief in summing up where I think we have time here to look at the festivals that follow here. And I think that that provision is the word God has provided this cycle here for the sake of the people, for the sake of their identification as the people of God.

00:07:20:00 – 00:07:32:54
Michael Gewecke
But as you make the case also for those who are the poor, who are the needy. But that provision extends even into the festivals themselves because they represent the people’s reliance upon God. So let’s take a look at that quick.

00:07:32:58 – 00:07:54:28
Clint Loveall
Yes. So 14 here, three times a year, you shall hold festivals for me. You shall observe the festival of unleavened bread. I commanded you. You shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abebe. This is according to my study Bible, late April, early May, and in the appointed month. And you four in it you came out of Egypt.

00:07:54:28 – 00:08:18:36
Clint Loveall
No one shall appear before me empty handed. We can stop there. Michael. You know, there’s not a whole lot to say about the festival of unleavened Bread. We saw some of that in the Book of Exodus. We saw an explanation of what that means. It is a remembrance that the people is sort of historically or by legend, at least, rushed out of Egypt before the bread had time to rise.

00:08:18:36 – 00:09:00:05
Clint Loveall
And so this is explicitly tied to their experience of the exodus of escaping Egypt. And there is this very interesting line here. You shall not appear before me empty handed. In other words, there is no one in this community who doesn’t have a reason to show gratitude. There is no one who can justify not bringing a thank offering or participating in this, because every person in this community, whether they started in it or unfolded in it later, they all rely on the grace and mercy of God who has delivered them.

00:09:00:05 – 00:09:10:02
Clint Loveall
And so I think that’s a that sounds maybe it sounds like a harsh line in the way it’s translated, but I think it it says something very important.

00:09:10:28 – 00:09:40:44
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I agree. In fact, I would make the case that if we are reading this with a little bit more of a devotional slant, I think that this is challenging. I wouldn’t use the word harsh. It’s challenging because humans are highly adept at convincing ourselves why we got the short end of the stick, why we are not at the place we should be, or why our life is harder than it should be or are harder than others.

00:09:40:44 – 00:09:59:02
Michael Gewecke
You know, we do this work of comparison and we look both at our own life at better times and we look at the lives of other people. We are tempted by jealousy. I remember the Ten Commandments that came not that far before and the call that we’re not supposed to look at our neighbor and compare what they have here.

00:09:59:02 – 00:10:31:04
Michael Gewecke
This idea that no one shall appear empty handed suggests that everyone has something to give, that everyone has been given something by God. And in the festival, it’s right for them to return that. That’s the core foundation of what we understand to be Christian gratitude that even in the midst of the worst times, we can find, even in those dark places, rays of light, because that’s what God has given to to us, that’s what it means to be God’s people, is to be those who rest on the foundation of the one who is good.

00:10:31:04 – 00:10:41:09
Michael Gewecke
And so gratitude, having something to come with, something to sacrifice, something to offer is not implied. It’s explicit. It’s named. You should do that.

00:10:41:22 – 00:11:03:32
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And I think more of the same as we just continue here. You should observe the Festival of Harvest. This is probably June the first fruits of your labor of what you sow in the field. You shall observe the festival in gathering at the end of the year. This is probably September ish. When you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor three times a year, your males shall appear before me.

00:11:03:59 – 00:11:34:31
Clint Loveall
You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of the festival remain until morning. The choicest first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord, Your God. And we’ll leave it there for a moment. Michael, before we end. But this idea of these three festivals, again, the idea is they’re divinely appointed when you escaped Egypt, the first things that break the soil and a celebration of the harvest.

00:11:34:33 – 00:12:04:19
Clint Loveall
These are three monumental moments for the people of Israel, and they function seasonally in the same way that we celebrate Easter and Christmas. These are for the people religious, spiritual days of remembrance, of gratitude and this language. Here you shall don’t ruin the sacrifice. Don’t mix it with anything leavened or let the fat of the festival remain until morning.

00:12:04:19 – 00:12:32:52
Clint Loveall
In other words, celebrate properly. Don’t put it off, participate in it, all of those kind of things. This is really not just it is a mandate, but I think best understood it’s an invitation. And yes, it’s a commandment, but it’s it’s a commandment that invites the people to consistently put God in front of their eyes and to be mindful of what God has done.

00:12:32:52 – 00:12:36:57
Clint Loveall
And and yes, it’s in order, but it’s a gracious order.

00:12:37:15 – 00:13:00:55
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. And I do think that there’s an approximate interpretation for a modern life, because it is hard, I think, for us to imagine in the seasons that are marked in the way that these seasons are marked, right. If you’re a farmer, if you live off the land as here, where we’re told about these harvest festivals, these things are built into the process.

00:13:00:55 – 00:13:23:25
Michael Gewecke
You have a time you so you have a time of first harvest, you have a time a final harvest. These things are by definition of doing your work and they’re tied to the seasons, they’re tied to the sun, they’re tied to all of these different external realities. Truth is, most modern vocations, yeah, you’ve got maybe a Christmas busyness in one season or another.

00:13:23:25 – 00:14:05:09
Michael Gewecke
Seasons the end of tax season. So that’s busy. I mean, we have some of those markers, but they’re not generally tied to the earth, to the climate, to the season in the way that these folks took for granted. So if we’re able for a moment to recognize that they live with a very different kind of sense of connection to the land, to God’s continuing to provide for them each and every day in the midst of these seasons, we might find in that an invitation, an opportune unity to look in our own lives for these same kinds of markers in our own contexts and world to, like you said, put in front of us moments and

00:14:05:09 – 00:14:40:19
Michael Gewecke
opportunities, reminders for ourselves of God’s faithfulness at regular intervals so that no one can make it through a year without having moments where we stop and look back and see God’s faithfulness at work. I think, though, this text is in no way a directive. Everyone needs to go be a farmer. I do think there’s wisdom in that way of encountering the world because it has an implicit trust in God, and that is the thing we’re trying to as people of faith, cultivate in our own hearts or allow the spirit to cultivate is that same sense of trust.

00:14:41:07 – 00:15:09:52
Clint Loveall
And so many of our own, our personal seasons lack that kind of community sense. Michael I mean, one thing that can be said for living in a place like Iowa or the Midwest, agriculture is is kind of well known. Even if people aren’t farmers, we still have a sense of, oh, it’s a rainy spring. The farmers are nervous, Oh, we’re supposed to get an early frost.

00:15:10:19 – 00:15:39:39
Clint Loveall
Oh, it’s been a good year. Oh, it’s been a dry year. Even those of us who aren’t directly affected get a sense of that kind of reality for the agricultural picture. And I think that is that’s certainly true. These are for the community. This is this involves everybody. You know, it says here three times a year, all your males shall appear before the Lord your God.

00:15:39:55 – 00:16:07:39
Clint Loveall
There is something writ large in this that is for all of the Israelites and exclusively for the Israelites. And that brings us to this last verse. Oh, this shows up. This phrase shows up surprisingly often in the Old Testament, which may seem odd to you. We’re not boiling goats that most of us. And so this is going to seem this only seems strange.

00:16:07:53 – 00:16:37:15
Clint Loveall
You shall not boil a kid, a baby goat in its mother’s milk. I, I, I would guess that in the Old Testament, a dozen times or more, I’ve not done the math. I haven’t counted, but it’s surprisingly common. And the reason it’s surprisingly common is that that practice was associated with a fertility ritual of the Canaanite, Canaanite God.

00:16:37:33 – 00:17:03:43
Clint Loveall
And the idea was you would boil that baby goat in its mother’s milk and then that would secure your own fertility. And if you know anything about the Old Testament, God is a godly soul claim. We saw this over and over in the Book of Genesis. God lays sole claim to the reproduction and the multiplication of human beings.

00:17:03:43 – 00:17:32:54
Clint Loveall
And so the idea here is to in with zero ambiguity, make sure the Israelites understand that this isn’t about the food, this isn’t about how you cook goat, this is about who you trust for the future, who’s who you put your faith in for the continuance of your line and your nation and your people. And and that’s why it’s in here so often.

00:17:32:54 – 00:17:36:21
Clint Loveall
And that’s why it strayed. It stated so bluntly. I think.

00:17:37:12 – 00:18:10:53
Michael Gewecke
You know, there is a correlation between moments of celebration and major life transitions and and, you know, I don’t think that this is an inappropriate I mean, there’s been family jokes about, you know, a couple just gets married and they go to another wedding and nine months later, you know, they have a baby. There is something about the high moments of life that does create new opportunities, new gateways.

00:18:11:04 – 00:18:39:00
Michael Gewecke
Often these things happen. And I think there’s something striking in the fact that here, we’re told, in the midst of talking about what it’s right to remember to celebrate, to give credit properly to God, the statement that says and don’t be putting your future, don’t be putting your hope and trust. Don’t be going into those high moments and misapplying who that moment belongs to.

00:18:39:00 – 00:19:13:10
Michael Gewecke
And there’s always a cost to and don’t think that this is a ancient problem. It remains a human problem that we come into moments of grandeur. We come into moments where things are going well, the wind is at our back and we point the finger at ourselves, or we attribute that to some force outside of God’s working in us, and that the human heart has a natural and nasty proclivity to turn things back on itself.

00:19:13:37 – 00:19:37:48
Michael Gewecke
And when we do that, when when we miss attribute the good in our life, when we miss apply our trust to something other than the soul jealous God, that which is who we see presented here in this section, the God who demands nothing less than everything, then what we will discover is that we will find ourselves outside the circle.

00:19:37:48 – 00:20:01:26
Michael Gewecke
We’ll find ourselves outside the community and the guardrails that God gave to that community. Yeah, boiling a goat and its mother’s milk is only going to make us scratch our heads. Unless. Unless we ask ourselves what things do we do? Because we want to attribute success to something other than the God who’s at work in our life.

00:20:01:26 – 00:20:20:56
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and it really bookends our passage today. Michael, do not invoke the name of other gods. Do not let them be heard on your lips and don’t follow the practices of other people and other gods in the hope that they affect your future in a positive way. That is my job, says the Lord, and you are to look to me alone for that.

00:20:20:56 – 00:20:38:38
Clint Loveall
And so what? We are going to see hundreds, literally opportunities to talk about the ways in which Israel interacts with the broader religious community around them. Mostly not for good, but we’ll get there when we get there.

00:20:39:18 – 00:20:53:07
Michael Gewecke
Let’s not rush ahead. Thanks for spending time with us today. Hope there’s been something new, interesting, challenging. I give this video a like if you do that helps other people find it and certainly subscribe. If you’d like to join us for more studies that being said, have a great weekend. We’ll see you next week.

00:20:53:07 – 00:21:01:39
Clint Loveall
Thanks to everybody.