The Jerusalem Experiment

Every puff of air we breathe back into this fragile world is a gift. We’ve done nothing to earn life, there are no awards given to newborns congratulating them on a successful piloting of their fragile bodies through the birth canal. Birth is embraced by most as a sacred moment, a divine gift, an unsearchable blessing. Not all moments are equally cherished. Parents lament, “Oh how quickly my children have grown!” It’s as if the older we get, the more we lose sight of the fact that we are alive, and that we have done nothing to earn such an honor.

Pray begins at the point where we cease our striving, still our souls, and acknowledge the fact that God in control of all that swirls around us. For whatever reason He has chosen to craft us and place us in the center of it all. With such a posture we are able to petition God in authentic humility, assured that we deserve nothing, though confident in His goodness.

If everything is a gift, what does it mean to embrace everything in such a way that God is honored?

At what point does a gift become an idol?

In Deuteronomy 11, God described the difference between Egypt and the Promised Land:

“For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated, like a garden of vegetables. But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year” (11:10-12).

The Western edge of the Judean Hill Country (about 10 miles West of Jerusalem)

Israel was not to be a place of plenty but a land of enough, and in having enough Israel was commanded to remain obedient to God, acknowledging Him as the giver of everything. The earliest inhabited cities of the Promised Land (by the Exodus community) were likely the Biblical cities of Shechem and Shiloh– in the Eastern Hill Country of Ephraim. Settlement quickly grew in this lush, terraced and fertile area. Olive trees, grape vines and wide-open sheep pastures made the area perfectly suitable for population growth. The land was likely experienced as an astonishing blessing compared to the “great and terrible” deserts the community of Israel had sojourned through between Egypt and Jericho.

Years passed, and the potency of the gift that were lands of Ephraim and Manasseh dulled in the minds of the Israelites. They began to peer over the foothills that stand on the Western edge of Ephraim and wonder whether they might also have their way with the armies of the Canaanites and Philistines who stood between them and the Mediterranean.

My professor calls this ten mile (East-West) stretch of land reaching from Joppa in the North to Gaza in the South “cookie land” because the Israelites didn’t need this land (like a cookie, although some times a cookie sure hits the spot). The Israelties had everything they needed in the Hill Country, but as their political aspirations grew from settlement, to kingdom, to Empire, their lust for land and the resource rich trade routes that zig-zag across the Coastal Plain became insatiable. Enough was no longer enough. The gift God had given His people was no longer held with grateful hands, but instead was clutched with a steel trap embrace, pulled close and deemed insufficient.

So back to my question: At what point does a gift become an idol?

My life bears the marks of an undeserving and blessed sinner. I have so much: relationships, gifts, possessions, opportunities. How do I hold these up in gratitude and carefully steward them, while maintaining a sort distance from them so that if God pulls them from my grip, I am not offended?

I’m not sure how to answer the question (I’d love to hear your thoughts).

For now, I’m wondering whether Sabbath has something to do with the answer. At sunset every Friday night in Jerusalem a siren pierces the sky, signaling Shabbot (Sabbath). Sabbath (contrary to popular thought) is not set aside day of the week to bear the weight of nit-picky rules, but rather, an opportunity to rest and reflect on the fact that the truth, the salvation of the universe is not contingent upon us. Abraham Joshua Heschel said it this way,

In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where man may enter a harbor and reclaim his dignity.

These “islands of stillness,” Heschel argues, are the Sabbath. Why? Because in Sabbath we are invited to detach our groping hearts from our agendas, ambitions and day timers. In Sabbath we are forced to, “be still and know that [He] is God.” In Sabbath we are confronted by the profound reality that our identity is not bound to what we have, what we are able to accomplish, or who we know and call “friend.” Instead, we realize, that God holds the final word on the whole of our lives and we are His. Heschel reminds us,

All week we may ponder and worry whether we are rich or poor, whether we succeed or fail in our occupations, whether we accomplish or fall short of reaching our goals. But who could feel distressed when gazing at spectral glimpses of eternity; except to feel startled by the vanity of being so distressed.

The answer to the question of what it looks like to receive what we are given as a gift or hoard it like an idol may not be as easy as Sabbath, but in being still, in confessing with our mouths and minds that God owns everything…in giving God the space for God to, as Heschel says, “ring our hearts like a bell,” perhaps we’ll learn.

So may we restfully crawl back into our Eastern Hills, praise the Creator with open hands, and sigh under the profound weight of knowing that all that we have and all that we are aim to point our frail hearts toward the constant, loving gaze of our Father.