Home: Your Father and My Father
Series: Welcome home | Bible text: Deut. 26:1–12, 18, 19b
What do you do before you move into a new home? What do you do before you move into a new home? What do a whole people do when they move into a new home? Today’s Bible text deals with aspects of this question. We are dealing with a text from the 5th book of Moses. The Israelite people are on the east bank of the Jordan River preparing to enter their new homeland. The prophet Moses, who has been leading his people for over 40 years, will not lead them there. His time as a leader has come to an end and he is preparing for his death. As a farewell, the Israelites received a long sermon from Moses to put in their U‑Haul. He repeats the Torah (the covenant law of Sinai) in a new or second reading of the law, a Deuteronomy (second law).
We find our text for this morning in Deuteronomy chapter 26.
Deuteronomy 26:1–4: «You will now come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess. You will conquer it and settle in it. Then take some of the first fruits of each harvest that you bring in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Put them in a basket and go to the place the Lord your God chooses, so that his name may be worshipped there. Go to the priest on duty and say to him: «We confirm to the Lord your God that we have indeed come to the land he promised our ancestors with an oath. Then the priest shall take the basket from your hands and place it before the altar of the Lord your God»(NL).
Deuteronomy 5 is about the law. The law was the reason why the Israelites could move into their new homeland. In a sense, the law was like the letter I brought with me when I came to Switzerland. The law brought with it many rights and responsibilities. It contained many instructions about what was expected of Israel as God’s people when they took possession of their new homeland. These instructions were the terms of the Sinai Covenant.
It is important that we are careful when we look at the laws of this covenant. We risk evaluating or devaluing them from 21st century values rather than from when they were written. This would be a mistake that is unfortunately very typical of our age. Unlike other Middle Eastern religions of its time, the Sinai Covenant was not primarily about power, but about relationships and justice. Centuries later, the prophet Micah gave us a wonderful summary of what the Law was about:
Micah 6:8: «You, human being, have already been told what is good and how God wants you to live. He demands of you nothing other than that you abide by the law, treat each other lovingly and mercifully, and live your lives humbly before God.»(NL).
And what is the right, what is justice? Today we want to learn something about it.
Interpretation
Deuteronomy 26 forms the basis for two important pillars of Judaism: the feast of first fruits and tithing.
The festivals
The Sinai Covenant established three festivals that were obligatory for all Jews. These were the so-called pilgrim festivals, and during the Temple period all Jews were expected to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate these festivals. Pesach (the Passover), Shavuot (the Feast of First Fruits or Pentecost) and Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) were and are very important in Judaism, and because we as followers of Jesus follow a Jewish carpenter and itinerant preacher, these are also significant for us.
- Passover is the first of these festivals and the most important festival in Judaism. Passover celebrates God’s salvation from slavery in Egypt. This year, Passover begins on Friday. We also celebrate God’s rescue from slavery this week. Today is the beginning of Holy Week and we are reminded of the rejoicing Jesus received when he arrived in Jerusalem. But the shouts of «Hosanna» (save us) would soon turn into cries of «Crucify» transform him and Jesus was executed on Friday, the first day of the Passover. We humans are very quick to condemn God when he does not live up to our expectations. Good Friday and Easter are the most important Christian festivals and their meanings are deeply rooted in the meaning of Passover. The day after the first Passover Sabbath (Easter Sunday) is called Yom Habikkurim – the day of the first fruits. On this day, the first sheaves (or first fruits) of the new harvest were offered in the Temple. Yom Habikkurim is also the day of Jesus» resurrection and Jesus is named as the first fruit of the resurrection from the dead. Do you notice how our faith is partly an interpretation of the Jewish faith?
- Exactly 50 days after Yom Habikkurim comes Shavuot or the Feast of First Fruits. The Greek word for fiftieth is pentekoste, which in Middle High German means phingeste or pfingst. Shavuot celebrates the gift of the Torah at Sinai as well as the gifts God gives in the harvest. Shavuot is a festival of joy. It celebrates that God has given so much good. For Christians, we celebrate the birth of the Church with Shavuot. With «Church» I do not mean some institution or building but a movement and a living interaction between God and his children. This is something worth celebrating.
- The third of the obligatory festivals is called Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles. Sukkot takes place two weeks after the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. Just as the Jewish day begins in the evening, the Jewish year begins in autumn. The year begins Sukkot on 13 October. Sukkot celebrates the late harvest. It also celebrates God’s protection for his people during their time in the desert. Sukkot contains important messianic significance, and Jesus chose the festival to make some of his most important claims about himself as Messiah.
The feasts were times for reflection, but they were also times for celebration and joy. I think an important principle is that the kingdom of heaven is a party. There’s a lot of joy in heaven, it’s not sad in heaven there. And if heaven is such a joyful place, I think we don’t have to go through life in a miserable way. Heaven is in our hearts, we have the right and the responsibility to really savour and enjoy the life we have been given.
The tithe
The second main topic of today’s text deals with tithing. You have probably heard quite a bit about this topic and I don’t want to say much about it. However, I think we can make some comments about tithing in the context of our text:
- Tithing here is not mainly about funding religious institutions, but being generous to people in need. Israel was an agricultural society and wealth was measured by the amount of land a person owned. The people mentioned: Levites, widows, orphans and foreigners had one thing in common. They had no arable land. This fact made survival very difficult. At that time there was no welfare state and no social insurance. People without arable land could very easily find themselves in a desperate situation. The justice that the Sinai Covenant demanded said the following: Be generous to the needy and share the blessings you have received.
- Sharing with the needy is not just giving money, that can actually be cheap and heartless. The justice that the Sinai Covenant demands is celebrating together with the needy and identifying with them. True justice means sharing life. Today we live in a society with a more or less functioning welfare state and social security. I think Christians can and should be proud of the role we have played in bringing these things into our society. But the institutions of the welfare state do not allow us to forgo caring for and identifying with those in need. They do not give permission to simply look the other way.
My Father: The Homeless Aramean
Why should God’s people be generous, especially with foreigners? In Deut. 26:5 we find an answer to this question and a key to the text we have read today. At the festival of Shavuot, the pilgrims said a ritual prayer. This prayer included the sentence: Our progenitor was an Aramean who wandered.
This sentence is rather difficult to translate because of the Hebrew word אבד (avad). This difficulty causes the phrase to appear very differently depending on the Bible translation. The word means: homeless, lost, close to perishing, wandering, wandering, or in despair. The phrase describes someone who has taken a great risk. In the words of the poker game he is «all in», he bet the farm. Homeless Jacob, the tribal father of Israel, was totally dependent on God.
Jacob and later the people of Israel lived as foreigners and understood the needs and desires of foreigners; it was part of their identity. This identity was an important part of Israel and I think it is one reason why Jews should live as pilgrims during the obligatory festivals. It was a reminder of who they were.
Home and Father
When we talk about «Home» speak, we are often confronted with the idea of a father. A synonym for home is fatherland. Fatherland comes from the Latin patria: the land of our fathers. Patria is the root of words like patriots or patriotic, which are also closely related to homeland. The logic here is that my true homeland is the land of my ancestors. But what happens if my fathers are not from that country? What happens if we live together in one country and do not have the same fathers? Can we experience homeland?
Where is your home? Where do you feel at home? In your father’s country? That’s not a bad answer, humans have been using it for millennia. But maybe we need to ask ourselves the next question: Who is your father? For the Israelites of the Sinai covenant, the answer to this question was «a homeless Aramean». This answer was to bring them closer to their covenant partner. The wandering Aramean believed and trusted his God, who made and fulfilled the promise of a homeland.
When we follow Jesus, we are like this wandering Aramean. In a way, we are also homeless. But we can cling to another father and claim his land as our home. The father we can cling to is eagerly waiting for his children to come home. He is the one who runs to them from afar and puts his arms around them. He is the one who restores dignity, authority and freedom to his children, children who have often lost their freedom and been enslaved. His home is our true home. Amen.
Questions we can take away and for the small groups
Reading the Bible text: Deuteronomy 26: 1–12, 18, 19b
- Where is your home? Do you struggle with the feeling of being homeless?
- Who is your father?
- Can you identify with the wandering Aramean?
- The Bible often encourages us not to fall into forgetfulness:
- Remember who we are
- Do not forget what God has done
- Don’t forget the helpless and the homeless
