Showing posts with label Dale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dale. Show all posts
Jan 19, 2015
Apr 3, 2013
Gutenberg's Revenge and Other Thoughts
I suppose after that last post, the next logical step would be to muse a little about the revenge effects of the various technologies we've introduced to church ministry itself. When the Gutenberg Press took the Bible out of the hands of the priesthood and put it firmly into the hands of every believer-- with the laudable intention of building biblically literate, thus better, Christian communities-- I don't suppose anyone could have guessed that it might also be putting deep cracks in the foundations of Christian community, by pushing the individual's "interpretation" of the Good Book to the centre of Christian experience and pushing the community to the edge. Did Gutenberg get its revenge (mused the blogger) by filling the pews with a hundred personal popes piously practicing their private versions of the Faith, ready and able to leave when the interpretive going got tough? Is the embarrassing fragmentation of the church today part of the Gutenberg legacy?
Not that I would want to go back to the gloom of the pre-Gutenberg era, mind you... any more than I would want to go back to my pre-HTC Dream life... but perhaps if we can name the unintended effects of our technology, we can make more informed choices about when, why and how to use it.
So, off the top of my head, here are a few possible "revenge effects" of technology in the Church:
In an effort to make our preaching more effective, we've introduced a variety of presentation technologies behind the pulpit. Has this had the unintended effect of shackling our sermons to ideas that fit neatly on to PowerPoint slides and shackling our preachers to what's written on the screen?
In an effort to make our music more engaging, we've replaced hymnals with screens. Has this had the unintended effect of alienating people from the songs they're singing because they no longer have the music in front of them?
In an effort to make worship more dynamic, we've amplified everything. Has this had the unintended effect of deafening us to the voice of God and the voices of each other in our gathered times?
In an effort to make our faith more "relevant" we've introduced a wide variety of media to our worship, from video montage, to film clips, to Christianesque imagery moving behind the song lyrics on the PowerPoint slide. Has this had the unintended effect of making us less able to recognize the deeply relevant but counter-cultural aspects of life with God (things like stillness, Sabbath, quiet, simplicity)?
These are real questions, not just rhetorical points. And even if the answer is "yes" to any of them, that doesn't mean the technology itself must go (*just wait, I'm getting a call on my phone*). But if we can see the "revenge effects" of our own cleverness like this, we will also begin to see, I think, the limitations of our cleverness. And to see our own limitations is to take a humble step towards deeper dependence on God.
Not that I would want to go back to the gloom of the pre-Gutenberg era, mind you... any more than I would want to go back to my pre-HTC Dream life... but perhaps if we can name the unintended effects of our technology, we can make more informed choices about when, why and how to use it.
So, off the top of my head, here are a few possible "revenge effects" of technology in the Church:
In an effort to make our preaching more effective, we've introduced a variety of presentation technologies behind the pulpit. Has this had the unintended effect of shackling our sermons to ideas that fit neatly on to PowerPoint slides and shackling our preachers to what's written on the screen?
In an effort to make our music more engaging, we've replaced hymnals with screens. Has this had the unintended effect of alienating people from the songs they're singing because they no longer have the music in front of them?
In an effort to make worship more dynamic, we've amplified everything. Has this had the unintended effect of deafening us to the voice of God and the voices of each other in our gathered times?
In an effort to make our faith more "relevant" we've introduced a wide variety of media to our worship, from video montage, to film clips, to Christianesque imagery moving behind the song lyrics on the PowerPoint slide. Has this had the unintended effect of making us less able to recognize the deeply relevant but counter-cultural aspects of life with God (things like stillness, Sabbath, quiet, simplicity)?
These are real questions, not just rhetorical points. And even if the answer is "yes" to any of them, that doesn't mean the technology itself must go (*just wait, I'm getting a call on my phone*). But if we can see the "revenge effects" of our own cleverness like this, we will also begin to see, I think, the limitations of our cleverness. And to see our own limitations is to take a humble step towards deeper dependence on God.
Mar 27, 2013
Can We Talk?
by Dale Harris. First appeared on terra incognita, October 4, 2009.
One of the things I find indispensably useful in my work as a pastor is my HTC Smart Phone. I confess this with not a little sheepishness, because there was a time when I held out against cell phones on principle. And now, here I am, with no mere cell phone, but a touch-sensitive cellular communications device with instant access to email, gmail, text messages and chatting, roaming internet, youtube viewing and GPS capabilities. It's like a member of PETA getting caught on camera sporting a fur coat.
Now I say I held out because for a long time I had this sense that cell phone technology stunted the growth of genuine community by making us so independent and self-sufficient that we no longer need to have any real connection with the actual flesh-and-blood human beings around us. For example: time was when my car broke down on the side of the highway I would have to knock on the neighbour's door and ask for help; and more often that not, they would. Now I can call nameless, faceless roadside assistance from the comfort of my car (and view a variety of inane Youtube clips while I'm waiting for them to come).
I was talking about this with a friend a way back when cell phones were just exploding on the scene, and she told me that she found her cell phone helpful because when she had to walk home from her university classes at night and felt unsafe, she could call her dad to come meet her. Then she said: "Of course, if I didn't have the cell phone, I'd have to get to know the other students in the class well enough that I could walk home with one of them..." And I think that was my point in the hold-out days: I felt that roaming communications technologies like cell phones allowed us to seal up our spheres of influence so tightly that the strangers around us never had to be anything more than strangers.
And maybe there's a kernel of truth there.
But here I am with my HTC Smart Phone and it is, as I said earlier, indispensably useful.
But I'm also wondering about the revenge effects of such technology.
Author and social scientist Edward Tenner argues that all technologies have a natural tendency to "bite back" with "revenge effects" on the societies into which they are introduced. His theory is that societies are really just systems that constantly seek the "status quo." He suggests that as new technologies significantly upset this status quo, the system itself will naturally adjust in unexpected, unintended, even unconscious ways to counteract their effect, and so maintain the status quo.
Example 1: As we introduce a plethora of ingenious time-saving appliances to the kitchen, the system adjusts to maintain a status quo of busy-ness: once it's been freed from meal prep-and-clean-up hours, it's possible to overload our evening schedule with other things, and so we find ourselves busier than ever.
Example 2 (and perhaps more to the point): As communications devices make communication increasingly clear and easy, we find our actual communicating and decision-making processes more (not less) cloudy and confused because now everything has to be answered and decided and acted on under the tyranny of the now.
I'm not sure if Turner's on to anything or not (though they say that the advent of email has significantly increased-- not decreased-- paper consumption in the office workplace). But I do know this: the other day a friend called me at home and when I picked up the phone he said: "Finally found you." He'd tried my gmail, left a message on my voice mail, called my office phone, and when he couldn't get me at any of these he tried me at home. All the ways to connect with me, it seems, had actually made me harder to find.
Vengeance is mine, sayeth HTC.
One of the things I find indispensably useful in my work as a pastor is my HTC Smart Phone. I confess this with not a little sheepishness, because there was a time when I held out against cell phones on principle. And now, here I am, with no mere cell phone, but a touch-sensitive cellular communications device with instant access to email, gmail, text messages and chatting, roaming internet, youtube viewing and GPS capabilities. It's like a member of PETA getting caught on camera sporting a fur coat.
Now I say I held out because for a long time I had this sense that cell phone technology stunted the growth of genuine community by making us so independent and self-sufficient that we no longer need to have any real connection with the actual flesh-and-blood human beings around us. For example: time was when my car broke down on the side of the highway I would have to knock on the neighbour's door and ask for help; and more often that not, they would. Now I can call nameless, faceless roadside assistance from the comfort of my car (and view a variety of inane Youtube clips while I'm waiting for them to come).
I was talking about this with a friend a way back when cell phones were just exploding on the scene, and she told me that she found her cell phone helpful because when she had to walk home from her university classes at night and felt unsafe, she could call her dad to come meet her. Then she said: "Of course, if I didn't have the cell phone, I'd have to get to know the other students in the class well enough that I could walk home with one of them..." And I think that was my point in the hold-out days: I felt that roaming communications technologies like cell phones allowed us to seal up our spheres of influence so tightly that the strangers around us never had to be anything more than strangers.
And maybe there's a kernel of truth there.
But here I am with my HTC Smart Phone and it is, as I said earlier, indispensably useful.
But I'm also wondering about the revenge effects of such technology.
Author and social scientist Edward Tenner argues that all technologies have a natural tendency to "bite back" with "revenge effects" on the societies into which they are introduced. His theory is that societies are really just systems that constantly seek the "status quo." He suggests that as new technologies significantly upset this status quo, the system itself will naturally adjust in unexpected, unintended, even unconscious ways to counteract their effect, and so maintain the status quo.
Example 1: As we introduce a plethora of ingenious time-saving appliances to the kitchen, the system adjusts to maintain a status quo of busy-ness: once it's been freed from meal prep-and-clean-up hours, it's possible to overload our evening schedule with other things, and so we find ourselves busier than ever.
Example 2 (and perhaps more to the point): As communications devices make communication increasingly clear and easy, we find our actual communicating and decision-making processes more (not less) cloudy and confused because now everything has to be answered and decided and acted on under the tyranny of the now.
I'm not sure if Turner's on to anything or not (though they say that the advent of email has significantly increased-- not decreased-- paper consumption in the office workplace). But I do know this: the other day a friend called me at home and when I picked up the phone he said: "Finally found you." He'd tried my gmail, left a message on my voice mail, called my office phone, and when he couldn't get me at any of these he tried me at home. All the ways to connect with me, it seems, had actually made me harder to find.
Vengeance is mine, sayeth HTC.
Aug 21, 2012
When the Devil went down in Ephesus
by Dale Harris
I’ve been spending a fair bit of time in Acts these days, and feeling like it's a book I’ve read a dozen times but never seen before. One of the episodes I find particularly fascinating is the account of Paul’s visit to Ephesus.
I’m pointing this all out because if you want to take the Book of Acts seriously, you can’t escape the conclusion that confronting the demonic is on the Church’s to-do list. But if I were to write a “theology of exorcisms” based on the Book of Acts, one of the first chapters, I think, would deal with oppressive economic structures, the “powers and principalities” that exploit and dehumanize people in ways that seem so normal to us—even necessary—but are best understood as “demonic.” And then I would try to draw lines between what’s happening in Acts 19 and the Church’s call to both name and provide alternatives to these ways of doing business. Economic systems are by nature spiritual, I’d say, and economic structures are demonic when they make money ultimate and people a means to an end.
And then I’d brace myself.
But I’d also point out that in Acts 16 we see the same thing happening. Paul performs an exorcism (16:18), freeing a girl from demonic possession. But it’s not just a demon that's being excised here. It's also the economic exploitation this girl's been suffering at the hands of her pimps. Because when the men who made their living off her “prophetic utterances” find out that their “hope of profit is gone," Acts says, that’s when the metaphorical excrement hits the proverbial air-circulation device.
By Acts’ reckoning, it seems: helping the vulnerable escape economic exploitation—girls the sex trade, say—or children the sweatshop—or workers the tyranny of the bottom line—or shop-a-holics the clutches of Mastercard—by Acts reckoning, at least, these are all ministries of exorcism with the potential to raise hell.
I’ve been spending a fair bit of time in Acts these days, and feeling like it's a book I’ve read a dozen times but never seen before. One of the episodes I find particularly fascinating is the account of Paul’s visit to Ephesus.
If you recall: the Holy Spirit arrives in Ephesus and in its wake we see stuff happening that would make the best of Frank Peretti look like Casper the Friendly Ghost. The Seven Sons of Sceva are beat black and blue by a demon-possessed man (19:14); dabblers in the occult perform public burnings of their paraphernalia (19:19); the silversmiths of a pagan goddess incite the mobs to riot (19:28). I mean: the Gospel’s beating the bushes and the demons are scattering like so many startled sparrows.
But Frank Peretti aside—and this is a point that I’ve never seen Frank Peretti address, or Screwtape, or Dr. Faustus for that matter—whatever else they're about, the Ephesian exorcisms are about issuing God's challenge to the oppressive economic structures that promote systemic evil.
For instance: it’s an assumption on my part, but not an outrageous one, that the Seven Sons of Sceva have set themselves up as Exorcists for Hire, and this is why their interview with the devil goes so painfully wrong (the fact that Sceva is styling himself as a ‘chief priest’ in Ephesus is highly suspect). Bob Larson leaps to mind, here.
And this isn’t an assumption but just a plain reading of the text: the economic value of the books burned in Acts 19:19 works out to about 136 years wages (say 6 million dollars?). A lot of Ephesians have sunk a lot of money into occult junk over the years.
And most telling of all: the reason Demetrius and his colleagues start a riot is because they’ve seen the economic writing on the wall: if people abandon Artemis for Jesus, they’ll no longer need the silver images that are their stock and trade. I don’t suppose a good racket has ever died without a fight, and this must have been a lucrative racket: Ephesus, you understand, was home to the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient World.
And then I’d brace myself.
But I’d also point out that in Acts 16 we see the same thing happening. Paul performs an exorcism (16:18), freeing a girl from demonic possession. But it’s not just a demon that's being excised here. It's also the economic exploitation this girl's been suffering at the hands of her pimps. Because when the men who made their living off her “prophetic utterances” find out that their “hope of profit is gone," Acts says, that’s when the metaphorical excrement hits the proverbial air-circulation device.
By Acts’ reckoning, it seems: helping the vulnerable escape economic exploitation—girls the sex trade, say—or children the sweatshop—or workers the tyranny of the bottom line—or shop-a-holics the clutches of Mastercard—by Acts reckoning, at least, these are all ministries of exorcism with the potential to raise hell.
May 2, 2012
Clean Hands, Dirty Jordan
by Dale Harris
(first appeared on Terra Incognita, June 4, 2009)
Apparently by the time the Jordan River reaches the Dead Sea these days--what with the nation of Israel diverting 60% of her flow, and the nation of Jordan allowing septic tanks to seep crap into her water basin, and the nation of Syria maintaining some 40 dams on her major tributary--by then there's little left but a putrid trickle of raw sewage.
Miles up stream, spiritual tourists still come to be baptized gloriously on the same banks where Jesus himself once fulfilled all righteousness; down stream, here, today, you couldn't enter the water without serious health risks.
Not that anyone would want to.
The stench, they say, is nauseating.
I get that this crisis is shrouded with all sorts of political and social issues that defy a quick fix. Like a serious water shortage in the nation of Jordan. Like decades of political strife that have prevented these nations from cooperating on a solution. Like climate change, and economics, and a rapidly collapsing water table across the Middle East.
I get all that. And this morning, to be honest, I had a warmer, longer, more luxurious shower than I needed to. So who am I to blog?
But still, seeing the Jordan river pillaged and polluted like this should pierce us to the heart. Because some two millennia ago, the people of Judea came out to this river when they heard John's voice crying in the wilderness: "The promises of Isaiah 40 are now being fulfilled!" This is where they were drenched with the same water that Israel miraculously crossed when the nation first entered the land under Joshua. Here they enacted the burning cry of their hearts: "We want to be made new as the people of God."
And this is the river where we caught our first glimpse of the one in whom and through whom God would fulfill all the Messianic promises of Isaiah 40. Here we first saw the Beloved Son on whom the Spirit rests, who would provide comfort for the harried exiles, renewal of the covenant people, straight paths for the Creator's reign over his creation.
But if we read Isaiah to the end, we see that when the Messiah reigns in righteousness over his people, it will mean restoration and healing for the hurting creation. The desert will burst into fecund, verdant, joyous life. Isaiah 41-- the same Isaiah 41 that Jesus' baptism was somehow meant to fulfill--Isaiah 41 says it like this: "I will make the rivers flow on barren heights... I will turn the desert into pools of water."
Somewhere, I think, Christians forgot that when we saw Jesus emerge dripping from the Jordan, we were witnessing good news not just for us, but for the whole of the broken creation.
And we need to remember. Because the tragedy of this dying river is being played out all over the planet right now, as our greed, waste, materialism and idolatries continue to pillage the rivers and lakes and wetlands of our world. (After it's quenched Las Vegas' decadent water fountains and California's thirsty vegetable gardens, the Colorado River doesn't even make it to the Gulf of California anymore.)
May the stench of the dirty Jordan teach us to long once again for that promised day when God will restore all things under the reign of his Christ; but may it also convict us that our life together as the baptized people of the Creator can and should translate into healing shalom for his creation today, even as we hope for his future Coming.
(first appeared on Terra Incognita, June 4, 2009)
Apparently by the time the Jordan River reaches the Dead Sea these days--what with the nation of Israel diverting 60% of her flow, and the nation of Jordan allowing septic tanks to seep crap into her water basin, and the nation of Syria maintaining some 40 dams on her major tributary--by then there's little left but a putrid trickle of raw sewage.
Miles up stream, spiritual tourists still come to be baptized gloriously on the same banks where Jesus himself once fulfilled all righteousness; down stream, here, today, you couldn't enter the water without serious health risks.
Not that anyone would want to.
The stench, they say, is nauseating.
I get that this crisis is shrouded with all sorts of political and social issues that defy a quick fix. Like a serious water shortage in the nation of Jordan. Like decades of political strife that have prevented these nations from cooperating on a solution. Like climate change, and economics, and a rapidly collapsing water table across the Middle East.
I get all that. And this morning, to be honest, I had a warmer, longer, more luxurious shower than I needed to. So who am I to blog?
But still, seeing the Jordan river pillaged and polluted like this should pierce us to the heart. Because some two millennia ago, the people of Judea came out to this river when they heard John's voice crying in the wilderness: "The promises of Isaiah 40 are now being fulfilled!" This is where they were drenched with the same water that Israel miraculously crossed when the nation first entered the land under Joshua. Here they enacted the burning cry of their hearts: "We want to be made new as the people of God."
And this is the river where we caught our first glimpse of the one in whom and through whom God would fulfill all the Messianic promises of Isaiah 40. Here we first saw the Beloved Son on whom the Spirit rests, who would provide comfort for the harried exiles, renewal of the covenant people, straight paths for the Creator's reign over his creation.
But if we read Isaiah to the end, we see that when the Messiah reigns in righteousness over his people, it will mean restoration and healing for the hurting creation. The desert will burst into fecund, verdant, joyous life. Isaiah 41-- the same Isaiah 41 that Jesus' baptism was somehow meant to fulfill--Isaiah 41 says it like this: "I will make the rivers flow on barren heights... I will turn the desert into pools of water."
Somewhere, I think, Christians forgot that when we saw Jesus emerge dripping from the Jordan, we were witnessing good news not just for us, but for the whole of the broken creation.
And we need to remember. Because the tragedy of this dying river is being played out all over the planet right now, as our greed, waste, materialism and idolatries continue to pillage the rivers and lakes and wetlands of our world. (After it's quenched Las Vegas' decadent water fountains and California's thirsty vegetable gardens, the Colorado River doesn't even make it to the Gulf of California anymore.)
May the stench of the dirty Jordan teach us to long once again for that promised day when God will restore all things under the reign of his Christ; but may it also convict us that our life together as the baptized people of the Creator can and should translate into healing shalom for his creation today, even as we hope for his future Coming.
Oct 21, 2011
A City of Refuge, a Priestly Inheritance
I've been thinking a lot these days about the levitcal cities of refuge described at the end of the Book of Numbers (chpt 35).
In case it's been a while since you waded through the Book of Numbers, let me refresh your memory. It's right at the end of the desert wanderings, and the new generation of Israel is about to enter the Promised Land, Israel's ancient inheritance. So the Lord gives Moses instructions about the boundaries of Canaan, and some general directives on divvying up the land to the 12 tribes. Namely: they are to assign the land by lot to the nine and a half tribes of Israel entering Canaan (keeping in mind that two and a half tribes have already received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan).
But then Numbers 35 reminds us that the tribe of Levi isn't going to be getting an allotment in Canaan because, as 18:20 has already indicated, Aaron (and by extension, the whole tribe of Levi with him) will have no inheritance in the land. Instead, the Lord himself is going to be the priestly tribe's inheritance among the Israelites. Rather than receiving a portion of the land, Levi is to receive simply "towns to live in from the inheritance of the [other] Israelites." These towns are scattered evenly throughout the Promised Land, seeding (in effect) a priestly presence in-and-among the whole people of God.
You can read in Joshua 20:1-9 how this command is carried out, but what strikes me here is that the Lord specifically identifies six of the Levitical towns as "cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone may flee." The idea is quite simple: in the case of murder, tribal codes of the sort especially prevalent among a nomadic society like Moses' Israel would require a blood relative to maintain tribal honour by avenging a murdered family member (see Genesis 34 for dark evidence that such codes were well known among nomadic Israelite society).
But such tribal customs and the violent blood feuds they inevitably perpetuate are deeply at odds with a civil society like the one Israel will become, as she stands at the threshold of the Promised Land and looks ahead to her future. In civil society, justice must be carried out by an impartial assembly according to a standard code of law; retaliation and vigilantianism has no place in a society governed by God's Shalom.
So God sets aside six of the Levitical towns as cities of refuge-- cities of asylum to which an accused killer can flee until he has stood trial and his case has been heard; and cities of shalom, where the innocent can escape the tribal custom of honour killings.
Now, I don't want to read too much into this, but here's what I can't get off my mind today: the priestly tribe had no inheritance in the land other than a special place in the Lord's plan to mediate his Shalom to the people. And with this inheritance came the cities of refuge; and with them came a calling to be a people among whom the accused found shelter, where the guilty found asylum and the harried found refuge until God's Shalom had obtained in their lives (in this case in the form of a fair and impartial trial).
And you can't reflect on all this very long before you remember that 1 Peter 2:5-9 specifically identifies followers of Jesus Christ as the priesthood of believers that the tribe of Levi prefigured and foreshadowed in the Old Testament. And if it's true, what Peter says about Christians there, and it's true what Numbers says about the inheritance of the priestly tribe here, then it would mean that in Christ we have inherited a calling to be "cities of refuge." Our communities are to be places where the accused, the guilty and the harried can find shelter so that the Shalom of God can obtain in their lives (in this case in the form of the unmerited, all-gracious justification of God through faith in Christ); what's more, this calling specifically and directly precludes any material inheritance "in the land" (i.e. the comfort, wealth, privilege and security that such an inheritance would have meant for an ancient Israelite).
And the obvious questions are staring me in the face: am I part of a community of faith that has traded in the wealth and security of its "inheritance in the land" for the privilege of being a "city of refuge" like this? And harder still: Am I willing to belong to such a community of faith? And hardest of all: what's my role in helping my church be the city of refuge that God in Numbers 35 is calling it to be?
In case it's been a while since you waded through the Book of Numbers, let me refresh your memory. It's right at the end of the desert wanderings, and the new generation of Israel is about to enter the Promised Land, Israel's ancient inheritance. So the Lord gives Moses instructions about the boundaries of Canaan, and some general directives on divvying up the land to the 12 tribes. Namely: they are to assign the land by lot to the nine and a half tribes of Israel entering Canaan (keeping in mind that two and a half tribes have already received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan).
But then Numbers 35 reminds us that the tribe of Levi isn't going to be getting an allotment in Canaan because, as 18:20 has already indicated, Aaron (and by extension, the whole tribe of Levi with him) will have no inheritance in the land. Instead, the Lord himself is going to be the priestly tribe's inheritance among the Israelites. Rather than receiving a portion of the land, Levi is to receive simply "towns to live in from the inheritance of the [other] Israelites." These towns are scattered evenly throughout the Promised Land, seeding (in effect) a priestly presence in-and-among the whole people of God.
You can read in Joshua 20:1-9 how this command is carried out, but what strikes me here is that the Lord specifically identifies six of the Levitical towns as "cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone may flee." The idea is quite simple: in the case of murder, tribal codes of the sort especially prevalent among a nomadic society like Moses' Israel would require a blood relative to maintain tribal honour by avenging a murdered family member (see Genesis 34 for dark evidence that such codes were well known among nomadic Israelite society).
But such tribal customs and the violent blood feuds they inevitably perpetuate are deeply at odds with a civil society like the one Israel will become, as she stands at the threshold of the Promised Land and looks ahead to her future. In civil society, justice must be carried out by an impartial assembly according to a standard code of law; retaliation and vigilantianism has no place in a society governed by God's Shalom.
So God sets aside six of the Levitical towns as cities of refuge-- cities of asylum to which an accused killer can flee until he has stood trial and his case has been heard; and cities of shalom, where the innocent can escape the tribal custom of honour killings.
Now, I don't want to read too much into this, but here's what I can't get off my mind today: the priestly tribe had no inheritance in the land other than a special place in the Lord's plan to mediate his Shalom to the people. And with this inheritance came the cities of refuge; and with them came a calling to be a people among whom the accused found shelter, where the guilty found asylum and the harried found refuge until God's Shalom had obtained in their lives (in this case in the form of a fair and impartial trial).
And you can't reflect on all this very long before you remember that 1 Peter 2:5-9 specifically identifies followers of Jesus Christ as the priesthood of believers that the tribe of Levi prefigured and foreshadowed in the Old Testament. And if it's true, what Peter says about Christians there, and it's true what Numbers says about the inheritance of the priestly tribe here, then it would mean that in Christ we have inherited a calling to be "cities of refuge." Our communities are to be places where the accused, the guilty and the harried can find shelter so that the Shalom of God can obtain in their lives (in this case in the form of the unmerited, all-gracious justification of God through faith in Christ); what's more, this calling specifically and directly precludes any material inheritance "in the land" (i.e. the comfort, wealth, privilege and security that such an inheritance would have meant for an ancient Israelite).
And the obvious questions are staring me in the face: am I part of a community of faith that has traded in the wealth and security of its "inheritance in the land" for the privilege of being a "city of refuge" like this? And harder still: Am I willing to belong to such a community of faith? And hardest of all: what's my role in helping my church be the city of refuge that God in Numbers 35 is calling it to be?
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