And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

Note: I believe Crystal is giving away e-copies from her blog at http://crystalstmarielewis.com/what-the-hell/. Rush over there now!

//Odd that this little verse has never penetrated my thoughts before. I just happened to stumble upon it.

James provides no context for his complaint, but he seems quite disturbed by the way people are able to treat one another. Here we are, cursing and killing our fellow human beings, though each is made in the image of God, and praising God while we do so.

Has anything changed since the first century?

//These are the words of Jesus, explaining why he was sent into the world by God. It is to bring good news to the poor.

Some context helps. Jesus is just beginning his public ministry, and he returns to his hometown of Nazareth. He enters the synagogue during a Sabbath gathering, unrolls the scroll of Isaiah, and begins reading aloud the words of today’s verse. Good news for the poor. Isaiah’s prophecy continues:

“[God] has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

The “year of the Lord’s favor,” often called the Jubilee, occurs every fifty years. It is the year in which debts are forgiven, slaves are set free, and property  is returned to its original owner. It is a law that had fallen into disfavor, and it’s anybody’s guess whether anyone at all observed the Jubilee year anymore by Jesus’ time. Having read these words, Jesus tells the crowd, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Do you share Luke’s perspective? Let’s be clear, here. Luke is not talking about proclaiming the good news of a future resurrection. This isn’t about heaven at all. That is not Jesus’ purpose in coming! We are talking about bringing relief for the desperate and freedom for the oppressed. Jesus’ message is very this-worldly, and his Gospel (which means “good news”) is directed to the peasant. Luke 6:20 is equally clear: “Blessed are you who are poor.” Not “poor in spirit,” but just plain “poor.” Why? Because the Kingdom of God has arrived, and things will now be different.

You’re not poor and oppressed? Then maybe this isn’t very good news. The Gospel message for you, then, is to participate in the fulfillment of scripture, not by receiving but by giving and releasing.

★★★★

Note: Grey’s description of the 2×2 movement is a bit negative, often quoting disgruntled ex-members, and he concludes that the 2x2s are a “dangerous cult.” This he means not in the scholarly nor in the pejorative meaning, but in its Christian meaning, such that it describes nonconformity with traditional Christian beliefs. He uses Bebbington’s quadrilateral as a measuring stick. I surely agree with this assessment of nonconformity, even as I find it unhelpful to use a term with such a derogatory connotation as the word “cult.” In the 40-some years I was in this movement before leaving it, I found the lifestyle to be encouraging and uplifting, certainly not “dangerous.” As a liberal Christian, I tend toward pluralism, so I feel no negativity about differences in belief, and indeed I am profoundly grateful for my upbringing in this wholesome atmosphere. Now on to the review…

It is a difficult thing to define the “shape of a shapeless movement.” The 2x2s are a small worldwide Christian spin-off, but they just aren’t the same the world over. For example, Grey writes about the 2×2 claim of an unbroken line back to Jesus, but in my neck of the woods, I’ve heard this claim from only one person. Rather, the usual claim is that God is able to revive periodically in history a look-alike movement operating exactly the way Jesus taught the apostles, and the recent 2×2 movement is one such revival. In another example, Grey finds that “attendance at all meetings by members is mandatory and failure to attend is closely monitored.” Failure to come [every Sunday and Wednesday evening] will invite a “little visit” by a worker (minister) and discipline if continued. That is hardly my experience. For a third example, Grey writes that workers refuse to participate in weddings, though one certainly officiated at my wedding! So, yes, it’s tough to nail down specifics on a shapeless movement, and Grey can be forgiven for trusting a few too many of the sweeping generalities of his sources.

Perhaps Grey’s sources come primarily from more strict areas—if so, it would hardly surprise me if these areas generated more disgruntled ex-members—but while the 2x2s have no published doctrine or creedal statement, Grey does dig down to the gist of the matter. The 2x2s are an exclusive, sectarian, closely-knit branch of non-Trinitarian believers, emphasizing a homeless, travelling ministry in same-sex pairs and church meetings in the home. They disdain ministerial education, traditional clergy and church buildings, instead leaning heavily on Matthew chapter ten for guidance.

Grey gives equal attention to the two primary founders of the 2×2 movement: William Irvine and Ed Cooney. The two joined forces around the turn of the 20th century, determined to return to the simple way of the first apostles. By 1905, the movement had grown to fifty-five full-time “workers” (ministers) travelling to spread the gospel to several other nations, including the United States.

//Today’s verse is a beautiful bit of poetry, but it’s also a caution against reading all of the Bible literally. Of course we are not literally “knit together” by God in the womb, for to believe this would mean believing that God sometimes makes mistakes. Our progeny are not always perfect. We see children born with congenital defects, such as Down’s syndrome or cystic fibrosis. Most of these defects, we know, are caused by mistakes in the replication process of genes during reproduction, or by faulty genes that are inherited from one or both parents. Life is miraculous, but not supernatural…indeed, life is quite natural, succumbing to the same rules of replication and distortion that produced us through billions of years of evolution in the first place.

The psalmist continues,

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

… words that echo in my own heart. Fearfully and wonderfully made am I, through the awesomeness of evolving life.

//Most Christians interpret the New Testament as a sort of replacement for the old law. We eat all the pigs we want, we wear cotton-blend clothes, and though we may sometimes feel like stoning our children for disobedience, we quell the temptation. The old law has been replaced by Jesus, and all those weird rules don’t apply anymore, right?

So what are we supposed to do with with verses like this one, today, which tells us not to eat the blood of animals? This one is right here in the New Testament. Presumably, we should still be eating only kosher meat…or no meat at all?

With a little creativeness, you can surely devise several excuses why the rule doesn’t apply. The most important excuse is surely that it’s just a downright silly rule. We don’t want to be shackled with rules about what to eat or wear or say or do. If we followed all the rules of the New Testament literally, we’d all be plucking out our right eyes and cutting off our right hands (Matthew 5:29-30). So, we reason, most of the rules just don’t apply … they are “examples,” not “rules.”

Except for those rules that are easy. Those, well, they’re the ones we’re supposed to follow, right? If you haven’t gone through divorce, it’s easy to preach against divorce. If you aren’t gay, it’s easy to preach against gays.

Personally, I think the only rule we should preach is the one that says we are not to judge one another.