Dancing with Both Legs (Part Two with Brueggemann)

In an attempt to elaborate on what I wrote in the previous blog, here's some more food for thought. I know some will get lost in the language, meaning, and logic . . . faith is not for the faint of heart. You have to work at it. I've always been suspicious of "the easy way" and equally suspicious of "easy answers" . . .

People often misunderstand Judaism as “salvation by works”. However, this fundamentally misinterprets the covenant relationship between Israel and YHWH. Because of their relationship, God expected them to behave in certain ways. Lev. 19:18 (“Love your neighbor as yourself”) for instance is one of the most powerful texts in all of Torah even though it is embedded in an entire section of rules, commandments, and decrees. If one reads Leviticus 19:18 as the center/heart of this particular text, the advocacy becomes clear. While some make the conservative contestation that religion remain private (i.e. "Let's keep religion within the cult and private. Our duty is to simply keep the commandments of God.") others make the liberal contestation that "the rules are passé, leftover relics from the faith of our grandparents. The public element (public justice) is what is the heart of true Israelite religion.” Leviticus 19 offers a third way for it is concerned with obedience to the obligations set forth and the relationship of caring for the neighbor. That is, live in these particular ways (obeying relatively minute decrees) and once you find yourself in that cadence of spiritual habit, loving your neighbor will be the natural extension. If you will keep the strict dietary laws, etc. you will be able to have an open posture towards the "other" . . . it will be impossible to have any invisible persons in your midst because you will be so attune to God's presence.

Sabbath is a “discipline” which prepares people to do justice. You cannot truly love the poor and pray for liberation if you are not willing to practice Sabbath. Sabbath is practiced every seven days. The Year of Jubilee happens seven years times seven (Finally Comes the Poet, 49). Social justice, according to Brueggemann, is connected to personal piety devotion. The two cannot be separated. Evidently, the liberal and fundamentalist need one another! “Sabbath is the end of grasping and therefore the end of exploitation. Sabbath is a day of revolutionary equality in society. On that day all rest equally, regardless of wealth or power or need (Exod. 20: 8-11). Of course, the world is not now ordered according to the well-being and equality of Sabbath rest. But the keeping of Sabbath, in heaven and on earth, is a foretaste and anticipation of how the creation will be when God’s way is fully established,” (Brueggemann in Interpretation: Genesis, 35-6).