In the shadow of your wings I take refuge

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is “In the shadow of your wings I take refuge.”

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Leviticus 23 & 24: The institution of annual feasts, the lighting of the perpetual flame, and the punishment for blasphemy. 
• Luke 13: Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath.
• Psalms 57: “In the shadow of your wings I take refuge.”
• Proverbs 26: “Whoever digs a pit falls into it, the stone comes back on him that rolls it.”

Let’s talk about blasphemy, because that’s a term that gets thrown around a lot, but most people don’t even know what it means. It literally means to curse God, or to call good evil, and to call evil good. It means that you attribute something good to something that is actually evil, or you attribute something evil to something that is actually good. In Leviticus 24 we see that a man curses the Name (meaning the name of God, which no one even knows). The punishment for that during the time of Moses was death by stoning.

A few chapters back in Luke 11, we read the story of Jesus casting demons out of people and healing them, and some of the people saying that he had done that through the power of Beelzebul, “the prince of devils.” THAT is blasphemy. Jesus was healing people through the goodness and power of God, but those who felt challenged by Jesus and the authority that he seemed to possess could only see a threat to their own positions of power and authority; so they chose to defame him and say that his power came from an evil source. That is the very definition of blasphemy.

If we look around us today, we can find many examples of actual blasphemy in our political sphere. There are those who want to provide for the health and welfare of the most vulnerable people in our society (which is what Jesus directed us to do); and then there are those who want to take away and prevent those provisions so they can line their own pockets and make the wealthy even wealthier in doing so, all the while claiming to do so in the name of God. Anyone ignoring the plight of the poor in the name of God to line their own pockets, all while accusing those who do attempt to provide for the neediest in our society of being evil, is committing blasphemy.

If you recall, back in Mark 3:28-29, Jesus told us there is only one unforgivable sin, and that is the sin of blasphemy:

“I promise you that any of the sinful things you say or do can be forgiven, no matter how terrible those things are.  But if you speak against the Holy Spirit, you can never be forgiven. That sin will be held against you forever.”

It can be difficult sometimes to tell when someone in politics is sincere or trying to deceive us, because some politicians are very good at manipulating people. We also don’t have to go as far out as the political sphere to find this situation. We can find it where we work, in our churches, and unfortunately for many of is, we can find it in our families.

This is why Jesus tells us in Mark 10:16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as wise as snakes and as innocent as doves.” When we are not sure what to believe we can always pray about it and ask God for wisdom and discernment. We can also read the Bible–especially the new testament–to compare what we are hearing with what Jesus taught. When they don’t line up, we know who we should be listening to. We also need to be careful to take the entire message of Jesus into account when considering such things, and not pick and choose the verses that justify a morally questionable position.

In today’s reading in Luke, Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath. Today in Leviticus we read about the institution of the Sabbath. The Jews took (and still do take) the Sabbath very seriously. No work is done at all on the Sabbath in orthodox households. To the Jews of Jesus’ time, healing was considered work. In Luke 13:14 we read that the president of the synagogue becomes “indignant” over Jesus healing a woman on the Sabbath. Jesus points out that there are all manner of exceptions to this rule when it comes to not losing money through the death of livestock. He calls them hypocrites and shames them for choosing the lives of their livestock over the healing of their neighbor who has been suffering her entire life.

Back in Mark 2:27, when Jesus and his disciples were eating corn from the fields that had been left after the harvest, the Pharisees rebuked them for violating the Sabbath. Jesus responded by saying, “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.” The situation is the same here in Luke 13 concerning healing on the Sabbath. The Pharisees were wrapped up so tightly in following the letter of the law that they no longer had any idea of the spirit of the law.

The Sabbath was a day created to commemorate God resting after six “days” of creation, and also to give US rest after six days of hard work in our daily lives. The Sabbath isn’t merely a holy day, it’s also a day of rest and recuperation for ourselves.

Psalms 57 and Proverbs 26 today are all about what happens to those who twist the law (or straight out lie about it) in the name of God. We may find it tempting to argue with those people and attempt to set them straight, but that would be futile. They have revealed who they are and what they’re about when they make blasphemous claims in the name of God. The only correct response is to wish them well, walk away, and pray for them and ourselves.

Whenever there’s a lot going on in the reading, as there is today, I like to remember Psalms 57 verse 1: “In the shadow of your wings I take refuge.” No matter what is going on, whether it’s someone calling good evil and evil good, or someone hoping to do me ill, or just confusion over how to respond to a situation, I take refuge in that knowledge and pray.

Psalms 57:5-6 provides us with the perfect prayer in this situation:

“Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
let your glory be over all the earth.

They spread a net for my feet—
I was bowed down in distress.
They dug a pit in my path—
but they have fallen into it themselves.”

We don’t have to do anything in response to such people except give it to God and trust him to sort it out.

Proverbs 26 tells us that “Whoever digs a pit falls into it, the stone comes back on him that rolls it.” People who put forth a lie as the truth, and the truth as a lie, have set themselves on a path of ultimate doom.

These verses provide us a with perfect portrait of karma. God will take care of it. To entangle ourselves in the folly of others by engaging and arguing with them just involves us in the fate that is coming to them.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

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This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.