Re-Assembly Required - Part 2

September 18, 2022

Pastor Patrick introduced this new series, setting the groundwork for how to reconcile with spouse, friends, and the like; how to re-assemble broken relationships. A video of the message is here. Our Conversation Starter for this week is here.

First, let's remember that family and other relationships are hard. We're dealing with flawed humans, after all. The Five Books of Moses are filled with dysfunctional families and societies. The good news is that these first five books of the Old Testament are jam packed with teachings to help us deal with these issues (as are other areas of the OT and the NT).

Even among the first key people of the Bible, relationships didn't always end in an ideal way. For example, Abraham and Sarah separated after that little thing with Isaac, and never re-united until Abraham visited her grave site years later.

Patrick started with Romans 12:19, "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good." While the phrase "hate evil, love good" doesn't explicitly appear exactly that way in the Torah, it does have "love good" and "hate evil" all over the place.

In the following discussion, consider words like "brother" and "neighbor" and the like to be anyone with which you have a relationship.

Consider Leviticus 19:17, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart. Surely you shall rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him (in his regard)." This is a tough couple of sentences. As I see it, it's saying do not hate your brother relationaly (in your heart), but also don't love his sin lest you sin, too, concerning whatever the matter.

Prager points out several things here. Don't hate your brother. Don't carry his sin with you. Don't take revenge or bear a grudge. He also points out that the very next verse, Leviticus 19:18, contains the very well known phrase "Love your neighbor as yourself"! A better translation of that might be "love to your neighbor who is like you." It's about empathy.

Another thing, you are very likely to hate in your heart if you don't express concern, get things straightened out. You will also continue to bear another's sin if you don't help straighten that out. If you don't tell someone that there is something in their teeth or that their fly is down, you will bear some responsibility for that "sin" continuing. By the way, the word "bearing" (na-sa) here is the same word used in the Commandment to not "carry" God's name in vain.

In the macro, if you don't work to straighten out societal ills, you will bear responsibility for the ill(s) continuing.

Consider another family that reconciles eventually in Genesis - Joseph and his brothers! If you want to read all about it, see Genesis 37-50.

Patrick's suggestion "to see the whole thing as God sees it" is very helpful. Not following this approach can get you into trouble, much like the trouble Moses got into when he did not credit God with the bringing forth of the water from the rock, Numbers 20:12. The question to be asked in that story that would help also when reconciling with another, is "what would sanctify God?" or "what would make God look good?"

Bonus

Human nature is human nature. Things haven't changed much over the millenia.

Elites have been screwing up societies for a very long time. Consider the Korach rebellion against Moses in the wilderness (Numbers 16). Korach and eventually his 250 followers in his rebellion were the elite of the Israelites. They were just recently made the priests and priests' helpers in the whole community. These were the religious leaders, called na-see, which is the word used today for the president of Israel.

The Israelites had just been taught that "all are holy" through the instructions to wear the tzit-tzit/tassles (Numbers 15:37-41). With that in mind, Korach attacks Moses asking, in essence, "why are you in charge, aren't we all holy?" Yes, all are holy, but (and it's a big but) there are people more holy than thou, e.g. Moses! The bigger lesson is that while we all start off equal, there are better people around us than we. The question is, how do we react concerning those better people. Do we get envious, jealous, etc. or do we appreciate their greatness, perhaps even try to emulate it.