We need to kill our love of human systems.
We can point to the societal influence of concepts of God, and particularly Christian concepts… The dignity of the individual, means-don’t-justify-the-ends etc. God’s systems, Jesus’system are better than human ones.. Ours are always, despite best intentions, eventually tainted by greed, selfishness, callousness etc.
We can point to that, but our bedazzlment by human systems won’t die, it’s a lifelong effort to let them go. For us, for me because I know it, to trust wholly on Jesus’ name.
For the Hebrews, in this chapter, it’s letting go of the temple, the priesthood, sacrifices, etc. All flawed, all human rituals for earning God’s grace, for being seen as spotless.
Jesus being of the order of Melchizedek means he’s the only priest needed… he doesn’t die. And he doesn’t keep doing sacrifices…. his sinless death is once for all. It’s a huge chunk of Christian theology stated concisely and memorably here. I’ve heard some of these phrases literally 1000s of times in the Anglican communion service.
The author has been weaving this exultant vision of Jesus in with warnings about falling away and the metaphor of not staying on theological milk but moving to solid food.
As I mentioned yesterday, I always assumed this Christian maturity was about leveling up the complexity. “Solid food” referred to theological-college level teaching: looking at the original Greek and being able to pronounce “melchizedek” without hesitating.
But now I’m thinking it’s more about not going backwards, purely temporal. Fighting the tendency, as Jesus was saying in the parable of the sower, for weeds to strangle or shallow soil to starve our initial perspective on the wonder of Jesus, the humble beauty of accepting God’s love.
Keeping the wonder, letting go those human systems!
Fear of the new and disregard for the old can be very human filters. I worry that the split in the Anglican church will entrench even further a denial of the human fears or disrespect we can bring to our readings of scripture.
I’m praying for more energy to attend to my own health, and the family. I’ve got checks I should do on various parts of my body… Eyes, bowel, brain, heart, knees, feet; for starters. Also: I’m doing all this paid caring for others. There’s a risk I’ll be too burnt out to care for my own.