Tuesday, 7/21/15
Jesus, pointed to one and all around him, saying, “Here are
my mother and brothers.” We can take that to mean that above all else, God
wants us to see all men and women to be his children, and brother and sister to
one another.
We can see the history of religion as a one in which people
have progressed towards loving
strangers. We see the sad beginning of that history in Chapter Four of Genesis.
There, Cain’s sin had banished him from his family, making him a stranger on
the face of the earth, so he said, “Anyone may kill me at sight.”
Back when there were no governments, no laws, or enforcers. When
two tribes wanted the same grazing land or the same streams, they could either
waste lives fighting for possession, or they could arrange a covenant ceremony.
Genesis gives us a vivid picture of how such covenant ceremonies
were conducted. The two tribes would gather in the wooded areas on the opposite
sides of an open field. Then, young men from both tribes would dig a four-foot
deep trench towards each other.
In those illiterate times, when there were no written
contracts, they had their own ways. Young men from one end of the trench would split
a heifer and a she goat, putting the halves on opposite sides of the ditch;
then young men from the other tribe would split a grown ram in two for opposite
sides of their end of the ditch.
Then, after those preparations, the absolute rulers of both ends of the ditch would hop in, and advance toward each other, say, “If my people break faith with yours, let me be split in two like this goat, heifer and ram.”
Then, after those preparations, the absolute rulers of both ends of the ditch would hop in, and advance toward each other, say, “If my people break faith with yours, let me be split in two like this goat, heifer and ram.”
In Chapter Ten of Genesis God stooped to that lowly human
way of making his covenant with Abraham. He came as a blazing torch from the
end of the ditch opposite from where Abraham’s tribe was hidden.
Catholic and Protestants are getting along better these. But
Sunni and Shiite Muslims are still killing each other on sight.
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