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Jesus was sitting across from the tithe box at the Temple. He saw all the people dropping their money into it – the rich were putting in a lot. A poor widow came along and put in just two tiny coins, barely enough to buy a loaf of bread. Jesus called his disciples to notice this and said “Truly, this poor widow has donated far more than anyone else. They had given out of their excess, but she has given out of her lack. She has given everything that she has to live on.”
MK 12:41-44, LK 21:1-4
What is God’s name? Can God be named? What does God say that God’s name is?
There are a couple of examples where God says what the Name is. One is in Exodus 3:13-15. This is after Moses has seen the burning bush and first heard from God. He’s gotten the commission to go to Pharaoh and ask him to set all of Israel free.
13 Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what should I tell them?” 14 God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.
Line 14 is transliterated as “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh” and is translated as “I am who I am” -but Rabbi Lawrence Kushner in “The Book of Words” says it is better translated as “I will be who I will be.” It is a verb – an action. God is doing – not a name.
The Bible Gateway website also offers these translations (caps are theirs)- I AM BECAUSE I AM, or I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.
Then a little later in Exodus 6:2-8 one of the names is repeated.
2 Then God spoke to Moses, telling him, “I am Yahweh. 3 I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but I did not reveal My name Yahweh to them. 4 I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land they lived in as foreigners. 5 Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered My covenant.
6 “Therefore tell the Israelites: I am Yahweh, and I will deliver you from the forced labor of the Egyptians and free you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am Yahweh your God, who delivered you from the forced labor of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you to the land that I swore[a] to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am Yahweh.”
“Yahweh” isn’t really what God said. The name is unpronounceable, as it is all vowels. It is transliterated as YHVH – yod-hay-vav-hay (transliterated Hebrew letters). The “name” is really a contraction of “I was,” “I am,” and “I will be” all together.
Once again, God is a verb.
It is common for Jews to refer to God as “Hashem” which simply means “The Name” They believe that it is presumptuous to try to pronounce God’s name, because previously, the “name” was pronounced only once a year by the High Priest, while standing in the Holy of Holies. This was on Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. After the Temple was destroyed and they went in to exile, the exact way to pronounce the “name” was forgotten. Rather than try to do it and do it wrong, it is simply not said.
So God doesn’t have a name. God is a state of being, of doing. God is action. God isn’t locked down into a fixed form or state. Even the word “God” is just a job description. It is not a name, so much as how we describe the indescribable Creator.
Jesus told a parable to those who were invited to an important dinner. He noticed that people were choosing to sit near the head of the table, where the best places were. He said “If you are invited to an important dinner such as a wedding feast, don’t go to the best place and sit down. If someone with a higher status than you is invited, the host may come up to you and ask you to move. Then you, in humiliation, will have to go take the least important seat.
It is better to do this – go and sit at the least important seat so that it gives the host a chance to invite you to move up to a more prestigious position. You will then be honored in front of all the other guests.
Everyone who tries to raise himself up will be brought low, and everyone who humbles himself will be raised up.”
Then he turned to the host and said “Don’t invite your friends, relatives, or rich neighbors when you have a dinner party, because they can return the favor and invite you back. Instead, it is better to invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind when you host a banquet. You will be blessed when you do this because they cannot repay you. Instead, you will be repaid by God at the resurrection of the righteous.”
LK 14:7-14
We live in a time where when people read that Gandhi said “We should forgive our enemies,” they say “Aww, that’s beautiful!”
Then when they read that Buddha said “We should forgive our enemies,” they say “Wow, that’s so deep!”
But then when they read that Jesus said “We should forgive our enemies,” they say “Oh no religion!” and they recoil away in horror.
It is the same message. So what is the difference?
We live in a time where people say they are spiritual but not religious because they don’t like religion. I get that. I don’t like religion either. I don’t trust it. I walked away from organized religion two years ago while I was in the deacon discernment process. But this doesn’t mean that I’ve walked away from Jesus.
I feel so sad that the message of Jesus – one of love and compassion and service to others – has gotten mangled by power-hungry people. The ironic thing is that the very things that are difficult to stomach about Christianity are the very things that Jesus came to do away with.
Jesus didn’t want us to spend our money on houses of worship. He wanted us to spend our money on houses for the poor.
Jesus didn’t want us to have anyone over us but God. He was opposed to any divisions of lay and ordained, of any hierarchy. He wanted us to all be equal, like brothers.
Would it be better to just spread the message and not attach it to the speaker? Yet I feel that it is important for people to go deeper and read the words of Jesus for themselves, and they can’t do that if they don’t know the source.
I spend so much time doing damage control among my friends on Facebook – separating the wheat from the chaff in the messages there. The damaging and dividing messages that are attributed to Jesus aren’t from him at all. They are from Paul or other early leaders in the church.
People will check internet rumors on Snopes to see if something is true or not, but they won’t do the same thing with the messages that are attributed to Jesus. They won’t check it out for themselves – and they are falling for lies and being mislead.
It is fine for people to reject Jesus – that is their right. But if they do – I want them to actually have read the words of Jesus before they do it, and not some watered-down, second-generation version of the message. Go straight to the source. Read what Jesus had to say in the Gospels. If you want a slightly easier way, where the Gospels are merged into one coherent message, story by story, check out my section here called “Condensed Gospel”. It isn’t finished yet, but there is a lot there already.
Don’t confuse Jesus with Christianity. He wouldn’t.
Jesus said “Jerusalem Jerusalem! The city who kills the prophets and stones everyone that God sends to her. I have often wanted to gather your children together like how a hen gathers her chicks under her wings for protection, yet you wouldn’t let me. And now your house is left empty. Mark my words – you will not see me again until you say ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'”
MT 23:37-39, LK 13:34-35
What was Jesus talking about when he said to the Pharisees, scribes, and other religious authorities these words about them?
Luke 11:44 (HCSB)
“Woe to you! You are like unmarked graves; the people who walk over them don’t know it.”
Why would it matter if someone walked over an unmarked grave?
These verses from Matthew 23:27-28 (HCSB) give more insight.
27“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every impurity. 28 In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Jesus has already said in several different ways in Matthew 23:1-26 and Luke 11:37-52 that the religious authorities don’t practice what they preach. They tell people to follow the Law of Moses yet they don’t do it themselves. They get in the way of people who are about to enter the kingdom of heaven because they don’t understand the real reason for the rules and they give a bad example in their lives. The “kingdom of heaven” is not about when you die, but a state of awakened consciousness and connection with God here and now. It is about actively participating with God in making the world a better place.
Let us dig deeper on the “unmarked grave” idea. There is a Jewish concept about being defiled by death. Having contact with a dead body will result in you being unable to participate in normal life for seven days. It takes a lot of work to get you ritually pure again. You are essentially a leper – you have to live outside of the camp (or city). You don’t get to live with your family or hang out with your friends.
The rule comes from Numbers 19:11-12 (HCSB) –
11 “The person who touches any human corpse will be unclean for seven days.12 He is to purify himself with the water on the third day and the seventh day; then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third and seventh days, he will not be clean. 13 Anyone who touches a body of a person who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD. That person will be cut off from Israel. He remains unclean because the water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him, and his uncleanness is still on him.
If this wasn’t difficult enough, the cure itself isn’t easy. This isn’t just any water (see verse 12) that is being talked about. The “water for impurity” – rather, the water used to remove impurity – isn’t easy to make. It requires a long and involved process. Here are the instructions for making that.
Numbers 19:1-10 (HCSB)
The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, 2 “This is the legal statute that the LORD has commanded: Instruct the Israelites to bring you an unblemished red cow that has no defect and has never been yoked. 3 Give it to Eleazar the priest, and he will have it brought outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. 4 Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting. 5 The cow must be burned in his sight. Its hide, flesh, and blood, are to be burned along with its dung. 6 The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson yarn, and throw them onto the fire where the cow is burning. 7 Then the priest must wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; after that he may enter the camp, but he will remain ceremonially unclean until evening. 8 The one who burned the cow must also wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and he will remain unclean until evening. 9 “A man who is clean is to gather up the cow’s ashes and deposit them outside the camp in a ceremonially clean place. The ashes must be kept by the Israelite community for preparing the water to remove impurity; it is a sin offering.10 Then the one who gathers up the cow’s ashes must wash his clothes, and he will remain unclean until evening. This is a permanent statute for the Israelites and for the foreigner who resides among them.
So walking over an unmarked grave and not knowing it would be terrible because you would accidentally become defiled. Whether you know it or not you are still defiled. If the grave is marked you have a chance to avoid it – but if it is unmarked you don’t have a chance. The same is true of the religious authorities that Jesus is talking about. They are defiling people with their examples. So people who look up to them are being dragged down into hell. They don’t realize they are being mislead.
This is why I paraphrased the verse from Luke 11:44 like this in the Condensed Gospel: “Woe to you! You are like unmarked graves. People walk over you not even knowing that they have become defiled.”
While this rendering gives a little more insight into the verse, I felt a further understanding of the Jewish death taboos was helpful, so that is why I have included it here.
Then Jesus said to the crowds and his disciples “The Jewish leaders and the Pharisees have the authority of Moses. Therefore, follow their rules and do what they say to do. But make sure not to follow their example because they don’t practice what they preach.”
MT 23:1-3
“It is terrible to be them, because they load people with heavy burdens that are hard to carry when they give them all these rules, yet they themselves can’t be bothered to lift those same burdens with even a finger.”
MT 23:4, LK 11:46
“They evict widows from their homes and say long prayers just to show off. God will punish them more than others because of this.”
MT 23:14, LK 20:47, MK 12:40
“They do everything to show off how pious they are so they will be noticed by others. They wear long robes and make their tefillin and tzitzit bigger than necessary. They love it when they have the front seat in the synagogue and the seat of honor at a banquet. They are pleased when they are recognized and greeted in the marketplace and people call them Rabbi.”
MT 23:5-7, LK 11:43, LK 20:45-46, MK 12:38-39
“But as for you, don’t be called Rabbi or Teacher, because you have one Teacher, and that is God, and you are all equal like brothers. Don’t call anyone on earth your father because you have one Father, and that is God. And do not be called Master, because you have only one Master, and that is the Messiah. To be the greatest, be a servant. Whoever raises himself up will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be raised up.”
MT 23:8-12
“Beware, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You make it impossible for people to enter the kingdom of heaven, because you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves don’t go in, and you don’t allow those who are entering to go in either.”
MT 23:13, LK 11:52
“Beware, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel far and wide to convert one person, and then when he is converted, you make him twice as damned as you are.”
MT 23:15
“Beware, you blind guides, who say it means nothing if you take an oath ‘by the Temple’, but then say if you swear by the gold of the Temple, it is binding. You are blind fools! What is greater, the gold, or the Temple that makes the gold holy? You also say that it means nothing if you take an oath ‘by the altar,’ but then say that if you take an oath by the gifts on the altar it is binding! You fools and blind people! What is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift holy? Therefore, the person who takes an oath by the altar takes an oath by it and everything on it, and when you take an oath by the Temple you are taking an oath by it and by God who dwells in it, and the person who makes an oath by heaven makes it by the throne of God and by the One who sits on it.”
MT 23:16-22
“Beware, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You make sure to ritually clean the outside of the cup and dish, but you are full of greed, evil, and self-indulgence inside! You are blind fools! Didn’t the One who made the outside make the inside as well? First clean the inside of the cup and dish so the outside will also become clean. Donate to charity from your heart first and then everything will be clean for you.”
MT 23:25-26, LK 11:39-41
“Beware, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You make sure to tithe a tenth of your mint, dill, cumin, rue, and every other kind of herb, and yet you neglect the more important matters of the Law such as justice, mercy, and love for God. You should have taken care of these without neglecting the rest. Blind guides! You strain out a gnat, yet you swallow a camel!”
MT 23:23-24, LK :42
“Woe to you! You are like unmarked graves. People walk over you not even knowing that they have become defiled.”
LK 11:44
“Woe to you! You are like whitewashed mausoleums, which appear beautiful on the outside but are full of impurity on the inside. You appear on the outside like righteous men, yet on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and sin.”
MT 23:27-28
“Beware, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous. You say ‘If we had lived in the time of our fathers, we wouldn’t have shed the prophet’s blood along with them.’ You therefore testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who killed the prophets! Fill up on the measure of your fathers’ sins. You are witnesses that you approve of what your fathers did because they killed the prophets and now you build monuments to them.”
MT 23:29-32, LK 11:47-48
“You are a nest of snakes! How can you escape from the fires of hell? This is why the wisdom of God said ‘I will send them prophets, sages, scribes, and apostles. Some of them will be killed, persecuted and crucified, and some of them you will beat in your synagogues and chase from town to town. This will mean that this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that was shed since the beginning of the world – from the blood of righteous Abel all the way to Zechariah, son of Berechiah, who you murdered in the Temple between the altar and the sanctuary. Mark my words, this generation will be held responsible!”
MT 23:33-36, LK 11:49-51
The scribes, Pharisees, and experts in the Law all felt insulted and furious. From that moment on they began to challenge Jesus about matters of Jewish Law, trying to trap him into saying something wrong so they could bring charges against him.
LK 11:53-54
Jesus said “The kingdom of heaven is like the idea of the king who wants to balance his books. In the middle of that process, a person who owed him $10 million was brought before him. Since the man had no way of settling his debt, the king ordered that the man, his wife, their children and everything they owned be sold to pay off the account.
The man threw himself to the ground and said ‘Master, please give me a little more time and I will pay you everything!’ The king felt compassion for him so he forgave his debt and sent him on his way.
However, just after the man left the king he found a person who owed him $2000. He started choking him and demanded to be paid back immediately. That man threw himself to the ground and said ‘Please give me a little more time and I will pay you everything!’ But the man refused his request and instead had him thrown into prison until he could pay his debt in full. Other people saw what had happened and they went to the king and told him everything.
The king summoned the man who had owed him $10 million and said ‘You wicked man! I forgave everything that you owed me because you begged me for mercy. Shouldn’t you then have mercy on someone who owes you?’ Then the king had him thrown into jail until he could pay back every penny that he owed. My Heavenly Father will treat you the same way if you refuse to truly forgive everyone who has harmed you.”
MT 18:23-35
Peter went up to Jesus and asked “Teacher, how many times should I forgive someone who sins against me? As many as seven times?”
MT 18:21
“Listen to me closely,” Jesus said. “Don’t forgive him seven times, but seventy times seven! If he offends you seven times in one day, yet comes back to you seven times saying that he repents, you must forgive him.”
MT 18:22, LK 17:3-4
I overheard two regulars talking in the library today. They are both white men over 50. To be honest, only one was talking – the other was listening.
He was talking about the police officer who pulled a gun on unarmed teenagers at the pool party. He was sympathizing with the police officer, saying that he had attended two suicides that morning – and went into graphic detail about one of them. I was considering telling him to be mindful of where he was at that point alone. Small children do not need to hear brutal details like this. Heck – I don’t need to hear them.
But what made me speak up was that he kept going on about the officer, and the kids, saying that they were wild and unparented.
I leaned in and said “That still does not give him the right to pull a gun on unarmed teenagers.”
He agreed – but as I was walking away he then said to his companion that he would have shot them.
I continued to walk away. There are only so many battles to be had.
A few minutes later he caught up with me at the front desk. So many people think of us as a sympathetic ear there. We have to listen – right? Public servant, and all. We are trapped behind the desk. We can’t defend ourselves.
He said that so many of these kids weren’t being raised by parents, but by their grandparents. He is generalizing, and stereotyping. He doesn’t know these kids or what their home life is like.
I repeated – that still does not give him the right to pull a gun on them.
He said “You know what I would have done? I would have pulled a billy club on them!”
I said “That is unfortunate.” and walked away from the desk. He is unreasonable and it isn’t worth continuing the discussion with someone who speaks like this.
Note that in front of me he changed what he would have done from shooting them to striking them with a billy club.
As I was walking away, he again repeated that the officer had attended two suicides that morning. I did not respond.
Whether that is true or not – does seeing someone kill himself give another person a right to kill?
To be silent to injustice is to condone it. Will he change because of what I said? Doubtful. But that wasn’t the point. It would be great if he changed, but if I didn’t speak up I would have been part of the problem. I don’t feel qualified to have long debates on any hot topics. I do better with writing than speaking. But I had to – because to me, his words were the same as hitting someone in the face. I have to speak up, or the violence will continue. The poison that he was spewing would spread. I cannot allow this to happen in front of me.
betsybeadhead 
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