Understanding Nationhood

“The contradictions in modern understandings of nationhood are obvious. On the one hand, the notion of nation-sates that matured in Europe in the nineteenth century was based on a romantic ideal of matching ethnic, linguistic, and cultural boundaries with political borders. At the same time, these same nations were caring the rest of the world up into subject states in which state boundaries often bore no relationship whatsoever with ethnic boundaries. But this raises the question: What does it mean to be a nation? Modern Western answers to this question tend to be as inconsistent as the perceptions of the ANE. Several factors that contributed in varying degrees to the ancients’ national self-consciousness may be identified.

1. Ethnicity. The importance of this factor varied. In the territorial states of northern Syria (encompassing the Phoenicians and Aramaeans) this element appears to have been inconsequential in the determination of national boundaries. In the national states farther south ethnicity was one of the primary determinants of nationality...

2. Territory... In territorial states membership was determined simply by residence within the territory of the state [‎גּוֹי], without consideration of ethnic origin or affiliation [‎עָם]. The size of such states tended to depend on the political, military, and economic power of the king ruling in the capital city. Accordingly, a single ethnic or cultural group [‎עָם] could be divided into a series of states [‎גּוֹיִם], a pattern evident in Aramaean and Phoenician regions (e.g., Damascus, Hamath, Tyre, Sidon). In national states membership was determined by affiliation with an ethnic group, and ethnic borders tended to coincide with political boundaries (e.g., Israel, Ammon, Moab, Edom...The boundaries of territorial states fluctuated, depending on the ability of the king to control his region or incorporate more land. For both types of states territory played a critical role in national development...

3. Theology. In the ANE, nations tended to be identified with their own distinctive patron deity...In the minds of Phoenicians and Aramaeans, like the Mesopotamians, a people related to a specific god by virtue of residence in that god’s land. The Hebrews, by contrast, viewed their association with Yahweh as primary; the land of Canaan represented his grant to them after he had established himself as their God by covenant...But this notion of national deities was not absolute. The gods of the nations outside Israel tolerated the worship of other divinities by their subjects, even within the homeland or city, and the subjects felt free to worship other gods at home, and especially when they traveled to a new land...

4. Kingship. In both territorial and national states the institution of kingship served as a glue holding the subjects of a nation together...

5. Language. Several types of evidence in the OT suggest that people of the ANE recognized a link between language and nationality...However, [other evidence] suggests that the relationship between language and nationality may not have been the subject of much reflection...The OT traditions imply that all the nations of southern Syria (the Philistines, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Israel) gave up their native tongues in favor of the Canaanite dialect without any loss of national self-consciousness...

From Daniel I. Block, “Nations/Nationality,” NIDOTTE 4:966-972.

The Decalogue and Confession

Lent has long been considered a good time to take stock, to confess our sins before God. And the Ten Commandments (see previous post) are sometimes recommended to help us prepare for confession. As I encouraged my congregation to prayerfully reflect on the Ten Commandments for this purpose I asked them to remember this: When we ask ourselves, “have I kept this law?” the question is fundamentally not “have I done anything that contravenes it?”

Much more basic are these questions:

• Do I believe what these commandments imply about the nature of reality? Do I trust God?
• Do I want to keep these commandments? Do I love to do God’s will?

Because if I am merely interested in not getting on the wrong side of the law or if I try to earn brownie points with God, I have completely and utterly misunderstood what this is all about. Christ delivered me and so I need not fear God’s judicial punishment or earn his favour. Christ lived the perfect life here on earth. I want to follow him and so I want to read and reflect on the Ten Commandments in order to learn about my God, to trust him more, and to live as a human made in the image of God, as a child of my heavenly Father, and as a disciple of Christ. And I pray that God’s Spirit would enable this.

And so, e.g.,  when reflecting on the last commandment I want to “learn how to make distinctions between desiring that which is wholesome and good and beneficial for both people and nature and that which only feeds a hunger for more than we need.” (Janzen, Exodus, 238) I want to ponder the question why it is that we have more than some and less than others which leads me to two other questions: what does God want me to do with the resources he has given me and what might he want to tell me by not giving me someone else’s resources?

The Ten Commandments

Some notes in preparation for a sermon about the Ten Commandments

1. The Ten Commandments are God's words and that is why we pay attention to them. Indeed, they are God's words in a special sense because this is the only time God spoke to his whole people together and these are the only words God is said to have written down himself. 

2. They are not all that can or needs to be said about how God’s people are to live. Thus the Ten Commandments instruct us not to murder (“kill without authority”), not to commit adultery, and to honour our parents but they do not spell out what this means. For this we need – and are given – more words from God. The same applies to the great commandment to love God and neighbour. We need to learn what it means to truly love.

3. The Ten Commandments are God's words for a people he has delivered from slavery. This suggests two things:

·         we do not become God’s people by obeying his commandments; we have become God’s people by his gracious act of deliverance; God’s instructions are to help us to become more and more his holy people

·         the commandments are not to enslave us; God has liberated from slavery – the law is a gift of his grace; it shows us the good life; the commandments are the boundaries that make true freedom possible, a bit like a play ground fence facilitates safe play for children and guard rails on mountain roads help safe driving

4. The first commandment is the basis for the other commandments. 

“All sins are sins against the first commandment; the first commandment contains the whole of the Decalogue. For all sin serves some other god, obeys another commander: the world or the flesh or the devil. So if we obeyed only this one commandment perfectly, we would need nothing more. St Augu­stine says, “Love God and then do what you will.” For if you give your whole heart and will and love to God, then what you will will be all that God wills.” (Kreeft, Catholic Christianity, 205)

This is not payback for God’s deliverance; this is an expression of our belief that God is worthy to be feared, to be loved, and to be trusted above all things. God deserves the allegiance of those he delivered. More fundamentally, the nature of reality demands that worship is only given to God. Idolatry consist in treating as God what is not God. This links closely with the next word.

5. The living God who transcends all of creation cannot be represented by a lifeless statue. To confuse the Creator with a part of creation has serious and far-reaching implications for our life as God’s people. The Israelites were told that if they disobeyed, the effects would be felt by whole households for several generations.

6. God’s reputation is of the utmost importance - for us. (The old blasphemy laws were not about protecting God, but protecting us against fundamentally misconceiving reality.) If God’s name is besmirched, people are not drawn to him. God’s name must be honoured and praised, celebrated and invoked. To treat God’s name with disrespect is to treat his gift lightly and to misrepresent his nature. Arguably the worst way in which we can break this commandment is by calling ourselves Christians without living as disciples of Christ. How can they call upon him whom they do not know because those who bear his name misrepresent him? 

7. We are not to live as if all time were our own, to do with as we please. “The God of all time retains the right to determine how one day shall or shall not be used.” (Janzen, Exodus, 229). Remembering the Sabbath by creating “a sanctuary of time” aligns us with the pattern of creation. God built into the very order of things a working/resting rhythm. “By resting on the seventh day, Israel is not just following God’s command, but actually following God’s lead.” (Enns, Exodus, 419)

8. The commandment to honour one’s parents (notice: both father and mother) is open-ended, not clearly defined. It finds expression differently at different stages of our lives. For young children to “honour” one’s parents means to trust and obey them; for mature adults, especially when their parents get to a stage that is closer to the dependence of childhood again, to “honour” one’s parents means to make sure that they are properly cared for and to make time for them.

This is the first commandment with a promise, as the apostle reminds us (Eph. 6:2). This should not be understood in an individualistic way. The nation Israel is here warned that breaking God’s commands, “will jeopardize their possession of the land God has given them.” (Enns, Exodus, 421)

9. God protects the integrity of his creation by prohibiting attacks and so the next few commandments give us

• God’s “No” to attacking another’s life
• God’s “No” to attacking another’s marriage
• God’s “No” to attacking another’s property
• God’s “No” to attacking another’s reputation

These commandments are not about personal morality only but protect society from the corrosive effect of violence and injustice. They can remind us that

• life belongs to God and he alone has the right to end it 
• sexual union in God’s purposes is linked with procreation and parenthood 
• theft is an attack on human dignity and their work 
• false witness compromises justice and gossip corrodes community

10. The last commandment concerns our hearts rather than actions. Lust, envy, and greed will lead to breaking other commandments. In this sense the tenth commandment is a ‘summary commandment’, as one commentator pout it (John Durham). Coveting of course cannot be regulated or policed and this reminds us again at the end that it is all about God. Only God can look upon the heart. “These commands are not given so that we can be good citizens, but so that we can reflect even more fully the image of God in which we participate through our union with the risen Christ.” (Enns, Exodus, 430)

Final reflection in the following post.