On death and disappearing

Tucked into this list in Hebrews 11 is a name that is not nearly as familiar as the others.  Enoch is not necessarily a character that you'd hear about on your average Sunday morning from your average preacher.  I don't know that I've ever really heard an entire message based around him.  Like the rest of those contained in this list we can look back and find reference to him in the Old Testament, this time again in Genesis.  Before you get too excited, when you wander back in to Genesis 5 to read about him, you find him hidden in another list.  It's a genealogy actually ... One of those "this guy lived, and his son was, and his son was, and his son was" kind of lists that we tend to gloss over.  This time he is tucked into a list of nine defendants of Adam.  Each lived a number of years, had sons of their own and "then he died"... All except for one.  Seven times the story goes this way, then for Enoch it records that he disappeared " for God took him".  Then for the last name it goes back to the expected "then he died" ending.  You might overlook it as just an oddity with the recording method of the author of Genesis except for one other interesting difference.  Each of these others are recorded simply as having lived x number of years and then dying.  Enoch is recorded as having "walked with God" before disappearing.  Sunday we are going to dig into what the authors of Hebrews and Genesis might be telling us about Enoch's uniqueness and what does it mean that someone could "walk with God" in such a way as to have it recorded and commended.

first

One of the earliest referred to as being commended for their faith in Hebrews 11 is Abel.  I love that Abel is in here because his story represents a very relevant faith practice that I find is fundamental to the discipleship process.  The story of Cain and Abel forces me to self examine in the space of where I place God in my priorities.  In the earlier years of Saturday Night Live, Billy Crystal played a character named Fernando.  One of the most notable lines from Fernando is "Looking good is better than being good".  On the surface this may seem like a throwaway line, but its actually quite profound.  It applies here in the story of Cain and Abel.  It actually identifies the sometimes murky but actually quite profound difference between their gifts offered before God.  It also identifies a constant struggle in  my own spiritual journey pursuing Jesus.  What is the difference between the two ... looking good and being good I mean ... glad you asked.  "Looking good", in my opinion,  is the shortcut that we attempt in our original desire to follow Jesus.  "Being good" is a point of spiritual maturity where you just have God as preeminent in all things.  Cain and Abel both made offerings to God and yet one was accepted and one not so much.  Look closely and you see that the difference was that one gave "some" and the other gave first and from the first.  Cain gave some in a desire to "look good" while Able gave first as a reflection of "being good".  The gifts revealed where each was at.  The thing that is often tragically overlooked though, but must not be, is that Cain was not condemned for his gift.  The indication is that it was an opportunity for teaching, that Cain would have had another shot.  It was grace in its earliest form.  The bar was set at a certain height and he had another shot at getting over it.  Instead he chose to eliminate the bar.  
Too many times I have chosen to eliminate the bar.  Too often I'm attempting to take the shortcut of "looking good" rather than investing in the journey of "being good".  And so the question continues ... "Am I giving Him my first or am I giving what's left over?"  When it comes to resources, it's really not that difficult to determine ... all I need to do is look at my bank statements.  When it comes to my time, all I really need to do is look at my calendar.  Fortunately ... Each day I get to do it over again, and prayerfully I'll choose to clear the bar rather than eliminate it.

Summer travels

Each and every time, without fail, that I travel the highways in this part of the country, I think about those who traveled these parts long before asphalt and motorized vehicles.  Specifically I wonder about those who moved across these vast spaces of rock, scrub brush, and canyons with every piece of themselves and their lives stored in a wagon. I wonder what drove them forward when each peak conquered revealed another treacherous and seemingly unending path.   Even in the comfort of an temperature controlled chariot moving at speed on smooth roads and over safe bridges, I can get impatient as the destiny seems always out of reach and always over one more pass.  Each and every time I wonder what it was that enabled them to get up each and every day and put one more days worth of life and trial and labor behind them.  Over these next several weeks that Common Table gathers in community we will be immersed in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, visiting and revisiting those "ancients" who were commended for the faith that kept them moving but ultimately didn't get them to "the promise".  My prayer is that is will encourage us to look intently at our own journeys and consider how we might develop a faith that continues to move us forward.