Ep. 37: The Catechism: The Old Covenant

[Music] From Dogma Field, the air conditioned home of the Arizona Dogma Backs, welcome to Walking the Dogma, an exploration of the faith and teaching of the Episcopal Church. I'm David Hedges. And I'm Dominic Moore. We're now partnered with the Center for Discipleship and Renewal at Forward Movement, and together we're going to read and study the theological texts of the Book of Common Prayer. This podcast is guided by a simple idea that Christian truth is expressed in the tradition and the creeds of the Church, but that the Holy Spirit also continues to teach us in new and ever-expanding ways, a position known as inclusive orthodoxy. In short, we affirm the historic faith of the Church is expressed in Scripture and the Nysine Apostles creeds, and we also believe in the full inclusion of all people in the Church, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or any other human category. This season, we're discussing the Catechism, and you can follow along with us in your Book of Common Prayer. How are you doing today, Dominic? I'm doing great. It is getting hot out there. We are beginning summer for real here in Arizona. It is. It's the first week of June as we record this. We've just hit Pentecost and Trinity Sunday, and it's yeah, green, green, green, as far as the I can see, as far as vestments, but brown, brown, brown, here in the hot, hot Arizona. Yes. That is definitely true. And we're asking the prayers of St. John the Baptist as we head toward monsoon season here in Tucson. Hopefully. St. John the Baptist is the patron saint, if you will, of the monsoon season, our summer rainy season in Tucson. And Oro Valley and other Tucson Metroplex environs. Yes, we could always use some rain. Well, rain, you know, rain, a parishioner of mine who is Jewish still reminds me that in Jewish tradition, the rain is the principal sign of God's love for us. It makes sense for a desert people, right? Right. Right. Right. Right. Absolutely. So we're going to be talking about the people of the old covenant. And so we're on page 846 of the catechism today. That section, the old covenant. Remember that as we talked last week last in the last episode, which may or may not be last week when you listen to it, that we learn about God first and foremost through a revelation to the people of Israel, the the historic ethnic group of Israel. And that we find out that the world is good and that we have dignity because of God making us and that we are good and that this revelation comes through a community created by a covenant. So today, we're going to talk about that old covenant. So why don't I ask the questions and you give the answers as we dive into our catechism second? Can you? Okay. The old covenant. What is meant by a covenant with God? A covenant is a relationship initiated by God to which a body of people responds in faith. What is the old covenant? The old covenant is the one given by God to the Hebrew people. What did God promise them? God promised that they would be his people to bring all the nations of the world to him. What response did God require from the chosen people? God required the chosen people to be faithful, to love justice, to do mercy, and to walk humbly with their God. Where is this old covenant to be found? The covenant with the Hebrew people is to be found in the books which we call the Old Testament. Wherein the Old Testament is God's will for us, shown most clearly. God's will for us is shown most clearly in the Ten Commandments. All right. Now it's unpacked there. There is. Now I remember at the end of the last episode, you were, you showed a certain excitement to talk about covenants and what a covenant is and how it differs from a contract, for example. So what have you got to say about covenants? Well, I mean, I think you can sort of read this too strongly, depending on where you're looking in the Bible and what you're referring to. But in general, I've had it explained to me that there is a there's a fundamental difference between a relationship that we understand as a covenantial relationship, which is by the way what something like a marriage is, the covenant of marriage, right? Versus a contractual relationship. Okay. Contractual relationship of business, we might say relationship is a relationship where there are a series of duties and there's a series of corresponding payments. Let's say for completing those duties or corresponding gifts that are given. So for example, I pay you X amount of money, you mow my lawn. If you don't mow my lawn, I don't pay you the money, right? And there's this sort of, there's a give and take, a tit for tat kind of arrangement that marks any kind of business contractual relationship. I think I said last, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Exactly. And that kind of relationship is, you know, that doesn't work so well in a marriage, right? As you probably know, you know, you can't really have a relationship between two people that works in that contractual way. It becomes, you know, it becomes sort of exhausting and difficult to deal with. And there's, there's not really emotion in that or room for, for human messiness. And so we understand relationships like marriages, again, as a good example of this to be covenantial in the sense that, you know, when we make all the vows we make on our wedding day, we certainly hope to keep them. But there are times when we might not love and cherish, you know, to our best of our ability or there are times when we're going to not bring our best selves or fail in some part of what we have promised to do. But the understanding is that the covenant of a marriage or of this relationship is stronger than anyone individual, hopefully small misstep. Obviously, major missteps, major breaches of a covenant can lead to its dissolution, especially when we talked about human beings. But the idea is that a covenant is not a, that you scratch my back, I scratch yours kind of relationship. It's a commitment to a relationship that will endure regardless sometimes of whether or not everyone is perfect about keeping that relationship. Which is why it helps explain how marriages can survive when we're not perfect in keeping every part of what we promise to do. It also explains how we fail so often to keep our covenantial relationship to God. And certainly the people, you know, in the Hebrew Bible fail to do so many, many, many times over. Yes. So it's a less conditional. Like the response of one party is not conditional upon the response of the other party. I think that's a good way to understand it. Yes. Someone may fail, but the other partner nonetheless keeps things up. Yes. And there might be, or keeps, keeps up the relationship and keeps up their commitments. Right. There might be consequences for failure in some part of it. Of course. That's not to say that, you know, just do whatever you want and nothing can damage the covenant. That's not what I mean at all. But it is made of stronger stuff than a, a contractual relationship that's based on like business obligations. The idea is that you're in this together in the same boat, a partnership for the long term. And somebody is going to mess up from time to time. Although, of course, when we talk about the covenant of God, the, the covenants of God's make God does not fail God's side of the bargain or God's side of the covenant. It's the humans that fail. And so we're very glad to have a covenantial relationship with God. Yeah. Well, I may have said this before, but in my Bible study class, someone said, well, you know, God puts up with a lot in the Old Testament. And I said, yeah, that could be the subtitle of the entire thing, the Old Testament, Colin, God puts up with a lot. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much the theme in some ways of most of the kind of arc of the Hebrew Bible is, is people failing to keep up their side of the covenant. And sometimes getting, you know, seeing the consequences of those actions, but also God coming back and loving them and restoring that relationship anyway, despite never giving up exactly. Exactly. But now God puts Israel in time out for a while. Yes. Several times. Yes. So, yes, quite a few times. And even some individuals, you know, we'll talk about this perhaps later, but you have folks like Moses, you know, who never see the Promised Land, right? That's right. Never makes it all the way there. That whole generation that leaves Egypt never gets to make it to the Promised Land, because they, they've been naughty. You know, they don't keep up their end of the bargain. That's right. But it doesn't mean that God stops loving them or leaves the relationship. And that's what marks up, a particularly powerful and strong covenant. Right. So this, so this covenant that we're talking about, the old covenant specifically, now that we know what a covenant is, this is the relationship between God and the Hebrew people, right? Yeah. This starts in earnest with Abraham. Well, so it's interesting. It kind of depends on how you're counting it because I think you - I could say it starts with Noah. - Yeah. - You know, after the flood, right? There's a covenant with Noah, never again to destroy the earth by a flood. And there's a series of precepts that Noah and Noah's descendants are going to keep. - Right. - And then in Jewish thought, excuse me, there's a difference between the covenant with Noah and the covenant with Abraham in that, that because God resets the universe with the flood and all human beings are descended from Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives, that the covenant with Noah is in Jewish thought binding on everybody. - Yes. - And then the covenant with Abraham is a specific call to a particular people who are the blood descendants of Abraham. - Right. Yeah, I believe there's an understanding of something called the Noah hide laws. - The Noah hide laws. - I believe it's what they're called sort of a series of rules that everyone keeps, even non-Jews. - Even they keep them anyway. - Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the understanding is like, non-Jews in a Jewish country, for example, keep these laws. These are still kind of universal. We might again say natural law type things that are expressly given. So it depends on how you count. I mean, today when we talk about the old, so-called old covenant, the vast majority of time people are talking about the mosaic covenant, specifically the covenant that's given it Mount Sinai and we'll come back to that. But you could say there's as many as five covenants in the Bible, depending on who you ask and how you count. There's the one with Noah, there's one with Abraham, there's the one with Moses. And there's also one with David, right? And the house of David, and then finally, the one that Jesus inaugurates, the one we understand is the new covenant, which is, we'll talk about later. That's a later section of our catechism. - That's right. Yeah, and the covenant with Abraham, like God sort of expresses it and renews it several times and likewise, it is sort of reapplauding to Abraham's sons, his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. You know, obviously that sort of works on down, but it's sort of explicitly renewed with, excuse me, with Isaac and Jacob as well. - Right. Yeah, that's it. - All of that's in the book of Genesis, folks. And then Moses comes along in Exodus, if you're looking to find these in your Bible. - Yeah, so probably the most famous proof text, if you will, for kind of the start of that mosaic covenant. We find in Exodus chapter 19, and there's this kind of amazing scene where God says, this is Exodus 19, 4 through 6, you've seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on Eagles, Wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession, out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me, a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. So the kind of understanding there is essentially, you will be my people and I will be your God. You know, we have this kind of special relationship. The whole earth is mine, but I'm gonna have a special relationship with you, this group in particular. Now, if you keep my covenant, which sounds like a condition, and it is to a certain degree, but as we'll see over and over again, people violating that condition does not forecast God to leave the relationship. God will keep coming back, even if God will sometimes need to slap people upside the head once in a while. - That's right. - Now that that covenant is made with Moses and the people, the children of Israel. However, it's rooted in the covenant with Abraham, which is the one that sets up the identity of those people as descendants of Abraham in the first place. And also in terms of this catechism, the promise that God gives according to the catechism is that the Hebrew people would be God's people to bring all the nations of the world to Him. And that is really in the covenant with Abraham, where Abraham has no descendants, he has no children, he and his wife are getting on in years, it has ceased to be with me after the manner of women, as his wife Sarah says. And God says, like go down to the seashore and count the sand and your descendants are gonna be as numerous as the sand on the seashore, just you watch, right? And through these descendants, I will bring all the peoples of the world to me. So this catechism language is about Abraham's, the covenant with Abraham, which is the root of the covenant with Moses, right? - Yeah, there's a sense that they're kind of building on top of each other in the biblical narrative. - Yeah. - Although, you know, I think it's interesting, there are peer to be these large gaps sometimes in understanding. - Yep. - When Moses leads the people out of Egypt, there's this implication, if you read the first few chapters of Exodus, that they have lost some of their understanding of this, that the people as slaves, being enslaved in Egypt have kind of lost their traditions, they've lost some of their heritage, so much so that he has to sort of ask God to give proper introductions. Who am I gonna tell people sent me to them? And God has to kind of introduce God's self once more. Because the idea is that they've kind of lost some of that, some of that tradition because of this time as being enslaved. - Well, untraditionally, the period of enslavement was about 400 years, right? - Yes. - So that's a long time to erase the cultural memory of a people. - Absolutely. - Absolutely. - Very long time. - Very long time. - Who's their traditions? - Their foods, their music, their religion. - Right. - Yeah. - Yeah, and I mean, you noticed that, for example, in the fact that everyone has to be resurconcised, right? When they leave Egypt on the Exodus, so they have not been keeping some of these very fundamental practices that were part of the covenantial relationship. The practice of circumcision was understood, of course, to be the kind of fundamental mark that set people apart in a very physical and direct way from other people in their part of the world and in the community. - Yeah. - Yeah. And so, and that has to be redone, unfortunately, probably for a lot of older folks in the community. That was redone as the people leave Egypt on the Exodus. - Well, work for Abraham. - Yeah. - Yeah. So, yeah, there's this work of rebuilding a people. Like the people exist, but be building their identity, you know, which is, in a way, you know, when the people go to Sinai and receive the law, it's almost like another flood. I mean, they do pass through a great deal of water. - Yeah. - And sort of start their relationship with God all over again. - Right. - But they've got old habits. - Right. - Yeah, for example, all they've known in Egypt for religion is, you know, the worship of idols. And so, like, when Moses terries on the mountain, the first thing they do is like, hey, let's, why do we build an idol? And, you know, they stole all that gold from the Egyptians on their way out the door. And so they melted all down and build a golden calf. - Right. - And how down in worship to it. And my favorite part of that is that when God comes down, when, excuse me, when Moses comes down from Sinai, he's really frustrated with all of this. He's really angry. And so to punish the people, he makes them grind the idol into dust and makes them drink the dust in water. - I know. Yeah, that's really hardcore, isn't it? - It makes me think of that sushi that you can get with gold leaf on it. - It's really, that's, yeah, it's a really strong image, isn't it, that we get there in Exodus when that happens. You know another detail about that that I probably missed the first couple times I read it and just kind of jumped out at me the other day, is who leads this, who leads this kind of horrible apostasy? It's Aaron. - It's Aaron, yeah. - Aaron's the one who's this sort of bad problem child. - Moses' brother. - Yeah. - And curiously, continues on and becomes the first priest. - Yeah, I know. - So again, God is faithful. - Right. - God is gonna do what God's gonna do, doesn't depend on you, doesn't depend on your perfection. - And that's the whole point of this covenantal relationship. It's like they keep messing up in these spectacular ways. And again, sometimes they get, you know, slapped upside the head for it. They find consequences of their actions. But God continues to come back again and again and not, you know, give up on this relationship or not abandon it, but maintain it from God's side of the bargain. 'Cause the people, which is metaphorically, us, right? All of us in a broader sense is sort of always wandering away. And yeah, so that's, you know, there's so many images in Scripture of, you know, of course Jesus talks about lost sheep and all that. We're constantly sort of wandering away. And, and these are all these, I think very profound images we find throughout the Hebrew Bible of God coming back and nurturing and loving us anyway, despite the fact that we're sort of trying to score during our best to score them out of the deal. Yeah, but it starts like they're hardly out of the red sea when they begin to mess up. Yes. And then they leave Sinai and they mess up again and again, like the book of numbers, for example. Yeah. You know, right after Exodus, it details their 40 years in the wilderness and it is royals screw up after royals screw up and God lets out some harsh punishments. The chief of which is that none of the people who come out of Israel, they all die in the wilderness before they get to the promised land. It is their children and grandchildren that make it through. Yep. Yeah, exactly. I really find it funny, by the way, it's very humorous to me all of the kind of whining and complaining that goes on during this whole period. Yes. I love that my favorite complaint is probably when the people say, weren't there enough graves for us in Egypt that you had to bring us out here to bear us. Yeah. Which is really funny. Or the other one I love is when the people are complaining to Moses that they don't have enough to eat and Moses, Moses complains to God saying, like almost literally, what am I? They're mom. You know, he says, did I bear them? You know, were they my children? Am I their nurse made? Did they come to me looking to be fed? It's really funny. At some point Moses also complains to God and says, look, if this is how these people are going to be, why do you just kill me now? Right. Yeah. And like, I feel like Moses is a little bit like George Costanza from Seinfeld. Yeah. Yeah. That's it's very true. Yeah. Yeah. You talked about that time in the wilderness. And I think it would be, it would be terrible not to mention that without noting that the power of the symbolism there, it's 40 years wandering in the wilderness. Yes. Of course, that number gets referred to over and over again in scripture as a time of purification, a time of trial that we go through, you know, 40 days in Noah's Ark, Jesus fasting for 40 days. You can find many, many examples of that kind of thing. So it's this symbolic period of, of like purification and renewal and yeah, that whole generation that leaves Egypt ends up having to die before the next generation goes into the promised land. That's right. Yeah. And, you know, because of the fact that yeah, they did not keep up there into the bargain, even Moses, especially Moses, perhaps. So, so God's promise to bring all the nations of the world to Him. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, that seed is planted with the covenant of Abraham. And in the new testament through the Pentecost event and through the ministry of the apostles in the acts of the apostles, you begin to see this Jewish movement, which has been pretty inside baseball at this point. Like in it's been an intra Jewish renewal movement. It blows up, right? Yes. It, it, it, it, it, moves out into the world, um, beyond Jerusalem, but into Galilee and to Antioch and Samaria into the ends of the earth. And wherever that Jewish renewal movement spreads, they find, oh, there are Gentiles who are also interested in this Jesus guy. And so much of the axioth of apostles, the act of the apostles is concerned with the church as a Jewish renewal movement, saying to itself and to each other, what are we going to do about that? Yeah. Right? How do we, how do we transform this movement? Because we feel and believe the Holy Spirit is guiding us this way. How do we transform this into an inter ethnic interlinguistic, uh, international, uh, thing and not just for a particular ethnic group? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And yeah. And of course, Paul is kind of the St. Paul is kind of the chief architect of that in the, in the, in the testament, uh, probably most famously in Galatians, right? That's right. Um, circumcision or un-circumcision is nothing, but faith in Christ is everything. That's right. And, you know, obviously also in Romans and then, then various narratives through the letters and, and chiefly in the act of the apostles. You see, yeah. There's a lot about Paul, but there's, there's some other, other people having some surprising results there as well. Uh, yeah. I mean, from a Christian perspective, is this kind of like a movement towards something that becomes much more global? But, but again, it is there in the original text. I mean, it is in there a part of that promise to Abraham and you, all nations, shall be blessed. The idea that this was not just something for one group of people, but there, this was something that, you know, I will make you, um, eventually as, you know, as Jesus would say, a light to the nations, you know, that this is something that is going to the ends of the earth. Um, and we start to see that in, we see it in the Pentateuch, we see it in the prophets, we see it, you know, kind of a message that builds and builds up into the time of the, um, the incarnation. Yeah. And there's this, like throughout the Old Testament, there's this tension between that vocation and the fact that God colors outside the lines. Mm-hmm. And, you know, it gives grace to foreigners and, um, some, you know, especially in times when everybody in the, in, in Israel and Judah have just kind of given up. Yeah. God doesn't give up, but also God will go to others and give his grace. Um, and also there's that polarity and then there's the polarity of the text also saying, like, no, this is a special blessing for us. Thank you very much. And it, it, there's this push pull there because, of course, the Old Testament is written by a wide variety of authors in different social locations at different times and contexts. But, but you, you see the struggle to understand what does this mean exactly for us as a chosen people. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting because so the, the concept of the covenant gets built upon from, as you say, from Abraham into the Exodus narrative, most strongly with that mosaic covenant on Sinai. Um, and it sort of builds up to the point where in Exodus chapter 24, um, there's this kind of ratification ceremony that happens in Exodus 24 where Moses essentially reads the, the language of the covenant. Uh, we assume the, the tin commandments and perhaps some, some other part of the, the law that was read to them and they respond and say, yes, we're going to do that. And, and so there's this, you know, explicit kind of, you know, agreement, ratification essentially. And then something really interesting happens, David, I want to kind of connect this to something we were just talking about. So in Exodus 24, this is seven through eight. You have this ritual where Moses, uh, takes the, a blood of a calf, I believe it is some sacrificial blood and puts it on the horns of the altar. And he calls it, he says, this is the blood of the covenant, right? This is after they've agreed to everything they've just heard him read. And what I think is really interesting is that Jesus uses exactly that same language in the last supper narrative. This is my blood of the new covenant. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, um, in Matthew 26, 28, uh, this is, this is my blood of the new covenant. Again, depending on, on your specific translation, you're looking at, that's the one I was referring to. It's the same language that Moses uses when Moses ratifies the covenant with the people, um, at Sinai or in, in Exodus 24. So is that really like, it's interesting only in, in Matthew. Uh, I don't have a, uh, the, the parallel text all in front of me, but I could, I could, yeah, the reason I ask about Matthew is because in Matthew, you get the sermon on the mount. Yeah. For his first major teaching, Jesus goes up a mountain, yeah, and speaks to the people and the, the, you know, Matthew, there is casting Jesus as a new Moses, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's really, it's a really explicit connection, I think. Again, we're going to talk about the new covenant and new covenant theology later in this podcast season. But I mean, it's hard not to have that language jump out at you. If you're someone who knows the words of the last supper or you know, it's the words of institution, um, when you hear what Moses says about the covenant, you know, you get that same language again, echoed by Jesus in the gospel of Matthew, uh, at, you know, as he sort of fulfills that covenant and renews it. So I'm going to go on a little bit of an excursus here while we're talking about all the new covenants. I want to give everybody a caution. We're going to get to the new covenant in several weeks because it's several sections later in the catechism. But it's important to understand and I'm going to hammer this again then as well, that the new covenant which will be in Jesus' blood and through his teaching and through the expansion of his teaching to many people, which we've just talked about, that new covenant does not eradicate or end the old covenant. It does not, the technical term is it does not supersede the old covenant. And it opens the promises of the old covenant to more people. And the idea that the new covenant supersedes or eradicates or takes the place of the old is the root of what's called supercessionism, which is a heresy. And that is the theology that now that we Christians exist, there's no need for Jews. And you can see, I hope, right away, the bad places that goes. Right? Consciously or unconsciously, that is the underlying theology that leads to scapegoating and blame and anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism and Holocaust and all of that stuff. Consciously, and the hundreds of years of anti-Semitic thought in Christianity that preceded all of those terrible events of the 19th and 20th centuries. And anti-Semitism, anti-Judaic thought is alive and well today and is having a bit of a resurgence in recent years. And we are here to make our stand and say, that is not of God, that is not the Christian faith, it is not historically true, it is a satanic lie from the pit of hell. If I may use some mild language today, it's great. So the old covenant is not ended or superseded by the new covenant. Yes. And it's important, as many modern scholars like to reiterate that Jesus was a Jew himself and Jesus in his own words said he was not abolishing the law, he was fulfilling it. And so that's just a thank you for that very important caveat there. Absolutely. But yeah, this is a tradition that is in conversation with itself and has been building upon itself for a very long time and it's part of an ongoing revelation from God. Is this covenantial relationship has kind of changed and expanded and we can talk about later. You know, we can go off in a whole long digression as well about Paul, I'm understanding of what the purpose of the law was and all that kind of stuff. Maybe best save for another time. But these things are interconnected with one another and in conversation with one another. And Jesus is very much in conversation with his own tradition. That's right. Yeah. So we've talked about God's promise to sort of be a light to the nations through Israel. And then we continue then to, so what do the people have to do? Like what response did God require from the chosen people? And here the catechism turns to the books of the prophets. Yeah. The prophet Micah chapter six verse eight and the catechism languages, God required the chosen people to be faithful to love justice, to do mercy and to walk humbly with their God. And you pointed out that this is a mistake. There's a bit of a there's a bit of a boo boo here. Sorry, Dr. Greenfield. Which is that it says here that we are to love justice and do mercy. But the prophet Micah actually says that our job is to do justice and love mercy. And like we often conflate justice and mercy and sort of read them together as, you know, these are the things that are good about God. But justice and mercy are not the same thing. So justice is about when people get what they are do, when they receive the things that are owed to them or that are that are due to them by virtue of their standing in society by virtue of their human nature by virtue of dignity as that all human beings. Like whatever it is by virtue of a business agreement, you know, you scratched my back and I'll scratch yours. Right. When when when this when the contract socially, ethically, morally is executed correctly, we have justice, right? When people have the things they need, when they have the things we have all agreed that everybody gets. And that when things are out of whack, that's unjust, right? Fair is fair. Yeah. It also means that when when someone does wrong, that there is a just punishment or a just restitution of some kind, that is also part of justice is what, which is why they call the crime and punishment system the justice system, right? So justice can bring people to things that are difficult for them, which they really ought to do. And justice can bring people to places of joy and fulfillment as the things that are theirs by right are things they have access to. But mercy is when a penalty or a consequence could be exacted, but the person who has the right to do that decides, I'm not going to do that. Right. Yeah. For example, you're speeding the cop pulls you over and says, well, I'm just going to let you off with a warning. That's mercy. Right. Right. Justice would be, no, you pay the ticket. You get the ticket and you pay the ticket and you have fulfilled your debt to society, so to speak, right? But mercy is when the when the when the police officer says, no, it's, you know what? Let's let's, I'm in a good mood. Right. Yeah. Right. Let's just let this slide for tonight. Okay. Right. Or, you know, whatever it is. And so, so justice and mercy are, are in some ways the opposite. Right. Mercy is the refraining from exacting what is just. However, we are called to love mercy by the prophet, my God, through the prophet, my God. And like, we all love mercy when it happens to us. But God says we are to love mercy, period, like no matter who receives the mercy. And that's that's countercultural because we love it when we get off the hood, but we also get, you know, a sense of satisfaction and shodden for right now when other people get what they deserve. Right. Right. Yes. But we also know that, that in Christ, we, we do not get what we deserve. We receive mercy and forgiveness and grace by God's act. And we are supposed to love that for ourselves and for others. Yeah. I, I love the example of this where Jesus tells someone go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Yeah. He tells them, and that's a course from the prophet, Jose, Jesus says, go, go check in with the prophets on that. Yeah. You know, that God, God loves mercy and wants us to love mercy. We all receive mercy from God. Yeah. In fact, you know, because why? Because as Paul would say, the wages of sin are death and we've all sinned and fallen sort of the grace of God. And so all of us are getting better than we deserve, essentially, in this relationship with God. We don't deserve God's grace and love. And yet God gives them anyway because God is who God is. He is love. Right. And so that's, that is a property of God. And so in a sense, loving mercy is, is in a way we also love God. That's because it's a, it really is a property of God's goodness. Jesus tells some amazing parables. I'm sure most people are familiar with of like, you know, the, the, the debtor who is given, forgiven a small debt and then didn't want to, or given a, for giving a huge debt, I should say, and then didn't want to forgive a small debt owed back to him. And you know, Jesus uses this as kind of a warning, you know, a stark warning about what happens when we don't love mercy enough. And don't practice that in our lives. That's right. Yeah. And you know, mercy, mercy is a, is a key attribute of God. And it's a thing that we continually ask for in our prayers, in the liturgy, right? Yeah. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy upon us. That is now an option. part of the service. You know, it's often, it's usually you get the gloria or the curiee, glory to God in the eyes or Lord have mercy. But in the old days, like that was non-negotiable, you had to do Lord have mercy at every service and then you would move on to glory to God in the highest. Right? In the praise of the people, several forms, Lord in your mercy here are prayer or Lord have mercy. Like it's over and over and over again. Us, acknowledging we need God's mercy and our trust in the idea that God does in fact have mercy. It's in the confession of sin, you know, have mercy on us and forgive us and then in the absolution, over and over and over again. And even in even in the glory to God in the highest, we sing have mercy on us. So it's just, it's an inescapable part of our of our worship, acknowledging God's mercy and asking for more of the same. Yeah, to love justice or do mercy or as you say, those were kind of inverted in the, from the words of the prophet Micah and walk humbly. And I don't, you know, I don't, we don't know if greenfield deliberately reversed these things or if it was just a boo-boo, but it got past two meetings of the general convention at least. So it is a little funny, isn't it, that that's in the text. Yeah, because you're right. You pointed that out to me and I was kind of surprised by it. Okay. So, but aside from my obsession with these two clauses, there is also to be faithful, which is to believe in God and to trust in God, which again, they don't do throughout the New Testament or the Old Testament, and then to walk humbly with their God, which again, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Yeah, right. Yeah, faithful in the sense, I think in that kind of Hebrew Bible sense to have no other gods before me. Right. You know, to have God as the as the center of your life, the fundamental part, or as Jesus would have framed it to love God with, you know, all your heart and mind and soul. That's right. He got that from somewhere. Yes. He got that from the Old Testament, which the Catechism says, that's where we find the covenant with the Hebrew people in the Old Testament. And we'll talk more about the Old Testament. There is a whole section on Holy Scripture, but the Old Testament are the, you know, the books of the Old Testament, the books of the good first two-thirds of your Bible, basically. And there's some questions about which books are part of it, which aren't. We've talked about that when the articles covered this issue. And we'll talk about it again in the Catechism section on Holy Scripture. This section of the Bible is now more and more often called, especially in academic context, the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Hebrew Bible, which acknowledges that for our Jewish neighbors, that is the whole Bible. It's also more precise because it is, in fact, in Hebrew. Well, that is true. That is true. But within a Christian framework, and within the theology of this covenantal theology of an old covenant, a new covenant, it's not useless to call it the Old Testament, right? You might kill the original Testament, the OG Testament. You know, it's, it is not in my estimation anti-Jewish to call it the Old Testament, but it is a particularly Christian framing of what these works are. If you're Jewish, there is no other Testament. There's only the one. So Hebrew Bible or Hebrew Scriptures is a more neutral term. And so in an academic context, especially that's fine, but I'm an old fashioned traditionalist and I believe that it is perfectly reasonable and okay for Christians to refer to these books as the Old Testament. And you'll hear me do so. Dominic is a Hebrew Scriptures guy, and that's okay. And notice it says the books which we call the Old Testament, right? Yeah. Christians. It doesn't say which all people everywhere had better call the Old Testament, right? It's, it, it calls out the inside, inside baseball, inside Christian baseball name of the Old Testament. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. And then this segues right into the Ten Commandments which we'll look at in depth next time. Yeah, but it states here that this is where the God's will is shown most closely or most clearly is in the, is in the Ten Commandments. Like if you had to boil it down, this is what it would be. Yes. And it's an expansion of the summary of the law as Jesus gives it. Love God and love your neighbor. And we'll see that in our next episode as how the Ten Commandments may be broken down. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I would quibble a little bit with the framing of this probably because I think that like Paul, you know, Paul and Romans would talk about this a little bit differently. I mean, see all laws essentially coming back to an expression of love that, that, that all laws about that ultimately. Yeah. You know, either one of the two, love of God or love of neighbor. But of course, I guess we're, we're sort of speaking in circles because really they're the same thing ultimately. These are more, more direct and explicit ways of expressing what is ultimately about love of God and love of neighbor, both of, both of those two principles. That's right. Yeah. So stay tuned folks and we'll get to that in our next episode. We will. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Walking the Dogma. This podcast is sponsored by the Center for Discipleship and Renewal at Forward Movement. You can email us walking the dogma [email protected]. If you enjoy our podcast, please tell your friends and family about it by word of mouth or with a social media post and share it with folks in your church. Our web address is walkinthedogma.org where you can view and listen to all of our episodes and we release a new one every other Thursday. Please leave a rating of no fewer than five stars and a review if your podcast Apple. That was it. Really does help our listeners and other listeners find our show higher in search results and listings. Thank you. 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