Day 1 (Monday)
Numbers 1:47-54; 3:5-16, 39-51; 6:22-27 (Levites as Priests in place of the Firstborn of Israel, Priestly Blessing)
Last time, we read about the first sacrifices that the people of Israel offered, as Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, arrived, and offered thanksgiving to God on behalf of all Israel. Immediately after that, Israel arrives at Mount Sinai and becomes God’s priestly people. We will read what happens there next year; this year, we will skip ahead to the book of Numbers, which begins at Sinai, on the 1st day of the 2nd month of the 2nd year after the Exodus, as God commands a census for the people of Israel, a count of all the men in Israel 20 years old and up, able to go out to war. All the tribes are numbered, except the tribe of Levi. There is a reason for this, as we will see. We pick up in verse 47 of chapter 1.
Levi is not Numbered for War
47 But the Levites were not numbered by their ancestral tribe along with them. 48 For the Lord said to Moses, 49 “Only the tribe of Levi you shall not number, and you shall not take a census of them among the people of Israel; 50 but appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its furnishings, and over all that belongs to it; they are to carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings, and they shall tend it, and shall encamp around the tabernacle. 51 When the tabernacle is to set out, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up. And if any one else comes near, he shall be put to death. 52 The people of Israel shall pitch their tents by their companies, every man by his own camp and every man by his own standard; 53 but the Levites shall encamp around the tabernacle of the testimony, that there may be no wrath upon the congregation of the people of Israel; and the Levites shall keep charge of the tabernacle of the testimony.” 54 Thus did the people of Israel; they did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses.
Then, in chapter 2, the order of encampment and marching is laid out, with the twelve tribes camping around the tabernacle. After this, in chapter 3, God turns to the tribe of Levi. We pick up the story in verse 5.
The Duties of the Levites
5 And the Lord said to Moses, 6 “Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him. 7 They shall perform duties for him and for the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, as they minister at the tabernacle; 8 they shall have charge of all the furnishings of the tent of meeting, and attend to the duties for the people of Israel as they minister at the tabernacle. 9 And you shall give the Levites to Aaron and his sons; they are wholly given to him from among the people of Israel. 10 And you shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall attend to their priesthood; but if any one else comes near, he shall be put to death.”
11 And the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the people of Israel instead of every first-born that opens the womb among the people of Israel. The Levites shall be mine, 13 for all the first-born are mine; on the day that I slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, I consecrated for my own all the first-born in Israel, both of man and of beast; they shall be mine: I am the Lord.”
A Census of the Levites
14 And the Lord said to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, 15 “Number the sons of Levi, by fathers’ houses and by families; every male from a month old and upward you shall number.” 16 So Moses numbered them according to the word of the Lord, as he was commanded.
… Then they are all counted …
39 All who were numbered of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of the Lord, by families, all the males from a month old and upward, were twenty-two thousand.
The Redemption of the Firstborn
40 And the Lord said to Moses, “Number all the first-born males of the people of Israel, from a month old and upward, taking their number by names. 41 And you shall take the Levites for me—I am the Lord—instead of all the first-born among the people of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of all the firstlings among the cattle of the people of Israel.” 42 So Moses numbered all the first-born among the people of Israel, as the Lord commanded him. 43 And all the first-born males, according to the number of names, from a month old and upward as numbered were twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three.
44 And the Lord said to Moses, 45 “Take the Levites instead of all the first-born among the people of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of their cattle; and the Levites shall be mine: I am the Lord. 46 And for the redemption of the two hundred and seventy-three of the first-born of the people of Israel, over and above the number of the male Levites, 47 you shall take five shekels apiece; reckoning by the shekel of the sanctuary, the shekel of twenty gerahs, you shall take them, 48 and give the money by which the excess number of them is redeemed to Aaron and his sons.” 49 So Moses took the redemption money from those who were over and above those redeemed by the Levites; 50 from the first-born of the people of Israel he took the money, one thousand three hundred and sixty-five shekels, reckoned by the shekel of the sanctuary; 51 and Moses gave the redemption money to Aaron and his sons, according to the word of the Lord, as the Lord commanded Moses.
Then, in chapters 4 & 5 & 6, the duties of the priests are laid out, with mention of some particular roles that the priests will fulfill for the people. Then, at the end of chapter 6, God gives the priests, the sons of Aaron, words to bless the people:
The Priestly Benediction
22 The Lord said to Moses, 23 “Say to Aaron and his sons, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,
24 The Lord bless you and keep you:
25 The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you:
26 The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
27 “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
1002 words
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (Leader should point out the double significance of the first-born of all Israel, whose place the tribe of Levi takes. First, of course, is the obvious connection with the Exodus, that all the firstborn were the ones that were saved by the blood of the Passover lamb with the 10th plague. But second is the point that was illustrated last time by Jethro; prior to the arrival at Mount Sinai, the designated priest for each family was the patriarch, which would often equate with the first-born son of each clan. All of these, however, are now required to cede their previous priestly responsibilities to the Levites. And the work of the Levites, assigned to them by God Himself, is to do what is necessary for the people to abide the presence of God Himself in their midst. Where the sacrifices began outside the Garden of Eden after the Fall, as human beings offered sacrifices to God in order to still share communion with God who was absent from them, here at Mt. Sinai, in the middle of the desert, God is providing food and water to to them directly, and is visibly present in their midst, sharing meals with them every day as the Levites offer the sacrifices that have been ordained. Which is to say that the camp of Israel has become the very throne of God Himself; a renewal of the Garden of Eden…and a foreshadowing of the Church.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
6) “What is the a) literal, b) allegorical, c) moral/ethical, d) anagogical/eschatological meaning of this text? (Think of these questions as a mountain which we can ascend, or as layers of meaning upon which we can reflect. Oftentimes, as we reflect upon a text in this way, we may find that the highest level, the anagogical reading (in which we see the text as revealing the glory of God and His kingdom in a deeper manner, opening up to us the grand scope of God’s great work of salvation in and for us) sheds new insights on the lower levels of interpretation.)
Day 2 (Wednesday)
Anthony Bloom on Prayer – 6 – On Suffering and Weakness, continued
Last time, Metropolitan Anthony began to speak of weakness, and how our weakness is an essential element of prayer for us. He began to tell the story of a woman who had an experience of God early in life, and then became sick and felt the presence of God more intensely, and then felt that it went away as her strength to raise herself up to God failed and her illness advanced. She wrote about this to Metropolitan Anthony, and he advised her to “try to learn humility.” This time, we will see the end of this story, and the point that he is making to us.
Absence of God in Prayer – continued
The word ‘humility’ comes from the Latin word ‘humus’ which means fertile ground. To me, humility is not what we often make of it: the sheepish way of trying to imagine that we are the worst of all and trying to convince others that our artificial ways of behaving show that we are aware of that. Humility is the situation of the earth. The earth is always there, always taken for granted, never remembered, always trodden on by everyone, somewhere we cast and pour out all the refuse, all we don’t need.
It’s there, silent and accepting everything and in a miraculous way making out of all the refuse new richness in spite of corruption, transforming corruption itself into a power of life and a new possibility of creativeness, open to the sunshine, open to the rain, ready to receive any seed we sow and capable of bringing thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold out of every seed.
I said to this woman ‘Learn to be like this before God; abandoned, surrendered, ready to receive anything from people and anything from God.’ Indeed she got a great deal from people; within six months her husband got tired of having a dying wife and abandoned her, so refuse was poured generously, but God also shone His light and gave His rain, because after a little while she wrote to me and said “I am completely finished. I can’t move Godwards, but it is God who steps down to me.’
This is not only a story to illustrate what I said, but something to the point; this is the weakness in which God can manifest His power and this is the situation in which the absence of God can become the presence of God. We cannot capture God. But whenever we stand, either like the Publican or like this girl, outside the realm of ‘right,’ only in the realm of mercy, we can meet God.
Try to think about the absence of God, and do realize that before you can knock at the door – and remember that it is not only at the door of the Kingdom understood in the general way, but that Christ really says ‘I am the door’ – before you knock at the door, you must realize that you are outside. If you spend your time imagining that in a mad way you are already in the kingdom of God, there is certainly no point in knocking at any door for it to be opened.
Obviously, you must look round trying to see where are the angels and the saints, and where the mansion is which belongs to you, and when you see nothing but darkness or walls, you can quite legitimately find it surprising that Paradise is so unattractive. We must all realize that we are not yet in it, that we are still outsiders to the kingdom of God, and then ask ourselves ‘Where is the door and how does one knock at it?
In the next chapter we will try to go deeper into this subject of knocking at the door and the attempt to go inside, to become an inmate of Paradise, of the place where prayer is possible.
Beginning to Pray – pg 35-36
As a bonus, here at the end of Chapter 1, and of our reading from “Beginning to Pray,” we will also read a couple paragraphs from the Introduction of the book, as he talks more generally about what the Christian life looks like, and how Christians are separate from the world, not because we are crazy, but because we are the only ones who are truly sane.
From the Introduction – in response to the interviewer’s question: “I remember you saying ‘I am mad, but it is an odd kind of madness because other people want to catch it.’ What did you mean by that?”
Metropolitan Anthony: As Christians we are always in tension – in anguish and at the same time in bliss. This is mad, ridiculous. But it is true – accepting the dark night just as we accept the brilliance of the day. We have to make an act of surrender – if I am in Christ, there are moments when I must share the cry of the Lord on the cross and the anguish in the garden of Gethsemane. There is a way of being defeated, even in our faith – and this is a way of sharing the anguish of the Lord. I don’t believe that we should ever say, ‘This cannot happen to you.’ If we are Christians we should go through this life, accepting the life and the world, not trying to create a falsified world.
But, on the other hand, the Christian is like someone who lives in three dimensions in a world in which the majority of people live in two. People who live freely and within a dimension of eternity will always find that something is wrong, they will always find themselves being the odd man out. The same problem was faced by the early Christians when they said that their only king was God. People turned round to them and said, ‘If you say that you are disloyal to our king’ and often persecuted them. But the only true way of being loyal to this two-dimensional world is to be loyal to the three-dimensional world, because in reality the world is three-dimensional. If you really live in three dimensions and do not simply live in two and imagine the third, then life will be full and meaningful. The early Christians were able to do it and Christians today are also able to do that.
Beginning to Pray – pg. 18-19
948 words
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (Leader should note how difficult this story about this woman’s final sickness is for us to hear. We don’t want to think about gaining communion with God at the cost of everything else that is dear to us. We don’t want to be weak. But if we want to be in communion with God, if we want to enter into the Kingdom, as he says, we have to recognize that we are outside, and choose to seek to enter, to ask the Lord to come to us and bring us in to dwell with Him. And we have to be willing to let go of everything that is outside of the Kingdom.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this story? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this story make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
6) “What is the a) literal, b) allegorical, c) moral/ethical, d) anagogical/eschatological meaning of this text? (Think of these questions as a mountain which we can ascend, or as layers of meaning upon which we can reflect. Oftentimes, as we reflect upon a text in this way, we may find that the highest level, the anagogical reading (in which we see the text as revealing the glory of God and His kingdom in a deeper manner, opening up to us the grand scope of God’s great work of salvation in and for us) sheds new insights on the lower levels of interpretation.)
Day 3 (Friday)
Luke 22:39-62 (Jesus Prays at the Mount of Olives, Betrayal & Arrest of Jesus, Peter Denies Jesus)
Last time, we began to read the account of what happened leading up to the Last Supper, and saw Jesus institute the celebration of the Eucharist, of Holy Communion, and begin to speak to the apostles about how they were called not to rule over one another, but to serve, in imitation of Him. In this chapter, we will see Him continue to speak to them, and then they will go out to the Mount of Olives, where He will be betrayed and arrested by the soldiers of the high priest.
Jesus Prays on the Mount of Olives
39 And he came out, and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. 40 And when he came to the place he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 41 And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”
43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground. 45 And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, 46 and he said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus
47 While he was still speaking, there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him; 48 but Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of man with a kiss?” 49 And when those who were about him saw what would follow, they said, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” 50 And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear.
51 But Jesus said, “No more of this!” And he touched his ear and healed him. 52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests and captains of the temple and elders, who had come out against him,[g] “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? 53 When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”
Peter Denies Jesus
54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house. Peter followed at a distance; 55 and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. 56 Then a maid, seeing him as he sat in the light and gazing at him, said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 And a little later some one else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.”
59 And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him; for he is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are saying.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.” 62 And he went out and wept bitterly.
Reading 47
524 words
Discussion Questions
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (There are many things to note here, but one thing the Leader can point out if there is a need to spark discussion is that one of the themes throughout this reading is given at the end of last week’s reading, when Jesus tells Peter that “Satan has demanded to sift them all like wheat,” that is, to test them all. As Jesus goes to His death, the trust and the faithfulness of His disciples is put to the test. Instead of leading them into a Promised Land, He is leading them to His own death, and still urging them to trust Him and to remain faithful to Him. It is important to note that all of them fail and run away or deny Him at some point, but from the very beginning, Jesus talks about their repentance and restoration, telling Peter to comfort the others once He has repented. Also, even though all of them are going to fail, Jesus still encourages them to struggle, and shows them how to do so, with prayer, and by urging them to repent after they fall. The point, in the end, is that only Judas actually falls permanently; all the others repent and are restored and saved.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
6) “What is the a) literal, b) allegorical, c) moral/ethical, d) anagogical/eschatological meaning of this text? (Think of these questions as a mountain which we can ascend, or as layers of meaning upon which we can reflect. Oftentimes, as we reflect upon a text in this way, we may find that the anagogical reading, in which we see the text as revealing the glory of God and His kingdom in a deeper manner, sheds new insights on the lower levels of interpretation.)
Leave a Reply