RW Emerson: Heart vs. Mind in Religious Exploration

RW Emerson is justifiably famous for his pithy one liners, although they appear strewn like nuggets of gold in a field of dense pyrite, at least to modern readers.  Here are a few you may recognize but not have realized he was the author:

Hitch your wagon to a star.  To be great is to be misunderstood.   Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. All mankind love a lover.

And this last one, which I love from an author: Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

He was a lecturer and writer of history, biography, and science, as well as a poet, but I want to focus on his religious and philosophical views today because the conflict he felt in religion is one that you may feel, too, pulled between heart and mind, intellect and emotion. By looking at some of his decisions, and considering the context of those actions, we can reflect on our individual and congregational values about the heart and mind of our faith. 

Unitarians sometimes forget that, although he was a Unitarian minister, in what amounted to a nine generation family business, Emerson quit the job after only 3 years.  Ostensibly it was over his discomfort in celebrating the Eucharist, but really, according to his journals and other writings, it reflected broader reasons that many of us have experienced, too, as we have church shopped through our lives, trying out different denominations, and various congregations within them.  After he left, he neither referred to himself as Reverend nor expected others to do so.   I think he’d be rather embarrassed to have a Unitarian church named after him, because he purposefully left the denomination, explaining that one’s relationship with the divine was better found outside any church than within.

Roman and Jewish Context of Early Christianity

When I taught 7^th grade years ago, I heard the tail end of an argument between two girls.  The penultimate line was, “Then what religion was Jesus?” To which the other girl hurled with confidence, “Jesus was Baptist.”  We laugh, knowing that Jesus was Jewish, but I think many of us are rather vague on the historical context that gave rise to the Jesus movement, especially if we read the Bible in a vacuum, or rely on those religious movies that appear, without fail, every Easter.  So this morning, I thought it would be useful to summarize the position of Judaism in the Roman Empire between 100 BCE and 135 CE, then focus on the religious conflicts within Judaism itself, and the implications for the early years of Christianity, when it segregated from its root religion of Judaism.

Our images of first century CE Jews as a small band of poor people limited to Palestine, dressed in striped blankets and wearing burnooses is misleading.  First of all, they didn’t wear that Arab headdress.  Second of all, during the first century BCE, Jewish populations thrived throughout the Roman Empire.  They were not some marginalized population crowded only into the eastern Mediterranean hinterlands.  For example, although Rome was obviously the political capital, Alexandria, Egypt was the cosmopolitan and intellectual city (maybe like the different perceptions of New York City and Washington DC for America, today).  In Alexandria, Jews accounted for about 40% of the city’s population (and it was supposedly one of the Ptolemy pharaohs who commissioned the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament, a few centuries earlier).  Throughout the empire, Roman records calculated a Jewish contingent upwards of 10%, often in cities and in positions of business, educational, and political leadership. By contrast, do you know the percentage of Jews in the US today?  Less than 2%.  Furthermore, the Romans granted Jews favored status during that century.  They had full freedom to practice their religion, including not working on their Sabbath, not worshipping at Roman religious sites, and practicing circumcision.  Had the influential Greek population of the eastern empire been in power, they would likely have outlawed what they regarded as that barbaric act of self-mutilation.

Read Three Different Versions of the Ten Commandments in Exodus and Deuteronomy

The list of Ten Commandments is presented in three different stories.  Read below to note the differences.  Which version have you never heard?  Why?   The sections A, B, and C function as dividers since the wording is longer in some versions than in others.

Do some versions seem more primitive or more sophisticated?  Could this reflect the date of writing or the social development of the source? Why did the editors of the Bible include all three versions?  For clues, read the passages before and after these commandments.  How is Moses depicted?  Aaron? The Jewish population? How does God interact with the people?      

Exodus 20                19:24  Yahweh told Moses, “come up again bringing Aaron with you.”  --------------------------------------------- 20:  Then God spoke all these words.  (A) He said, “I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.  You shall have no gods except me.  You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.  For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God and I punish the father’s fault in the sons, the grandsons, and the great-grandsons of those who hate me; but I show kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments You shall not utter the name of Yahweh your God to misuse it, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished the man who utters his name to misuse it. (B) Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.  For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day Is a Sabbath for Yahweh your God.  You shall do no work that day, neither you nor your son nor your daughter nor your servants, men or women, nor your animals nor the stranger who lives with you.  For in six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that these hold, but on the seventh day he rested; that is why Yahweh has blessed the Sabbath day and made it sacred.  © Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that Yahweh your God has given to you. You shall not kill.  You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, wife, servant, man or woman, ox, donkey, or anything that is his.

Deuteronomy 5            Listen, Israel, I stood all the time between Yahweh and yourselves to tell you of Yahweh’s words, for you were afraid of the fire and had not gone up the mountain.  He said: --------------- (A) I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.  You shall have no gods except me.  You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.  For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God and I punish the fathers’ fault in the sons, the grandsons, and the great-grandsons of those who hate me; but I show kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.   You shall not utter the name of Yahweh your God to misuse it, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished the man who utters his name to misuse it. (B) Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as Yahweh your God has commanded you.  For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is a Sabbath for Yahweh your God.  You shall do no work that day, nor your son nor your daughter nor your servants, men or women, nor your ox nor your donkey nor any of your animals, nor the stranger who lives with you.  Thus your servant, man or woman, shall rest as you do.  Remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt and that Yahweh your God brought you out from there with mighty hand and outstretched arm; because of this, Yahweh your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. © Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God has commanded you, so that you may have long life and may prosper in the land that Yahweh your God gives to you. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, house, field, servant – man or woman- ox, donkey, or anything that is his. These are the words Yahweh spoke to you when you were all assembled on the mountain.  He added nothing, but wrote them on two tablets of stone which he gave to me. 6: These then are the commandments, the laws and customs which Yahweh your God has instructed me to teach you that you may observe them in the land which you are going to make your own.  Thus, if you fear Yahweh your God all the days of your life, and if you keep all his laws and commandments, you will have a long life, you, and your son, and your grandson.

Exodus 34                  32:  Yahweh spoke to Moses, Go down now because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have apostasized…Leave me, my wrath shall blaze out against them and devour them; of you however, I will make a great nation… Moses pleaded. Yahweh relented. Moses made his way down the mountain with two tablets.. Aaron had allowed them to lapse into idolatry with enemies all round them.  Moses threw down the tablets, broke them, burned the calf they had made, grinding it into powder.  Yahweh said to Moses, Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain, and I will inscribe on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.  ---------------------------------------- (A) 34:14:  You shall bow down to no other god, for Yahweh’s name is the Jealous One; he is a jealous God.  Make no pact with the inhabitants of the land or, when they prostitute themselves to their own gods and sacrifice to them, they may invite you and you may consent to eat from their victim; or else you may choose wives for your sons from among their daughters and these, prostituting themselves to their own gods, may induce your sons to do the same.  You shall make yourself no gods of molten metal. (B) You shall celebrate the feast of Unleavened Bread; you shall eat unleavened bread as I have commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt. All that first issues from the womb is mine: every male, every first-born of flock or herd.  But the first-born donkey you must redeem with an animal from your flocks.  If you do not redeem it, you must break its neck.  You must redeem all the first-born of your sons.  And no one is to come before me empty-handed. For six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest, even at plowing time and harvest. You shall celebrate the feast of Weeks, of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feat of Ingathering at the close of the year. Three times a year all your menfolk must present themselves before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel.  When I have dispossessed the nations for you and extended your frontiers, no one will covet your land, if you present yourselves three times in the year before Yahweh your God. You must not offer the blood of the victim sacrificed to me at the same time as you offer unleavened bread, nor is the victim offered at the feast of Passover to be put aside for the following day. You must bring the best of the first-fruits of your soil to the house of Yahweh your God.  You must not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.  ---------------- Yahweh said to Moses, “Put these words in writing, for they are the terms of the covenant I am making with you and Israel.”  He stayed there with Yahweh for forty days and forty nights, eating and drinking nothing.  He inscribed on the tablets the words of the Covenant – the Ten Words.

Match the Biblical Men and Women's Names with their Meanings

Bible Stories for Grown Ups:  Matriarchs and Patriarchs

               Names                               Match #        Meanings    

1 Aaron 14,15 Bitter(ness)  2 Abraham 16 Drawn Out or Son of 3 Dinah 18 Ewe 4 Esau 2 Father of Multitudes 5 Hagar 5 Flight 6 Isaac 7 God Hears 7 Ishmael 4 Hairy 8 Israel 8 He Who Fights with God 9 Jacob 10 He Who Opens 10 Jephthah 12 He Will Add 11 Jesus 9 Holder of the Heel (or Supplanter) 12 Joseph 3 Justice 13 Leah 6 Laughter 14 Mary 19 Princess 15 Miriam 11 Salvation 16 Moses 17 Small or humble 17 Paul 13 Weak eyed, weary 18 Rachel 1 Unknown 19 Rebecca 19 Captivating 20 Sarah

Review Questions                          Answer Number

Who killed his daughter?               10

Who nearly killed two sons?         6

Who was struck white with temporary leprosy?      15

Who was raped?                             3

Who were imprisoned?                  12, 17

Who were sold into slavery?         12,  5?

Who were given to other men by their husbands?  19, 20

Who tricked his father?                  9

Who was tricked by his father-in-law and his sons?  9

Match the Biblical Woman's Name with its Meaning

Bible Stories for Grown Ups:  Women

 Names                                                                                   Match # left to Meanings, below         

1	Bathsheba	2	Bee
2	Deborah	3	Delight
3	Delilah	10	Friend
4	Esther	8	Jewish
5	Eve	9	Joy
6	Jael	5	Life giver
7	Jezebel	6	Mountain Goat
8	Judith	11	Palm Tree
9	Naomi	7	Piece of Trash
10	Ruth	4	Star
11	Tamar	1	Unknown

Review questions:                                                Answer Numbers (top left)

Which women are murderers?  6,8

Who is the only woman judge in the Bible?   2

Who dresses up as a prostitute to get pregnant by her father-in-law? 11

Who secures a husband by sleeping with him after he is fed, drunk, and asleep?  10

Whose husband is purposely killed to secure her?  1

Which ones are queens? 1,4,7

Who dies by being thrown out of a window?                       7

Which ones are widows (during the stories)?           1, 8, 9, 10, 11

Outline of Book, Leviticus (reference for Leviticus sermon)

Outline of the Book, Leviticus

Chapter 1: Burnt offerings (animals) Chapter 2-5: Oblations (agricultural offerings) Communion Sacrifice (peace offering) Sacrifice for Sin (guilt-offering) Sins of the high priest Sins of the community of Israel Sins of the leaders Sins of private individuals Examples requiring Sacrifice for Sin More sins of private individuals Sacrifice of Reparation (guilt offering) Chapter 6: Priesthood and sacrifice             Burnt offerings             Oblations (agriculture) Sacrifice for Sin Sacrifice of Reparation Rights of Priests Chapter 7: Communion Sacrifice             Sacrifice with Praise             Votive or Voluntary Sacrifices General Rules of sacrifice The Priest’s Portion (breast, right thigh) Chapters 8, 9, 10: Investiture of the Priests             Ordination             Functions of Priests             Legislation                         Exact observance lesson                         Removal of bodies                         Priestly mourning                         No wine at Tent of Meeting                         Priest’s portion of offerings (unleavened portion, breast and thigh)              Special regulations Chapter 11: Clean and Unclean  On land             In water             Birds             Winged insects             Contact with unclean animals             Small ground beasts             Further rules on contact with unclean things Chapter 12: Purification of a woman after childbirth            Chapter 13-14: Human leprosy                         Chronic leprosy                         Boils                         Burns                         Diseases of scalp and chin                         Rash                         Loss of hair                         Regulation for lepers                         Leprosy of clothes                         Purification of lepers Leprosy of houses

Chapter 15: Sexual impurities of men Sexual impurities of women Chapter 16: A great Day of Atonement Chapter 17: The Law of Holiness             Immolation and sacrifice Chapter 18: Rules for conjugal relationships Chapter 19:Worship Chapter 20:  Penalties                         Offences against true worship                         Offences against the family The clean and the unclean Chapter 21: The Priesthood             The Priests             The high Priest             Impediments to the priesthood Chapter 22: Holiness of the sacred meal             The priests             Lay people             Animals sacrificed Chapter 23-24: Rituals for annual feasts             The Sabbath             The Passover and feast of Unleavened bread             The first sheaf             The feast of Weeks             The first day of the Seventh Month             The Day of Atonement             The Feast of Tabernacles             Repeat of Feast of Tabernacles             The perpetual flame             The bread on the Golden Table             Blasphemy and retaliation             The Holy Years                         The Sabbatical Year                         The Year of Jubilee                         The divine guarantee Chapter 25, middle: Consequences of the holy land and people             Redemption of landed property             The people: loans and enfranchisement Chapter 26: Conclusion Blessings             Curses Chapter 27: Valuations:             People             Animals             Homes             Fields Chapter 27, end: Redemption rules:             First-born             Banned creatures             Tithing