If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.
3 March. Deuteronomy chapters 11-13
I get the impression that Moses, as he gave the series of long speeches that make up most of Deuteronomy, was getting more and more worked up. He frequently repeats sections of the speech, and lays it on with more and more verbal force. I imagine his preaching style as more like that of an African pentecostal pastor, or Southern Baptist minister, than an English vicar. But there is a real concern behind it of the people he is addressing because he knows he will not go with them.
To change the metaphor, he is in the position of a father whose son or daughter is about to emigrate, maybe going abroad to study or work. Until quite recently with the advent of cheap flights, such a move would mean they would not see each other for maybe several years, if at all. The parent is naturally anxious to pass on his worldy wisdom to his offspring. Unfortunately, a young man hearing his father laying down the law like this is likely to say “yes Dad” outwardly while inwardly thinking “no, I’m going to have a good time and do as I like”. We only see the wisdom in our parents’ strictures when we have got several more years experience of life under our belt. And maybe that is how the young generation of Israelites, who had not experienced the Exodus for themselves, saw Moses – old Dad telling young people how to live. A natural tension, as old as human life, but always poignant when they know they will not meet again.
In all this, Moses has three particular concerns for his young charges as they make their own way in life. They can be summed up as – “live virtuously, follow our religion not anyone else’s”, and (this is the one you might not expect) “make a distinction between eating meat as food, and a ritual slaughter for sacrifice”. The first of these is a universal principle, the second a natural human tendency (whatever religion you follow, you want your children to share it), and young people leaving home have to decide how much of their parent’s ethical values and religions heritage they will take on board. The third is another of those cultural principles that does not translate easily to modern British society, where meat is only seen as food (or to be shunned altogether if you are vegetarian). But perhaps a wider principle is that on the one hand we all need to eat, to make enough money to live, to provide for our families, but there should be a place in our lives for sacrifice in its widest sense, whether of time spent volunteering, money given to church and charity, or setting aside a space in our lives for worship.
OK, I don’t have children myself. But if I did (and many of my contemporaries have offspring at university or beyond now) I would say to them, “live for others as well as yourself; find a form of religion that suits you but does not cut you off from your family; and find a balance between work, play and worship”.