Covenants and Desires

Part 2 - The new covenant

Most Christians live as though the new covenant is simply a different set of criteria that protect us from God’s punishment.

Have faith in Christ so that you won’t go to hell. 

Obey God, follow Christ and you will live the abundant life.

How is this any different from the old covenant?  If the old covenant was law that existed to protect us from punishment, how is the new covenant any different?

Maybe the new covenant has nothing to do with protecting us from punishment.  Maybe it liberates us in an entirely different way.  

Hebrews 8 says:

“If there had been nothing wrong with the first covenant, there would have been no need for another.  But God found fault and said, ‘The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Isreal and the people of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors ….. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. …. No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord’; because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.”

That doesn’t sound much like modern day Christianity.  All around us we see churches evangelizing their neighbor and saying to them, ‘know the Lord’. 

But the new covenant says NO LONGER.

The new covenant is DIFFERENT than the old covenant. 

Completely.

It doesn’t protect us from God's "desire" to punish, nor does it produce a false desire from the restrictions itself (as in Part 1 of this post series), it CONNECTS us to desire.  And in this process we come to know God.

Not in an academic or legalistic way.  But through the heart.  

We come to know ourselves, and in doing so we find God.

When the law (the obstacle) is removed, we find that some things we thought we desired go away.  We thought we really wanted them but once they are made accessible, we really don’t want them that much after all.  When I can eat all the ice cream I want without any fear of negative consequences, I will get tired of it.  It won’t seem like a treat anymore and my desire for it may wane.  This stripping away of the desire that was manufactured by the prohibition, and simultaneously being naked and unprotected from the desire of the other (ie. Having no old covenant of law to protect you), allows us to finally see with clarity our own desires and the desires of God.   No longer are we bad persons who want any number of bad things.  Nor is God a god who desires to punish us for this badness.  

Try it. Try it for a week – just do the things you want and do nothing out of obligation, law or restriction. 

Every time I discuss this subject with someone, the rebuttal is that it’s just not practical to live that way.  We have obligations to jobs, to people.   And it’s true – we do.   But just try it.   I’ve tried it and what you find is that you don’t know your own mind.  You don’t know your own heart.  You THINK you want things you don’t want.  You THINK you want to eat nothing but sugar and chocolate.  You THINK you want to lay in bed all day binge-watching Netflix.  You THINK you want to be selfish, lazy, indulgent, hedonistic.   And you think it is discipline that has kept you from it all.

And on one level, it’s true.  It IS discipline that has held back the demon.  

So -  let the demon free. 

Too afraid to try it?

 Try it.

Try it in one area of your life. 

Just to see what happens. 

 I think you will find that at first, if you pick an area that is meaningful to you, it’s scary.  But if you throw yourself into it, next you will find that it’s fun.  And then, what happens, after you’ve played it out for a while, is that it’s just not fun anymore.  The demon is not really a demon at all.  It’s all a façade.  Behind the desire you are indulging in is another desire, the desire that says, “hey wait – I don’t really want to live this way after all.  I don’t want to spend my life like this.”  And behind that is the question:

Then what DO I want?”  

And that’s the question we all need to get to.

To discover the true desires of our heart. 

(To comment, click on header)

Covenants and desires

The ‘should’ disconnects us from our desires. 

PART 1:

We draw up covenants and contracts so that if the other person; spouse, business partner, seller, buyer or whomever, desires something different than us, we have some kind of document protecting us.  What is it protecting us from?  It protects us from what they may want to do to us, or not do for us.  It protects us from their desires. 

At their essence, covenants protect us from the desire of the “other”. 

The old covenant

 In the old testament, we read stories about God making covenants with his people.  From the perspective of the people, these covenants protect them from God’s wrath and destruction. 

‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ Exodus 19: 4-6

God makes a covenant with the Isrealites.  He will make them his special people, he will give them victory over their enemies, he will bestow upon them special status and protection.  If they keep this covenant with God, they won’t be like the rest of the nations, vulnerable to their enemies, destruction, plague, famine, annihilation.  We see throughout the Old Testament narrative that when they are unfaithful to the covenant, all manner of evil visits them.  They are enslaved and defeated and lose their special protection.  

Protection from what?

In that particular covenant – the protection was from God’s desire to punish.  The wrath of God. 

The old covenant involved a set of rules - laws to be followed. 

It was a covenant of if-then, quid pro quo.

 “If you obey me fully….”   

But no one can do that.

All have sinned and fall short.  

Not only that, the covenant itself produces a desire to violate it. 

Paul says in the book of Romans  chapter 7 :

 I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 

You know how it is, once you can’t eat the brownie, there’s not much you want more than the brownie.

Philosopher Jacques Lacan said that desire is not a relation to an object, but rather a relation to the obstacle to that desire or the lack of the desired object. 

Simply put, we want what we can’t have.

One could say that this law then helps us to know our desire, and in one way that is true.  But the desire we come to know is only the one that is manufactured by the restriction itself.  It is not the truest desire.  I believe when Paul says he would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet”, he is saying that the restriction brings into LIFE the desire to transgress and break free of the restriction.  It then becomes its own false desire and thus masks or disconnects us from our real desires.

You may have heard it said that whatever it is we truly want, that is what we already have.  What this is saying is that we may think we want one thing, but what we have manifested in our lives is more indicative of what we truly want – our real desires.  We may say that we want to lose 20 pounds because the restrictions and mores of our cultural group tell us we should weigh 20 pounds less, but the truer desire is that we want to enjoy and indulge in food.   We distract ourselves from the truth of our real desires by saying we want something other than what we have. 

It’s not just the old covenant in the Bible that produces this dynamic, but any obstacle, law or restriction. 

The ‘should’ disconnects us from our desires. 

1)      It produces a desire born solely due to the obstacle or the lack (as in Lacan)

2)       It disconnects us from our desire by keeping us focused on what we believe is the desire of the other.  We try to become what they want, do what they want.  We say we want the things that we know we should want. 

(To comment, click on header)

Lost Resolutions

If you've read either of the previous Blog posts, you know that I was messing around with the format of my blog and accidentally deleted all the posts.  I re-posted two that I had saved, but the rest were gone.  There weren't that many and they weren't particularly profound, but it is not lost on me that one of them was written on January 1st, 2018 about New Year's resolutions and how I don't like them.   Funny that one is gone.   Freudian blog deletion? 

Happy Birthday to my girl

All parents want a do-over.  A million do-overs so that we can get it just right for this amazing creature that we brought into this difficult world. 

This was originally posted on December 30, 2017, but I was monkeying with my blog format, and lost it.  Here is the repost.

Today is my oldest daughter’s 31st birthday. 

I don’t have a lot of wisdom or insight with regard to parenting.  The only thing I know is that no matter how many books you read, no matter how many classes you attend, no matter how much you think you know or how much you think you don’t know what to do as a parent – you just don’t know. 

That’s because you’re trying to love, protect, teach, and shape a living human being.  A beautiful being who is infinite, unknowable, and ever changing.  You can’t hold them in your hands, you can’t control them or even predict them.  All you can do is lovingly stand there and watch them unfold.  You are awestruck, terrified, amazed, entertained ….. did I say terrified?  You are terrified because you know that you are unequal and inadequate to the task.  You are terrified because you love this person more than life itself and you know that each breath they take, each choice they make, each choice you make that will affect them is tied to your very soul.  If they break, you break.  If they soar, you soar. 

All parents want a do-over.  A million do-overs so that we can get it just right for this amazing creature that we brought into this difficult world. 

But what I would never change – is being a parent.  It is the most miraculous, life changing, excruciatingly beautiful thing I’ve ever been a part of. 

Happy Birthday to my girl. 

Eucharist Gift

Maybe the key to not working for the devil lies within. 

This post was originally posted on December 29, 2017, but I monkeyed around with my blog and lost all the posts!!  So here is a re-post

Christmas is over. Whew!  At our house Christmas is nuts.  Not only are there five kids, but we have four birthdays and an anniversary to celebrate from December 19th through the end of the year.  My daughter laughingly said she will be awarding cash incentives to any siblings who have children in a month OTHER than December.  I will match her cash incentives.  

In the spirit of the gift-giving bacchanalia that just occurred at my house, my inaugural post will be about the idea of a eucharist gift.  I've been haunted by the idea all fall.  In October, my husband and I had the privilege of attending an event put on by Peter Rollins in Belfast.  (If you haven't read Pete, you should).  At that event we became friends with a very special couple from London.  He is a headhunter with a unique approach.  He talks to people about their "theology" of work. 

I am a regional manager in clinical research for big pharma.  I laughingly say to people that I work for the devil, but maybe that's just not funny.   Don't get me wrong, my job is a tremendous blessing.  I work from home, I am paid well and I am good at what I do (or so says my manager).  But it’s big pharma – and with any big corporation you feel acutely that it lacks a soul.  This translates to me often feeling like I’d like to do something more meaningful; something that changes the world more.

So, when this friend asked me in Belfast what my theology of work is:

I came up empty.   

I don't have one.  I just do my job and get paid.  

About a month ago, Rob Bell did a podcast on ambition and asked the same type of question about your “eucharist gift”.  What is that thing you are doing here on this earth for which you will give your body broken and blood shed? 

I came up empty. 

I mean, I WILL give my body and blood for my children - no question.  But beyond that, in any other arena, I just don’t have a theology of work.  I just work.  I do the best job I can and when the work day is over, I leave it.  It is NOT my body broken and blood shed.  It's just my job.  

I can’t shake the question.  I don’t have an answer yet.  Maybe, if I don’t have a theology of work I DO work for the devil.  I'm not talking about a literal devil here, but the aspect of life that is soulless and deceptive.  The force in this world that is destructive and takes life rather than giving it.    It’s easy to point a finger out THERE and say that big pharma, or big oil, or corporate America, or whatever machine we find ourselves a part of is the “devil” and lacks a soul.  But maybe the bigger truth is that if we point in HERE – inside ourselves – and find that what we are doing; whether employment, or parenting, or marriage, or creativity – has no theology then it is without soul. 

Maybe the key to not working for the devil lies within. 

So I’m setting out to find the best gift of the season.  My eucharist gift.  My theology of work. 

(To comment, click on header)