Re-enactment

I love seeing the story again and again. I saw the Renaissance Festival in the US some years ago, with actors playing the roles of real people who might have lived in Europe in the XV century. They stayed in character and amazed me with historical information and good humour. It was as if I were living there in their neighbourhood; it was as if I were there in time and space.


Old Sydney Town is no longer here, neither in its historical setting, subsumed year by year by more modernity and post-modernity than can fit on George Street, nor in its capacity to re-enact itself up the Central Coast. The old village atmosphere next to the Australian Reptile Park, was a classic, again with actors playing the roles of magistrates and captains, villains and heroes, all related to the beginnings of Sydney in XVIII century Sydney town.

My family and I certainly enjoyed going there, as well as Williamsburg, Virginia, or meeting villagers in Shakespeare's old haunts in Stratford-on-Avon, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and even Sturbridge, Massachusetts. These historical venues of re-enactments are helpful for the history major at a university, and helpful for all people to sort out what 'really' happened in varied and multiple cites worldwide.

Deb Fuller has 20 years of experience in running and participating in reenactments.  She wrote about it on this website: https://exarc.net/issue-2019-1/mm/how-run-reenactment-part-1.

Almost two years ago in Washington, DC, a museum opened which featured scenes of biblical history and conversations you could have with living interpreters. The "Museum of the Bible" was opened just blocks from the US Capitol.             

Visitors listen to a “living history interpreter,” right, in the old Nazareth exhibit at the Museum of the Bible on opening day. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post). 

Here's what I'm saying, that there is a certain historicity which a re-enactment brings, a certain authority. When we hear an actor on stage or screen, telling us that they want our ears, along with other friends, Romans and countrymen, we, like the crowd who watched Julius Caeser for the first time in the XVI want to rail against Brutus and the other conspirators. We want justice for fallen Caeser. We believe the oration of Mark Antony, no matter the cost.

When a reenactment of the Moon Landing which took place 50 years ago comes on our History Channel or Oliver Stone produces yet another episode in his litany of hostile-to-history films, we get caught up. We are torn. What is true? What really happened?

Facts and fiction fight one another, and a person has to be sure that the repetition of history in reenactments highlights the former. 

Tomorrow night begins the Jewish holiday of Tabernacles (Sukkot) which itself is a reenactment of the history of the wandering in the wilderness by the Jewish people after they left Egypt in 1500 BCE or so. God provided for us; we were cared for; none of our shoes wore out; we had daily food, and so much more. When we build the sukkah, when we sit in it, and see the fruit hanging, when we read the book of Ecclesiastes and ponder again all the Almighty can do and did-- when we do all that, the force of the reenactment is powerful and helpful. We gain faith. We trust God all the more. 

I hope your understanding of truth and history continues to grow; think of God, and think on His great deeds among all people. He is Worthy!

Empty and filling: life lessons abundant

In the United States, President-elect Donald Trump is filling up his cabinet, his inner sanctum of strategic advisers, whom he will deploy to accomplish his wide-ranging agendas. Some serious Washington insiders are listed and there are more to come. Back in October, cartoonist Ben Garrison set in the American mind this cartoon of 'draining the swamp.'

The promises of P-E Trump include the removing of things unpopular in Washington, DC, and especially what might be titled 'swamp' but many are wondering if the choices of insiders like Steven Mnuchin. (Steven Mnuchin, a hedge fund manager and former Goldman Sachs executive, is President-elect Donald Trump's choice for Treasury secretary) What about Tom Price (HHS), and Elaine Chao (Transportation)? More about each as they come along here on Vox . They seem to be insiders from the swamp.

Here in Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured) is set to reshuffle his front bench, as close to the US Cabinet as he can get. Here's a write up The New Daily reporting. We could see Attorney-General George Brandis removed, and we could see a return to the front bench of former PM Tony Abbott.

I read a Bible verse last month that spoke to me deeply. It was a saying of Yeshua, whom some call Jesus. The setting was the Jewish holiday of Sukkot (Tabernacles) and the great Water Pouring ceremony took place on the heights of Jerusalem. There are many meanings to that situation of course, but the words themselves are powerful. Yeshua said, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7.37-38) The scene involved water being poured out at the Temple (destroyed in 70, 40 years later) by the High Priest. Here is the encyclopedia entry on water pouring.

Each end of Sukkot featured this water pouring. It was also the day of the beginning of the rainy season in Israel. This is significant this year, as the bush fires all over Israel, were started by arsonists-enemies of the Jewish people. If the rain were flowing, the fires would be minimized. But of interest to me is that at the beginning of the rainy season, the priests would pour out the remaining reservoir. It was a statement of faith; it represented the belief of the Jewish people that God would provide (a major theme of Tabernacles). Emptying the reservoir gives opportunity for the Lord of life to fill it with new waters.

As December returns tomorrow here in Sydney, and many friends and colleagues join me to share Messiah's message of love on the streets, we are hopeful to find empty folks, that is, those who admit they are empty, and thirsty for life, for love, for God in their life. If people admit to needs, then God can supply. Here's the video from Israel
Admit you are empty.
Ask God to fill you.

Is that a real mitzvah?

The man in this video is Scott Rogowsky. He has a twice a month live show in NYC, as well as a series of videos and each one has irony and humor and repetition. I think my friend Bennett Arron would have as much fun as Rogowsky if he had a video guy following him around all day. But the point of this is to discuss the idea of a mitzvah.

What is a mitzvah anyway? By definition, it's a commandment. But by practice, the word means 'the completion of a commandment', thus a religious activity which complies with something in the Jewish religion. So handing out food to homeless people is 'doing a mitzvah' or wrapping oneself with leather straps (tefillin) in the morning and praying certain prayers is fulfilling the commandment of doing so, thus 'performing a mitzvah.'

In the video below, according to Rogowsky, after 10 hours of walking in New York City as a Jew, during a Jewish holiday named Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles), many Jewish men accosted him and tried to get him to 'do a mitzvah.' Of course, the whole thing is probably staged, but still the video got me thinking. Watch it first, and then I'll comment.

See VIDEO

I've had Jewish religionists approach me in various locations worldwide, here in Sydney, and in Melbourne, in Moscow and in Israel, in Washington DC, and Baltimore...all asking me to do some religious activity and thus 'do a mitzvah.' One in Sydney even told me that he could help me put on the leather straps in 30 seconds and 'voila, that would be it.' Wow, a discount, a rapid fulfillment. One man I know told me that he was actually told he had become 'Bar Mitzvah' by some rabbi on the streets in Sydney, because he repeated some words he didn't understand, while donning a kippah (skull cap).

This is shocking on so many levels.

And the real question I have is 'is that a real mitzvah' anyway? If we say words we don't understand, and use props we don't regard as significant... if we jump through certain hoops of others' invention but it's not from our own heart, is that doing good? Is that honoring the God who wants us to do good things?

Yeshua taught about something like this with "When you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, in order to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you and when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him" (Matthew 6.5-8)

I remember back in the 1970s when people in orange saffron robes would chant 'hare rama' and "hare krishna' and try to get others to say those same words. "Please, say 'hare krishna'" they would beg. As if my saying a phrase about which I was clueless and which had no meaning to me would somehow incant meaning and bring their deity to the moment. Those four syllables were just a combination of syllables which were empty and void to me. I get it-- they had great meaning to those robed people, but to me they were empty. Why would I ever repeat them?

There are people who want others to 'ask Jesus into your heart' and be saved. I've honestly never seen the phrase "ask Jesus into your heart' in the Bible, but I understand what these born-again evangelizers are asking of others. The more biblical phrase would be 'repent of your sins and be born again by the blood of Jesus.' But that might be too much for some people. So perhaps the evangelizers are trying to make the Gospel more marketable. Perhaps they are simply asking people to do what they themselves did those days/ months/ years ago. I really do not know what is working in their minds. But jumping through another's hoops of religion without the meaning and the conviction in your own heart... it will never work.

Perhaps that's why the apostle Paul said "if you confess with your mouth Yeshua as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." (Romans 10.9-10)

It really does take the heart. No wonder Solomon the king of Israel said, "Guard your heart, for out of it proceed the issues of life." (Proverbs 4.23) Paul again wrote something similar, "not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Messiah, doing the will of God from the heart." (Ephesians 6.6) That's the key in any and every mitzvah.

Will you take this to heart? That itself is a mitzvah!