“How to ring it right!” was the title given to a staff training session delivered by the camp director at the outset of every new camping season at Christikon, the Bible camp I worked at during my college years. There was a camp bell that was used to wake sleeping campers or signal gathering times throughout the day. And the camp director was reluctant to let anyone pull on the rope unless they had been schooled in the proper way to stand, hold the rope, and how strongly to pull without flipping the bell over. There was, in his mind, only one right way.
Actually, every training session was either formally or informally titled “How to _____ it right!” Washing dishes or mopping floors? You had to first learn, “how to clean it right!” Parts One AND Two. Making mac & cheese on a camp stove while backpacking on the trails? You had to first learn, “how to cook it right!” Stacking firewood for the nightly bonfire and closing worship? You had to first learn, “how to burn it right!” Ok, I made that last one up, but you get the point.
As much as the staff might delight in doing things differently from time to time, either to be a little snarky or just playful, we also came to appreciate the consistency that such detailed processes and procedures afforded. This of course was the primary benefit for operating a camp, deep in the mountain wilderness, filled with squirrely teens and a staff just a few years their senior. By following the agreed upon rules, we could reasonably trust that we weren’t going to get too far off track or harm anyone in the process. Food would be safe, facilities would be safe, people would be safe. And that bell wouldn’t flip over or the whole bell tower come toppling down.
This Sunday, we’ll be shifting gears a bit in the stories we’re listening to. As much as God has been revealing God’s promises and working with particular people (Noah, Abraham & Sarah, Joseph, Moses), now God is focusing attention on the inheritors of these promises. To keep this ever-expanding community of promise-enriched heirs on track, God lays down the law. I think this is God teaching us “how to live it right!”
As we open ourselves to think more deeply about the rules that God has made for us and the rulers God entrusts with their application, let’s keep the bigger picture in focus. Like life at a bible camp in the middle of the wilderness, the rules and the rulers are there, in part, to keep us safe. The rules are about forming a community in a particular way, so that we might best live into the future God has promised.
May God’s hope embrace you this day. – Pastor Peter
Let us pray… God of hope, when bells need ringing, floors need to shine, or the cheese sauce needs to be extra creamy, show us how to do it right. Help us see the bigger picture and the benefit of all that is at stake. And when we get it wrong, may your forgiveness teach us how to live as the inheritors of your love. Amen.