Wednesday, 11 December, 2002

This is a part of a series of devotions based on: God Was In This Place & I , i Did Not Know - by Lawrence Kushner.



In discussing the call of Abraham, Rabbi Aryeh Leib of Ger goes on to asks how Abraham's leaving home was a difficult test to endure if God promised Abraham great reward. He continues:

Actually this was an enormously difficult test for Abraham. For the biblical text says a few verses later that ultimately Abraham did not set out on the journey for his own reward but simply, "And Abraham went as God had told him." He went, in other words only because of the command of God, without any other motive. The real test was whether, after all these assurances of reward, Abraham would be able to preserve the purity of simply doing as God wanted without contaminating the act with his own motives or confusing it with his own benefits.

This first test of the first Jew was not whether or not he would do what God said but whether or not he could do it only because God said it. Would he be able to put his self out of the way?



Kushner writes that in Judaism, doing something entirely because of God's request, without any thought of personal pleasure or reward, is said to be "lishma," for its own sake. That is...we don't get anything out of doing it. It is done, you could say, because it needs to be done. This may be an odd example but yesterday, I left the house early and noticed that all the garbage bins were out and many of the red plastic containers for recycling were on the curbs. I know for me, it is one of those things that simply needs to be done and therefore, if I remember, the trash is put out. But trash is not usually the case. It can be so easy to get sucked into taking part in something for more than the act of doing something. "Just like that"...the self-interest in something taking place escalates and we quickly "contaminate the act with our own motives or confuse it with our own benefits." I remember sitting in a car with a group of teens and we talked about doing something when no one is watching. How do we act? How does that show the shape of someone's character? How do we act when seen and how do we act when no one is around? Can we follow the ways of God's reign simply because we have been invited to share in the journey?



Connection: I can remember a person saying to me that once you start thinking about why you do things, you will be caught in an endless cycle of self-evaluation and introspection. That can be a real mess. We are not called to deliberate the motives of every action. But we are called to act faithfully...I think there can be quite a bit of freedom in that calling.



Lead us Lord and lift us up into the life of your blessed reign so that we may begin each day as though we face the opportunity of a lifetime...for it is simply there before us. Amen.