Cut to the Core

My early experiences with sunflower seeds were confusing. As a child, I had only been introduced to the sunflower seeds my mom kept in little baggies in our pantry as tiny, crisp gray seeds that were perfect for scooping up a handful and popping into your mouth, chewing, and swallowing. The sunflower seeds at restaurant buffets in the salad bar were the same, and you picked up the serving utensil and sprinkled a whole scoopful over the top of your salad. They were delicious!

One day, I was riding in a car with a friend who was snacking on something out of a bag, and when I asked him what it was, he said: "Sunflower seeds. Want some?" And he showed me the seeds.

They looked weird, not like anything I'd ever had before. They were much bigger for one thing, and a slightly different color, kind of black and white speckled. My mind didn't get stuck on the differences between my experiences with sunflower seeds and what was in my friend's bag; I just figured they must be a different type of sunflower seeds, and I decided to try them.

I popped a handful in my mouth and began chewing, but I couldn't swallow. They just... didn't break down. The seeds turned into a large saliva-filled mass in my mouth and I eventually had to crank down the window to spit them out, because I couldn't swallow them. My friend glanced at me with a funny expression on his face.

"What?"

"Haven't you had sunflower seeds before?"

Of course I had. I explained my brand new indigestible experience.

He laughed. "You're supposed to spit out the husks and eat the seeds inside."

"There are husks?"

He showed me how to break the outer exterior. On the inside, there were the seeds I recognized... but I couldn't get to them until I'd removed the hard casing around them.

Paul, in Romans 2:17-29, addresses Jews again directly. Here's one thing about Paul that I've noticed: I don't think he was known for how nice he was. He was known for his love, his missionary zeal, his passion for the Lord, his fervency... but he was also known for not holding back when something needed to be said. So here, instead of gently hemming and hawing his way through an explanation of what just might need a little tweaking, a little adjustment, if the listeners felt like it, maybe, possibly, if it wouldn't inconvenience them too much... 

Paul slices right to the heart of the matter: "Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship with God; if you know His will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth -- you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Romans 2:17-24).

Ouch!

In other words, Paul fires this accusation right at the Jews: Y'all aren't practicing what you're preaching, and because you aren't, the people watching you are irreverently poking fun at God Himself... because of you!

I mean... I'm so glad we're past that these days, that we never have this same issue today, that we always keep so in step with the Holy Spirit in our walk with the Lord that we never cause anyone to look at us and say: "They call themselves Christians?" 

Christians = followers of Christ. So if everything we believe, hope in, love, and worship is the center point of our name, what happens when we no longer follow Christ, when our choices no longer reflect Christ as the center of how we act and think and worship? Look at what happens when we plug something else in the front of our name, as representative of what we believe, hope in, love, and worship? Let's use "Politicians" as an example. When we place politics at the center of who we are, what happens? Do we become... a politician? We may not stump for a right side or a left side (or maybe we do; social media has become a stumping ground), but are the ideologies of politics the center of who we are? What if we're called ... "Americans?" Do the issues surrounding our nationality sit at the center of who we are? Does everything we believe, hope in, love, and worship sit at the center point of our name? Are we Christians before we're Politicians? Are we Christians before we're Americans?

Ouch... again. I'm asking honestly, and I'm directing this question to myself, as well. It's time for some good, honest self-reflection. Let it resonate for a minute, and then, when you're ready...

Paul dives into circumcision. Since this little section is addressed specifically to Jews, they're going to see this word and understand, not just the words on the page, but the entire culture and religious tradition behind what Paul is bringing to them. Paul himself is a Jew, so he's got impact; he's a Jew speaking to Jews. 

He says: "Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law you have become as though you had not been circumcised" (Romans 2:25).

James 2:10 says: "For whoever keeps the whole law (that whole first five books of the Old Testament, and depending on whether you're a Pharisee or a Sadducee, the prophetic Scriptures, as well) and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."

Paul flips the coin to the other side and points out the opposing scenario: "If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you, who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker" (Romans 2:26-27).

Paul's hauling out and setting up on display the New Covenant set forward by Christ Himself when He tore the veil of the Holy of Holies that separated the inner sanctum of the Temple from the outer courts. He's proclaiming fulfillment of the Old Covenant by Christ when He introduced the New Covenant and set us free from "the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2). 

Y'all, look at this, and I'll try to summarize what I think Paul is saying in my own words: "The Old Covenant required circumcision. Remember Abraham our own forefather? Remember that self-maledictory oath he took before the Lord waaaay back in Genesis 17? That oath that said, essentially: 'If I am not loyal, faithful, whole-heartedly serving the Lord, this procedure is a symbol of what will happen to me if I fail: The sword of the Lord will cut me off.' Remember that?"

Paul keeps going, and I'll keep summing up, because who doesn't love summing up circumcision? "That symbol, adopted by Abraham, is still more important that it be circumcision of the heart over circumcision of the flesh." He points to a few Old Testament Scriptures to add meat to his point, to wit, this one: Deuteronomy 30:6: "The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul and live."

As a woman reading this passage, looking at "circumcision" is a little outside the possibilities of experience... until I get to that verse right there. I do have a heart. I do have a soul. And circumcision of the heart definitely hits center target. 

Strip off the layers. Cut to the core. The seed in the middle of the husk is what you can eat.

The Lord has been speaking to me this whole past year as I've searched to hear His heart and His voice, and one of the things that has most clearly stood out to me is this: "Strip off the excess. Stop being so caught up in the packed-on layers added to the Truth, because when you're focused on the wrapping, you lose the Truth, the heart, the middle."

Y'all, sometimes I feel like I don't learn quickly enough, so the Lord has to repeat to me the same message, and I wonder if He feels like I do most days when I tell my kids: "Hey... clean your room. Hey you, clean your room. Hey kiddo, go clean your room. Hey, why haven't you cleaned your room yet? Oy! GO clean your ROOM!"

In other words... the Lord has told me over and over and over... maybe because I'm a slow learner, but the message is the same... "I am THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life. So what's found in Scripture is there because I am there. And you don't need to qualify Me with your life experiences. You don't need to qualify me with your culture or your modernity or your perspectives shaped by 2021. I simply Am. I AM. You don't have to rationalize Me. I Am unchanging. I am Eternal. I am Truth. 

And so when you don't understand... I Am. When you're lost in the Why's and Wherefore's. I Am. When you don't have all the answers, I still Am. I Am eternally. I Am from before the beginning, I Am after the end. I Am before you were born. I Am, and even when you think I'm not... I Am."

Y'all... I have no idea how I got here on this post; it wasn't really where I was intending to go... but that's where the Holy Spirit directed me. 

So I'm going with it. Look, when the Lord plants a burning bush in your path and you stare at that bush and wonder what you're supposed to do with it, just... release the questions, the pressures, the "I don't want to's," the "What if I can't's," the "But I can't talk's," the "I'm not prepared's," the "Send someone else's..."

The Lord is I Am. He is Truth. He is Eternal. And that's the whole enchilada.

What does that have to do with circumcision? 

Circumcision of the heart is a stripping away of everything else... but Him. He is the central Truth of our hearts. He is Truth, and when you strip everything else away, He is what you will find. No matter the excuses. 

So don't accept any of the outer accoutrements, the outer layers... as Truth. Some of those layers might be true, but they're not the Truth. That's God Himself. When the husk is peeled back off the sunflower seed, we find the edible, digestible, understandable middle inside. We get rid of the outer layers that keep us from finding the interior nugget, and we eat the sweet meat in the middle. When we peel back every layer placed on us by culture, by society, by friends, by family, by church, by work, by expectations... and we get right to the heart of the matter, it's this:

"Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere" (Psalm 84:10).