What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever heard about God?
Or, another way to ask the question is, What is the most surprising thing you’ve ever learned about God?
Some would say His love, others, His power, still others, His patience, and some, His wrath.
For me it would be His love of celebrations. Really. I say it reverently: I was not ready for a God who loves to party. I think it surprises most people when they get past the slower moving sections of the Pentateuch (Leviticus, Numbers) in their trek through the Bible, and come across this gem in Deuteronomy 14:22-26:
“You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.
And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household.”
Honestly, I had lived and read the Bible for decades before that passage really grabbed my attention. I’m not alone. When I pointed this passage out to another Bible teacher a few years ago (who is more than ten years my senior), he said, “I didn’t know that was in the Bible.”
The two most remarkable things, to me, are that first, the tithe money is to be enjoyed in the celebration, and not given away begrudgingly. That is, the whole venture is to be financed with proceeds from your God-blessed harvest, and not merely donated, but experienced.
I’m not sure what all of that implies, but it’s a very different thing than coldly slippng a check into an envelope at the beginning of each week and dropping it into an offering plate or box. Somehow our gifts to God are meant to bring joy to us as well as to Him.
Second, God says that the Israelites were free to choose the menu for the party from a wide array of options depending upon their own desires: “whatever your appetite craves.” Pretty visceral, isn’t it?
Risky? Not really, for the whole celebration is to be done “before the Lord your God” in joy. The whole family was to participate in this venture in which the eating, drinking, and festivities were pointers and aids to worship, not mindlessness or recklessness or drunkenness. The point was “that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.”
There’s a lot to think about here, but for now, just compare this invitation to the portrait your childhood teachers may have presented or your own assumptions about what God is like.
What do we do with this God who invites us to a national harvest party financed by His very own blessings? Or saves the host from shame by turning water into gallons of the best wine? Or kills the fatted calf and dances when his errant son returns from the far country?
“Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God (that is, they couldn’t just send their wives and children, and would not go without them) at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths.
They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.”
Deuteronomy 16:16