Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.

In her leaving, she said someone would come.  I had thought that was Jesus, in His second coming, but a new Babs, a little older, the model for the posable action figure arrived.  While I had no desire to start over with romance, Morrie helped her move in, thinking she was the other Babs who had returned.

This Week’s Question

One day last week, Babs was about to do anything to cool down, but then Willie showed up needing to cool off.  Some of the church members claimed to be shut-in when they were not.  And on top of it, they gossiped and found fault with their neighbors.  One neighbor was a dear friend.  The other neighbor was Babs.

This week Babs kissed me and pulled away quickly.

Babs shrieked, “What is that?”

I shrugged, “What?”

Babs huffed, “Harold, that thing above your lip.  Now that I look at it closely, on your chin, too!”

I smiled, “Those are different things.  The thing you kissed is a lunch eater.”

Babs replied, “So?”

I laughed, “I points to mine self.  Vas is das here. Das is a chin chowser. Yah mama dear. Chin chowser, lunch eater, soup strainer, horn blower, eye winker, sweat browser, top knocker, yah mama dear, das vat I learned in der school.”  Babs sneered.  Then I added, “Boom Boom!”

Babs sighed, “Harold, you are being silly.  Now, go to the bathroom and shave it off.”

I shrugged, “Sorry, Babs, I have not thought about shaving.  I have been preoccupied with an advertising campaign.  But if I were an Israelite, there were rules about saving the sideburns or messing up the edges of the beard.  Thus, it was expected for them to have beards.  ‘“‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.’ (Leviticus 19:27).  But for the priests it was more strict. ‘“‘Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies.’ (Leviticus 21:5).”

Babs growled, “No way, Harold.  Go shave.  But what about when the king of Ammon died?  ‘So Hanun seized David’s envoys, shaved off half of each man’s beard, cut off their garments at the buttocks, and sent them away.’ (2 Samuel 10:4). What was that all about?”

I smiled, “Babs, remember when reading the Bible, it is all about context.  The king of the Ammonites died.  David sent emissaries to give his condolences.  Hanun listened to the wrong advisors.  He thought they were spies.  But Hanun knew what would humiliate these men.  Their beard was a part of who they were.  So, he had half of it shaved off.  That would make anyone look silly, but to someone that never cuts his beard for religious reasons, it was that much worse.”

Babs scrunched her nose, “Harold, but what about Isaiah 15? ‘Dibon goes up to its temple, to its high places to weep; Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba. Every head is shaved and every beard cut off.’ (Isaiah 15:2).  They had their beards cut and heads shaven?”

I laughed, “More context, Babs.  With context, this proves my point.  The entire chapter of Isaiah 15 is a curse on the Moabites.  Moab was the son of Lot’s elder daughter.  And the Ammonites that you mentioned before was the son of Lot’s younger daughter.  Both were conceived by incest with their father.  And the part about them being bald with no beard was a sign that they worshipped false gods.  That makes a lot of the Levitical Law confusing.”

Babs groaned, “Please, Harold, do not confuse me more than I already am.  So, why did the Israelites not shave their heads and cut their beards?”

I smiled, “Some of those laws relate to setting the Israelites apart from the nations around them.  This relates to not having false gods.  If false god worshippers shaved their heads and cut their beards as Isaiah 15 suggests, then it would be a physical sign that the Israelite is different, set apart, by not shaving his head nor cutting the beard.  That applies to the tattoo rule.  ‘“‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.’ (Leviticus 19:28).  Notice this is one verse after the verse about shaving and cutting beards.  These are the things pagans did in their worship, especially when mourning.  Thus the Ammonite king cutting half the beards of the emissaries.  They became half-pagan and half-orthodox due to the death of the Ammonite king.  More mockery.”

Babs scrunched her nose, “So, Leviticus 19 starts with God telling us to be holy.  What is the rest of the chapter, teaching us how to be holy?”

I shrugged, “Sure.  God does not lie.  That’s in verse 11, along with not stealing or deceiving someone else.  But then some of it is doing the opposite of the pagans in their worship to set themselves apart.”

Babs asked, “So, can we just ignore the Mosaic Law?”

I sighed, “No, but we need to know what we are looking at.  There are ceremonial laws.  Some of these laws relate to festivals, but some are daily sacrifices.  We do not bring a lamb to church with us for the pastor to slaughter.  Jesus paid that price, once and for all.  But what did Jesus tell us to do to remember Him and the sacrifice he paid?”

Babs smiled, “I know that one.  We have communion.  We eat bread and wine.”

I smiled, “But it is odd that the seder meal is a full meal, but we only take the bread and wine.  Jesus went through the proper ceremony, but when He got to the bread and wine, He broke tradition by saying this bread is My flesh.  The wine is My blood.  He was saying that the ceremony of the Passover seder was pointing to Him.  That is why it is important for us to have the right frame of mind.”

Babs asked, “What frame of mind is that?  I don’t want to do it wrong.”

I said, “Reflect on what Jesus did for us.  Know that He is still working on our behalf.  And trust Him.  I knew a guy once that had a terrible allergy toward grapes.  The worst thing was drinking concord grape juice.  And instead of wine to protect against an alcoholic going off the wagon, we offer concord grape juice.  But this guy took the bread and the grape juice, knowing that just like Jesus saved His soul on the cross, God will protect Him from the allergy.  Each communion became a remembrance of what God did and what God is still doing.  The argument over whether it is symbolic or turns into the flesh and blood of Jesus is silly.  It is how we respond to communion that is important.”

Babs sighed, “So, in ignoring the ceremonial laws of Leviticus, we are not really ignoring them.  We have replaced them with what Jesus ordained us to do.  So, we better have the right heart for that.  Right?”

I said, “Babs, remember during the lockdown?”

Babs laughed, “Harold, I have not been a Christian that long. No!  What did you do?”

I snickered, “Sorry, Babs, I wasn’t thinking.  I watched various services from various pastors online.  One in particular said to go get something to drink, water if nothing else.  And get some type of bread-like thing.  A cracker if nothing else.  What we had was not important.  Remembering what Jesus did was the important thing.”

Babs said, “So, we have ceremonial laws.  What’s next?”

I said, “Before we get off the ceremonial laws, we need to look at those things on the edges.  You were ceremonially unclean if you touched a dead body.  The handling of skin diseases was important.  And there were the clean and unclean animals.”

Babs giggled, “But God told Peter that if He made something clean, who were we to say it was unclean?”

I asked, “That’s right, but that is how those laws came about.  Some of those were borne of staying healthy.  During the lockdown, we wore masks and advertised that we might be unclean.  But we never do that during flu season.  But to answer your question, there are civil laws.”

Babs moaned, “Is that where a wife that did not produce a son is given to a brother to produce a son?”

I said, “That is very good, Babs.  You picked one of the ones that we do not follow. Why?”

Babs said, “We are not Israelites in the Holy Land who have inherited part of God’s promise.”

I said, “Have you been reading things without me being around?  You got another one right.”

Babs scrunched her nose again, “Maybe, but do you like it?”

I laughed, “I love it.  But most of the civil laws are things we can learn from.  Most should be part of our local, state, and federal laws.  But the third category are the moral laws.”

Babs said, “Those shouldn’t change.”

I sighed, “Yes, Babs, they should not change, but then those tattoos and things make things confusing.  But I read an article by a minister recently.  He divided people into affirming Christians and non-affirming Christians.  He made those people who do not celebrate someone’s sexual orientation as being knuckle dragging neanderthals.  And his argument was this.  We eat bacon.  We wear clothing with blended fabrics.  We do not go around screaming ‘unclean, unclean’ because we touched the wrong thing, but we condemn homosexual activity.  ‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.’ (Leviticus 18:22). And ‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.’ (Leviticus 20:13).  What do you think of that argument?”

Babs scrunched her nose and closed her eyes.  She was thinking it through carefully. “Sexually immoral acts, which are related to the commandment to not commit adultery, are part of the moral law.  That does not change.  Eating the bacon was rescinded by God ‘The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”’ (Acts 10:15).  So that is ridiculous to use that as an excuse.  The clothing thing was that in those days, all the fabrics were natural fibers.  In washing the clothing, one would stretch and shrink more than the other.  Then you would have a wardrobe malfunction at the wrong time.”

I asked, “Is there a right time?”

Babs came over to where I was seated and she placed her upper frontals on either side of my nose, “Harold, you and I are in this house all alone.  What if that one button that holds my blouse together would suddenly … pop!  Would that be the right time to have a wardrobe malfunction?”

I snickered, “I get your point, dear.  I would not mind that button popping, unless it hit me in the eye.”

Babs pulled away before she started giggling, “Can you imagine going to see Dr. Mel and telling her a button hit you in the eye?  Then she asks you how close to the button were you at the time.  Wow, that would be a hard one to explain.”

I laughed, “But of all the doctors that I have known, I think Dr. Mel would be cool as a cucumber.  She might say that she has now learned one thing that she can’t do with her boyfriend.”

Babs laughed, “I never thought of that.  If she ever married, she’d no longer be Dr. Mel Torme.”

I snickered, “But before you suggested popping a button, you were making a good point.  This spokesperson for not just welcoming homosexuals into the church was telling us to celebrate their lifestyle.  We could ignore those laws.  But his examples were of ceremonial laws.  And the law he was ignoring was a moral law.  But on that subject, if someone who has that temptation will admit that what they do is a sin and repent, they are just as saved as we are.”

Babs said, “I am so glad to hear that.  I did that kind of thing for a living.  And if God can forgive me, He can forgive anyone.”

I smiled, “When Suzy Q asked for one last roll in the hay, you were emphatic.  That was no longer part of your life.  Yes, Babs, you have repented and you trust in Jesus.  You are a very special child of God.  But the point is that we cannot take ceremonial laws that have been replaced, not ignored, and civil law that have been modified, like not killing someone who commits a sexual sin.  We cannot use those changes to justify ignoring moral law.”

Babs asked, “Is there a moral law against dancing?  ‘Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.’ (2 Samuel 6:14-16).”

I groaned, “Again, Babs?  You read up to the point where the answer is given.  David saw her anger and had nothing more to do with her.  David dancing is what we should do.  ‘Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with timbrel and harp.’ (Psalm 140:3). ‘praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe,’ (Psalm 150:4).”

Babs said, “Okay then, Harold!  Let’s dance.”

I asked, “Without music?”

Babs snickered, “I’ll sing a slow song.”

As we were dancing, there was a knock at the door.  Willie came in with Jayke and Janella.

Jayke ran to me to give me a hug.  Janella ran to Babs.

I laughed, “And what did you learn in school today, Jayke?”

Jayke sang “I Point to My Self.”

Babs said, “You put him up to this.”

I shrugged, “No.  Happy coincidence.”

Jayke giggled, “We learned that song, but Pake is growing a soup strainer.”

I suggested, “Hold that thought.”  I got up.  Went to the bathroom and shaved.

Babs said, “Thank you, Jayke.  For the last half hour, I have been trying to get him to do that.”

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

My wife never saw me without a mustache.  I read an article where it was better to shave your mustache when you went on job interviews, but my wife said that I would look like a kid, having a baby face.  That was when I was leaving the army as a captain.  Then a few years later, I was told that only clean shaven men got promotions.  My wife told me to not listen to such rumors and never succumb to peer pressure.

But then forty years later, she said that she hated kissing someone with a mustache, it tickled too much.  It was like kissing sandpaper.  Odd, at two crucial times in our marriage she could have gotten the mustache as a distant memory, but she loved me in spite of the mustache.  In some ways, I don’t know how to take that.

As for the song, it was one of my wife’s favorites.

Here is Burl Ives singing the Boy Scout version of I Point to Myself.

Here are some of the verses.  You might add more.

Point To:	Sing:
Top of Head	Top Knocker or topnotcher
Brow	Sweat browser
Eye	Eye Winker or eye blinker
Nose	Horn Blower
Mustache	Soup Strainer
Mouth	Lunch Eater or food muncher
Chin	Chin Chowser
Neck	Rubber Necker
Chest	Chest Protector
Stomach	Bread Basket
Foot	Foot Stomper

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.