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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion January 13, 2006 |
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Frontline Devotion for Friday, January 13, 2006 by Mike Martine
(The following devotion is a reprint in “honor” of Friday the 13th…)
O.K., I’ll admit it.
When I spill salt, I toss it over my shoulder. That’s right, to knock the devil away, to chase off bad luck, bad karma, whatever you feel like calling it.
I’ve tried walking away. If I’m making dinner and spill the salt, I’ll try to walk away and engage in another task. But I’m weak. The next time I pass that fallen shaker I see a picture in my mind. Judas, spilling the salt at da Vinci’s “Last Supper.” I see that picture and it’s pinch, fling, good-bye devil.
Superstition is something that is all around us. Even those of us who are not superstitious at all are likely to engage in every day activities derived from superstition. If you doubt it, ask yourself, “does a bell go off in my head when I walk under a ladder?”
Superstition is, essentially, doing something so that “heaven” will do right by you. In the religion of Baal, which Hosea is crying out against here, the Israelites were engaging in “sympathetic magic.” They were visiting cult prostitutes, performing sexual acts with those “priestesses” in hopes that, by acting out a “fertility act,” fertility might be bestowed on their land and animals. It was sort of an X-rated version of the idea behind a voodoo doll.
It’s easy to see how the Israelites were being superstitious. And that they had carried it to the point that they were actively worshiping another God, forsaking their own. It’s easy to see that Hosea was upset for good reason.
But we need to be careful, too. One of my college professors once chided me because I made a comment that said, essentially, “I don’t want to sin, because I don’t want to be punished.
“Oh,” he said. “You want to act a certain way so that God will treat you well?”
“I guess,” I replied.
“Mr. Martine, what you are talking about is superstition. Are you a person of faith, or superstition?”
What my professor taught me is that God’s ultimate intention toward us is love. That God’s love is, in the end, unconditional. That nothing we can do can take that love away. Even if God were to take something from us, reprove us for our actions, there would be that grace on the other side. That love waiting to gather us back in.
Christianity is a call to live in the assurance of that love. Go out today and live it joyfully. And if a black cat crosses your path—pet it.
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