How to Party God's Way

by David Brickner

There is a lot of partying going on this month in some Jewish and Christian circles and most of it will not honor the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. I am referring to the celebrations of Mardi Gras and Purim which occur on February 16 and 28 respectively. These two festivals have a lot in common and many who celebrate them with reckless abandon¹ are proof that a "party life" without God at the center is no real fun at all.

Mardi Gras is French for "Fat Tuesday" and takes place exactly 46 days before Easter. It is supposed to be a festive meal signaling the beginning of Lent, a time when many Christians commemorate the passion and suffering of Jesus.

Purim is Hebrew for "Lots" and takes place one month prior to Passover. It is supposed to be a festive meal celebrating the deliverance of the Jewish people from destruction at the hand of Haman as recorded in the book of Esther.

Along with the festive meals, both celebrations have been used as an excuse for a great deal of frivolity, costuming, parties and, sadly, drunkenness and debauchery.

Anyone who has seen the news coverage of Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will know that drunkenness and public nudity are commonplace. This year sixteen members of the "Lady Godiva Riding Club" will reportedly be parading naked through the streets of New Orleans in salute of the pop music star, Lady Gaga. And that is just one of the more tame elements on display this year.

Not quite so obvious or extreme are many Purim celebrations, particularly among the Orthodox Jewish community. The Talmud (Megillah 7b)² states that one should drink on Purim until he can no longer tell the difference between cursing the villain, Haman, and cheering the hero, Mordechai. And that is exactly what will be happening later this month, even in many synagogues.

I'm not saying that God doesn't enjoy a good party, or that He is some kind of celestial killjoy. He created the world and everything in it. And when He was finished with His creation, He called everything He had made good. Even nudity was a good thing... in the beginning. What is more, God intended for human beings to enjoy His creation, to celebrate and worship His greatness and power, and even to have some fun and maybe a measure of frivolity as we do so.

In fact, the Lord instructed the people of Israel regarding a portion of their tithe to God: "You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires; for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household" (Deuteronomy 14:26). That sure sounds like a party to me. Buy whatever your heart desires. Rejoice with your whole household. Have wine or strong drink. In other words, God tells us to throw the best party we can afford or imagine.

Likewise, in Proverbs 5:19 Solomon instructs a young man concerning marital love. God created the human body and He was very happy for humans to enjoy—even to be enraptured by—the bodies of our mates. But there is one important guiding factor in all of this, and that is the matter of showing godly restraint. When what God has created is misused or abused, what is good can become very ugly and unhealthy. That is how two festivals that were originally supposed to direct our attention to God become occasions for such bad behavior.

Sin entered the world and with it alienation and separation from God. Through the absence of godly restraint, sin really does take the joy out of all the good things God created. Sin is the true killjoy in a life that God intends for us to take pleasure in. Sex is to be enjoyed, but within the confines of marriage. We see biblical examples of how wine and strong drink can be enjoyed, but there is to be no drunkenness.

Proverbs 29:18 tells us that "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint," and it is the lack of this godly restraint that is painfully obvious on the streets of New Orleans and in many Purim celebrations.

People who choose to ignore the Word of God may try to enjoy the gifts of God—but they miss out on the real joy of celebrating the presence of God in their lives. Everything becomes distorted when people want to enjoy the things that God created without inviting Him to the party. True joy is found when God is at the center of the party and we celebrate His truth with the gifts He has given us.

Unfortunately, many believers overreact to the unrighteous abuses of God's gifts. They make parties that most people would never want to attend. Their restraint isn't godly; it is downright stultifying. If they are having any fun at all, they haven't notified their faces or the aesthetics of their celebrations. When believers are dour and dull they don't give anyone the impression that inviting God to a party is a good idea.

It seems to me that those of us who really know God ought to throw the best kinds of parties. When He truly is the Guest of honor at our celebrations, we will go the extra mile to welcome Him and celebrate His presence. We ought to excel in fun-loving, joy–filled celebrations and the kind of exuberance that makes God smile.

No doubt, as Ecclesiastes tells us, there are times for sadness and refraining from embracing and celebration. But there are also times for laughing and embracing and dancing (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). We who know and love the Lord ought to be the best at celebrating His goodness. The Bible tells us that the heaven that awaits us is full of festive meals and celebration—a party that God himself will throw for those who have responded to His invitation.

I believe that we who have already responded should get the party started sooner rather than later. Perhaps those who have been trying to "party hard" outside of God's presence will get a taste of His goodness as they see us celebrate Him... and maybe they will want to come along to the real party in the now and in the forever.

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Endnotes

1. There are also numerous wonderful ways to honor God in Purim, and my family and friends have enjoyed many of them.


2. Talmud is a compilation of rabbinic commentary and tradition.

Breach of Contract a Purely Financial Matter?

by Ruth Rosen

I admit that I'm no maven when it comes to current events. I do get a wonderful magazine called "The Week" thanks to my dad and it gives bite-sized pieces of news and editorials from "both sides" of an issue.

And in the morning I listen to National Public Radio as I'm getting ready for work. Now some might complain about the biases and propaganda broadcast by such stations and I might agree with some of those complaints. But I set my alarm to the station because it tells me the weather and it also gives me a sense of what is precipitating in the world around me...

Anyway I was listening to the radio and was surprised to hear that while some people live in dread of impending home foreclosures, others are impatient with the banks for not foreclosing on their homes quickly enough. Why? Because the value of their home has dropped so significantly that they do not want to pay their mortgage anymore. They'd rather let the bank take the property so they can buy a similar home at a fraction of the cost.

The program went on to explain, those who incur these unnecessary foreclosures may have a terrible credit rating for a while, but they get a much more affordable house. Yet, a relatively small percentage of people are defaulting for this reason. The reporter suggested that there is a social stigma of shame that overrides the financial considerations.

The reporter went on to describe how some lawyers feel it is unethical for people to stop making payments when they can afford to do so—but there are others who see it as a mere business deal with no moral import at all. (The radio station was not advocating this point of view.)

I listened somewhere between wonder and utter repulsion as one such lawyer stated,

"The reason there is no punitive damage for breach of contract is that it is a financial issue only. We have attached some kind of shame to it. But then, you have to ask, 'shame in whose eyes?'"

Wow. Did she really say that on public radio? Oh yes, she did. Contract is a cold, neutral sounding word. But signing a contract is just a fancy way to describe making a binding promise. We don't have to attach moral significance to keeping a promise—it's inherent. What's happening is that some people are detaching that significance. And that's why they feel no shame in breaching their contracts for financial considerations.

Most people have consciences, I think. But some people's consciences seem to resemble swiss cheese inasmuch as they are very holey. I'm sure if someone "breached a contract" with this lawyer, she'd find it somewhere in her heart to feel that she had been wronged, not just financially, but morally. Unfortunately, recognizing the wrongs others do to us has nothing to do with conscience. Recognizing the wrongs we do to them does.

Some people believe that the conscience is part of human evolution—they see it as something that developed for the survival of the human species. In that case, this lawyer is the best argument against evolution I've heard in a long time.

Meanwhile, shame might be a relative thing depending on whether one has a fully functioning conscience, a holey conscience or no conscience at all. People can be ashamed for reasons that are unreal, or fail to be ashamed when they really ought to be. Shame is largely conditioning and therefore is not always an accurate measure of what is truly right and wrong.

There are real standards of right and wrong that exist beyond the parameters of conditioning or social consensus. Am I talking about "religious stuff" now? I don't know, to me, God isn't "religious stuff."

The Hebrew Scriptures are very clear that promises are to be carried out. Jesus reiterated that principle and took it a step farther. He basically said, don't make promises you can't keep. Let your yes be yes and your no be no (based on Matthew 5:34-37).

People might question whether God exists and whether the Bible is true. But every time I see someone with a conscience, it affirms my faith that we were created for something better than a gradual devolution into a world of moral relativism. And every time my soul recoils from a speech like the one I heard that lawyer make on NPR, I thank God for God. He would never breach his contract with me.

Not of This World: Reflections on the Death of J. D. Salinger

Jewish (on his father’s side) author J. D. Salinger has just died at 91 years of age. For many decades he had been a recluse, the “hermit crab of American letters¹,” according to TIME magazine, the “Garbo of letters²” in the New York Times obit. “Famous,” the Times continues, “for not wanting to be famous.”

What Salinger is even more famous for is, of course, his 1951coming-of-age novel The Catcher in the Rye, which struck a chord with rebellious youth. Holden Caulfield, the novel’s protagonist, was not not comfortable in this world. Nor were Salinger’s other characters, such as the Glass family. The Times article observed, “That the Glasses (and, by implication, their creator) were not at home in the world was the whole point,” [journalist Janet] Malcolm wrote, “and it said as much about the world as about the kind of people who failed to get along there.”

A statement released by Salinger’s literary agents reads in part, “Salinger had remarked that he was in this world but not of it.”

Readers may well ponder exactly what it means to be “in this world but not of it.” In one sense, that characterization probably fits most teenagers at some point, and it undoubtedly fits many adults as well. “Misfits,” “square pegs in round holes,” “Freaks in Love” according to an Elton John song—not very flattering labels, which is why when filtered through fiction like The Catcher in the Rye, the outcast suddenly becomes desirable and “cool” to many. “Misfits” are loners; fiction can bring us alongside someone like us so that we are no longer alone. Some may flaunt their Holden Caulfield-ness while others are hardly aware of it, like Thoreau’s mass of humanity that spend their lives in “quiet desperation.” Still others suppress it and live lives of pretense.

Curiously, there is a passage in John’s Gospel where Jesus prays to God the Father and says, “They”—referring to Jesus’ followers—“are not of the world, even as I am not of it.” Salinger, perhaps, was recalling this passage in his quote. And, perhaps, Jesus and those who followed and still follow him are in fact square pegs in the round hole of this life. When someone feels “out of place,” they can respond in several ways. There is the way of retreat and withdrawal. There is the way of attempting to celebrate it. But there is also a third way.

I don’t know if British author C. S. Lewis of Narnia fame ever read The Catcher in the Rye, but he had a lot to say about literature, both secular and sacred. He once said something to this effect. We get hungry, and there is food. It would be odd if we had such cravings with nothing to fulfill them. We get thirsty, and there is drink. We have other desires, with other things that answer to them. And, he noted, we have a desire for something that this world cannot supply; since the “Fall of Mankind” recounted in Genesis chapter 3, with the ensuring alienation of humanity from one another, from God, from ourselves, from the environement—since that time, we are all out of place here. Therefore, he said, and this was his main point, there must be something beyond this world that does meet these deep-seated cravings. This is the third way: to transcend this world to a place where we are no longer Holden Caulfields but become what we were always intended to be, which comes through faith in Jesus.

Salinger handled being not of this world by retreating into a shell. Others reached out to God, found Jesus, and were liberated for another world, “a place prepared for them.”

Have you ever felt “not of this world”? Leave a comment at this article to tell us about it.

End Notes:

1. “hermit crab of American letters,” according to TIME magazine


2. “Garbo of letters” in the New York Times obit