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The Spirituality of the Old Testament

Chapter I

We have, in our formation, been reviewing tapes by Fr, Stephen Doyle, O.F.M. These tapes [1] are an excellent background to what we have been studying in the New Testament. Our Catholic Church has its roots in the Old Testament, and I will try to expain how the New

Testament is founded on the Old. I will discuss what we have heard from those tapes and express my feelings of the importance of the Old Testament.

*ROOTS OF JESUS’ SPIRITUALITY:
Our Old Testament Heritage by Fr. Stephen Doyle, O.F.M.

It is fascinating to look at the fundamental aspects of the Old Testament, such as the Chosen People, the Covenant, Sacrifice, the Messiah and Prophecy, and see how Jesus' understanding and the prevalent Jewish understanding of the Old Testament differ. Fr. Doyle introduces us to Jesus the Jew, the Priest, the Messiah, the Prophet, the Redeemer, and the God of Creation. iTAH289 - Seven hours of material on 5 audio-cassettes

    The whole of Biblical history is a great outpouring of the reality of God's love in action in the lives of His people.

    In the Old Testament the mentality of the people saw God with an awesome outlook of fear and reverence. He was, as they saw it, a God of holocausts and bloody sacrifices of animals, a God who exacted retribution, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

   The New Testament view of God, on the other hand, is that of a God of inexpressible love, mercy, compassion, concern and forgiveness.

   In all of Salvation History the relationship of God with man has been and is to this day steadfast; a fatherly concern for His creature man and a love that never wavers even when fickle man, time and again, turns his back on Him.

    The overall message in both the Old Testament and New Testament is God's invitation to man to receive His love, to respond to it, to share it generously, and to be His people.

    What does it mean to be God's people? To be God's people is to be a covenant people.

    What we read and what we hear spoken from and about the Bible must penetrate into our innermost beings. It is there that spirituality begins. It is there that life begins to have meaning, without it nothing has real lasting meaning. “This is the covenant which I will make with the sons of Israel,” says the Lord. “I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”[2]

    But this relationship is not free. It has responsibilities. God has a job for all His people.

    The job is to be an instrument in the spreading of His word. God's followers must be a priestly people, who by their lives of holiness will bring others to know that He, the one true God, is a reality. He is alive and really cares for them.

    Three important points to keep in mind are:     

        1. To listen.

        2. To hold fast to Covenant.      

        3. And by one's living example, be a priestly person.

    This is what both Old Testament and New Testament spirituality is all about.

    Suggested readings: Genesis Ch. 11-13,15

    In Chapter II we see what happens when a people go along without God — when they think they can control their own lives and make-a- name-for-themselves independently of God.

Chapter II

The human species has always had a longing for something extraordinary, something beyond their earthly grasp.

    Early man found that something they thought was God, was in their idols, until they became aware (by God's intervention) of the one true God who lifts people up to where they cannot go by themselves.

    God answered their longing when He called Abraham to be a man of faith, and Abraham answered His call wholeheartedly. Abraham never lost faith. He is the faith model for all people for all time.

    From the beginning God meant His salvation to be for all people. He chose the tribes of Abraham to start it on its way and it progressed through the times of the Old Testament to the coming of Jesus Christ, when the New Testament began. The New Testament is built squarely on the foundation of the Old Testament.

    Jesus was a Jew. Most of the apostles and evangelists were Jews. Many of Jesus' teachings and talks drew heavily on quotations from the Old Testament. This was also true of all New Testament writers.

    The chosen people from the time of Abraham to the time of Christ were commissioned by Yahweh to be evangelizers.

    The message of faith in the one true God was not for them alone. They were expected to draw all people to Him. This is borne out in what God said to Abraham in Genesis “All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you.”[3] The Israelites were not too happy with this idea. They thought they were superior. After all, they were the “Chosen People” weren't they.

    But even before they left Egypt in the exodus they were not all pure descendents of Abraham. And, when Joshua led them into the Promised Land they did not destroy all the inhabitants. Some of the Canaanites intermarried with them as well as other people.

    Thus, unwittingly, they were doing what Yahweh wanted them to do. They were beginning to draw other nations to Him.

Chapter III

God had meant all along that His light and love should shine on all peoples of the earth.

    But the Israelites did not like that idea. They jealously guarded the idea that they alone were special to God.

     They closed their mind to what God had said to Abraham: In your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing…”[4]  

    When the Israelites settled in the Promised Land, they turned in on themselves and became narrow minded. They looked upon the Temple as theirs alone. The prophet Isaiah had to remind them that even the Temple was to be for all people. And, “All nations shall stream towards it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come let us climb the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.’”[5]

    The Israelites, in truth, were chosen by God to be the focal point out of which salvation should spread to the outside world, first; then the Apostles were the focal point out of which the Gospel message of Jesus Christ was destined to go out into the whole world for all peoples of the earth.

    The Book of Jonah brings out this stiff-necked attitude of the Israelites and shows how God made them understand that He, not they, was in the driver's seat.

Suggested reading: The Book of Jonah

Chapter IV

In these reflections on the Old Testament we need, or a better word, desire, to increase in our hearts the message of the spirituality of the Old Testament as it builds up into the spirituality of the New Testament.

    We need to learn that our present day spirituality, the spirituality of Jesus Christ, is Passover oriented just as it was for the people of the Old Testament. Do we understand “Passover” as freedom — freedom not only from slavery to the Egyptians then, but freedom all down the line, freedom from slavery to self, a passing over to the colossal selfless love that God gives and inspires. In Jesus we clearly pass over from that Old Testament way and pass out of the “me, me,” commercial, success-status concept of our 20th-Century living and enter into the “humble servant” concept that Jesus so magnificently exemplified in His way of life.

    We need to be a Passover people not so comfortably entrenched in our own status quo that we are unwilling to move on and up towards a stronger, higher spirituality. We are a pilgrim people on a rugged journey heavenward.

    The Old Testament people were bound by rigid rules, measured out in detail by do’s and don'ts as if they were in a strait jacket. They plodded dumbly and numbly along, with their common sense befuddled by a clutter of useless material.

    Jesus turned that around with His beatitudes, with His “love God and love your neighbor as yourself” concept. In fact He went beyond that to say, “Love each other as I have loved you.”[6]

    This briefly — very briefly — is the spirituality of the Scriptures, Old Testament and the New Testament alike.

Chapter V

What about “The Law” of the Old Testament?

    There were 620 do’s and don’ts written down. These came about simply to explain the demands of the Covenant. A person had to be very learned to know and observe all of them. And they became rigid, hemmed in and set in concrete. They lost the meaning of the Covenant, which was a relationship of love. 

    In the Old Testament the Covenant was the all-important thing, but as time went on the people multiplied and laws were needed to protect them when difficult situations arose.

    The law was made after the Covenant and the Ten Commandments flowed from the Covenant but did not displace it. The laws became a means of living out the Covenant, which established the relationship between Yahweh and the people. The Laws were meant to be a help in clarifying this relationship.

    The Laws made sense only in relation to the two great “Commandments of God.” “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart… and your neighbor as yourself.”[7]

    Emphasis must be on the inner man, not on surface observances.

    When God asked Solomon what he most wanted, Solomon replied, “Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.”[8]

   God was tremendously pleased with that request when Solomon asked to be just and wise in governing his people.

    In the laws, the love of God must always be supreme.  

    God said, “You shall be my people and I will be your God.”[9]

     The laws evolved over a period of time. As time went on the intent and purpose of some were lost and much later were resurrected with interpretations never meant for them. Such was the law that you cannot boil the meat of the kid in its mother’s milk. This was enacted to counter the ancient prevailing practice of worship of the fertility gods. A kid was sacrificed and boiled in its mother’s milk, both fertility symbols. This pagan practice violated God’s command, “Thou shall not have other gods besides me.”[10] So, it was forbidden to boil the meat of the kid in its mother's milk. This meaning was lost in the obscurity of time and centuries later someone unearthed it and falsely interpreted to mean that it was unlawful to eat meat and drink milk at the same meal. Many of the laws became counter productive to their Covenant relationship. They became surface observances, not coming out of the hearts of the people they were meant to lead to a closer relationship with God.

    The Pharisees were very learned men. They steeped themselves in the laws, which they observed scrupulously to the point where they regarded themselves as superior beings.

    When Jesus came, He began to turn things around. He said, “I have come not to abolish [the law] but to fulfill it”[11]

     His way was Yahweh’s love relationship, the old Covenant relationship. Jesus gave us the Beatitudes, which were not meant to destroy the law but to turn it around to the original meaning intended by Yahweh.

     A good example of this is the parable Jesus gave us of the Pharisee and the Publican in the Temple, the former away up in front boasting of his religiosity, the latter away in the back, with bowed head humbly asking pardon for his sins.

 Chapter VI

The Covenant is a guideline to the law. Law, to this day, is subject to updating, to renewal. To Old Testament people the Law was looked upon as something sacred. Love of law was love of God's will. It represented God's way of showing how to live out His Covenant — His will for them.

    Liturgy is a ceremony — people in love making signs of love for God in celebration and deepening that love relationship. Liturgy must always speak of love. But how can killing a lamb speak of love?

    In Covenant, a person gives himself to God, not his life and not his son's life. The next best thing was a lamb, not just to kill the lamb but to change its existence symbolic of how the giver was changing his way of existence by entering more deeply into covenant.

     The dead lamb was a symbol of the life that is in the blood. Blood was sacred; the domain of life and love was the domain of God.

     Pouring out the blood of the animal meant they were sharing life — it was a happy sign; it was giving of themselves to God.

    It had to be from their hearts. The intention of the giver was the important thing. Merely killing an animal was like killing a man. There really wasn’t anything holy in that. What is holy is when a person “offers himself” to God. God was not happy with the death of the lamb, just as He was not happy with the death of Jesus Christ His Son. He was happy with His Son’s love and obedience. God approves of the one who listens to His word.

    The most natural thing in the world is for people to break bread together.

    In the Old Testament, as today, there were many kinds of sharing of meals. It was a means of becoming more deeply “family.” When people share a meal they talk together, remember old times, sometimes talk about the saving deeds of God. The sharing of meals was a sign of love, and thus of the Covenant. These were manifestations of spirituality.

     But people had come to substitute the ritual of religion for religion. They had fallen into pagan ways and were acting with a pagan mentality. The people were substituting Liturgy for Covenant.

    Liturgy must be done in spirit and in truth. Liturgy must be signs of love from a people in love with God in order to deepen their love for God. Liturgy is good only when it is done, that way.

    Liturgy fails when people do not have their hearts in it. It must not be a means of manipulating God. Liturgy must encourage people to respond to God the way God wants them to respond.

    There is hypocrisy in observing the law to the letter but not living God's will in the heart.

Suggested readings: Exodus: Ch. 24 and Sirach: Ch. 24

Chapter VII

In this session we see that Saul was anointed as the first King of the Hebrew people. The prophet Samuel poured oil over Saul's head, thereby anointing him as King. Over the passage of time, Saul lost favor with Yahweh, who then had Samuel anoint David, a shepherd lad, to be king.

    David chose Jerusalem to be his capital city. He brought the Ark into the city and from then on it was called the city of David.

    God made a messianic covenant with David, “I will build a dynasty for you which will last forever.”[12]  Thus a new element entered in — a messianic spiritually.

    Solomon, late in his reign, fell out of favor with God; his son, Rehoboam, was evil, cruel and unjust and the kingdom split apart — 10 tribes scattering to the north and the tribes of Benjamin and Judah went to the south. The tribe of Judah was David's tribe.

    Most of the kings of Judah proved to be not good kings. They did not protect God’s people under the covenant.

    And so as time went on people began to yearn for a good leader, a good messiah, one who would lead them as God wanted them to be lead; one who would protect them from without as well as within; one who would unite them in love.

    But while the people longed for a good messiah, they pictured him in wrong ways.

    Some visualized a strong military leader who would free them from their oppressors. Others thought of a splendid, regal figure. Not surprisingly, then, they did not recognize the one true Messiah when He came humble, gentle and forgiving.

    This Messiah was the poor man Jesus, whom they did not recognize as their true Savior and Messiah, the One who had been promised.

    Lowly He came, this compassionate Messiah. “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”[13]

    Small wonder He was unrecognized by so many, this lowly great One who was Son of God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who would forever sit upon the throne of David, to reign in glory with His Father and the Holy Spirit in the Almighty-ness of the one Triune God.

Suggested reading: 1 Samuel 8-11

Chapter VIII

Are we beginning to understand what the spirituality of the Old Testament is?

     In the Old Testament God seemed to be a God to fear, but as we read on through many passages we come to detect a permeating aura of God's love and concern for His people.   

    Who are God’s people?

    At the outset, the people of Israel were His chosen ones, His instruments of salvation. But, by no means was it confined to them, because at the very beginning of salvation’s history Yahweh pointed out to Abraham that all communities of the earth shall find blessing in you. All peoples of all time would come to know the one true God who was, who is and will always be, a real and alive, caring, merciful and forgiving God.

    The Israelites were expected to become a people of deep faith in Yahweh. They were not meant to look upon themselves as privileged. They were not to turn in on themselves. Yet that is what they were doing. They were not willing to share God with other people.

    “Turn to me and be safe all the ends of the earth, for I am God; there is no other.”[14] God admonished them, “My salvation shall reach the ends of the earth.”[15] And “My house shall be [called] a house of prayer [for all people,]” [16] He reminded them.

    Thus they were not meant to be for themselves alone. This theme is carried right into our New Testament spirituality. “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.”[17] Jesus told the Apostles.

    In the Old Testament the Israelites, the chosen people of God, and in the New Testament, the people of God, all of us, are a priestly people. We are not for ourselves alone, we are to share. We are to serve. We are to evangelize.

    The message of salvation, then, is the message of the love of God given to all mankind; to be nurtured and fostered by mankind with mankind and then, enriched with the fruits of sharing Jesus, our Savior with all, then, to be given back to God, in community and individually.

    Love is the overpowering, overriding theme of the Scriptures. The result is Jesus’ salvation, His promise. “Come you who are blessed by my Father … I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, you gave me drink...[18]  ENTER INTO THE JOY OF THE LORD.

Suggested reading: The Book of Ruth

Chapter IX

At the outset when they were a small group, the Israelites remained faithful to God, as they grew in numbers and as time passed, they began to place more importance on the means than on the end.

    But the means were important only insofar as they carried them to the end, which was God’s plan for them.

    There can be a beautiful basilica but of itself it can be an empty shell. On its surface it can only be a symbol. What goes on inside is what gives it its meaning and its spiritual value. The laws were the outside structure and the Covenant was on the inside. Over emphasis of the laws can become an idol and something to be worshiped.

    The leaders, under God's plan, were supposed to lead them closer to God. But some concentrated almost exclusively on structure — on how they structured their outward forms and life styles, while they totally neglected putting God's will into action in their daily living.

    The prophets were sent by God to change this, to show the people the original meaning of their vocation — the “why” they were chosen by God.

     Isaiah's role, for instance, was to help them to be what God wanted them to be. The prophets were a sign to the people, an example of right living as God wanted them to live.   

    A people can be an instrument of renewal. There is a need to grow, but also, a need to see the God who is already right there with them. The prophet needed to wake the people up, not on the surface but in the depths of their beings.

    The people did not consider themselves the ones the prophets needed to renew or reform. That was for those other people out there. But the prophets were trying to reform within — the people themselves.

    The people turned against the prophets. They became self-centered and began to look upon their own achievements as God’s will. That has never been God’s way.

    We, the Church, are evangelizers, but we must begin by evangelizing ourselves within and clarify our values and our priorities.

    The book of the prophet Hosea emphasized that what his wife was doing to him was the same thing the Israelites were doing to God. There was no depth in their actions.

    A prophet speaks, not only to the present, but to the future. Though the present may seem rather hopeless, there is always hope in God. People, at least some of them, will come to listen to the word of God  and accept the prophets as God’s messengers, but there will always be a remnant though that will not listen and confuse the means to the end.

Chapter X

The Israelites came to look upon prosperity as a sign of God’s favor on those who kept the law to the letter. They believed if they were faithful to the law, God showered prosperity on them.

   So, they looked on the poor as people who were not keeping the law and so were being punished by God. The prosperous element concluded that if God was punishing them, why shouldn't the poor receive the same?

            How little they knew about God's ways. The *anawim, the very poor in spirit, and the poor, were not God’s enemies; God has always had great compassion for the poor.

    *The “anawim,” the very poor in spirit, (anawim: They who humbly and meekly bend themselves down before God and man, shall "inherit the land" and posses their inheritance in peace… The word poor seems to represent an Aramaic `ányâ (Hebr. `anî), bent down, afflicted, miserable, poor; while meek is rather a synonym from the same root, `ánwan (Hebr. `ánaw), bending oneself down, humble, meek, gentle. (From New Advent, the Catholic Encyclopedia)

      The poor turned to God for justice. They were a remnant, a hoping people. Since they were not shackled by worldly possessions they were free to open themselves to God. They began to realize what God's love was. They grew to a closer union with God and they saw how rich they were with God’s word.

From the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the land.”[19]

    Poverty of self is not desirable. It must be the poverty of emptying oneself to make room for God. Jesus said something to this effect in His parable about the man possessed by demons: The devils were expelled from him and he went about swept clean and empty. But he did not fill that emptiness with God, and soon other devils worse than the ones expelled entered in him and the last state of that man became worse than the first.

    It is necessary to seek the Lord, to find one’s values in Him; then He will be present to us — in our midst. In this, we have hope and salvation.

     God does not want sacrifices of animals. He wants people to unite themselves to Him in repentance, in trust, and in love. Then, they will be His people and He will be their God.

    In Ezekiel He said, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees. You shall live in the land I gave your fathers; you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”[20]

Chapter XI

With this chapter we come to the end of our discussion on the Spirituality of the Old Testament. From beginning to end the message of this spirituality is love. God Almighty, the Unknown, the ALL, manifests Himself to us in His involvement in salvation’s history.

     God encompasses in His being a love so vast it sends our thoughts spinning, unable to grasp the enormity of its scope. Actually it has no scope, it is boundless. It is awesome, and it is ours. God is a sharer of His never-ending goodness.

    But He cannot tolerate disobedience to His laws. He cannot because He is Truth Absolute — He cannot be untrue to what He is.   He gave a covenant, commandments and two great commandments that embrace all others: You must love the Lord your God, all out, without reservation; and you must love your neighbor as yourself.

    Jesus went a step beyond that. He said, “Love one another as I have loved you,”[21]Alongside that, loving our neighbor as ourselves becomes a weak, pale copy of His sacrificial love for us.

    God makes it very clear how we must show our love for Him. It is by loving, caring for and sharing with our neighbor. In the Book of Tobit in the Old Testament is this passage: “Do to no one what you yourself dislike, give to the hungry some of your bread and to the naked some of your clothing.”[22]

     The New Testament is founded on the Old. We see this example when Jesus said, “Do not think I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have come, not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.”[23]

   And like the Old Testament we see again in Matthew “Treat others the way you would have them treat you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.”[24] Also in Matthew we hear these words, “Come, for I was hungry … thirsty … naked …” and “As often as you ministered to one of my least brothers you did it for me.”[25]

    Love is the life's blood of God’s salvation message and that message is the spirituality of both the Old and the New Testaments.

    To know it we must come to know Jesus of the Gospels. To know the Jesus of the Gospels we must open the book and read — and ponder the words.

   We must listen. We must hear and see Jesus and watch with awe and delight as He steps right out of those pages and stands before us. We must look into His eyes and know He is looking at us. He cares about us. We must watch His hands point the way — His way. We must heed what He Is telling us, this Jesus who is the Word made Flesh — the Word in Living Flesh.

    He is what the Old and the New Testaments are all about.