Does everything that we do matter?

The other day I read a reflection by a Christian church that would probably describe themselves as Preterist. Preterism is a major issue in my world just now. I won't take the space here to try to explain it or argue it one way or the other. but the reflection troubled me because it made the point that when Christians study the Hebrew Bible (The "Old Testament" or "Old Covenant") something is lost and taken from our study of the Christian Bible (The "New Testament" or "New Covenant"). This view derives from a "spiritualized" understanding of both texts. For my part, I find the Hebrew Bible important both for how it stands on its own and how it relates to other texts, and for the many calls to social justice within it. If we "spiritualize" the entire text and believe that God's Kingdom will be spiritual then we lose the social justice inherent and the role of historical development in faith that is carried in the text, I think. There is plenty of time for mysticism, and any good Jewish commentary will give you an introduction to that, but we're going to miss the mark by only living with the spiritual and mystical in any text.

This reading of the Torah and the reflection that goes with it by Rabbi Stacy Rigler is not intended to take up the matters that I'm raising, nor should they, but we will all be in a better place if we try to approach texts through the eyes of the people who crafted them long before we found them. The ReformJudaism.org is one of many websites that helps with this, although it also carries its own dear weight and messages. Rabbi Rigler writes:

The only measurement that we ought to take when trying to decide if our actions can help repair the world is to ask - will this bring me closer to another living being? This was the assurance that God gave to Noah, that during hopelessness, chaos, and distribution he would not be alone on the ark. Noah would not be there just with his family, Noah would be there with animals, each of whom contain the spirit of life. Each of us has the opportunity to seek out encounters that have the potential to remind us of this spirit, the chance to engage in tikkun olam.

The Rev. Shyrl Hinnant-Uzzell did an excellent sermon on Nehemiah last Sunday that better expresses my thoughts on how we should engage with the Hebrew Bible. That sermon comes from Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, NC and represents the kind of advanced theology being done in the Black Church. If you're serious about Bible study, or if you're trying to figure out how social justice and our daily lives fit into understanding the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible right now, please give Rev. Uzzell your attention.

The question that is at the heart of everything here is whether everything we do matters or not.