Perhaps more overlap with Exodus, as we begin with instructions for the Passover - but wait, there is new material and intriguing details to ponder.

Keeping Passover

The importance of the Passover is such that no-one wnats to miss out - those who are excluded on grounds of ritual uncleanliness due to contact with a dead body ask to be made a special case.  So two special cases are identified - those affected by bereavement and those who are on a journey may celebrate the Passover, as may any 'Alien' who wishes to, provided they have complied with the necessary statutes (for which we need to return to Exodus as they are not listed here).  Surprisingly, perhaps, this most important of all ritual celebrations is the most inclusive... but it also comes with a stern warning: those who could keep Passover and don't are to be cut off, excluded, banished.

It's hard to imagine any religious ritual that would be so central that we would choose to banish - excommunicate - someone because they didn't undertake it.  Many years ago, I recall my then minister complaining that the church was often almost empty at Easter because people choose to go on holiday, but there was no formal consequence of that choice... muttering perhaps, but no action!

It's also hard to imagine anything we might do in church that would lead to people pleading to be included, that might lead us to consider whether concessions would be appropriate and/or what requirements we might impose on "outsiders" who wished to join in.

Proceed in an orderly fashion...

The trumpets, and the array of trumpet calls is a fascinating detail.  The description of the order in which people will set out (or at least some of them) shows evidence of some practical considerations (the tent can be set up before the contents arrive).

I do wonder if what we have here is, at least to an extent, fragmentary, notably because whilst we are told of alarms to tell those camped on the east and south to set off, there seems to be no mention of the west or north... though we are told who goes last, the back-marker or 'sheepdog' to ensure that everyone is accounted for and has arrived safely.

Again it seems that everyone has a role, and knows what it is.  Whether it is to carry a bowl or blow a trumpet, to walk at the front or to bring up the rear.  This expedition seems to be well organised, even though it is equally clear that there is a degree of making it up as they go along!

Eyes to see...

One Midianite is named in this section, Hobab the son of Moses' father-in-law, who has it seems travelled with the Israelites.  Recognising the knowledge he has, Moses asks him to be the 'eyes' of the expedition, to act as a 'scout'.  Hobab really doesn't want to do this, but is persuaded.

Churches and denominations talk a lot about mission, about going, literally or metaphorically, to new places.  Reading this I find myself wondering, who are the Midianites in our midst whose inside knowledge we need and value, whose 'eyes' we need to borrow to help us find our way into uncharted terriitory?

Travelling Mercies

The section ends with two ritualised prayers - one uttered as the people set out, the other when they settle in a new campsite. 

Thinking Christians often struggle with prayers for 'travelling mercies', it seems selfish to ask God to bless us or those we love, and  yet still we want them to be kept safe.  "Go well" we say, or "safe journey", or "take care"... we may not actively pray, but the intent is pretty much the same.

In the days when I used to drive huge distances, often in the dark, and often finding it hard work, when I finally reached my destination and switched off the engine, I would often utter a "thank you" 'arrow' prayer to God.  Since I've mainly used public transport, I've lost that sense of gratitude, because it someone else who has done the work, negotiated hazards and weather and so on.  I think I need to recover that practice, and maybe to pray for those whose work it is to ensure I have a safe journey.

Psalm 121 offer this assurance: "the Lord will preserve your going out and your coming in, both now and forevermore."  A promise to trust, an assurance of travelling mercies, at least when seen in eschatalogical perspective.

I wouldn't normally choose to mark World Book Day, but having just read what I found to be a wonderful book, I thought, well, why not.

I find that Kate Atkinson's novels are well crafted and deeply satisfying to read.  Yesterday, I spent something like six hours reading the second half of "A God in Ruins", a Costa Book Prize winner for 2015, and, for me, a wonderful read.  I think every book of hers I've read (still a few to go) has in some way resonated with my own experiences, or questions or thoughts.  This one, focussing on the life story of one, now very elderly and frail, man, I found really gripping.  I loved the easy movement backwards and forwards in time within chapters, as well as the more formal movement between them.  Above all, it was resonant descriptions of an elederly parent moving first to sheltered housing and then to a care home that I found most moving, and somehow reassuring.

The author herself notes certain threads/connections within the story - one being a 'red thread', which appears at various times.  I hadn't spotted this, but once she mentioned it, I found myself recalling how 'red threads' feature also in the Old Testament (think Jacob or Rahab).  I was also reminded how connections are always there to be made or discovered by the reader.  Above all, I was reminded why I love reading, and how a good novel can convey powerful truths if only we have the eyes to see them or ears to hear them.

I have a number of other books waiting to be read now - and hope that doing so will both enrich my inner world and help inform my outer one.

The overlap with the end of Exodus continues, and I find myself very much reminded of the equivalent material that links the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles... the same events described but with differences, some quite significant.  To twenty-first century critical minds, this can seem problematic - surely it ought to be neat and tidy, surely an editor or author would smooth out the contradictions.  Perhaps.  And perhaps not.  Newspaper and television reports of events can be hugely contradictory.  We realise that there is no value free describing, that whatever is written or said is inevitably partial - incomplete and biased.  We know it, but, I anyway, am wont to forget it, often uncritically accepting as absolute fact what I read/see/hear, whilst others may be questioning every detail.

The writer(s) of the material contained in this scroll, or at least the editor, if we accept a multiple source hypothesis, needs to start somewhere, and what better place than the dedication of the Tabernacle and the ordination of the priests?

Twelve Days, Twelve Identical Gifts

With almost poetic repetition, the presentation of offerings from each of the twelve sub-divsions (clans/tribes) is described.  Each day for twleve days, one group has the nto come forward and present their offerings.  Each in turn has their 'moment' to be the centre of the story.  No-one brings more and no-one brings less.  There is no favour in going first or last, no slight in being somewhere in between.  Here, at the start of the story anyway, is a sense of equality, of each of the twelve groups having equal worth, contributing equally.

I love the detail of the covered wagons and the oxen to draw them - a free gift offered by the people to make life a little easier for those who have to carry heavy items.  And the intriguing detail that one group is denied a wagon because the objects they carry are too holy.  What becomes of that wagon and the oxen, or how the donors may have felt is not recorded.  I have to confess that my mental image of these wagons is shaped by too many spaghetti westerns, and the circling of wagons by the pioneers or cowboys!

Retirement Age!

In the previous chunk of material, we learned that men aged 30 to 50 years of age were to undertake the physical work of carrying the various objects.  Here we are given instructions for the working life of the priests - they begin at age 25 and retire at 50.  After this age, they may assist, but may not perform any official rites.

In a society where formal retirement ages are steadily being increased, driven by finanacial constraints on state funded pensions, it is sobering to think that once upon a time people would have been considered well and truly 'old' at 60 or 65.  In churches and other organisations where there is often huge dependence on "young retireds" or even on "not so young retireds" it is sobering to realise that the earliest records we have don't just request, but require people to step down from office as they age.

I know that many ministers when they reach the age of formal retirement find it really difficult to 'let go'.  Financial considerations (ministers' pensions have never been huge, and have at times been terrible) lead some to take up part time posts, potentially meaning that younger or newly qualified ministers are unable to settle.  I am challenged by what I read here - and I hope that should I reach formal retirement age (currently 67 or 68 and likely to rise futher) still in active ministry, that someone will remind me, forcibly if necessary, to step down and allow a new generation to take their turn.

So, some interesting stuff to ponder here, and some challenges for people of all ages about the roles they fulfil within churches.  Some challenges too with a Baptist ecclesiology of covenanted membership in an age where, for various reaons, such practice may have consequences our forebears would not have envisaged.

Yesterday came and went and I had no energy to sit and read Numbers, never mind to respond to what I had read.  So today, in part, I'm playing catch up, with four chapters rather than the usual two.

These chapters certainly make for strange reading, and it is necessary to work a little to find things to reflect on.

What Price a Life?

This section seems to involve more than a few head counts, some involving the whole people and others just the priestly clans.  The redemption of the first born - the perpetual ordinance to ensure that the passover was never forgotten - is here commuted to the dedication of the priestly clan to God.  The head count of males aged 1 month or over within that clan comes to 22,000.  A head count of all the first borns of the other tribes comes to 22, 273 - I love the precision!  So there is a problem - a shortfall.  This shortfall has to be offset, and it is done with a payment of 5 shekels a head for each of the additional males counted - a total of 1365 Temple/Sanctuary shekels.  I can't find an accepted definition of how much the shekel may have been worth, but it may have been around 12g (see here) which, if gold would have a current scrap value in the order £250-300.  So maybe in total somewhere around £350,000.

Setting aside the numerical values, which are difficult to translate into contemporary worth anyway, there remains the very real question of the price of a human life.  Way back, I recall teaching a group of engineers about some HSE safety assessment principles and noting that, effectively a financial value was applied to a human life.  One of the group was furious - how dare anyone put a price on a life.  But it happens all the time.  Decisions to approve drugs or medical treatments are driven by price.  Increased safety provision for transport or leisure facilties is driven by cost-benefit considerations.  Employers will consider the likely return on investment when recruiting staff.  Insurance and pension providers depend on valuations of human life to determine premiums and charges.

Sobering stuff.  And of course, as we journey through Lent we recall that, at least in some understandings of atonement, God continues to put a price on human life... it's just that now that price is already paid by Christ.

Delegated Responsibilities

The detailed lists of the clans of the levites, and the tasks assigned to them can feel rather dull to read.  But actually if we strip back the details, we can see that this is incredibly sensible and practical stuff.  The Tabernacle and all its accoutrements have to be carefully packed up and transported from one place to the next.  Rather than a free for all, risking damage or loss, each person has a clearly assigned task.  Rather than squabbling over who got to carry the more obviously important items, everyone is valued and needed.  It doesn't actually matter if your job is to carry the tent pegs or the ark, the candlestick or the curtains, you are needed.  Only by everyone playing their part, fulfilling their responsibility can the job be done.

I'm also struck at the very clear definition of the ages of those who are to undertake this physical work - those aged 30 to 50 - which presumably ensures a reasonable level of fitness/strength and a suitable degree of maturity.  Given that Moses is now reckoned to be well in to his 80s, it is curious that other men of his own age find no mention here.

As well as their practical responsibilities, the clans are assigned their places within the camp, on each of the four sides of the tent, and within the compass of the remaining people.  I find this circular arrangement quite telling, it may suggest a degree of egalitarianism (if there's such a word)... that this theocentric arrangement is somehow 'level' not 'hierarchical', that role not status determines physical location.   Or am I just reading in an idealised version of Baptist ecclesiology that I want to find??

Leprosy, Jealousy and Other Rules

In a decidely hotchpotch collection of texts, which must surely have been drawn together at some point, we find rules on diverse topics.  From how to manage infectious diseases (ritualised quarantine for those with leprosy) which at least seems to make some sense, to the barbaric ritual humiliation of a woman whose jealous  husband thinks she may have been unfaithful.  From the financial restitution for an unspecified wrong to the complex ritual separation of those taking a nazarite vow.

Just to note one sentence that really annoyed me, which was in the horrendous account of the way the wives of jealous men were to be treated.  It ends up saying "The man shall be free from iniquity but the woman shall bear her iniquity".  Does this mean, as it seems to, that if he she was judged innocent, he gets off scot free?  That's what it sounds like.  And there is no justice there.  I am reminded of the way that "witches" (quote marks deliberate) were subject to drowning as a means of demonstrating their innocence not so many hundred years ago.  I am reminded how late on in our society came equal opportunities legislation and how, even now women, among others, continue to be victims of discrimination and injustice.

I'd like to chop that bit out of the Bible - except that if I did, I could no longer be affected by it and caused to think.

And a Blessing

Just when you have slogged through the long list of numbers, and wondered what on earth all these rules were about, comes a beautiful surprise...

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

The Aaronic blessing, which I for one use in services marking rites of passage from infant blessing to funerals.

In the midst of all we struggle to understand.  Despite all that we do or fail to do.  In good times and hard times.  This blessing, ordained by God to be spoken over the stiff-necked people of Israel.

Perhaps, today, instead of getting tied up in knots about the minutiae of the tricky bits of the text, we do well simply to receive that blessing afresh, spoken over us, and over all we love.

Yesterday I had the privilege of conducting a funeral for a 95 year old former misisonary.  This meant getting dressed up in my black clerical shirt and black suit.  I rooted through the drawer for suitable hosiery and, by artificial light, could not distinguish between the black and the very dark navy.  Reasonably confident I'd made the correct call, I pulled them on and set off to walk to church.  Looking down I realised that they were, afterall, blue... yikes!  Fortunately there are several shops near the church that sell tights, so I was able to rectify this faux pas, which would have left me feeling distinctly uncomfortable all day.

After everything was complete, and I was home, I got changed and made myself a huge, steaming cup of tea... my post-funeral ritual, developed over many years.  Usually, though not in this case becuase I was just too tired, the ritual also involves putting on my jeans and getting out for a walk to process my thoughts and feelings before picking up routine again.

So, lesson learned - always keep a packet of new, black hosiery in the drawer at home, and a spare pair in the desk at church!!