Outside the Camp

Scripture:

- Exodus 33:11 - "Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend."

- Psalm 99:4 - "Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob."

- 3 John 11 - "Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God."

Reflection:

Notice where the tent of meeting is pitched: outside the camp, a good distance off. Anyone who wanted to seek the LORD had to leave the center and walk out to the edge. The institution had its place - but the seeking God happened out where the boundaries blur, beyond the walls, among whoever else was camped outside. God has always been easier to find at the margins than in the middle.

And there, outside, "the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend." Not as a king addresses a servant through layers of protocol - as a friend. Prayer, at its truest, is friendship with God, which means God puts up with our arguments, our moods, our long silences. That is not irreverence. That is intimacy.

Third John is barely a page long, and it is about church politics: Diotrephes, "who likes to put himself first," refuses to welcome the travelers and excommunicates those who do; Demetrius, who "has been testified to by everyone." The problem is as old as the church - power over against hospitality. The elder's counsel is spare and severe: do not imitate what is evil, imitate what is good. Whoever does good is from God. Not whoever is first. Whoever is good.

Prayer:

God who pitches the tent outside the camp, give us legs to walk out to the edge, where the people you love are camped and where your voice is easier to hear. Make us friends of yours, unafraid to argue, unembarrassed to wait. And when the church  is tempted to put itself first, let us imitate the good, quietly, until everyone testifies to it.