Pet Peeve #27 – Jewish Prayer Shawls and Holy Land Anointing Oil

// March 17th, 2008 // Church Life, Pet Peeves

Blogging is good for a lot of things. One of them is that it’s a great venue for venting about various pet peeves one might have. Things like driving for miles with the turn signal on, driving without ever using the turn signal, big hair, theft-proof packaging used on everything at WalMart, etc. It’s a great alternative to road rage and the resulting inconvenience of jail time.

I preached on Ephesians 2:11-22 this week. This is an interesting passage that brought up a particular pet peeve of mine. I didn’t get to really talk much about it during the sermon because it was a little off topic. So, I thought I would abuse you guys with my rant here.

I’ve been to some WEIRD prayer meetings. For some reason, prayer meetings have a tendency to bring out the crazies and encourage them to explore whole new levels of nuttiness. Your pastor won’t tell you this, but an organized intercessor meeting makes most pastors pretty nervous. It’s not that they don’t believe in organized prayer. Far from it. It’s that they are afraid of the Jewish prayer shawls, anointing oil from the “Holy” Land and the “certified authentic” shofars from special ram’s horns that were raised free-range on the Mount of Olives.

I’m not sure what the fascination is. Don’t get me wrong, I think Jewish culture is fascinating. I appreciate it. Jesus was Jewish. So is Steven Spielburg. I also recognize that they have a unique place in church history. But, Ephesians 2:18 makes it pretty clear that we all have to come through the same Jesus. The gospel is the great equalizer. Do we really think that if we pray while wearing a Jewish prayer shawl, blowing a shofar, with special anointing oil on our head while watching Schindler’s List that God will exclaim, “Hey! Check that guy out! Move his prayer to the top of the ‘to do’ list.”? Isn’t this the very mentality that the apostle Paul was trying to destroy?

If I’m a big white guy that hates the smell of frankincense and myrrh, does that mean my prayers are less effective? I sure hope not. Myrrh gives me a headache and traditional Jewish dance steps confuse me.

IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING… I’ve never been to such a prayer meeting at KCC.

Here’s a fascinating related article.

Technorati Tags: jewish, culture, anointing oil, prayer, intercession, prayer shawl

16 Responses to “Pet Peeve #27 – Jewish Prayer Shawls and Holy Land Anointing Oil”

Jan says:

March 17, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Just FYI, prayer meetings here that are organized by major intercessors also make the Mexican pastors nervous.

Joseph Cotten says:

March 17, 2008 at 3:27 pm

Okay, from the linked “fascinating related article”, check out this quote:

“The same clinical picture always emerges. It begins with general anxiety and nervousness, and then the tourist feels an imperative need to visit the holy places. First, he undertakes a series of purification rituals, like shaving all his body hair, cutting his nails and washing himself over and over before he dons white clothes. Most often, he lifts the white sheets from his hotel room. Then he begins to cry or to sing Biblical or religious songs in a very loud voice. The next step is an actual visit to the holy places, most often from the life of Jesus. The afflicted tourist begins to deliver a sermon, demanding that humanity become calmer, purer, and less materialistic.

Dr. Bar-El, says that besides their bizarre behavior, everything else about the tourists in normal”

Yeah, that’s gotta be a demon. Ha! The Holy Land Demon!

Martha Margaret says:

March 17, 2008 at 6:04 pm

Ahhhh, here is the irreverent, sarcastic and hilarious brother in law (one of them!)that I know and love. I had been pretty worried that the pastorate would make you all religious and goody-goody. I should have known better, given your sacreligious family history! :)

Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine too. Is it really #27 or did you make that up? If not, I want to know what the first 26 are.

ded says:

March 17, 2008 at 6:54 pm

It sort of smacks of “christian” superstition, eh?

Greg says:

March 17, 2008 at 11:18 pm

Well there goes my “Holy Relics” online shopping business I was putting together… I remember back in the “Shofar Mania” of the mid-1990s someone (I won’t name the name!) kept trying to get your father-in-law to blow the shofar at LWCF and Ben kept on coming up with very creative reasons to put the guy off. Finally, the guy came and said that Ben wasn’t qualified to do it because “only those whose lips were anointed by God were allowed to blow the shofar.” Guess what? Amazingly enough he then informed us that God had anointed his lips for “such a time as this.” This shofar madness was only further propagated when it was blown to open the evangelical movement’s “March on Washington” in 1996 (the day I officially left evangelicalism due to its hokeyness and cheesyness. I later returned to the fold, mind you after the turn of the century). Anyhoo, if it was good enough for the Christian “Million Man March,” the guy reasoned, then it was certainly good enough for LWCF. So, if my memory recalls it correctly, poor Ben fiiiinally let the hyper guy blow the darn thing.

Personally I’m holding out for one of those Holy Hand Grenades of Monty Python Holy Grail fame…

Martha Margaret says:

March 17, 2008 at 11:28 pm

Ben, I want to know what your dad thinks about all this…he was the main one at Jubilee blowing the shofar. Remember that HUGE one he got? It was so big and it stank inside.(I guess like a ram??) I will never forget the first time I heard it being blown…it scared me half to death — that thing was so loud!

Ben Cotten says:

March 18, 2008 at 8:27 am

@Martha: I made the “#27″ up, but I’m sure I could think of 26 more. ;-) I’d like to know what Dad thinks too. I haven’t seen the shofar make an appearance in quote a while, but I’m sure he could still blast that thing like Gideon if he wanted to. I must admit, he is the most skilled shofar player I’ve heard. He could get several tones out of it, as I recall.

@Greg: Holy Hand Grenade, indeed! After all, it is the only way to kill an attack rabbit.

@Joseph: That part of the article made me laugh too. I mean, how can you use the word “normal” concerning anyone who shaved all their body hair, donned a bed sheet and wandered the streets of Jerusalem calling themselves Elijah? It seems to me that at that point you have been permanently removed from the “normal” category.

Reed says:

March 19, 2008 at 6:58 pm

All right, the coolest shofar I ever saw was one that was bored out on the smaller end with a trumpet mouth piece unceremoniously and probably unsacramentally inserted so any “unclean, gentile schmuck” could blow the thing. As a one time brass man, I had to give it a go – It put a very, dare I say, “pastoral” vibe on the theme from “2001 A Space Odyssey”

Good morning Dave…

John Lunt says:

March 21, 2008 at 7:02 am

Hmmm… I’ve been an intercessor most of my Christian life…. I never did the prayer shawl or shofar thing… but I really like the anointing oil with cool smells….

By the way, pastors and Sunday morning sermons are a little weird too don’t you think

I mean most of our intercession is – God make sure the Pastor gets it right this time… :-) Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Fun post and for the most part I agree with you… except for the scented holy land oil blessed by one of the televangelist prophets.

Michael says:

March 22, 2008 at 3:06 pm

Well, I think Ben’s “problem” with all things Jewish goes back to his parading around town on one Halloween night singing at the top of his voice, “We are the circumcision that worships God in the Spirit.” He might need some personal ministry because of that . . .

Sarah (Real Life) says:

March 22, 2008 at 11:15 pm

I got stuck at one of those prayer meetings ALL NIGHT one night in college. It was two hours away from home, and I of course was not driving. They were doing some special dance with the shawls and entrancing music in the background. I spent the whole night praying I could go home! The people I went with thought I was demon oppressed because I thought the whole thing was insane.

Morris says:

April 24, 2008 at 1:18 pm

Please pray for Ms Mamta for her safety, protection, deliverance.Her mother & sisters are getting her forcibly married to a person whom she does not like.That boy has beaten her on the street and in the commercial area.She is afraid cause she is all alone for no one is standing with her or supporting her in this situation.Pray that trhe Lord would intervene and make a way out for her in this situation. She is a believer. She may be have compromised with the situation cause theres no other option for her.But still we believe in the God of Miracles.Pls pray for a miracle to take place and that she would be delivered.Pls pray for the miracle totake place before 26th of this month.

Jenny says:

May 20, 2008 at 4:40 am

Hi
May God take you beyond your peeves and into His presence. the saddest site I have seen in some time – why, as His people have you chosen to use something so trivial to attack the work of intercession. Unless you yourself have the heart to intercede for the lost, you won’t find yourself at intercession and will be able to criticise outside of the experience of prayer. The Body of Christ will rise with the witness it was intended to when the house of God stop throwing mud at each other and enjoying the effects of fragmented ministries founded on spiritual jealousy, and it will have and it will be the fruit of unity.

It seems that using such a simple concept, your humorous attack on intercession, the enemy has managed to cause suspicion over prayer – it is lack of prayer that sees the church of God in such a state of apathy in many cases.

Use your influence to call the church to prayer.

Turn the power to communicate using the web into construction of the image of God’s people and stop adding to the derision that the enemy enjoys while God’s own people destroy one another.

You are the Body of Christ. Unite and serve – don’t divide and rule. The fruit of the ministry is UNITY – JOHN 17.

My suggestion is that you pray before your write.

Ben Cotten says:

May 20, 2008 at 6:50 am

I’m not against intercession at all. Thanks for noting that this was a humorous post because that was the intent. To laugh at ourselves a bit and simply admit that we do some silly things.

It sounds like you aren’t really offended about prayer but rather that we are laughing over the things we often do thinking that they will increase the effectiveness of our prayer.