Creating a Culture of Hesed

And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord! the Lord! a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy and loving-kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but Who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation. (Exodus 34:5-7)

God is abounding in lovingkindness. This is the Hebrew word hesed. It is a very difficult word to translate. There is actually no English equivalent. If you consult a lexicon for this word, you will find the description: no ANE cognates.

It is translated into several English words like lovingkindness, mercy, unfailing love, steadfast love and kindness.

Hesed describes the character of YHWH. It is a reflection of God’s purpose and it is a measure of spirituality for believers. This word is very important because God used it of himself.

It is one word that means four interrelated things at the same time.

Relational

It presupposes an existing relationship by blood, friend or covenant. Hesed only applies when there is an existing relationship. It cannot happen between strangers.

Reciprocal

It establishes an obligation. Divine hesed is free of any legal requirement. A superior party volunteers a moral commitment/covenant to an inferior party.

Hesed for God is voluntary but we must reciprocate. If God gives us forgiveness, how do we repay him? We repay him in obedience or being faithfully loyal to him.

Grace is God seeing your need and offering you a solution.

You don’t have to accept the solution but as soon as you do, you owe him obedience. Grace initiates obedience.

Transitive

It is not just bi-directional between you and God. You are not only obligated to obey God but you are obligated to pass hesed on to others. The performance of hesed to others demonstrates your gratitude to God.

When you show the same favor to others that God showed to you that’s evangelism. Those who do not pass it on break hesed and destroys evangelism.

Active

It is not about feeling or intention. It is an action that must be given.

An act of hesed presupposes the existence of a relationship between the parties involved. Where no formal relationship has previously been recognized, the person exercising hesed has chosen to treat the recipient as if such a relationship did exist.

The theological importance of the word hesed is that it stands more than any other word for the attitude which both parties to a covenant ought to maintain towards each other.

God's loving-kindness is that sure love which will not let Israel go. Not all Israel's persistent waywardness could ever destroy it.

Though Israel be faithless, yet God remains faithful still. This steady, persistent refusal of God to wash his hands of wayward Israel is the essential meaning of the Hebrew word which is translated loving-kindness.

The continual waywardness of Israel has made it inevitable that, if God is never going to let Israel go, then his relation to his people must in the main be one of loving-kindness, mercy, and goodness, all of it entirely undeserved.

For this reason the predominant use of the word comes to include mercy and forgiveness as a main constituent in God's determined faithfulness to his part of the bargain.

It is obvious, time and again, from the context that if God is to maintain the covenant he must exercise mercy to an unexampled degree.

Vine writes that…

You can identify three basic meanings of hesed, and these 3 meanings always interact -- strength, steadfastness, and love. Any understanding of hesed that fails to suggest all three inevitably loses some of its richness.

Love by itself easily becomes sentimentalized or universalized apart from the covenant. Yet strength or steadfastness suggests only the fulfillment of a legal (or similar) obligation.

Hesed refers primarily to mutual and reciprocal rights and obligations between the parties of a relationship (especially Jehovah and Israel). But hesed is not only a matter of obligation but is also of generosity.

It is not only a matter of loyalty, but also of mercy. Hesed implies personal involvement and commitment in a relationship beyond the rule of law.

Hesed is related to the Biblical of covenant (definition) and also to the idea of grace in that hesed was (is) extended by God when it was not deserved (in truth hesed is never deserved!) God's hesed is His persistent, unconditional tenderness, kindness, and mercy, a relationship in which God seeks after man with love and mercy.

Biblical Example

So when David mentions hesed and ‘for Jonathan’s sake’ we know he is alluding to the sacred commitment Jonathan had asked David to make in 1 Samuel 20:15:

‘And you must not cut off your devoted love (hesed) from my house forever, not even when Yahweh cuts off each one of David’s enemies from the face of the ground. ’

Now (2 Samuel 9:1-13) he is preparing to fulfil that pledge.

Hesed often has that flavor: it is not merely love, but loyal love; not merely kindness, but dependable kindness; not merely affection, but affection that has committed itself.

Hence the covenant gives him reason to look for and depend upon hesed, devoted love. It is crucial, however, to remember that Jonathan’s covenant itself was the expression of love, initiated by love (1 Samuel 18:1).

The order is: love gives itself in covenant and gladly promises devoted love in that covenant; the covenant partner then rests in the security of that promise and may appeal to it, as David does here."

Its message is: In confusion and trouble, you take yourself to the one person who has made a covenant with you.

In David’s disintegrating world there was yet one space of sanity, one refuge still intact — Jonathan. There was covenant; there David could expect hesed.

But that hesed ultimately flows not from a formal covenant promise but from the very nature of the covenant God, Yahweh, who is “rich in hesed and fidelity” (Ex 34:6)

(Note: It is important to remember that in the context of Exodus 34 Israel had absolutely no claim on Yahweh’s hesed because they had broken the covenant in the bull–calf worship [Ex 32].

If Israel receives hesed, it will only be because it flows from Yahweh’s heart — because of who he is, “rich in hesed and fidelity.”

Hesed really passes over into grace [Hebrew = chen], which is, something for nothing — when we don’t deserve anything).

This “trustworthiness” or “loyalty” that characterized God is set down in the ethical centerpiece of the law, the Ten Commandments, where God declares that he will show hesed “to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Ex 20:6)

Low Hesed Communities

Transactional culture

Relationships between leadership staff and volunteers in primarily transactional or performance based. As long as you perform well (serve/give), you are valuable.

Performance based communities can’t give hesed.

I’ve heard of churches that practice the GE model. They fire the lowest 10% of their staff each year.

All churches must dismiss staff from time to time but is it done with the intent to salvage the relationship?

2. Friendly but loosely attached

Shallow hesed means their love has weak sticking power and does not function like a family. Member remain acquaintances but few make deep friendships.

A low-hesed church may have a big front door and attract many new people, but the back door is just as big for those leaving.

A high-heed church is willing to accept pain and character flaws, realizing that with hesed comes pain; the pain of deep attachment. The reason some churches stay weakly attached is to protect themselves from pain.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to keep it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Wrap it carefully around your hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up in the casket of your selfishness. In that casket, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable and irredeemable.” ~C. S. Lewis

When Paul told the Ephesian church they would never see him again, they were devastated.

And they began to weep aloud and embraced Paul, and repeatedly kissed him, 38 grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they were accompanying him to the ship. (Acts 20:37-38)

Without hesed attachments, our spiritual soil is not rich enough to produce transformation.

3. Separated by Age

When new Christians do not observe how a mature disciple acts in different life situations, imitation does not get a chance to work its magic. Subdividing communities by life stage prevents the transmission of maturity.

Our right brain operates in the realm of relationships. Our relational experiences and memories mold our character. Our right brain absorbs this image of mature Christians and goes to work on our character.

Jesus and Paul emphasized imitation. They showed their followers how to handle praise and insults. They saw how they acted under pressure.

How do I learn to react to abandonment? What do I when people praise me and want to promote me? How do I love difficult people?

Foot Washing- Jesus did not give them a sermon on service, he exemplified it in front of them.

No hesed, no fruit.

Building Hesed

High-hesed communities bring God’s joy to people. Joy remains high even in the presence of suffering because the church faces it together. People are not afraid to reveal their weaknesses because they know they will receive help.

1. Sharing a meal together

The first things Jesus did after calling Matthew to discipleship is have dinner at Matthew’s house. (Mt. 9:10

Many of Jesus’ famous teaching to his disciples occurred around a dinner table.

‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. (Rev. 3:20)

2. Sharing Weakness

Concealed weakness leads to shallow hesed. In a high-hesed community, everyone can share the difficult and vulnerable areas of their life.

Being honest and open about our weakness is a part of transformation. Sick people, sinners and failures flocked to Jesus because they sensed safety in His hesed. Our love should have the same magnetic attraction.

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. (1 Cor. 2:3)

If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness. (2 Cor. 11:30)