Why don't we live forever? A Theology of Need in Genesis 3 & Acts 17

 “…and He did this so that they might seek

the Lord and, by feeling their way

towards Him, find Him…”  Acts 17:27

 

These words are from Paul’s sermon in Athens, at the Areopagus.  He is explaining to the Athenians the glory of the one God; a God who needs no temple, no altar, no statue to honor Him. Paul is telling the Athenians that there is a God, greater than any they have imagined; greater than Zeus, and Apollo, greater than all their honored gods. He proclaims to them the one God, the God who made all things and gives breath and life to all living creatures.  A God who decrees even the times and limits of their habitation of the earth; of their lives—of our lives. And, Paul says, He did this, He set that limit upon our lives, for a reason: that we might seek Him.

 

That is where I paused in my reading today.  Thinking about this note, I was reminded of a joke from a teacher I know.  He says: Life is a lot like a sexually transmitted disease, but –on the plus side—at least it‘s terminal.

 

At least it’s terminal!  He jokes.  It sounds clever—especially at 7:15 in the morning, when you are getting your first cup of coffee or checking your mail. We all laugh and wander off to our classrooms, but… For me, this joke has always left a strange little itch of a thought, something like a tiny splinter, catching at the back of my brain.    

 

And then to read Paul’s words this morning; it was as if something snagged on that splinter. A beautiful seamless garment catching on an imperceptible thorn…

 

And there was something else it reminded me of: in the third chapter of Genesis, there is that strange moment when God expels Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden –not as punishment for their sin, but—so that they do not reach out their hands and eat from the tree of life and “live forever.” (cf. Genesis 3:22-23)   

 

That idea that God didn’t want humans to live forever has always puzzled me.  Why?  Wouldn’t living forever be a good thing? It would free us from the fear of death, and wouldn’t that solve a lot of the world’s problems?  No more Covid. No more cancer. No more starvation. No more hospitals. And no more funerals!

 

Why was that “tree of life” even kept apart? Why were we not supposed to eat from it? What was it God feared?  Or what was it God wanted for us that required us not to live forever? I think the answer to that question is found in what Paul is teaching the Athenians here. 

 

God was not afraid of us living forever, but afraid for us.  God understood that, if we were to live forever, we would be doomed to thinking we were sufficient unto ourselves; we would begin to think were our own gods.  For our own good, we needed temporal limitations as a kind of driving force –an urge within—an itch of sorts, to make us begin to scratch the surface of our existence, make us begin to seek something else, something beyond ourselves. For only in seeking to scratch this itch, to resolve the problem of our limitations, our need for shelter, for safety, for sustenance, for security, for help, for another…. only be scratching at the itch of our insufficiency, our mortality, would we discover that beneath the surface of this life, there is something more, something so much more. 

 

Later in Acts, as Paul looks toward what will become his final mission trip, he announces “…it is clear to me that imprisonment and persecution await me…” (20:23b)   And yet Paul is not afraid.  He is set on going forward, toward whatever will come; imprisonment, persecution, or worse.  As fearful as these seem, Paul is set on going forward with his mission.  Because he knows, it’s not about him. It’s not about his will, or comfort or pleasure.  There is something much worse than discomfort, worse than imprisonment, worse than persecution that we should fear:  and that is the curse of thinking we are enough, thinking the world revolves around us; the curse of becoming our own gods.

 

We need the prison of our mortality, and the persecutions of the flesh—vulnerability, weakness, sickness, pain, exhaustion, hunger, desires—to open our eyes to our own insufficiency, that we might discover the truth and the blessing of our need. And discover there, in our hunger, in our insufficiency, in our longing for something more, something beyond ourselves, a kind of theology. A theology of need.

A House Divided –Community in Christ

(some thoughts on the Mass readings from last Sunday 10 June 2018)

“If a kingdom is divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house is divided against itself,
that house will not be able to stand.” –Mark 3:20-35

 In today’s first reading, from Genesis 3, we get the story of what happens after Adam and Eve have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  We have that terribly true vision of how sin divides a kingdom, a house, a family.  The first division we see is of God searching for His beloved creation. God calls out to them, “Where are you?” (cf. Genesis 3:9-15) That plaintive cry is the first sign of division.  Before this, they walked together in the garden, but now Adam and Eve hide from their creator. Next, we see the crumbling of the House of Adam as he blames Eve (and God) for his actions: “The woman whom you put here with me –she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” (3:12) And last we see the entire animal kingdom begin to break down into “enmity” as Eve blames the serpent. And we are left with a vision of the cost of sin: division, enmity, seemingly endless struggle: “He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” (3:15)

Division truly is the cost of sin. It divides us externally: socially, inter-personally, through corruption, crime, broken societies, war and greed, etc and it divides us internally; driving us into hypocrisies and double standards. We begin to not only hide the truth, but hide from the truth, until we may not even know who or what we really are. As Paul says in Romans: “I do not understand what I do. What I want to do, I do not do; but what I hate, I do.” (cf. 7: 15-20)

Think of the priest with a sterling reputation, who secretly engages in corrupt or abusive behavior or the honored Bishop who covers it up.  The award winning movie mogul who seduces young women, promising them career opportunities, then threatens them if they speak up. The socially conscious politician who takes advantage of a young intern and tries to cover it up.  We don’t do what we want to do, and we do what we hate… Though in the moment it may not seem that way.

In my own life I can see this quite plainly when I sit down to write (hoping to finish that unfinished novel) but find myself 40 minutes later eating chips and queso and watching a Youtube video of W.C. Fieldsplaying pool.  (Sloth?  gluttony?)  And when I realize, my first instinct is to hide what I’ve been doing. Not to accept it and be happy that I had some fun, but to hide it. To close the browser and open my document and spend 15 minutes beating myself up over wasting my writing time.  Or pretend I was doing research for a character who loves old movies!

Sin divides us. Satan knows that. And we should, too. Because sin is like a fault line that division runs straight through the heart of each one of us. 

The answer to this division is stated in very simple terms at the end of this gospel passage.  There is that wonderful and perplexing image of Jesus being told that His mother and brothers are at the door asking for Him, to which He says:

“Who are my mother and my brothers?... Whoever does the will of my

Father in Heaven is my mother and my brother and my sister.” (Mk 12: 48-50)

The answer to the division of sin, is very simple. It’s unity. Inclusion. It is love. We must remember that we are all part of the body of Christ –every single one of us. 

The readings from last week’s mass began with God asking, Where are you? Not because God doesn't know or can't find them, but because Adam and Eve don't know.  They are lost (and very divided). And the readings ended with that beautiful reconciling (and inclusive) answer from Mark's gospel. Jesus opens a door to all of us and assures us:  

We aren't lost. We don't have to be divided.
In fact, we are invited to be part of the family. 

Don’t hide from that.

The Book of Judges: the oddness of scripture

“In those days there was no king in Israel

and everyone did as he saw fit.” –Judges 21:25

            This morning, I finally had a little time alone and just as I sat down to write, our kitten brought me a ball. She loves to play fetch, but most of the time she doesn’t bring the ball right to you. She drops it somewhere nearby and then watches to see if you will pick it up.  Today, the house to myself, I sit down at the counter with my Bible and my notebook and pen and suddenly there is a little gray and white cat, with her favorite green ball in her mouth, perched on the stool next to me.  She put the ball down on the stool and waited, watching me.

            And 15 minutes later I find myself still not reading or writing, but throwing the ball into the hall, again and again and watching her chase after it. Delighting in her oddness.  That is a gift, a blessing. And on a Sunday morning after church and biscuits and reading the funnies, what more should I hope for than to be given a few minutes of joy by one of God’s goofier creations. 

Ask for a sign, let it be high as the heaven or the depths below (cf. Is. 7:11).  

That’s what I did. And this is what I got. (And so much more…)

            What does that cute kitten have to do with the book of Judges? Well, I am still trying to figure that out. But, for now, let’s see where this blessing takes us.

One of the lessons I think I am learning from reading and contemplating scripture is this:  God is not out to get us!  God is not sitting on high judging our every move.  Like a good shepherd, He is always seeking us, trying to bring us always closer to Him, into the fold where we will be loved and cared for. 

How often do we ask: how do I know if this is God’s will for me? How do I know if this is the right choice?  Whether we are trying to discern a new vocation (or job), or where to go to college, or whether we should sell the house and move to the woods, many of us get tripped up by the fear that if we choose wrong God will hold it against us.  But that doesn’t seem to be the God we meet in scripture. Or the God I meet in life.   

             In the book of Judges we get a picture of Israel falling apart. They have followed Moses through the wilderness, followed Joshua into war to claim the Promised Land, and it seems that almost immediately after divvying it up amongst themselves they begin to collapse into selfishness and discord. Again and again in Judges we read: “The Israelites did what is evil in the eyes of the Lord” (cf. 2:13; 3:7; 4:1, etc).  This is a book about making bad choices.  But throughout this book –these often horrible choices-- God never abandons His people.  He keeps reaching out to them, sending help, lovingly guiding them, protecting them. This book is pretty short (only 21 chapters) and can easily be read in a couple of sittings.  There are several famous tales in it: Samson and Delilah being the most famous, but also the story of Gideon and the 300, Jotham’s allegory of the trees who want a king, and the tragic tale of Jephthah’s vow.  Yet regardless how heroic or painful the tales, over and over again the author returns to that same theme: Because everyone did as he saw fit, Israel began to do what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

            This theme comes to a horrifying climax toward the end of the book (ch. 17-21), in two tales involving Levites (the priestly tribe of Israel).  The first is a tale of priestly corruption; a Levite agrees to serve as priest before a household idol in the home of a man named Micah. Basically, he becomes a priest for hire. Someone asks him what he is doing there, and he responds:

Micah pays me a wage and I act as his priest. (18:4)

There are several clues that something is terribly wrong here. First, this a clearly not what God intended for the Levites.  They were set apart to be His priests. Second, way back in Exodus we saw what happened when God’s people made idols.  Third, in Joshua we saw the trouble that arises when people set up strange altars (cf. 22:11ff). Last, consider the name Micah. It means: one who is like God.  A man who is like God hires a Levite to be his personal priest.  This is definitely not what God intended for His priestly people.

A few verses later this Levite is kidnapped by warriors from the tribe of Dan (still in search of a better piece of Promised Land).  These warriors want the Levite to now be their priest.  And like Micah, they seem to imagine that having a priest (regardless of how they got him) will gain them God’s blessing. But after marching against “a peaceful and trusting people” (18:27) whom they put to the sword and destroy, they rebuild their new town, and immediately erect Micah’s stolen idol for their own use (and set their new priest to work before it).  This is what happens to God’s people when they do whatever they like.

            After this tale, there is a second vision of priestly corruption that reveals greater societal corruption. It is the tale of Gibeah (ch.19) and contains echoes of the story of Sodom. In this tale a Levite and his concubine stay the night in Gibeah (an Israelite town) and while there some of the men of the town come and demand that their host send the Levite out for them to rape and have their way with him.  The host, unwilling to surrender his guest, offers the crowd his virgin daughter (like Lot in Genesis 19:8), but the men refuse his offer. So, the Levite “took hold of his concubine and brought her out to them.” (Judges 19:25) She is abused and raped and left for dead.  Though the host’s offer and the Levite’s act are both monstrous, the results are even more fearful. In the morning, scripture tells us, as the Levite leaves the house he finds the woman on the doorstep. He tells her to get up, but she makes no answer.  Which our clue that she has been killed. And yet the priest gathers her up, puts her on his donkey and takes her home.  What we see in the priest, this Levite, is a man devoid of humanity.  He cares only for himself. He does whatever he wills and has no fear of doing any evil in the sight of God. What he does next is even more frightening and strange.  He takes a knife and cuts his concubine limb from limb into twelve pieces and sends the pieces “throughout the territory of Israel.” (19:29)

            I read this story and asked myself –why is it here? Why would anyone include this in their sacred text?  If this is God’s word, then what is God telling us through it? 

When we make ourselves into gods, we lose our humanity.  We lose our place. We lose our Promised Land. Yes, we can do whatever we like –but in the end we won’t like what we do.

Judges is a vision of Israel collapsing almost as soon as it enters into the Promised Land.  And that makes me wonder if the promised land isn’t a place –it’s a way of life. Is it possible that the promised land is wherever we are as long as we are walking with the Lord –when and where we make Him our King, that is the promised land!

Again, I ask--what does this have to do with the goofiness of a kitten?

I’m not sure… But it got me writing.  For a few minutes I wasn’t living in my own ego. I stepped outside myself and just played. Present to the gift of the moment, I was set free from “ambition’s derelict dreams.” For a few minutes I was laughing and unconcerned about anything; maybe for a few minutes I was just present to the promise and the presence. Maybe. But I was certainly present to the cat.

                       

The Tranfiguration: 2nd Sunday of Lent

“…when they looked around, they saw no

one with them anymore but only Jesus.”

--Mark 9:8

Outside my window, the branches of the oak in our front yard are being transfigured –metamorphosing—from stark leafless twiggy things, seemingly lifeless, icons of loss and sorrow, into budding branches almost literally bursting with life.  Images of transfiguration are all around us. But often we either don’t see them or don’t know what to make of them.  We rush on to our next appointment unwilling to stop and stare and really see what is right before our eyes.  The blessing that rises before us.

Looking at the readings for this Sunday, I quickly read the Old Testament passage –Abraham and Isaac and the sacrifice—and rushed past the psalm and the reading from Romans to look at the Gospel. Eager to skip over the side dishes and get to the main course, I guess.  And when I saw that the reading from Mark was the story of the transfiguration, I thought: Oh, that’s why we have the Abraham story! Perfect! Yes. Both stories have mountains and both involve beloved sons and both involve some kind of change or revelation. I got that. Easy. I wonder what’s next week?

I was treating these familiar readings with too much familiarity. I was treating them the way one might treat an old stain on the wall, or your 851^st bowl of oatmeal, or your wife’s hair… I wasn’t really looking at it, wasn’t really noticing it. I wasn’t really paying attention. Yeah, it’s fine. Looks nice. Tastes like it always does… I guess.  How would I know? Unless I take the time to actually taste it, notice it, appreciate it.

When I teach poetry (this is definitely an aside) I like to share with students a piece of historical prose written by William Carlos Williams as a kind of introduction. The piece is called something like “The American Background,” and I first came upon it in Williams’s Selected Essays (pg. 134).  It is a brief observation (less than a page) about the early American settlers from England and their misidentification of a bird. Williams tells us that these early settlers saw a bird that looked to them like something they remembered from their homeland and they called the bird a robin. But (according to Williams) what they were looking at was a thrush –a larger bird, a bird of wilder song and that even landed differently. It was a totally different bird with only similar coloring.  But instead of looking at it and seeing that this was something new, something they had never experienced before –they fell back on their past, retreated to what they already knew and missed the actual: Nothing new here. Just a robin –seen one, seen ‘em all.  Let’s go find some gold.

Instead of seeing the truth perched on the branch before us, how often do we rush past not noticing the gift God has set before us? How often do we look at a thrush, but see only what we think is a robin –because that’s what we are expecting to see?  How often do we read a familiar story and hear only what we expect to hear –never really what is on the page, never letting ourselves hear the story fresh, engage it anew?

Beginning to wonder if maybe I’d missed something by seeing only the familiar, I went back to look at the psalm (and possibly I was feeling sorry for it –who pays attention to the psalms?).  I wondered what it might have to say about the theme of transfiguration.

I was first struck by the words:

“I believed, even when I said:

I am greatly afflicted.

Precious in the eyes of the Lord

Is the death of His faithful ones.” (116:10)

And instead of trying to make that mean something about the Gospel or the story of Abraham, I simply heard it and felt the words begin to take root in my soul. Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His faithful ones… In the midst of a culture that measures success and the value of a life by the amount of comfort and pleasure experienced, and by the amount of pain and discomfort avoided it is very troubling to hear of such preciousness. One might even ask: If the faithful one is so precious to God, why doesn’t God save him?

            Next the psalm speaks of being God’s servant, of being set free by God (“you have loosed my bonds…”). And then the psalmist sings:

“To You I will offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,

I will call upon the name of the Lord…” (cf. 116:16-17)

And I began to contemplate –what does this mean to me? How is God speaking something new to me through these ancient words?  And it was in that time of contemplation that I began to understand being transfigured doesn’t just mean a change of appearance.  When Jesus is transfigured, Peter, James & John see Him in a new way. But it isn’t just that Jesus has changed in appearance. In this story, in that moment, the disciples get a glimpse of the Truth… they have the mystical experience of seeing Christ in the fullness of His being.  But Jesus isn’t the only one who is transfigured on that mountain. Peter, James & John come down the mountain changed, metamorphosed by the experience. And then I heard myself asking: What about Abraham? Who is transfigured in that story? On the one hand there is Abraham who is challenged to offer his beloved son as a sacrifice, and in his willingness to do whatever God demands of him, he is transformed from a man who follows God in order to receive a reward (wealth, land, generations of children, and a lasting memory) into a man who “fears the Lord” [not afraid the way someone might be afraid of ghosts or the dark or nuns with yardsticks, but more like awe or a sense of being devoted to God] (cf. Gen 22:12).   Okay, so on one level there is a change in Abraham’s relationship with God, but there is something else; something that reminds me of the changed disciples coming down from the mountain with Jesus.  They now understand Jesus in a new way. They have heard God’s voice from a cloud proclaim “This is My beloved son. Listen to Him.” (Mk 9:7)

Abraham goes up a mountain following a God capable of demanding human sacrifice, but he comes down serving a God who refuses such a sacrifice.  Abraham’s very understanding of God has been transformed –transfigured. God has revealed something new about Himself to Abraham and be so doing He has loosed the bonds of superstition and set Abraham free.  But this freedom is not a freedom to lick the earth, to seek comfort and pleasure wherever you will. It is a freedom to serve God, a freedom to submit to God’s gift of the law. A freedom to offer our brokenness and our sin, our death to our longings and desires, our selfishness, as the sacrifice we place upon the alter, our living sacrifice offered in Thanksgiving.

Open your Bible, climb the mountain (go out in your front yard) and offer God the sacrifice of your attention. Give yourself to God with a thankful heart. And don’t be afraid. Just open your eyes and let yourself see. Really see. And don’t be surprised if what you see is something you have never noticed before; you may just find yourself transfigured.