death, exile, and the shimmers of a new birth; part one

-----The following writing has been developing in my mind over the last five years or so, before which I couldn't have cared a bit less about this religion talk.  That said, these topics are still being wrestled out in my mind and heart and are in no way definitive.  This particular three part series has been written with much wrestling and reading, and I have no doubt that some of the statements contained herein will be tuned and transformed over the course of my life.  If you have anything to add or comment, I would appreciate it greatly.  Even if you disagree with the whole thing, tell me that too.  Wrestle with the truth alongside me.-----

Part One

Several days ago I wrote a post on ignorance in Eden.  You can read it here before continuing on with this post.  I recommend it, if only for the sake of your understanding where I'm going with the following paragraphs.  It's short.

This is how the post ends:


"The leaves of the Tree of Life, from which we were once banished, are now for the healing of the nations.  The first exile was from Eden, from that place of no dichotomy [between good and evil], to a place of dichotomy.  If 'place' is confusing, then think of it as a state of being.  We are exiled out of the intended state of being -- that of no moral distinction between any word or deed -- and into a place running rampant with gross manifestations of evil, full of dichotomies.

One who walks in the power and knowledge of Jesus the Messiah is brought out of that exile.  There's a new Exodus, and it's happening right now.  I suggest you get your staff and satchel and join us, we're learning to bear the light of love and justice in this strange and dangerous planet."


This place of no moral discrimination, now and still to come, is the gift of all Christians.  Let me explain...


In 1 Corinthians 6:12 Paul writes, "'All things are lawful for me,' but not all things are helpful. 'All things are lawful for me,' but I will not be dominated by anything."  Here he's referring to food and sex in a letter written to the people of Corinth (a largely Greek population).

"All things are lawful for me" has been set in quotation marks by later editors to draw attention to the fact that this was a common idiom in Corinth.  In the Greek text the phrase looks like this: πάντα ἒξεστιν (panta eksestin), which, when read within the flow of the text by a trained eye, is clearly idiomatic (local lingo).  This must have been astonishing to the early listeners, especially those of Jewish stock.  He's putting a Jesus spin on a hedonistic cultural norm.

I'd imagine Paul took a great deal of slander.  "No, Paul, not everything is permissible, how could you possibly just throw out the entire Levitical law code?  What are people going to do if you tell them that they can do anything?  Look what this mindset has done to the hedonistic heathens, these pagan Greeks!"

Later in the same letter, 10:23-24, Paul writes, "'All things are lawful,' but not all things are helpful. 'All things are lawful,' but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor."  In case once wasn't enough, he says it again.  Here he's referring strictly to food, especially offered to idols.  He tells his listeners that they can eat anything, but he also tells them that their actions--now that their bodies belong to the Messiah--are, first and foremost, meant for the benefit of others.

So, all things are allowable but not all things are helpful.  A few verses later in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul tells the believer to eat whatever is set on the table, "But if someone says to you, 'This has been offered in sacrifice,' then do not eat it."

And we, as American Christians, generally stop here and start to make rules about what to avoid, for the sake of our own holiness.

But Paul doesn't.  He says not to eat it "for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience— I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience?"

Taking the place of rules and regulations (and dichotomies) is the concern for the well-being of others.  This is an application of the heart of Jesus' command, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

It really isn't about your moral goodness.  Rather, it's about loving God (eternal life is knowing God--John 17) and being a benefit to other people, regardless of whether or not they are a benefit to you.

Here's the thing:  Being a Christian isn't about finding out what's good and what's bad in order to do the good and avoid the bad.  It's about much, much more than that.  It's about finding out what it means to walk in the cool of the day with the Lord, showing his characteristics to the world in love and grace and justice.  And, curiously, at the end of his or her life the Christian will actually end up being the most moral person around, not because of any striving to be moral, but because of striving to know and commune with the Lord.  Out of that communion comes the divine power to love and forgive and honor and heal.  David deSilva, a prominent New Testament scholar and historian, says this in a discussion concerning the letter to the Ephesians:

"The Church ... is the place where God's determination to reconcile and unify heavenly realities with earthy realities makes itself effective (Eph 1:10) as believers on earth are also brought into the heavenly sphere by their incorporation into Christ (e.g., Eph 2:6) ... The 'praise of God's glorious grace' and the 'praise of his glory' emerge as the natural consequences of God's mighty acts on behalf of humanity."

And just a few sentences later:

"Just as Christ provides believers with a point of entry into heaven, so the believers provide God, as it were, with an ongoing point of entry into creation, making God's generosity and will for humanity known as they live out the consummation of God's mystery" (Introduction to the New Testament; 726).

So what does all this mean for me and you in the everyday humdrum of our busy lives?  I would love to go the route of the status quo and tell you that it means being more serious about your life and taking time for what really matters.  But, lets be honest, we've all heard that a zillion times.  At least a zillion.

So what does it mean to walk with the Lord in the cool of the day?  (I'm not sure why I keep repeating that phrase, it just sounds really nice to me.  If you would rather walk with the Lord in the heat of the day, or the cool of the evening, or whatever, then imagine that instead.)

Emmanuel.  God with us.

Here's what happened.  We, through our own fault (read the comments here), turned away from God in selfishness.  We wanted to be like God.  We thought it would be really fun to know all about evil.  So do most 12 year-olds today.  Evil sounds like fun, until after the act when that feeling of creeping death drips over your soul.  We've all felt it.  After we lie or cheat or sleep around.  But if we do enough evil that creeping death just becomes normal.  We shrug it off and laugh, and our eyes get dark and we make strange, loveless choices with what to do in the present and future.  Often we settle into shaky relationships because we don't think we're worth somebody amazing, or, at best, we convince ourselves that we're actually good and then proceed to hurt nearly everyone we know for more than a few days, especially in romantic relationships.

Because of evil.  Because we know evil.

Then Abraham.  His line was called to bless all, to be a light for the nations.  They would be the witness to the nations of the character of YHWH.

They didn't do very well.

At one point God commissioned his prophet, Hosea, to marry a prostitute, Gomer, who would have his children and then repeatedly cheat on him.  God told Hosea to keep retrieving her from the strange men and treating her kindly, rejoicing over her as his wife.  It was a picture of the relationship of God and his beloved Israel.  "The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols" (Hosea 11:2).  This God just wanted to love his creation.

But they knew evil, just like us.

Each individual Israelite, save a choice fifteen or thirty (and that's way more than my best guess) throughout the whole Old Testament, knew evil.  They were heartbroken with evil; they didn't think they were worthy of love, and if they did then they were just proud heartbreakers.

The following is a thought experiment, you need to actually stop reading and do the imagination.  Get your emotions involved like God's are.

You have a child whom you deeply love (as a healthy parent indeed does).  Imagine that young child decides that he doesn't care for you and wants to live in somebody else's house and call them mom and dad.  You discipline him but he keeps leaving.  Then he just stops coming home, and night after night the dinner gets cold.  Your love falls flat and you finally break down and fall on your knees.  You can do nothing.  You taught him to walk.  You fed him his first meal with that tiny rubber spoon.  You bandaged his cuts and sang him to sleep, holding his little fingers.  And now he despises you.

"It was I who taught Ephraim to walk;

I took them up by their arms,

But they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with chords of kindness,

with the bands of love, ...

and I bent down to them and fed them" (Hosea 11:3-4)

"How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

How can I make you like the destroyed cities?

My heart recoils within me;

my compassion grows warm and tender." (11:8)

All those years God called Israel back; he restored his beloved.  Often it was with harsh judgement and discipline.  They were exiled as slaves in Babylon.  Much of the book of Hosea is prophesy of horrible judgement, but when we read it with knowledge of this just God's loving plan for humanity, we see that these scenes are meant to call Israel back.  He chose only to  love them well, not to compromise his character, and thus his plan for their lives and ours, as well as his afterlife.

end of part one

part two coming soon