Water and Light

"And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth."  (Genesis 9:11)

"Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind." (Genesis 9:14,15)

"Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."(Genesis 9:16)

Last night as our Thanksgiving Festival coordinators explained the Sukkoth observance that we will be remembering in the next few days - the importance of water and light were mentioned.  It seems fitting that on this day I am exploring one of the most well known symbols of promise, that which comes from combining water and light:  the rainbow.  As I look to my left at the calendar on my wall, I am also reminded that we are in the Jewish month of Chesvan, "which is the month of the beginning and end of the flood".

Two days from now will be the first day of the Jewish month of Kislev, "the month of lights" (as well as Chanukah).  Sunday also marks the first day of advent (the time of waiting for the Messiah, the birth of the Christ child) and the new year of the Christian liturgical calendar.  Additionally November 27, 2011 is my mother's 63rd birthday - a day I did not think she would live to see at this time last year.  It is impossible for me to ignore the convergence of these days together.

It seems unlikely that we will truly be emerging from the storms of our lives all at once in the next couple of days in time to see the light and hope of the advent season.  But that is what is so wonderful about the covenant promise - it requires both the water of the storm clouds and light of the sun to form the rainbow.  In the midst of our storm we must look for the light.

Have you ever seen a rainbow and kept it all to yourself?  My experience is that people can't help but share - point it out - talk about it.  As we find the light in our storm - we must do the same - point it out for others to see - bring some hope to the gloom of the storm.

I am not feeling deeply profound this morning - but am thankful for the following words of T.S. Eliot, (taken from "Little Gidding"  - No. 4 of 'Four Quartets')

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel

I have done a lot of verifying, instructing myself, informing curiosity, and carrying report as of late.  It is time for me to stop and kneel for a while...Eliot continues...

Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

 And for those who would like to read more:

http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/gidding.html 

To whom much is given, much is required

"Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man."  (Genesis 9:5)

This promise seems to be referring specifically to the sanctity of life, establishing a general requirement of respect, especially when blood is spilled - either human or animal.  It seems to be read by some as a complement to the "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life" crime and punishment principle set forth in the old testament.

But here is what I have found in defining the word darash  (translated here "require"):  to resort to, seek, seek with care, enquire, require, frequent (a place), (tread a place), to consult, enquire of, seek (with a demand), investigate, ask for, practice, study, follow, seek with application, care for.

It is a word also used of God's people as they seek him out.



I have often felt that much is required of me.  Indeed, there is much required of us as the body of Christ.  This should come as no surprise - God promised to require our very lifeblood.  God requires partnership in this work of creation and redemption.  God has no one to turn to but us in seeking out this partnership to care for one another. 


He makes this promise specifically to Noah, after washing the filth of humanity off the face of the earth and promising never to do so again.  But in the promise that he will not destroy us - he promises that we have a lot of work to do.  We must care for life with every ounce of blood that we have been given.  God has promised to require this of us.



Christ did this so perfectly that it poured from his pores.  This life together and caring for one another seems really, really hard sometimes - but to my knowledge, not a one of us has yet begun to sweat blood. 


Take courage, my brothers and sisters.  We are not yet done and the road ahead seems long.  This is true.  The fulfillment of this promise - God requiring a lot of us - is evidence to me that God keeps his promises.  A few of those promises from our morning prayer book today:


From Isaiah 65...


"I will rejoice over Jerusalem and delight in my people."
"I will answer them before they even call to me.  While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers!"


From Revelation 21...


"To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.  All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children."

never again

“I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things." (Genesis 8:21,22)


Do I take this as a promise? It is something that God said "in his heart" once he sensed the pleasing aroma of the incense and sacrifice of Noah.  That is a curious thing to note - that these words were a form of God's self-talk.  I can imagine God's thought process...I don't think I'll ever do that again!  Are we back to regret, or is this stronger?  In looking at the causal nature of the verbs used - the future tense, and intentionality, and the simple fact that these words made it into scripture,  I would like to believe that this is a promise - but it is one which we can never really test - because "never" is eternal.  He hasn't yet . . . so it is a promise that begs our trust.

This type of promise is one that highlights for me my posture toward God as of late.  So what if he breaks this promise?  What if he does change his mind?  What if I choose not to take God at his word?  What would that mean for the living out of my faith?  I could shake my fist at him - and decide not to follow his instructions - to follow my own path instead of the one he has laid out before me.  That seems unwise - if I believe that God actually does have the power to destroy all living things.  Perhaps he might decide to destroy me.  I suppose I could live in fear of God's wrath and frustration.  But I don't. 

In choosing to take God at his word - I walk a freer path.  I am free to follow his instructions - and free to make mistakes along the way.  I am free to question - is this really the right path?  I am free to wander a bit.  And in choosing to believe - I join together with other believers who are walking the path.  Hopefully it is easier to find our way together - and if we take a wrong turn we are trusting that God is not going to wipe us out but call us back to his way.

Sometimes, when I contemplate the evil in and around us, I wonder if God regrets making this promise.  But hopefully, each time we care for one another and follow the way of Jesus - he is reassured that we are well worth the effort.

Maybe God doesn't need the reassurance - but I am sure that I do.

Preparing for the flood

Following God's expression of regret, he speaks the following words:  "The end of all flesh is come before me;  for the earth is filled with violence through them.  I will destroy them with the earth." (Genesis 6:13)  In this passage, humanity has come to the end of itself.  But somehow we live on.  There are many kinds of ends.  The end of a marriage, the end of innocence, the end of a friendship, the end of life.  Each of these can mean the end of the world as we know it.  Whether by our own sin sickness, the sin of another, or the tragedy of disease - something unrecoverable is lost with each ending.  God promised to destroy the earth and it's inhabitants - and he did indeed drown everything until not even a leaf of an olive tree could be seen.

"I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. " (Genesis 6:17)

"But I will establish my covenant with you,"  (Genesis 6:18)  God says to Noah.  There is a way of escape from the destruction for those who would follow God's instructions.  The only indication of what this covenant will be in this passage is that Noah and his family "will enter the ark".  Calling this an "ark of the covenant" only works in English - but somehow I am attracted to the parallel.    A place of refuge from the end of the world as it was known to that point.  All of this is followed by a very specific set of instructions for Noah - who "did everything just as God commanded him."  I cannot imagine that Noah had been untouched by the sin around him.  But God had found him righteous, blameless, and faithful.  Noah is offered a way out of the depravity of the world and a chance for a new start.  And he is given some first steps. 

This feels very much like the steps we are taking as a church.  We have chosen to explore the 12-step model as a way to deal with our sin.  It is a chance to get on the ark and be saved from the depravity we have fallen into.  I think I like the idea of an ark better than the idea of a wagon - because the wagon wheels keep getting stuck in the mud.  But in the ark analogy - those who refuse to get on board get washed away with their sin...

"I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."  (Genesis 7:4)

Five years ago I began to prepare for a flood of sorts in my own life - in the wake of marital infidelity and separation from my husband - I found myself faced with the story of Noah - I prepared to leave the country where we had chosen to build a life together, anticipating what I called "a flood of blessing and reckoning" to fall upon him.  I had a planned date to return in hopes of marital reconciliation - and as I counted those days on the calendar - finding a parallel with the story of Noah - my original scheduled time to be away was exactly the number of days that Noah was on the ark.

I did find my place on the ark - and came to rest here where I now reside - which was not the place I expected to land.  Unfortunately, my husband was washed completely away from me in that flood.  His story is no longer my own.  But God has brought me to a new place where I have begun to rebuild.  I'm actually four years into my new start now and have entered into a covenant with the people and the place of my refuge.  We have found ourselves, as of late, getting stuck in the mud of the same sins over and over again - and I wonder if we need to look for an ark to lift us up and off the face of our sin on the earth for a while . . . Come inside - take the steps onto this ark of recovery. This is our invitation and our plea to all who would join us.  The sins will be washed away - regardless of our choices - but we have the opportunity to survive the flood and be restored to sanity.

Do I really believe this is possible?  Are these extravagant promises?  I actually think they are extravagant.  (Sorry 12-steps).  But we move forward in faith, anyway.  I did, indeed, survive a flood once - that has to at least count for something.

Regret

"I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created - and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground - for I regret that I have made them." (Genesis 6:7)  It is comforting to me that God experiences regret.  I think that God knew that humanity could reach this level of depravity - but it was not a given.  A little before this promise of what God will do, he seems to make an assessment of his own character in relation to creation:  "My Spirit will not contend with human beings forever, for they are mortal;  their days will be a hundred and twenty years."  God seems to be making an adjustment in the original set up - or perhaps he is simply naming the natural consequences of the sin into which humanity had fallen.  At the rate humanity is going - I cannot put up with them forever.  God seems to be establishing some boundaries here - we are not going to be allowed to simply wallow in our sin forever.  There is an escape from the existential abyss - but it will come at a great cost.

This comfort - that God experiences regret - comes in the face of the deep regret of a decision our church community made together.  A decision I played a key role in.  I do not believe such a decision was a sin, maybe not even a mistake, though I have used this word in reference to the decision. If God experiences regret - does that mean he can make mistakes?  I don't really think this is the logical outcome - but rather, God regrets what we, as humans, decided to do with our freedom.

In recent months I have found myself falling into the mistaken notion that I can experience a life without regrets.  To be honest, even in looking over my life and the sorrow I have known as a result of my own sin and the sins of others, I cannot readily point to regret.  Perhaps I need to take a closer look.  Perhaps I need to scrutinize more deeply to find those things which I regret.  Perhaps I am living in denial.  I don't think I am likely to go there - but I can face into this current regret that is staring me in the face.  Who do I think I am to live a life without regrets if God himself regretted the very creation of humanity?

And that is where I find myself face to face with God - who also experiences regret and the sorrow of our sin .  We truly are in this all together.  Maybe living a life without regrets is possible - if we hand our regrets over to God - and allow him to carry them to the cross.  He is our father (and mother), after all.  That is what parents are supposed to do - help their kids clean up the messes they make.  And we parents know that we do experience regret - as we are helping our child clean up the entire gallon of milk she spilled all over the dining room floor because we let her pour it herself. (That is my own story - as a child - my own mother is the parent in that one - thanks, Mom!)  But it was not wrong for Mom to let me pour that milk myself - I insisted I was strong enough.  Mom probably new I might spill it, but also knew that I might find the strength to pour it without mishap.  And when I spilled it - I learned something about how NOT to hold the jug of milk next time.

The faith required in the face of regrets is that God is big enough, capable enough, to clean up the mess we have made - and as a good parent - he will require us to participate in that process.  It probably will not be fun.  And the dining room floor may smell like sour milk for quite a long time.

Knowing

"I will make your pains in childbearing very severe..."  This is the first promise spoken directly to the
woman.  Eve's recorded response after Adam "knew" her:    "With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man." Or more literally:  "I have gotten a manchild from (with) the Lord." 

The more I investigate the Hebrew in this passage the more I am convinced that the sexual union between a man and a wife is a way of intimacy with God - by knowing one another, we know God better.  This applies to relationships even outside of a sexual context, but the intimate knowing of the "opposite sex" in my mind is a completion of the image of God that is difficult to know in any other way. 

And yet this knowledge comes with a promise of pain.  Why do we expect it to be any different?  To know God is to know pain.  Sexual union outside of the sacred context of marriage is to know the pain without knowing God in the process.  For me this is not simply an intellectual interpretation of scripture - my own experience points to sex in the proper context as a road to intimacy with God.

The ability to give birth is an amazing gift and could easily lead a woman to the sin of pride.  The concept of goddess worship and the personification of "Mother Nature" is one way in which idolatry of the feminine excludes the masculine nature of God.  Nature is not our mother - God is both mother and father to all of creation.  This is a pendulum swing, in my opinion, in reaction to the concept of God as a masculine figure.  I believe that all feminine and masculine qualities are housed in the person of God - and have no problem with those who prefer to use the feminine pronoun when referring to God.  For me, however, it is most helpful in referring to God as father and husband because it leads me in submission to that which I am not.  It helps me to recognize in God that which I lack.  It challenges me to trust that there is safety in the masculine presence - even when my experience of human masculinity has proved unsafe for the most part.  I am grateful that the desire to know that which I am not has not yet died inside of me.

Eve was reminded in her pain that she could not bring forth life on her own.  She needed God's help.  I did not have much choice in my case but to give up as I lie there on the operating table.  Left to my own abilities - the three of us would have died.  "Let go and let God" is agonizingly cliché - but in my case, I had no strength to hang on to anything at that moment.  Even so and even now - I do a lot, I accomplish a lot - somehow I pull through day to day in this crazy job of mothering in spite of myself - even without a man at my side.  It is easy to fall into the sin of thinking that it all depends on me.  I have a choice each day to rely on my own strength or on something greater than myself.  Fortunately, even in my bold wrestling with God, it doesn't take much to bring me to the end of myself - and I have a very deep sense that my own strength is not enough. 

The First Three Promises

The second word from God concerning the future is also an instruction, followed by a warning.  "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;  but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will certainly die."  The instruction:  Eat from all but this particular tree.  The warning, almost sounding like a "promise":  It is likely that you will eat of this tree even though I have told you not to, and in that case, you will die.    In the open view of God, there actually is room for this not to happen - this is not a rock solid foretelling of the future, and thus is not, in my mind, a promise.  It did, indeed, happen, but might not have if humanity had made a different choice.

The first real promise, in my definition of promises from God being those things that he says he will do:  "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him." (Genesis 2:18) In my mind, this is God's first promise to humanity.  The creation of the woman was God's fulfillment of this promise.  I am drawn to this idea of my identity as a woman being a fulfillment of God's first promise.

God's next words speaking to the future are to the serpent after the fall.  He will crawl on his belly and eat dust. The woman's offspring will crush the serpent's head and the serpent will strike the offspring's heel.   The second promise is to the serpent:  "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers." (Genesis 3:15)

And the third is to the woman:  "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe." (Genesis 3:16)  It disturbs me that this comes out of God's mouth in the first person.  Curiously, even though the pain I experienced with an abrupted placenta is supposedly more severe than normal labor - I don't actually remember much of the pain itself.  I remember being there. I remember the ride to the hospital as the pace of the contractions quickened from once every hour to once every five minutes.  I remember being offered a wheel chair and somehow ending up in it.  I remember the specific contents of my dinner from the night before as the only meal I lost during the entire pregnancy.  I do remember refusing to lie down and the excrutiating pain that would shoot through my lower back at any attempt.  I remember the gurney ride, in my seated position, to the operating room - and the cold iodine wash on my abdomen as I was finally pushed to a horizontal position.  Finally, I remember the angelic face of the anesthesiologist as everything around me faded to white.  I was pretty sure I was going to die - I was convulsing, but I don't really remember seeing my body shake or anything, just a prayer that God would care for my husband and my babies in my absence.

Then I remember waking with a very sore throat (I had been intubated to keep me breathing through the process) and the looming question as my hand instinctively searched - touching the deflated shell of a womb that at last remembrance housed my two children in a swell that resembled the belly of a whale . . . Where were my babies? This is where my own "childbearing" (the process of giving birth)  story ends and the story of child rearing begins.

In my experience, the third promise has been fulfilled.  What about the first two?  There is something very broken inside of me.  It would seem that I have not proved to be a suitable helper.  And yet, that desire for a husband remains . . . Did Eve prove to be a suitable helper?  Well, she successfully helped Adam step right out of God's will . . . I actually really want to believe that God keeps his promises - that we, as women, are what God promised we would be.  That we are suitable to the partnership of caring for creation. I want to believe that the feminine presence is what completes the image of God in humanity - for man's aloneness is the first thing God proclaimed to be "not good".

And as for the second promise, the enmity between the woman and the serpent - that which would tempt us away from all that God created us to be?  Eve fell very quickly into this temptation.  Perhaps that is what makes us women so suitably fierce in our desire to protect and nuture that which God has brought forth from our womb.  It was the woman who looked deepest into the eyes of the serpent - who communed with the darkness - and knew things that God never wanted us to know.  So we are charged with opposing the dark forces.  Tolkien taps into this idea of enmity in his portrayal of Eowyn in Return of the King.  It was a woman who was best suited to oppose the dark evil of the witch-king. 

So I have successfully talked myself into believing that God has kept his first three promises:

√ the woman as a suitable helper to man
√ enmity between the woman and the serpent
√ severe pain in child bearing

As for the curse given to the man (painful toil) . . . it was not worded as a promise in the first person from God.  I find this interesting but as a daughter of Eve I will leave further processing on this point to the sons of Adam.

Genesis (restore us to sanity)

What does it mean to be restored to sanity?  This question springs out of the 12 steps to recovery (step 2):  "We came to believe that a power greater than us could restore us to sanity."  The question comes from a place of feeling like sanity has never been a reality - but something new that was being sought.  How can we be restored to something we have never known?  I find my answer in Genesis - the creation - the world the way God meant it to be.  Creation is God's first recorded act.  And each day along the way he steps back and observes that what he has made is "good".  Even with the creation of humanity - God observes that what he has made is "very good".  The idea that God stepped back to observe his creation and make a judgment call seems to imply to me that there was room for God to say that it wasn't good.  I don't think God would create something evil - but perhaps he could have created something and then decided that it didn't please him.  Just as a chef or an artist might experiment with ingredients or color - following each step with absolute intention - but not being pleased with the final product... God could have said, I don't really like how this turned out.  But he didn't (not yet anyway).  It was pleasing to him and all his senses (I suspect he has more than just five).  This goodness came with an instruction:  "Be fruitful and increase in number;  fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground." 

This is God's first word to humanity concerning the future.  It is an instruction to be followed.  We are to "rule" over creation.  The only example of ruling thus far is God - walking with his creation, caring for it, taking pleasure in it, stepping back and seeing that it is good.  What place did the word kabash have in this context?  In Hebrew it seems to be more of a military term used in domination of the enemy.  The reading of kabash  as subdue  in the sense of "bringing under cultivation" sits better in my soul.  I have made this creation for you.  Use it as you will.  The Bible later goes on to describe good practices for using the resources God has given us.  These good practices are a model of good stewardship.  The better we treat the earth, the better it will serve us.  I think this goes for our bodies as well.  The better we treat our bodies, the better they will serve us.  The better we treat our souls, the better they will serve us.  I like how the word sanity in English resembles the word sanidad  in Spanish (my second language).  Sanidad  isn't just about being "sane".  It isn't just a mental health issue.  We use this word to talk about spiritual healing - and about health in general.  Sano  simply means healthy.   So in step two, we are looking toward God to restore our bodies, minds, and souls.  To make us whole again.  To bring us back to the goodness of creation - that which is pleasing to God.  Perhaps the word kabash  took on a more agressive tone as sin took hold in the world.  Is it our own sin which came out of creation the very thing that we must subdue?    I think this may be what the second step is getting at.  God, restore us to a place where we can step back and see things from your perspective - that your creation is good.  

(If you've been following my blog recently - the promises in Genesis are yet to come...)