Impossible Faith

I can't read the words of John 20:19-23 without thinking of this blog post by my friend and fellow pastor, Jeremy Scott.  While I'll repeat some of the same ideas in this post, his post is worth reading in its entirety.

In this passage, we are given a picture of the disciples on the evening of the same day in which Mary Magdalene discovered Jesus' tomb to be empty.  Peter and the beloved disciple have seen the empty tomb as well.  Mary Magdalene has even seen and spoken with the risen Christ himself and reported this conversation to the other disciples.  In spite of that, John tells us that the doors were locked where the disciples were "for fear of the Jews".

This is a confused and scared group of people.  They don't yet know what to make of their friend and teacher's death, much less of these reports about the empty tomb and of Mary speaking with him.  An empty tomb could mean a lot of things, least likely of all Jesus being alive.  And could Mary's report really be trusted?  After all, women weren't considered to be reliable witnesses for legal purposes in the ancient world.  And besides, Jesus had delivered Mary from demon possession.  Maybe now that Jesus was dead that demon had come back to her and caused this hallucination.  Either way, there simply wasn't enough evidence to suggest that it was safe to be openly milling about in the streets or the markets.  The same people who had crucified Jesus might decide it was a good idea to get rid of his closest followers too, especially if rumors started to spread about Jesus being a live again.  So the disciples lock themselves in a room "for fear of the Jews".

Then Jesus appears in the midst of that fear-filled, locked up prison of a room and says to the disciples "Peace be with you."  On one level, this is exactly what any good Jew would expect.  Peace, shalom was and often still is a customary Jewish greeting.  It was so customary that Paul uses it along with "grace" in everyone of his letters.  Perhaps, we are also to imagine that it was so customary that the disciples may not have even noticed it, simply dismissed it as a "hello" or "hey guys".

"When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet."   I imagine at this point in their encounter with Jesus, the disciples would be like a parent reunited with a kidnapped child.  The first reaction is "Oh, thank God you are OK." or in this case "I can't believe it, Jesus.  You are really alive."  But that thought of thankfulness for safety would quickly to turn to the anger and revenge of "Now lets punish the monsters who did this to you."  As the disciples, observed the wounds of their Lord and savior, their thoughts would have naturally turned to the pain and rejection he had experienced.  As Jeremy so aptly says in his post:

Again, let’s pretend we’re the disciples. We’re fearful and angry that our savior has been killed. And he shows up, alive, breathing, right in front of us. He has risen from the dead, conquered death. This guy’s alive and now I definitely know that nothing can take him down! What’s my response?!?

…Let’s go find Pilate.
…Let’s go find the chief priests.
…Let’s go find the guys that held the hammer and spear.
We’ve got something to settle. Let’s go get ‘em.

But before that thought can go any further Jesus says again "Peace be with you." as if to say "Hang on, my greeting was more than a greeting.  It's your mission.  I'm not just wishing you peace and well-being.  I am bestowing the very shalom of God upon you and you are to live it out in everything you do."  As if to hammer this point of mission home, Jesus continues "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you."  Then Jesus breathes on them and says "Receive the Holy Spirit."  The God whose breath gave life to the first man and woman, the God whose breath raised up an army of an audience from a valley of dry bones, now fills these disciples with new life, with a new Spirit so that they might carry out the radical mission that Jesus has given them.  And just so we don't miss the point, Jesus says "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld."  In other words, this new Spirit that resides among the disciples empowers them to forgive the Pilates, the chief priests, those who seem to be unforgivable.  Jesus has not been resurrected to revenge.  He has been resurrected to bestow on these disciples a Spirit of peace and forgiveness so that they might carry out the mission of Jesus in the world.

In v. 24-31, we find that Thomas, one of the twelve disciples, was not present when Jesus appeared this first time.  The other disciples reported to Thomas "We have seen the Lord".  But Thomas responds to them "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe."  As a result, most have come to know this disciple as "doubting Thomas".

But what if that's an unfair moniker for Thomas?   We often hear Thomas's words as a willful refusal, a rejection of the other disciples' report without evidence.  We see Thomas as the rigid empiricist who won't accept anything without proof.  But what if we are hearing him incorrectly? Maybe these words from Thomas aren't so much refusal as they are confession; more admission of weakness than demand of evidence.  Perhaps they are like the man in Mark 9 who says "I believe.  Lord, help my unbelief!"  Perhaps Thomas isn't saying "I won't believe" but "I want to believe but this is simply too much for me to handle.  Not only am I supposed to believe that a crucified man was raised from the dead but also that he now wants us to forgive the people who did that to him?!.  That is humanely impossible!  I can't possibly believe that, much less be faithful to that belief unless I encounter the living Jesus myself!"

If that is indeed what Thomas is saying, then he could not have uttered a more correct understanding of himself and the whole human predicament.  We can not possibly believe, we can not possibly forgive the unforgivable, we can not possibly be faithful to the mission of radical peace that God has called us to in this world, if we have not had an encounter with the risen and living Jesus.  It is simply too difficult.  It is simply too much to ask of mere human beings to live out this kind of peace and forgiveness...unless....unless the resurrected Jesus shows up among us in the midst of our fear-filled and locked-door prisons where we have barricaded ourselves in to shield us from all the pain and dissapointment of life and he breathes new life into us and gives us his Spirit and allows us to see that the crucified Lord who still bears the mark of his torture and death is alive, is victorious, and will reign in us if we will only let him.  Eight days later, Jesus appears to Thomas and gives him the faith that he knew he couldn't possibly muster up for himself and Thomas answers with what is probably the greatest and most accurate confession of faith in the entire Gospel of John, "My Lord and My God!"

But it doesn't end there.  Jesus says to Thomas "Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."  So often we hear this as a reprimand of Thomas as if Jesus were saying that Thomas should have had enough faith to just believe without seeing Jesus.  But I don't think that is what Jesus is saying here.  I think Jesus is saying that encounters with him didn't stop with those who could see him in his physical body.  Jesus is saying that it is still possible for us to come to know him in all of his life and fullness, to receive that same Spirit which was breathed on the first disciples, even though we can not see Jesus as Thomas did.  We can still encounter the living Christ.  And just to make sure we don't miss the point, John, the writer of this gospel, inserts himself into the story in v.30-31 and says the same thing.  John interrupts the narrative flow of his literary masterpiece to make sure we can't miss this point.  He says all of this was written "so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."  Through the presence of the Spirit and the scripture that witnesses to Jesus, we can still have an encounter with the risen Lord and have this impossible faith and have life in his name.

He Still Calls Our Name

I'll be preaching from John 20:1-18 this week.  As I've read over this passage this week, I've been surprised by the number of possible connections with other stories in the Gospel of John.  Allusions to other parts of John's Gospel seem to run throughout this resurrection narrative.  But perhaps the most compelling of these comes from the very first chapter of John.

In John 1:35-42, we hear of Jesus' first disciples beginning to follow him.  These two disciples heard John the baptist's testimony that Jesus was the Lamb of God and they began to follow Jesus as a result.  However, upon beginning to follow him, Jesus asks them a question:  "What are you seeking?".  To which they reply "Rabbi, where are you staying?".

Often in the Gospel of John, conversations take place on two different levels simultaneously.  Usually, there is one very literal level for the characters within the story itself.  The other is often a more metaphorical/theological level in which the character's words carry a sort of double meaning which is instructive for John's audience concerning Jesus' identity and what it means to be his disciple.  The classic example of this is John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born from above but Nicodemus hears Jesus saying that he must be born again.  (The Greek word anothen can mean either "again" or "from above".)  On one level within the story Nicodemus is confused because he can not understand how a person can literally be born again from his mother's womb a second time.  On another level, Jesus word's are instructive for John's audience.  Those hearing John's gospel understand what Nicodemus does not; that Jesus is speaking about a completely new source of life within this life.

The conversation in John 1:35-42 works similarly.  On one level, the disciples are simply asking Jesus where he is staying.  Jesus tells them to come and see and they stay with him for the night.  On another level, the disciples are making a much more serious request.  They are asking to abide with Jesus.  Later in John 15, Jesus will use this same term, abide (meno in Greek), to describe the character of his true disciples.  In John 15:5, Jesus says "I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."  To abide with Jesus is to be his disciple.  Therefore, when the disciples answer Jesus' question "What are you seeking?" with "Rabbi, where are you staying?" they are doing more than just answering a question with what seems to be an odd and unrelated question.  In fact, they have given precisely the right answer to Jesus' question.  John is giving us a model of what it means to truly be a disciple of Jesus.  It doesn't mean seeking something from Jesus.  It means we seek to abide with him, to follow him wherever he leads.  These two disciples follow Jesus to where he abides and then they go and invite others to abide with him as well.

In John 20, Mary Magdalene, a woman about whom the gospels tell us very little, is making her way to the tomb of Jesus.  Presumably she goes to anoint the body of Jesus with spices.  We should recognize the act of love that this is on Mary's part.  John tells us that she went early while it was still dark.  She is eager to care for the body of this one that she called teacher and Lord.  She had loved Jesus, she had followed Jesus, she had abided with Jesus.  But now Jesus' body abides in a tomb and she will go there to abide with him, to care for him one last time.

However, when she arrives she finds that the stone covering the entrance of the tomb has been moved away.  She doesn't even look into the tomb to see what has happened.  She doesn't need to.  After all, there is only one logical explanation here.  Someone has stolen Jesus' body.  It wasn't enough that he died the most shameful death of crucifixion, those who hated him did not even want him to have the dignity of a proper burial.  Mary enlists the help of Peter and the beloved disciple.  They find the tomb empty as well.  However, they notice the linen cloths in which Jesus was buried have been left behind; an odd thing for grave robbers to leave behind.

The disciples head back to their homes but Mary is still at the tomb weeping.  As she is weeping, she looks into the tomb and sees two angels sitting where Jesus' body had been.  Even then, Mary still has no thoughts that something extraordinary has happened here.  When the angels ask her why she is weeping she repeats "They have taken away my Lord, and I do no know where they have laid him.  Then Jesus himself appears and asks Mary the same questions he asked those first disciples in John 1;  "Whom are you seeking?"  But even face to face with Jesus, Mary can not see what has happened here.  Her vision is too clouded by the harsh reality of crucifixion she witnessed just days earlier.  Her world is one filled with death and disappointment.  In one sense Mary would love nothing more than to answer Jesus' question as those first disciples did.  Mary desperately wants to abide with Jesus.  "Where is Jesus?" is the very question she has been asking through this entire passage.  Even now, supposing he is the gardener, she asks Jesus himself "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away."  Mary is desperately seeking to abide with Jesus in the only way she knows how but she is exasperated and grief-stricken by her search because she seeks to abide with Jesus as though he were dead when, in fact, he is alive.  It is only when the Word of God made flesh speaks her name, "Mary", that she recognizes the voice of her shepherd and responds with the same response as those first disciples "Rabboni!".  And just as those first disciples recruited more disciples, Mary goes and announces Jesus' resurrection to his disciples.

Mary is a picture of so many of us, of so much of the Church.  I think if most of us were asked in church "Whom do you seek?" we would answer "Jesus."  And I don't think it would be a disingenuous or pretentious answer.  Like Mary, most of us really do love Jesus.  We know that Jesus changed us somehow and that we owe everything to him.  In fact, we long to abide with Jesus, so much so that we get up early on the first day of the week and come looking for him.

But I also think that, like Mary, despite all of our love for Jesus, we sometimes go about seeking him as if he were dead.  We come to church, we pay our tithe, we study our Bibles and say our prayers and we do all of these things because we genuinely love Jesus.  But we also do them not expecting anything to change, not expecting anyone, including ourselves to be transformed.  In fact, we'd probably rather things not change because at least things are comfortable the way they are now.  At least, this way we know what to expect.  And its not that we are bad or unloving people.  Its just that, like Mary, we've been hurt.  We've experience more intense pain than we could ever have imagined.  We've seen our hopes and dreams crucified, our beliefs about what God could do in this world nailed to a cross.  But we remain faithful.  Even in the midst of all that, we still love Jesus, we still want to abide with him.  We've just come to doubt that he can actually change anything.  And so all of our genuine acts of love for Jesus become nothing more than spices prepared for his buried and decaying body and our church begins to feel more like an empty tomb than a place of resurrection.

But, like Mary, even as we seek Jesus among the dead, the risen Lord continues to call to us.  Even when the empty tomb and grave cloths are not enough to cause us to look elsewhere, even when angels can not change our perception of what is possible with God, even when our pain and confusion so cloud our vision that we can not even see Jesus right in front of us, the risen Lord still speaks.  He still calls our name. And that is enough to allow us to abide with him in all his resurrected glory.

Discipleship: More Than Palm Waving

Scholars debate who it is that is speaking in Isaiah 50:4-9 and the rest of the so called "suffering servant" passages.  Is this Isaiah speaking? Is it a prophetic successor of Isaiah?  Should we understand this as the collective voice of Israel as a nation that suffers as God's servant?  Is this a prophecy about the coming Messiah, about Jesus?

Obviously, for those of us who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, it is easy to jump to that last option.  So many of the images found in Isaiah 49-53 seem to fit Jesus so well.  While I am not convinced that Isaiah (or the disciple of his who wrote these words) had Jesus in mind, I am convinced that Jesus must have often had these words in mind throughout his life and ministry, especially as he drew nearer to the cross.  In other words, I don't think it is so much that Jesus perfectly fulfilled some pre-existing expectation of what it meant to be Messiah (in fact, I am quite certain he was constantly exploding the pre-existing notions of Messiah) as much as he found his understanding of who he was as the Messiah in places where no one else was looking.  While others were looking for Moses, Elijah, and David all rolled into one, Jesus found his Father calling him to stand in the line of rejected prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

It is fitting then that Isaiah 50 is one of the texts for Palm Sunday.  Those waving their palm branches welcome Jesus into Jerusalem as that Moses/Elijah/David figure.  But this celebration only lasts as long as the crowd fails to see Jesus as he sees himself, as long as they see him as one who has come to save by power when, in fact, he has come to save by suffering and weakness.  It takes less than a week for the chants of "Hosanna" to become chants of "Crucify him".

The role of prophet and disciple as described in Isaiah 50 and as modeled by Jesus in his journey to the cross serves as a sharp contrast to the fickle crowds of Palm Sunday.  The crowds celebrate only as long as things are going their way.  In contrast, the prophet/disciple has a face set like flint, a determination that can be compared only to the solid, steadfastness, and unwavering nature of rock.  The prophet/disciple is certain that the Lord is his present helper even when he is struck and spit on.  The prophet/disciple is confident that he will be vindicated even as everyone goes against him because he hears and is sustained by word of the Lord every morning.

Krispy Kreme and Water from a Rock

A few days ago, Jess, the kids and I were headed home from having dinner with some friends and we decided to stop for Krispy Kreme donuts along the way.  As we were making our way through the drive-thru, before we had even arrived at the window and received our box of sugary goodness, Hannah pipes up from the back seat with a bit of urgency/panic in her voice "Daddy, I want a donut too!"  Of course, I had no intention of ordering a dozen of the most delicious things on this earth and not sharing them with my children.  However, the tone in Hannah's voice conveyed to me that she was not so sure of this.

While this trip through Krispy Kreme's drive-thru didn't exactly provoke some kind of deep existential angst about my parenting ability, it did cause me to wonder why Hannah's first assumption was that I wouldn't share with her.  Didn't she remember that this was her daddy she was talking to?  Couldn't she just rest in the knowledge that I would share any good thing with her and that if didn't I share it with her it was because I thought it wouldn't be good for her?  And yes, in the few seconds that these questions were shooting through my mind I also remembered that she is only 3 and that such calm in the presence of such a strong desire is too much to ask of a 3 year old.

The truth is it often seems to be too much to ask of most adults as well.  In Exodus 17, the people of Israel are grumbling against Moses because they don't have any water to drink.  They say to Moses "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"  On the face of it, that's actually not a bad question.  After all, no water in the middle of the desert is a pretty seriously problem.  I'd probably be grumbling too.  But what makes this grumbling so sad, so short-sighted is that the people of Israel have already seen what God can do.  God just delivered these powerless slaves from the most powerful nation on earth.  God just displayed his complete sovereignty over creation through powerful plagues of hail, frogs, gnats, blood, darkness, and even the firstborn of every Egyptian family.  Then God provided pillars of cloud and fire for guidance, made a path in the Red Sea for crossing, and provided manna from heaven for eating.  In fact, this wasn't even Israel's first grumbling specifically about water.  Just two chapters earlier God empowered Moses to turn the bitter waters of Marah sweet so that the people could drink.  One might think that after the Israelites had seen God handle all of that they wouldn't be too worried about a little water shortage.  They might reason "Hey, we don't have water but God has taken care of bigger problems than this.  He'll take care of us again."  Nope.  Just more grumbling.

Of course, we often don't do much better ourselves.  God has provided for us over and over again.  So many of us have never even known real need, the kind of need one might experience without water in the wilderness.  But when even a hint of trouble shows up, when just the chance of our standard of living being lowered comes along we fret.  We worry.  We grumble and complain.  In those times I have to imagine that God wants to say to us "Don't you remember that this is your daddy you are talking to?  Doesn't all your past experience tell you that I'll take care of you?"

As we awaited our treats in the Krispy Kreme drive-thru, I decided to tease Hannah about her uncertainty as to whether she would receive a donut.  I turned to her and said in  a mock seriousness  "What kind of daddy do you think I am?  Did you really think I was going to order a whole bunch of donuts and not let you have one?"  Hearing my serious tone she got kind of a worried look on her face which then began to fade away as she thought about what I had actually said.  Then realizing that I was obviously going to share with her a big smile came across her face and she said "Nooo" as if what moments ago had been such a major concern to her was now the silliest and most absurd thing she could think of.  Shortly thereafter we were all enjoying these little, round frosted wonders together.

Obviously, I would be a pretty immature parent if I had taken Hannah's lack of faith in me personally and prevented her from having a donut because of it.  Yet, it seems that is how we often think of God.  If God were really as simplistic as some theologies make him out to be then he would have simply punished the people of Israel for their grumbling and lack of faith.  Instead, God does just the opposite.  God provides for the people of Israel once again in spite of their immaturity and failure to trust.  This passage points us toward the reality that our relationship with God is just that: a relationship, a nuanced, sometimes complex, always mysterious relationship with the almighty God of the universe.  What it certainly is not is a system of rewards and punishments for good or bad behavior.  It is a relationship where God sometimes provides for us even when we fail to trust him and one where God sometimes asks us to trust him when it seems like he is not providing for us at all.  God faithfulness often overcomes our own unfaithfulness but he also asks to place our trust in him and not in the things he provides.

The Lord said...so Abram went

The call of Abram is recorded in Genesis 12 but in order to understand the context of that call we must take note of the final verses of Genesis 11.  We hear in these final verses of Genesis 11 that Abram is one of three sons of Terah who lived in Ur of the Chaldeans (southern modern day Iraq).  One of Abram's brothers, Haran, died while the family still lived in Ur.  Abram's other brother, Nahor, was married to Milcah, Haran's daughter (so his own niece).  Abram was married to Sarai who we are told was barren and had no children.  In a culture where family and maintaining one's lineage was tremendously important, this is not a promising situation for Terah's family line.  One son is dead, another's wife is barren, and another is married to his dead brother's daughter with no mention of any children of their own.  Terah took this family of his and intended to move them to the land of Canaan but he never made it.  Instead, they settled in Haran (north of Iraq in eastern Turkey, interestingly bearing the same name as the son who has died) and Terah died there.

"Now the Lord said..." begins Genesis 12:1.  Into this bleak and unpromising situation, God speaks.  This is the God whose words create and give life.  This is the God who only a few chapters earlier was speaking all of creation into existence.  And his word will bring life into this situation as well.  God tells Abram to leave his country, his kindred, and his father's house to go to the land that God will show him.  God promises that if Abram will follow that command then this will not be the end of the family line but, in fact, just the opposite.  God promises to make Abram into a great nation and to bless him and all the families of the earth through him.

But as powerful as God's word is, as much creative and life giving force as it has, it does not work apart from Abram.  Here God does not speak and it become immediately so as in the creation story.  Instead, these words take the form of a promise to be fulfilled, a promise that Abram must continually choose to live by.  "So Abram went, as the Lord had told him..." says v. 4.  "The Lord said.... so Abram went."  If there is any arguing, any complaining, any hedging of bets on Abram's part, we are not made privy to them.  God commands and Abram goes.

At 75 years of age, with only his wife, his nephew, and his possessions, Abram went.  Some commentators point out that Abram's family had always lived a nomadic existence so this move would not have been an unusual one for him.  Still, the simplicity of the text is striking; "the Lord said ...so Abram went."  There must have been some substantial temptations to stay.  Abram's family was weak and vulnerable, its future in question.  Perhaps if they could stay near some relatives they could work together to ensure their family's future.  Whatever the temptations to stay, God speaks and Abram goes.

The payoff is not immediate either.  God will bless Abram throughout his life and God will give Abram a son but he will never see the promise of land and "a great nation" fulfilled.  This will not occur until many generations after Abram's death.  Still, God's promise became the defining quality of Abram's life.

Haran is an easy place for us to get stuck.  After all, its not Ur.   Its not the starting point or the place of our loss.  We can look back over the path from Ur to Haran and say "Look, how far we've come" and pat ourselves on the back because we trusted God to come this far.  But its also not Cannan, its not the unknown, its not living by faith.  It is familiar and comfortable.  In a world where we feel threatened, where our future is in doubt, Haran seems like a safe place.

But the good news is that God still speaks...even in Haran.  And wherever God speaks, God's words can still create and bring new life.  But we must hear and obey the word that God speaks; "Go!".  Go away from what is familiar and easy and enter unknown territory and trust that I, God, will bless you and guide your steps.  We must go understanding that we may never see the promise fulfilled.  The real blessing may come generations after we are long gone but we go because it is the God who speaks life into existence who has called us to go.

Dust Thou Art...

Last night, I shared death with the group of people with whom I share life.  I reminded them that we are all headed toward the grave.  As I marked each of their foreheads with ashes, it occurred to me what an odd gathering this was; what an odd privilege my role in it was.  What other group of people pays someone to remind them of their mortality?  A lot of people get paid for just the opposite; to help others deny death, put it off, pretend its not on its way.  But here were these people coming to me willingly leaning forward to be marked with dirt and hear the words "You are dust...".

Then I had to mark my own wife, my own children with these same ashes.  It is one thing to mark a group of people for death who are mostly older than you, many of whom are already so pained with varying ailments that they are in little need of being reminded of their own mortality.  It is another to mark the one to whom you have bound yourself for as long as you both shall live.  It is yet another to mark these little ones whose death you pray you will never see.  But even in these little bodies that are so full of life and vitality, the decaying corruption of this world is already sown.  Even these are gifts from God who must come to know the way of the cross.  Even these can not be held back from the God who demands that we trust him with everything if we claim to trust him at all.  The imposition of these ashes was a three day journey to Moriah without leaving the sanctuary of our church.

Prior to our Ash Wednesday service yesterday, I took a half day journey through Weldon Springs.  This time of year, this place that is normally teeming with life and beauty was filled with the browns and grays of decay; too late in the year to be blanketed by snow and too early to show many signs of spring.  While I walked through the decomposing leaves and lifeless brush, one thought seemed to occur to me repeatedly: "In spite of the appearances, no one doubts that the new life of spring is on its way."  It might not come as fast we'd like but we all take it for granted that spring is near.  I had come to the park expecting the dull lifelessness of late winter and that is exactly what I saw.  And yet, all I could think about was the life that would soon surround this lifeless trail.

As the Church, we are not called to be a merely optimistic people but a hopeful people.  What I mean is that we are not a people who simply ignore the death and decay of our world believing that its not really that bad or that it will work out somehow.  Instead, we are a people who mark ourselves with dirt, who gather around a table and meal that commemorate a painful and unjust death, who put the cross at the center of our existence precisely because we recognize just how bad it is and that things will not simply work themselves out unless God intervenes.  But while we are not merely optimistic, we are hopeful because we have no doubt that the new creation is on its way.  It might not come as fast as we'd like it to but we all take it for granted that God's redemption of our world is near, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  We are a people recognize the undeniable gravity of the tomb but who also look into its darkness to find it in empty.  We are a people who acknowledge that we are dust but who also believe that the God who originally formed us from that dust of the ground can also raise us anew after we have returned to it. 

Trust and Obey

If you've grown up in church, Genesis 3 is one of those passages of scripture you have heard so often that it becomes difficult to hear at all.  One's inclination is to quickly read over thinking "Yeah, yeah, I know all of this.  Let's get to something more interesting."  Additionally, it is one of those texts that has had all kinds of tradition and centuries of theological debate poured into it.  We designate this passage as "the fall" and we're off to the races discussing the doctrinal of original sin before we've even heard the Word of God.  But before we assume that we already know that this is a story about the devil tempting Adam and Eve to fall from their created glory, let's pay attention to the details of what these verses actually have to say.

First, it is worth noting that the serpent in the story is never equated with Satan by scripture itself.  Later Jewish and Christian tradition will certainly make that equation and it may not be a wrong conclusion to come to it but it is not one that we will find in the book of Genesis.

Second, many translations describe the serpent as "more crafty" than any other animal.  We thereby assume that the serpent is a schemer, a deceiver, one who intentionally outsmarts the man and the woman arguing and persuading them into sin.  Again, that may not be entirely wrong.  Later in the chapter the woman will accuse the serpent of deceiving her and God does not argue with her assessment and punishes the serpent accordingly.  However, craftiness does not necessarily convey the idea of deceitful scheming.  It can simply mean wise, resourceful, and sensible.  It can carry a meaning similar to that of the steward in Luke 16 whom Jesus commends in his parable for being cunning in his use of unrighteous wealth, an example he calls upon his followers to imitate.

Third, the conversation between the woman and the serpent is not presented to us as in anyway unusual.  The serpent does not contradict God's command and never says something that is blatantly false.  The serpent simply asks the woman questions and not unreasonable ones at that.  We could read this story as nothing more than an innocent theological discussion, the world's first Bible study.  The serpent and the woman are simply discussing God and God's commandment.  In fact, if either of them is twisting God's command it is the woman who adds the prohibition  "neither shall you touch it" (3:3) whereas God had simply said not to eat from the tree.

Finally, when the man and the woman do eat from the tree which was forbidden to them they do in fact have their eyes opened.  The serpent was right!  The man and the woman gained knowledge; knowledge which apparently God had been keeping from them.

So what went wrong here?  There doesn't seem to be some grand sinister scheme here.  This all started out as a simple conversation and it ended with a gaining of knowledge.  

But somewhere in the midst of this story was a serious breach of trust and obedience.  God had provided everything for this man and woman.  He had placed them in the midst of this luscious garden that provided food for them.  They had no need of anything.  And the only thing that God asked for in return was for them to trust him; to trust that he could provide for them, that he knew what was best.  God had given them every reason in the world to trust him and all he asked for in return was that they obey this one commandment, avoid this one thing, and thereby show that they trusted God.  But somehow along the way the woman and the man failed to see God as someone they were in trustful and obedient relationship with and instead began to see God as something to talk about, an object of discussion.  They began to think that they knew better than God did, that they could make decisions for themselves instead of trusting in their creator and so they tried to become their own gods, the rulers of their own lives.

The rest of Genesis 3 describes the disastrous consequences of that human attempt to be gods.  The man and woman's lack of trust in God's command obviously harms their relationship with God.  While previously humanity had enjoyed a meaningful fellowship with his creator, now the man says to God that he hid himself because he was afraid.  The previous relationship of trust and obedience is replaced with one of fear.  But it is not only the relationship with God that is impacted.  Our relationships with one another immediately begin to degenerate as well.  When God asks the man if has eaten from the tree the first thing he does is lay the blame on his wife and when the woman is asked the first thing she does is pass the blame on to the serpent.  The relationship between humanity and creation is corrupted as well, the earth no longer bearing fruit effortlessly as it once did.  Finally, this damaged relationship with God even impacts our relationship with ourselves.  Prior to eating from the tree, the man and the woman walked naked and proud through the garden.  Their bodies were creations of the almighty God, nothing of which to be ashamed.  (I get a pretty good representation of this when Malachi manages to get away from Jess or I in the middle of changing his clothes.  He proudly streaks through the house as if to say "Look at me!  I'm naked and its fantastic!)  But now the man and the woman are so ashamed of their bodies that they have to make impromptu clothing out of fig leaves in order to cover their shame.

This story is a microcosm of Israel's and of all humanity.  God also created Israel as a nation, graciously delivering them from their slavery.  God gave them manna and quail in the wilderness and led them into an abundant land in which to live.  God provided everything they could possibly ask for and gave Israel every reason to trust him and all that God asked for in return was that trust and obedience.  But repeatedly the people of Israel act as if they know best, they want to be in charge, they want to make the decisions, they want to be gods for themselves.  There are a few glimmers of hope along the way; individuals like Abraham, Moses, and David who exhibited remarkable trust in God but at times even they failed to trust God completely.  The story of scripture is that God keeps calling us to place our trust in him.  God promises that he will provide, he will defend, he will protect, if only we will trust and obey but instead our response is often "No thanks God.  I think I can do better on my own."  Over and over again, our story is a failure of trust...with the exception of one man.  There is one man to whom God said "just trust me" and he did no matter the circumstances.

In the gospel reading for this week (Matthew 4:1-11), we hear a story that sounds eerily like the one in Genesis 3.  Jesus is praying and fasting in the wilderness and the tempter shows up to have a theological conversation with him.  In this conversation, the devil makes some very reasonable, we might even say sensible and crafty suggestions.  Each of these suggestions is essentially an alternative to the cross.  The devil is saying "Hey look, if you are really God's Son, the rightful king of the world, then you shouldn't have to go through the messy and painful business of a crucifixion in order to inherit your rightful kingdom.  Surely there is an easier way.  If you can turn stones into bread, that will surely get the people excited.  If you jump off the Temple and survive, that will get people talking and you'll be king no time.  Or let's just cut straight to the point, just bow down to me and I'll give you everything."  And nowhere along the way can we say that the devil has said anything blatantly false.  In fact, we know that Satan was right to say that most people will follow whoever can produce food and miracles.  The devil even quotes scripture in this conversation.

But at stake in this story is the same thing at stake in Genesis 3.  Will Jesus trust his own judgment when he sees an easier path to the same result or will Jesus trust his Father?  Will Jesus grasp at power as Adam and Eve grasped the fruit of the tree or will he cling to his Father's direction no matter where it leads him?  And we shouldn't turn a blind eye to where this path leads; straight to the cross and into the gaping jaws of death in a stone sealed tomb.  But Jesus chooses trust and obedience over his own life.  Jesus trusts his Father even to the grave.  Jesus believes that his Father can provide even on the other side of death.

Paul tells us in Romans 5 that Jesus' trust and obedience has undone the impact of Adam's lack of trust and disobedience.  He says just as sin and death spread to all of humanity because of what Adam, so also life and righteousness have come to all because of what Christ has done.  Our broken relationship with God, our broken relationships with each other, our broken relationship with creation, even our broken relationship with ourselves can be mended because Jesus trusted his Father and that trust transformed our world.

The essential element of our faith hasn't changed from Genesis 3 to the life of Jesus to our own day.  God is still calling us to trust him.  God's call is still for us to obey his commands because we believe that he is God and we are not and therefore he knows what is best.  God's call is for us to be a people who live in faithful obedience no matter the circumstances because we believe in a God who raises the dead.