Tuesday, June 30, 2009

THE VAST UNKNOWABLE

In the first account of creation, Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a, we see God in all his glory and majesty, calling the universe into being and shaping it by divine decree, his word. If we had only this account we would have a splendid introduction to the God of Scripture, but it would be a flat image, without texture and depth. And so we have, paired with it, a second account; intimate, detailed, tender. This account begins, When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens -- and continues to the end of chapter three.


We notice immediately that the word LORD has been introduced, and this is very important because, in an English translation, wherever you see LORD like this, in all caps, it is a substitute for the divine name, Yahweh. The first writer has been referring to God using only a generic title, like calling a queen “The Queen”, but this new writer uses his personal name. It’s not quite Father or Abba (Daddy) as Jesus would do some day, but it is more personal, like calling Her Majesty, Elizabeth, or a Supreme Court Justice, Jack. This is, now, the intimate and personal Hebrew deity; the same God who created the Milky Way, of course, but now as the Gardener who plants a garden, the Sculptor who forms a man and then a woman, and the Guardian who nurtures and instructs, counsels and corrects. And, even more important, this is the God who delivered these particular people, the Hebrew people, from slavery in Egypt, because he cares about injustice. This is the God of whom the Psalmist is singing in Psalm 68:4-6:

his name is the LORD — (Yahweh)

rejoice before him.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows ,

is God in his holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families,

he leads forth the prisoners with singing...


This literary device of bringing two distinct pictures together to form a single image with depth and texture is a central principle of biblical writing. Every important story in the Bible is told by at least two different witnesses, every important truth is seen from at least two different angles. Sometimes the details disagree, but, like the two distinct pictures that produce a 3D image, they mysteriously come together in the story as a whole, producing one image that is far more than any number of individual images could produce viewed singly.


This is why there are four Gospels, two versions of the history of David and the monarchy, many different prophets proclaiming the same or very similar truths, and Psalms and Proverbs and the many Epistles of the New Testament, that repeat and repeat the same things in different ways.


Perhaps there is something, somewhere, that is so utterly simple as to be completely knowable through a single experience, but, if so, it’s certainly not God, or a personal being of any kind. All personal relationships are complex, and are built up out of many contacts, incidents, exchanges and experiences. They are stories, in fact, and the person of God, Yahweh, emerges over the course of this epic story as we engage it personally.


The god who is God, cannot be fully known through a single contact, experience, incident or encounter. He is not exhaustively known even in the Bible, certainly not in anyone’s personal experience of the Bible. Indeed, God cannot be exhaustively known at all. When Moses, at the burning bush, asks God to tell him his name and receives the cryptic answer "I AM WHO I AM . Tell the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.” (Exodus 3:14) surely this is part of what God is saying.


To say “I know God” is like saying “I know the Pacific Ocean”. I lived for years in Victoria. I have seen, and even sailed upon the Pacific Ocean many times. What I saw and sailed upon really was the Pacific, but to imagine that I know it? How absurd. A sailor who has sailed upon it all his life could only know a small portion of it, and even at that, only of the surface.


So let’s wade boldly into the scriptures, and seek God experiences in all of life, but let us do so with humility. And whenever we speak of God, let’s remember Job who, thinking back on all his God-talk said, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. Job 42:3



Friday, June 26, 2009

AND THE WINNER IS... OR, PERHAPS, WAS...


The first chapter of Genesis, in my humble opinion, is one of the most beautiful passages in all of scripture. (click here for a copy) It is an ancient account of the creation of the world; a profound, poetic reflection on the origin and meaning of everything. Of course, being ancient, it is not scientific, so it is important that we not impose modern, scientific notions upon it. We must take it simply for what it is. But what is it?


The ancient Hebrews lived in a world that was populated by several other people groups. There were the great empire folks: Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians; and the lesser, but significant: Philistines, Edomites, Amorites, Canaanites. Each of these cultures had its own understanding of, and approach to, reality, that is, its own gods, myths and legends. These groups threatened one another, negotiated deals, minded their own business, got in each others way, and generally tried to survive in whatever spaces and places they could occupy. In other words, they were rather like us.


In the first eleven chapters of Genesis, and particularly in this first chapter, the Hebrew writer is setting out what scholars call a polemic, from the Greek word polemos war. The Hebrews were in a battle with the surrounding cultures, a battle for the minds of their children. They were setting out their story as clearly and forcefully as they could, in opposition to other stories. And they managed to set out one that was different enough, interesting enough, powerful enough, convincing enough to outlast all the others. It’s the only one that’s still widely known and loved today. But what’s so different about it?


All the other creation myths are complex tales of many gods working, battling, negotiating, and struggling with one another, and of how, through this process, the world came to be as it is. In the Babylonian story, for example, Marduk becomes the supreme god by destroying Tiamat, the ocean goddess, in an epic battle. He then fashions the earth and sky from her divided corpse, and destroys Tiamat’s husband, Kingu, using his blood to create human beings to do the work of the gods.


In the Hebrew story, however, there is only one God. He is in no war, no struggle. There is no killing, nor conflict. He simply sets about to create a harmonious world for the pure joy of doing it. In the beginning, we are told, he created the heavens and the earth, but there is no indication how he actually did it. He simply declares that light will be and it is. And then he goes about ordering everything by divine decree. He does it all in six days, and then takes a day off.


It is profoundly significant that God partners things as he creates them: light and darkness, land and sea, sun and moon, birds and fish, and ultimately human beings, created in his own image, male and female. All of this underscores a foundational principle of the Hebrew faith, that the cosmos arises from peace and cooperation (shalom) not war and struggle. Disharmony and isolation threaten what is good. And what is ultimately good is the will of this loving, creative God, Elohim.


Of course, this story simply doesn’t fit the modern, scientific view of the cosmos that, on one level at least, we all share. – Why would anyone imagine that it should? – The sun is created on the fourth day, though vegetation springs forth on the third day, and day and night are established on the first. What was the earth orbiting for three days? Where are the galaxies, comets and other planets? Where are the dinosaurs, atoms, microbes? What about evolutionary development, ice ages, continental drift? None of these things finds a place in this story; just the world in which we live, we who live here, and the God who created it all. The earth is the focus because it’s our home. Partnership and cooperation are the key operative principles because they give life. And all of it is a pure, unmerited, gift of grace and love.


This may not be everything we will need to know about existence, but it’s a pretty good place to start. And it is the narrative, among all the competing narratives, that eventually prevailed.


* The picture is Ancient of Days, by William Blake



Monday, June 22, 2009

GOD OF EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE

There’s an obvious danger in imagining that the God you worship is the only god there is. It can lead to arrogance and intolerance, and it’s hardly a way to win friends. And these have indeed been serious problems for those who’ve embraced this belief. In fact, the arrogant intolerance of God’s people is one of the most enduring themes of the biblical story. So one might well suggest that we’d all be better off to simply agree that everyone’s gods are equally valid. This isn’t, however, as easy as it might sound.


First of all, beliefs are beliefs, and you can’t just decide to believe something you don’t believe. At any given time there are probably several people in the world who believe they are the Prime Minister of Canada. – I actually received a letter from such a person once. – Though we might do well to humour these folks by pretending to agree, none of us is quite free to actually agree.


Secondly, all people have a tendency to think their gods are better than other gods. It’s really an ego problem more than a god problem. Perhaps if we would deal with our arrogance and intolerance the gods would sort themselves out. This is actually closer to the biblical solution.


Thirdly, arrogant intolerance is not the necessary result of thinking that your God is the God of everything and everyone. Another possible result is the conviction that God loves everyone, relates to everyone, has plans and purposes for everyone. This would imply, for the people of the Old Testament, that God is the God of Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome, as well as the God of Israel. And that he can use Pharaoh and the kings of other nations to accomplish his will, just as he used Moses. And it could mean that he expects us to treat the other peoples of the earth with the same respect we give our own people. These too are enduring themes of the biblical story.


When Abraham, for example, is chosen to become the father God’s people, he is told that it is God’s intention to bless all the peoples of the earth through him. (Genesis 12:1-3) And he very quickly meets a person named Melchizedek and honours him. This man, we are told, is the king of Salem (Jerusalem) and a priest of God Most High. (Genesis 14:18) So we are expected to understand that a God who is the God of everything and everyone can never be simply our personal God, and that his concerns are always much greater than our personal concerns. Surely this is why one of the first priestly acts of Abraham is to plead for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, asking, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:22-33)


So this is one of the fundamental principals laid down at the beginning of the biblical story as God creates every thing and everyone. If our God is God of everything and everyone, then we must be concerned about the well-being of everything and everyone. We cannot become parochial and self-centred, and nothing can ever be just about us. Of course, this is much easier said than done; another enduring theme of the biblical story.



Tuesday, June 16, 2009

TO BEGIN WITH...

In my June 10 post (Hmmm, looks harmless enough...) I shared some things that would definitely raise eyebrows among the guardians of Christian orthodoxy. They’re not really controversial things, falling well within the range of traditional Christian thinking, but Evangelicals can be rather narrow, so I find I do upset some of them some of the time. The particular item I’m thinking of is my affirmation that there are myths in the Bible. I meant what I said, but I probably need to explain a little.


According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term “myth” has two definitions: 1.a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events... and 2. a widely held but false belief or idea..., The first is technical, the second popular. When I say that some of the biblical writing is myth, I am using the word in the technical or first sense.


The first eleven chapters of Genesis, for example, are best understood as mythical according to this first definition. They set forth traditional stories about the early history of, not just the Hebrew people, but, significantly, all people. They involve supernatural events but, being Hebrew, they are driven by only one supernatural being; God. Their purpose is to explain the natural and social world. And though they do in some sense purport to tell us how things came to be, that’s really of secondary importance. Their primary concern is the meaning of things as they are now. We do not really need to know how to create a cosmos, but it’s pretty handy to understand what the cosmos is, how the pieces properly relate to one another, and how the entire thing, including me and mine, relates to the one who made it all.


In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 These are the first words of the Book of Genesis (Beginnings), and because the books have been arranged with Genesis first, these are the first words of the Bible as a whole. The first word of this sentence is the Hebrew word re'shiyth (ray-sheeth') and it’s a bit broader than the strict translation “In the beginning”. It also conveys what we would convey in English with expressions like: “first of all”, “to begin with”, “number one”, implying, not simply that this is the first thing that happened chronologically, but that this is the first and most important thing we need to know as we begin our story. And what exactly is this thing we need to know? That God created the heavens and the earth.


For us who have been raised in a culture familiar with the Bible this may seem an obvious claim, but it’s actually quite stunning. Other ancient peoples believed that there were many god’s, and that no one god, not even the one they principally worshipped, made everything. The Babylonians worshipped Marduk as the head of a pantheon of gods. He was Lord of the storm, the waters, magic and judgement, but he was the son of a god, and the father of many. The Egyptians give priority to Ra, the god of the sun. But, though he was sometimes conceived to be the creator of the world, he also lead a pantheon of gods. He was not the creator of everything, nor the god of everything, and certainly not the only god.


When we use the word “god” for God, we capitalize the initial letter. This is not piety, but merely English. “God” virtually becomes a proper name when you’re the only one. But the implications of consigning to non-existence all gods but the one you worship go far beyond the rules of grammar. As we begin the story, can you anticipate what some of these implications might be?