Tag: Lent 1

Exposed and Naked: We are Fragile

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

We are not in control; this bothers us. Further, we are not unassailable; and this terrifies us. To be out of control is one thing, but to be fragile, too? Unacceptable. So, we do whatever we can to build up our fortresses to protect our vulnerable, fleshy existence. We build silos for storing our resources from cash to crops to armaments hoping to fend of both physical and existential threats. We fortify our homes with surveillance systems geared to satisfy the energy of our hyper vigilance always looking for a threat certain that our neighbor is that threat. Our walls and fences get taller and thicker; both the literal ones built around our properties and the metaphorical ones built around our hearts. We are closing down and in; we are pulling back and away. Our lack of control bothers us; our fragility terrifies us.

Looking around at our world, our lack of control wedded to our fragility makes us feel helpless (like sitting ducks). A few people control all the things and none of them really care about you and me; rather, they care about their power, prestige, and position. Being trapped in such a situation—hijacked and held captive by unregulated egos and tempers—provokes our fear responses—flight, fight, freeze, and fawn; we’ll do whatever we need to keep our fragile bodies and existences protected. The sad thing is that we’re buying—hook, line, and sinker—the myth that our neighbor is our biggest threat and not the kids holding all the toys and starting all the fights in the playground. So, in a meager attempt to have some control and to feel less fragile, we turn our attention to our neighbor, look at them with suspicion, and build our walls and silos, and install our surveillance systems. Our lack of control bothers us; our fragility terrifies us.

Is there any hope for such as these?

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

The two creation stories opening the book of Genesis are not connected stories; Genesis 2 isn’t a further extrapolation of Genesis 1. Rather, Genesis 2 stands alone as its own story. Why are they coupled in such a way? Because Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 ask two very specific yet different questions. Genesis 1 asks the big existential question: how did all of this—motions about self—come into being? And, who is behind it all? The answer Genesis 1 provides is that God is the prime mover here; out of nothing God causes all of creation and the cosmos to spin into being from the biggest things to the smallest of things, from the deepest of things to the loftiest of things, from the leftiest of things to the rightiest of things. And if God took so much care to bring into existence these extremes of creation, then humanity—who finds herself right smack dab in the middle—is both the apple of God’s eye and (one of) the main characters on the stage.

Now, Genesis 2 asks a more particular and personal existential question: why am I here? And, why is that person over there here, too? The answer Genesis 2 provides is that community is essential to this particular God’s way of working in the world. And not only community generally speaking—if this were the case, then clearly God could have stopped short of creating humanity for God in God’s self is a community of triunity—but specifically this God created community in the shape and form of humanity who reflects the divine image into the world through all its beautiful variants and differences, amid various interpretations and representations and identifications, caught between crazy similarities and radical diversities. So, where Genesis 1 is impersonal, Genesis 2 gets personal.

So, in the portion of Genesis 2 read this morning, after God has made all the flora and fauna, God takes the man, Adam, and brings him to the threshold of the garden of Eden so that he will have a task: to “till and keep it”—in other words, to have loving dominion and care for it. Before Adam is released to work, God gives him a command (for Adam’s benefit, of course). What’s that command? “‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die,’” (Gn 2:16b-17). At this point, it is just Adam and God. Eve isn’t there yet.

So, Genesis 2 goes on to tell of the story of Eve’s, the woman’s, creation. Adam is lonely; God notices. God makes all the animals to parade by—thus causing Adam’s loneliness only to grow; each time Adam provides a name for each animal, Adam is declaring, “No, this one will not alleviate my loneliness.” Then God intervenes. Adam is put into a death like sleep, and out of this death like sleep God creates woman as (a type of) salvation.[ii] Adam makes his bold announcement, “YES!”! And all is well.

Or is it?

This is where Genesis 3 comes into picture. It answers that little “happily ever after” moment with, “No, everything isn’t fine; it’s painful, it hurts, people feel lost, have guilt, and are unsafe.” Mostly though, Genesis 3 contends with our fragile state, the exposure and nakedness of being fragile human beings in a world where we have no control. The serpent (not a snake) enters the scene and penetrates this vulnerable and fragile moment by addressing Eve and inquiring about the law—the one God gave to Adam back in Genesis 2. The serpent asks Eve, “‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’” (Gn 3:1b). Eve’s response? Sharp and quick; she knew exactly what she was talking about, “‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die,”’” (Gn 3: 2b-3).

Did you catch the difference between her answer and the command God gave Adam?

She added something: nor shall you touch it. I have to ask, where did she get this part from? The only way she was taught the law was by Adam. Therefore, we could say that Adam embellished the commandment not only forsaking eating but also even touching the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. The first error lies not with Eve being backed into this impossible question by the serpent,[iii] but way back when Adam was delivering the law to Eve. Considering that Adam is with her and remains silent when she misspeaks, can indicate that he saw nothing wrong with what she said. Sin had already found an entrance in the mistaught law; the humans are exposed in their (intellectual and spiritual) fragility.

But if that’s not enough, after a few more cunning words from the serpent, Eve sees that the fruit is good to eat and thus she eats first and Adam second. What happens? “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves,” (Gn 3:7). And herein lies the second error. The serpent appears to be unearthing the real reason why God is forbidding access to the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: jealousy.[iv] In this way, the serpent was (easily) able to put animosity between the humans and their creator (at first just spiritually and intellectually and then physically). The humans take the bait and eat; in this moment they acquire the very thing they thought they wanted: knowledge of good and evil.[v] Their first act with such awareness? They are exposed unto themselves and their nakedness receives the judgment: evil. They are ashamed of their vulnerable and fragile state and move to hide it, and from each other especially; two bodies now at perpetual war with the other. Animosity begins to breed in the realization that bodies can be different and thus scary, something to be afraid of. The neighbor becomes the threat. So, they hide; they hide not only from each other, they hide from God (Gn 3:8), and if these two then we can say they hid from their own selves, too. God’s curses, which are to come, don’t really create anything too new at this point; rather, God just leaves them to their plight and predicament because they’ve already cursed themselves by taking the knowledge and judgment of good and evil into their own hands. And this they got wrong from the start; sadly, they will continue to get it wrong…

Conclusion

God’s people are trapped and held captive to their inability to determine what is truly good and what is truly evil. Yet, God knows just how vulnerable and susceptible they are and none of that knowledge dissuades God from God’s covenant. But first the people must come to terms with their own situation and status before God: for they are not in control, they are exposed, they are naked, and they are fragile. If they continue forward without acknowledging who and what they are before God, they will continue to participate in and perpetuate the rampant injustices of the kingdom of humanity, forsaking the justice of the reign of God and being harbingers of death and not life, of indifference and not love, of captivity and not liberation.

As it was for Adam and Eve, so it is for us.

Lent commands us into a state of being exposed and naked, into an honesty that will peel back our facades and remove our masks, bringing us to a very naked state that will feel like a complete and total death. We are brought to our most dreaded confession: we are not in control, and we are fragile creatures, scared and angry. But it’s out of this death, this confession, out of this naked and vulnerable place, where God’s word liberates us out of death and into life by God’s love. This word that brings this divine life to dead creatures, God preaches through God’s son, Jesus the Christ; it is this incarnate word that becomes the source of our security when we are our most fragile, most exposed, and most naked. It is the very source of our new life, new love, and new liberation. God is coming to clothe God’s own in the righteous garments of divine love, life, and liberation so they can become creatures who have new eyes and ears to see and hear the pain around them, bringing love where there is indifference, life where there is death, and liberation where there is captivity.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Jackopierce song, “Woman as Salvation”

[iii] Jon D. Levenson, “Genesis,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 16. “His question is tricky and does not admit of a yes-or-no answer. The woman, who has never heard the commandment directly (2.16-17), paraphrases it closely. Why she adds the prohibition on touching the fruit is unclear.”

[iv] Levenson, “Genesis,” 17. “The serpent impugns God’s motives , attributing the command to jealousy. Whereas in the first creation account huma beings are God-like creatures exercising dominion…here their ambition to be like God or like divine beings is the root of their expulsion from Eden.”

[v] Levenson, “Genesis,” 17. “As the serpent had predicted (v.5), their eyes are opened, and they have enhanced knowledge (v.7).”

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“Prone to Wander…”: Forsaking the Way

Psalm 91:1-2 They who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, abide under the shadow of the Almighty. They shall say to Abba God, “You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust.”

Introduction

One of my most favorite hymns is, “Come Thou Fount” (a hymn that shows up in our current season of music. Of the three verses, the third is my absolute favorite.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart; O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.[1]

As I mentioned on the evening of Ash Wednesday, the prophet Joel brings us to the brink and asks us to take a deep, long, hard look in the mirror. The reality is, while we may not think about it often, we are prone to wonder from God. If it helps, please know that I am all too aware of my tendency to want to wander from God, the God whom I love, the God who saved me from myself for others, the God who has given me life, love, and liberation from sin and from human made, harmful mythologies and ideologies. So, if you are having a hard time wrapping your head around this or are feeling that type of shame that leads to condemnation and hiding, don’t worry… you aren’t alone; I’m right there with you.

Sometimes we wander because we forsake the way. There are two types of ways we wander because we forsake. Sometimes, it’s intentional. We’re done. It’s too hard. We just can’t. Sometimes the demand is too great, so we stop participating and we give up. We opt for something easier, something with more give, something with more personal reward seen by others and, more importantly, approved by others. Think about times you’ve tried to “self-differentiate” and the system pulled you back in being stronger and more dominant than your meager efforts—it’s easier to just give up and give in, go back and pick up where you left off, dismissing the work you’ve done thus far. Even uncomfortable and toxic systems can be comfortable even if detrimental. The human mind prefers comfort and ease to the hard work of embarking on something new. I saw a meme once that said the nervous system prefers a familiar hell to an unknown heaven.

Sometimes, though, our forsaking the way is slower and not as intentional. It’s more like forgetting to follow true north and then, OMG, here I am, and I don’t know where this “here” is. neglected to double check, assuming we knew exactly what we were doing and where we were going. And then, nope. This is best expressed when we slide away from our spiritual traditions because of the banality that is caused when tradition becomes traditionalism and boringly oppressive unto death. Blah, blah, blah, I know all of this. So, we stop listening, stop paying attention because we’re convinced we know the what, how, who, when, where, etc. Eventually we are allured away to something sparkly and new, something different and exciting, something that makes us feel special and unique. Yet, by the time that allure and shine has worn off we realize we are nowhere near where we should be; we’ve strayed and in straying we’ve forsaken the way.

We are prone to forsake because we are prone to wander from our God of love.

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

“‘So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’ You shall set [the basket of first fruits] down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.”

According to Moses, Israelites are ”to make annual pilgrimage to the central sanctuary, bringing the first fruits of the harvest, to thank God for the land’s bounty.”[2] Upon bringing the basket of first fruits of harvest, the Israelite is to recite a short history summarizing the main events bringing Israel to where they are now; it is a confession of faith and is the verbal adherence to the first command of the Decalogue.[3] According to Moses, the Israelite bringing the basket of first fruit concludes their confession of faith with an acknowledgement that even the items they carry in as an offering are an offering dependent on God; even this bounty is not of my own doing. (As we say at the start of the Eucharist, “For all things come of you, o God…”) Finally, the Israelites are to take everything and throw a massive celebration to honor the coming of the harvest season, to honor God and God’s faithfulness, and, notably, to honor those who have nothing. According to what Moses has offered us here, there is no division between those who brought offerings and those who did not. Here, in this moment, there are no lines drawn in the sand; mercy and solidarity triumph over tribalism and productivism. God’s reign is experienced in the midst of the kingdom of humanity.[4]

So here we are in an interesting spot in the book of Deuteronomy; one that doesn’t really have “Lent” written all over it. So, first, let’s go back just a skosh. Right around chapter 14, Moses (using traditional authorial language) reviews all the laws again. (That’s what the name of the book means: Second Law or Law Again.) Moses details all that is entailed in the Decalogue; this task is finished at the end of chapter 25.[5] Before that? Well, a few (fun!) things, right before the recapping of the Law there is a hefty section on the blessings and curses for adhering to the law and the need for Israel to stay pure and focused on God (chapters 6.5-13). The beginning of chapter 6 is my favorite: the greatest Commandment. Chapter 5 is the quick version of the Decalogue much like the one that appeared in Exodus. Chapter 4 is Moses’s command for obedience to God (one of his final ones considering he’ll die at the end of the book). And chapters 1-3 are a retelling of major events of Israel’s history up until that point.

So, when in chapter 26—the “‘Concluding liturgies’” portion[6]— Moses turns to speak of giving the first fruits to the priest and scripts out a response for each person bringing their basket of fruits to the priest, it’s in response to all that has come before. In other words, it’s a confirmation of the covenant that has just been laid out for the children of Israel.[7] It’s also an offering of praise and thanksgiving for deliverance from enemies and for occupation of the land promised long-ago to Abraham.[8] All this to say, chapter 26 is about Israel NOT forgetting and forsaking the who of “Who let the captives out…”[9] Just as the first commandment of the Decalogue is, “‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me,’” (Ex. 20:2-3), this commandment not only aligns the remaining nine to it but is a declaration that Israel must always remember who liberated them from Egypt. In remembering this, everything else falls into place. And, according to our text, this remembrance is to extend to God and the neighbor: [10] the Levites (priests), the orphans, widows and strangers. For Israel and according to Moses, to remember God’s love for Israel is to love others, especially the disenfranchised, unpropertied, the “have-nots.”[11]

Conclusion

None of what is in this passage on Deuteronomy is about Israel forsaking the way and giving up. In fact, it’s all about Israel remembering, remembering intimately, and celebrating and preforming that remembrance. Truly, it’s not about them giving up at all. But here’s the thing, the bulk of Deuteronomy is about asking Israel to exhorting Israel to stay with God, to keep their eyes on God, and walk with God thus walk with their neighbor and correct the wrongs in the world. But why? Why is God, through Moses, telling all this to Israel and, actually, “telling them again”? Because, well, Israel had a history of forgetting and giving up and wandering away. I say this not only because I’ve read the book; I say this because literally a few moments outside of the great liberation from captivity through the wet ground of the parted Red Sea, Israel was ready to drop it all and go back to Egypt so they could have leeks. Whether intentional or unintentionally, Israel will begin to forsake God, to forget, and to wander away from their God whom they love and thus to also forsake and wander away from their neighbor. Israel will get caught up between the allure of the sparkle and shine of the kingdom of humanity (the power and privilege) and forsake God and their neighbor, the stranger, the oppressed, those dependent on help. They will forsake God and God’s way because it grows too difficult and comes with little earthly reward. Moses knows this, God knows this.

So it is with us. And as we go through this first week of lent, let us consider our times of forsaking because we’ve forgotten the good story, became bored of God’s good Word, or because it was too hard, too uncomfortable, too weird, ugly, blech. As wonderful and miraculous as we are, we are fleshy, meat creatures prone to wander. The good news is, God knows this, and God comes to do something about it.

[1] https://hymnary.org/text/come_thou_fount_of_every_blessing

[2] Levinson, “Deuteronomy,” 423.

[3] Levinson, “Deuteronomy,” 424. vv. 8-9 “The thanksgiving prayer recited by the pilgrim provides a precis of the main narrative line of the Pentateuch and Joshua (the ‘Hexateuch’). For that reason, the verses have been seen by some scholars as an ancient confession of faith, or creed, that is olde than its present context. Strikingly, this summary of the main events of Israel’s religious history makes no mention of the revelation of law at Sinai/Horeb. The same is true for many similar confessions in the Bible…”

[4] Levinson, “Deuteronomy,” 424. v. 11 “Enjoy” “or rejoice” “specifically in a festive meal consumed at the central sanctuary…which must include the Levite and the stranger for whose benefit (along with other disadvantaged groups) the following law is directed.” The law in v. 12

[5] LW 9:254

[6] Bernard M. Levinson, “Deuteronomy,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 423.

[7] LW 9:254 This portion “confirms the covenant between God and the Children of Israel.”

[8] LW 9:254

[9] Levinson, “Deuteronomy,” 423-424. V. 5 “This verse is deployed in the Passover Haggadah (just following the section on the Fours Sons) in a famous passage that emphasizes God’s miraculous sparing of Israel from a long line of persecutors, beginning with Laban’s attack on Jacob (Gen. 31).”

[10] LW 9:254 “So he also treats the tithes to be paid every three years, teaching that they are to be given to the Levites, the orphans, the widows, and the strangers, with the affirmation that they are a fulfillment of the work of love.”

[11] LW 9:255 “… it denotes the confession of faith and the thanksgiving of the righteousness the sprit, where we acknowledge at the same time that the Lord has freed us from great evils to which we have been subjected, and that we have accepted many good things by faith. But bringing of tithes denotes that we are wholly given to the service of the neighbor through love…”

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