Hiding

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:7-8 ESV

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” If this is true, then I must confess that I do not have a first-rate intelligence.

No great surprise there.

There are many conflicting thoughts that I find I am able to hold in my mind at once. The concept of the Trinity, for instance.  Or my love/hate relationship with technology. Or how techno beats can be simultaneously so irritating and so enjoyable.

However, I find that there are two competing concepts my brain cannot handle:

God and sin.

Too obvious? Let me explain.

God is present with us. His presence has not always been blatant or even directly accessible to some, but if there is one thing that the Bible makes clear, it is that He is now here. With us. Emmanuel.

As followers of Jesus, we have gone to great lengths to construct way to remind us of that fact. Spiritual disciplines. Sacraments. Weekly or bi-weekly worship services. We may entertain other motives for doing these things, but they serve one fundamental purpose.

To remind us that God is present with us in all of His frightening and exhilarating glory. Father. Son. Holy Spirit.

And if I am successful in remembering that God is present, then I propose that my life must necessarily be different. If I truly remember that God is present, then I propose that it is impossible for me to sin. I cannot hold God’s presence and my sin in my mind at the same time

The problem is that I am forgetful. Or worse, I am prone to hide.

Like my Genesis ancestors, I hear God walking toward me and I duck and cover up.

With stupid excuses. With mental gymnastics. With the fallacy of unalienable rights. With eager offerings from the distraction industry. With the forbidden fruit on my plate and knife and fork grasped tightly in my hands.

Some of us have concealed ourselves from the truth of God’s presence for so long that we have forgotten that we were in hiding at all as our camouflage has become a second skin and we have atrophied and grown pale in the comfort of our hideaway.

The culture we find ourselves in loves this game. Bumper stickers and pop songs and inspirational posters have actively and routinely promoted phrases like ‘dance like no one is watching’ and their repetition is making me violently ill. Not because I am disgusted by their overused sentimentality, but because I have too often followed their suggestion and it has corroded my very being.

So, in an attempt at healing, I will join with the community of saints and sinners who are forcing ourselves to remember that we are not alone.

With prayer and song and recitation. With water and wine and bread. With weekly pilgrimages to the Gathering. With the hands and faces of the others who are also trying so desperately to muster the strength to come out of hiding and dwell in the presence of God.

And if we can do that on an increasingly regular basis, then I cannot help but think that we will find ourselves unable to sin, consciously or unconsciously. And that our nakedness will be brilliant enough to clothe even the most ashamed.

Deuteronomy

I have been reading through Eugene Peterson’s Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places for nearly five months. It has been a long, challenging, mostly joyful process. I just hit the final third of the book where Peterson discusses how Christ interfaces with the realm of community. He uses Deuteronomy as a grounding text for his writing and I am ashamed to admit that I don’t recall ever reading through that book of the Bible, so I started in. I stopped after the fourth chapter.

It floored me. I almost wept. I did not expect that from a code of law.

I am such a baby sometimes.

To be fair, it was not the rules and statutes, but the prelude to them that evoked this response. God gives a reason for what follows and it is nothing like what I expected. Hear this:

“See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?”

Moses clearly says that the law is not for the benefit of those who follow it, but for the benefit of those who do not. What a novel idea. How many people do you know, who look at Christianity from the outside and say, “Surely this…is a wise and understanding people.”?

I am used to people who look at us and say many things. I have said them too…but not that one.

This book was intended to make the nation of Israel more vital and transcendent. Not an individual. Not a person. A community.

God says, “I have made a covenant with you. Here is how you keep it.  And when you do, everyone who comes into contact with you will respond with wonder at the relationship you have with each other and with Me.”

We do not do good things for our own sake. We do not use morality for our own ends. We do not keep the law so that we can feel superior or warm inside. We do not keep the law to get us into Heaven, or conversely, keep us out of Hell.

We do these things because we have no other place to go and others are also searching. Who else has a god so near to them as the LORD our God is to us?

So then, why do people look at us and have every reaction other than glorify God? Why do they see us trying to follow God’s will and see only arrogance or hate? Is it because we have made God’s law about ourselves? Is it because we have striven as individuals to be righteous, instead of working out our obedience in community?

Can the Church do this? Are we willing to sacrifice our own images and identities to be absorbed into a community governed by God’s law and not by our own predilections and tendencies? What is it that we need to give up? What is it that we need to adhere to?

Our God is near and He has spoken. How will we respond?