On
our dining room wall there are photos of our children, including one of each of
them on their first days at school, which happened to be in three different
cities, Sheffield, where they were all born, Nottingham, where I was at
theological college, and Liverpool, during my curacy. What can be seen is
temporary. Who I was at birth, at seven, at fourteen, at twenty-one, at
twenty-eight, at thirty-five, at forty-two – or, at least, who I understood
myself to be, and who others took me to be – differs one from the other. Like
icebergs, only a small and melting part of who we are is visible; most of our
selves are interior, hidden as much to us as to others, buoying us up in an
eternal sea.
Today
I want to consider the temporary outer
nature, which is [beautiful in its many stages of] wasting away; the eternal inner nature, which is being
renewed day by day; and the crucial role hiding plays at the meeting-point of
the two.
Let
me set the scene for the reading from Genesis.
The human family, embodied in our first parents Adam and Eve, were given three
gifts by God: firstly, the gift of a vocation,
to enable harmony within God’s creation, characterised by fruitfulness and rest;
secondly, the gift of abundant provision, which is what fruitfulness
looks like; and thirdly the gift of limit-setting, which is actually what rest
looks like, given in order to spare us from being overwhelmed by the wonder and
mystery of life. But we, again embodied in our first parents, ate of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil; our eyes were opened to our nakedness; we
were afraid, and hid. As embodied
persons this surely includes physical
nakedness, but actually describes being overwhelmed by a glimpse into the enormous,
mysterious life we were created for, terrifyingly desired and just as terrifyingly
costly.
We
are made to be a particular person who stands in the presence of other
particular persons, including God; and who enjoy ourselves and the other as
gift. (This is what it means to be made in the likeness of the Trinity.) This being present in the presence of another
is easy in innocence, when we have no idea that it will cost us everything –
just this week, I watched a baby interact with every adult in a café – but is overwhelming
when our eyes are opened to the enormity of our own possibility and that of
every other person. When I was fourteen, all I wanted to become in time was a
husband and a father. When I became a real husband to a real wife, and a real
father to three real children – all of whom change through time – I discovered
that I hoped for something far beyond the ability of the person I have become.
The
man and the woman hide. Now, the instinct to hide is a reflex common to all animals
God has created, and learning to hide well is an essential skill. Hiding gives
us the space we need in order to closely observe, to observe ourselves as well
as others; a place where we will be safe until we are ready to step into the
presence of another person, not as an innocent who knows not what we are doing
but as one created for real relationship with real others. Indeed, hiding, done well, is good – as we will see in Jesus. But when we fail to hide well,
we fall back on hiding badly, because we have presented ourselves too soon.
The
first place the man and woman hide is among the trees of the garden. The
calling to fill the earth [provision; fruitfulness; including relationships] and subdue it – that is, calm its raging storms [limit-setting; rest; involving struggles] – has become overwhelming to them; and so they hide in that part of their vocation they can see in the
present – as gardeners of the Garden. And here they hide well, by which I mean that from their
hiding place they carefully observe God, and what they observe enables them to overcome
fear and step out from the trees.
But
in this beautiful story we also see what hiding badly does to us. The thought of filling the earth is overwhelming. Adam hides within the immediate relationship he can see in
the present - ‘the woman you gave me’. But he does so badly, the encounter
defined by blame and not delight. Fruitfulness is frustrated. The
thought of subduing the earth is also
overwhelming. Eve hides within the
immediate struggle she can see in the present, represented
by the serpent. She also hides badly, the encounter defined by deceit and not
honesty. In shifting blame [movement, with false intent] rather than owning
responsibility, rest is frustrated.
Both
male and female hide from what is invisible, or too large to see, in what
is visible: the temporary,
passing, wasting-away outer edge of our vocation
and relationships and struggles. Even though this edge is
falling away, it provides the place from which we can see the next step emerge,
the place from where we can step into our ‘being renewed’ selves rather than
being pushed unprepared.
Jesus
also hid and watched, but always hid well. He hid within his vocation: for thirty years of obscurity
as a builder, forty days in the wilderness, at the festival of Booths, in the
tomb. He hid within his relationships:
observing others with compassion before stepping from hiding to respond to a
woman ostracised by her neighbours, a woman longing for her child to be healed,
sisters weeping for their dead brother, a woman in a garden weeping for her
lord. And he hid within his struggles:
asleep in the bottom of the boat while his friends wrestle the storm that rises
within them as much as about, until he is ready to step forward and restore
calm with a word.
Hiding
is an essential skill; and God is so gracious in recognising this.
Eavesdropping as two guilty children are being questioned, can we glimpse the knowing
gaze and loving smile of a wise parent? God’s response is to re-state the vocation of humanity to enable harmony
in creation; and, in parallel promises, to re-affirm first to the woman and
then to the man that, though their labour will be hard, they will ultimately know
both fruitfulness
[met desire] and rest [under the protection of human relationship, in life;
under the protection of the earth, in death]. In three successive declarations,
the eternal perspective on vocation,
on relationships, and on struggles are revealed, beneath the
surface of what is presently visible.*
We
hide, holding on to a role in the community that has, in part, defined us,
before we let it go and step into the next chapter in the story of our inner
nature. We hide, holding on to our children as, well, children, before we know them, and are known by them, as adults. We
hide, holding on to perceived enemies [including ourselves], before we dare to
meet them as potential friends.
Letting
go of what is temporary and stepping into the next temporary season has its own
timing. This is a mystery; and mystery
is not meant to be understood but,
rather, to be experienced. Wherever
you are hiding today, whatever immediate past you must let go of, whatever
immediate future you must take hold of, God comes, looking for you, wanting to
know you and to be known by you in that intimate moment where we disappear and
appear. Parent and child, caught up in a game of hide-and-seek. It is a
beautiful encounter – and it can be yours today.
[*By
such steps, the man and the woman are able to move out from the Garden into the
world that must be tamed. Finally, God sets an angel to prevent them going back,
for hiding is instinctive to us, and while it stops us from charging ahead too
soon, it can also prevent us from stepping out at all. We can never hide in the same
place twice, for once a hiding place has served its necessary purpose, it is
lost to us forever.]
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