Paul
wrote, we believe and so we speak. That isn’t just a description of Christian
witness in the world. It is a profound observation into the human condition. What
we believe determines our speech – and how we speak reveals what we believe.
What we believe about God, and human beings, is revealed in the tone of voice
we hear and use.
Turn
with me to Genesis chapter 3. This is
part of our Origins myth. By myth, I do not mean an entertaining tale, or a
downright lie, but an account of the world that is so deeply true that it
transcends its original context and expands to fill all of time and space.
If
this were a play, the stage directions for this scene would begin [noises off]. God is walking in the
garden at the time of the evening breeze. And God calls out to the humans,
‘Where are you?’
When
you read those words, what tone do you hear? Is it playful, like a parent
playing hide-and-seek with their children? Is it enquiring, like a friend who
has called you on your mobile phone because they expected to meet you at a
certain time and place, and can’t spot you – are you delayed? Is there an edge
to it, a busy person somewhat exasperated to be kept waiting? You see, it
matters: because what you hear reveals what you believe concerning God’s
fundamental disposition towards us, and about our fundamental position in
relation to God.
God
calls out, ‘Where are you?’ This is not a distant God who has created the world
and left, having more important things to be concerned with than mere people.
And it isn’t an all-seeing all-knowing Big Brother, who has filled the garden
with security cameras. This God is genuinely interested in getting to know both
the garden and the humans.
Was
asking this question a new experience for God? Or had God called out, ‘Where
are you?’ before, as he came looking for us? Was the difference not so much
that the humans were temporarily hidden as before, but that they were
deliberately hiding, in the hope of not being discovered?
How
we hear God matters; as does how we hear the humans. The man says, ‘I was
afraid’. Note that fear was not
necessarily a new experience. The man has already known loneliness; has already
experienced being overwhelmed by the enormity of the task of tending the
garden, so needing a helper. The gift of man and woman clinging-together in the
face of the enormity of the world is rooted in an earlier scene. But now, the
fear relates to himself, to his nakedness. It is a fear of being ourselves – he
is literally not at home in his own skin – without something external that
projects a character into the world.
This
is new. And God responds, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten
from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ And, again, what tone do
you hear? Anger? Or genuine interest? Or concern? This is fundamental to how we
view God, goes towards what we believe God’s disposition to be towards us and
others. And as we believe, so we speak.
If
you believe God is angry with you, you will believe that to be true in relation
to others. And if God is angry – as fundamental disposition – towards others,
then we ought to be, too.
If
you believe God is genuinely interested in you, you will believe that to be
true in relation to others. And if God is genuinely interested in others, then
we ought to be, too.
If
you believe God is concerned for you, you will believe that to be true in
relation to others. And if God is concerned for others, then we ought to be,
too.
But
it is hard to be genuinely interested in, or concerned for, others if we
believe that God is fundamentally angry with us all. That isn’t to say that God
doesn’t ever get angry – as the story unfolds, we will see what makes God
angry, and how God responds in ways that are not volatile and unpredictable,
but measured and dependable.
How
we hear God matters; as does how we hear the humans. The man says, ‘The woman
whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ The
woman says, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’ What do you hear? Is this
blame-shifting: the man shifting blame on to the woman, or, indeed, on to God;
the woman shifting blame on to the serpent? Or, are they genuinely trying to
work out what has gone on: to make sense and find meaning? Or, is it all these things?
The
wonderful thing about myth is that it is so deeply true that it is big enough
to embrace our humanity. When we read these verses, we need to resist the
temptation to indulge in caricatures: ‘typical man, blaming the woman!’ or
‘typical woman, seducing the man!’ What we see here is not typical man and typical woman
but archetypal humans: complex, and
often conflicted, in our motivations.
God
says to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ And, again, what tone do
you hear? Does God have an angry voice, an I’ll-give-you-something-to-really-be-afraid-of-young-lady!
voice? Or is it the voice of anguish, because God knows the consequences?
God’s
response is to curse – that is, to severely restrict the freedom of – the
serpent. And if you read on from where we left the story hanging, if you pay
close attention, you will see that while God goes on to address the woman and
the man, God does not curse them. God curses the serpent, not the humans. What
follows, for the woman and the man – for humanity – is not punishment. God sets
out the inevitable consequences of what has occurred – that is to say, God
shares with them divine knowledge. And while this is not an omnipotent God, any
more than an omnipresent and omniscient God [those ideas come from Greek
philosophy, not the Bible], God sets out the ways in which, out of divine mercy
and compassion and determined commitment to humanity, those consequences will
be moderated. But that is a story for another sermon.
Turn,
if you will, to our Gospel reading. In it, Jesus is accused of representing a
god: Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. In refuting this, Jesus gives this god
not a name but a title, the Satan, or Accuser: the (possibly self-appointed)
Counsel for the Prosecution in the court of heaven. Jesus makes it clear that
he comes, according to the character of his God, to oppose and utterly defeat
the Accuser. He goes on to clearly identify himself as being with and for the
offspring of the woman, in enmity with the offspring of the serpent. For those
of us who are Jesus’ disciples, Jesus’ family, this also speaks to how we hear
the voices of God and of the man and of the woman: what we believe, and so what
we speak.
Finally,
let us revisit Paul, who tells us that the God who went looking for his friends
in the garden will not let even death get in the way of bringing us into his
presence (verse 14). Not even death, the ultimate consequence. And not just us,
but – through what we believe and so speak – more and more people (verse 15).
We have been caught-up in a story of being searched-out and found and
reconciled. Reconciled, not only with God, and with one another, but within
ourselves. Remember the fear, of being naked, of not being at home in our own
skin? The glory we had from the beginning was too much to bear; but God is
preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure – that will not
crush us, but provide us with an eternal home, or body to inhabit. For now,
perhaps, we stand at the door and look in, unable to comprehend. But this hope
wells up to fill all of time and space, and beyond: it is uncontainable.
That
is the glorious God whose Spirit speaks to our spirit, who draws us out from
our hiding-places, from start to finish. The God who frees and restores us. And
that is truly, and in so many ways, good news.
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