Wednesday, May 01, 2019
From Cast Out To Sent Out
Icon of the banishment Adam and Eve from the Garden
This evening, I did Lectio Divina on this week's lectionary passage - John 20: 19-39 - with friend and pastor Greg West, and God seemed to gently knock me on the head and heart and strength with some stuff.
I've caught before that this story is a story of the launching of a New Creation. N.T. Wright taught me about that, specifically the significance of this being "the first day of the week." After all, it's the Omega to the story about the creative Word spoken of in the Alpha verses of the book of John. In prayer this evening, though, I was given to see a bit more.
The doors were locked. The disciples were enclosed, surrounded by walls, shut off and alienated from their very own people, their community, and their history. The bloodshed, violence, and brokenness of the world was what cast then out from honor and closed them into shame and exile. Well, this sounds a lot like the garden! In the sin and brokenness of humanity, the garden became an enclosed space from which we were exiled and excluded. We're now left enclosed in our abyss of darkness, shut off from the origins of our history
In the garden of our history, God "walked with them in the cool of the day." In the midst of this enclosure of exilic darkness, God in the flesh stands in their midst.
In the garden, humanity loses touch and trust with the God of awestruck wonder, and they reach out to grasp for a fleshly fruit of knowledge that enables them to have to rely on no one but themselves. In a place where death, darkness, distrust and fear reign, Thomas declares he won't believe unless he reaches out and grasps knowledge for himself.
Once the first woman was lured inside a place where she questioned her trust in her true beginnings and endings, she "saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired..." She then cuts a covenant into the fleshly fruit with her teeth. With an unknown horizon of deceit before her, she takes a bite. Thomas' friends, however, are not deceptive.
With unknown horizon before us, the doubting one in all of us still has a desire to remain in the midst of his friends, despite - with his biting words from a place of deep pain - cutting himself off from them and the One in whom they trust and see with their hearts, minds, strength, and eyes. "I can't be sure you're not deceiving me unless I take a bite..." Jesus appears before him and offers for him to reach out and grasp the very flesh of Life.
When Jesus shows up - and he does - the one who grasps (closes his hands around) for the only thing in which he knows he can trust for himself is overwhelmed and, notably, no longer feels the urge to grasp. He declares, in response to the world opening, enlarging, and creating call: "My Lord and my God!"
Cherubim (Uriel) with flashing sword at the garden of Eden and Titus (Dismas), the Penitent Thief carrying the cross trying to enter the garden...
In the moment of creation, while "the Spirit is upon the face of the deep, abyssmal chaos of the waters," God speaks. His breath moves, and earth and heaven take their shape. As the disciples are stilled into a mystery of awe-struck wonder and grace, Jesus speaks as though blowing a cool, refreshing breeze upon the day: "Peace be with you." Here, we see that the guarded enclosure of the disciples becomes the Temple when Jesus enters, and we remember the Garden.
From that mysterious place of wonder-struck trust, Jesus' breath of fresh air in the cool of the garden sends his people out of their self-imposed exilic enclosure of darkness and death, out where the Light of the world is shining cherubic rays of a new creative, communal order for humanity representing and basking in the presence of God.
Cast out from the garden, humanity is enslaved to a nostalgia for a lost history. We can only remember bloody scars. Jesus shows up - bearing those very scars! What can you build with shattered mirrors and nails? Blood clots but doesn't make very good glue to hold things together. Christ appears and not only restores the beginnings of our history to us in his act of re-creation in his very self but also redeems the shattered and fragmented bits that we thought were the only blood-stained pieces of mirror and nail we had left of our humanity and history.
Thus, in the life-blood of Christ, we go from cast out to sent out.
I've caught before that this story is a story of the launching of a New Creation. N.T. Wright taught me about that, specifically the significance of this being "the first day of the week." After all, it's the Omega to the story about the creative Word spoken of in the Alpha verses of the book of John. In prayer this evening, though, I was given to see a bit more.
The doors were locked. The disciples were enclosed, surrounded by walls, shut off and alienated from their very own people, their community, and their history. The bloodshed, violence, and brokenness of the world was what cast then out from honor and closed them into shame and exile. Well, this sounds a lot like the garden! In the sin and brokenness of humanity, the garden became an enclosed space from which we were exiled and excluded. We're now left enclosed in our abyss of darkness, shut off from the origins of our history
In the garden of our history, God "walked with them in the cool of the day." In the midst of this enclosure of exilic darkness, God in the flesh stands in their midst.
In the garden, humanity loses touch and trust with the God of awestruck wonder, and they reach out to grasp for a fleshly fruit of knowledge that enables them to have to rely on no one but themselves. In a place where death, darkness, distrust and fear reign, Thomas declares he won't believe unless he reaches out and grasps knowledge for himself.
Once the first woman was lured inside a place where she questioned her trust in her true beginnings and endings, she "saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired..." She then cuts a covenant into the fleshly fruit with her teeth. With an unknown horizon of deceit before her, she takes a bite. Thomas' friends, however, are not deceptive.
With unknown horizon before us, the doubting one in all of us still has a desire to remain in the midst of his friends, despite - with his biting words from a place of deep pain - cutting himself off from them and the One in whom they trust and see with their hearts, minds, strength, and eyes. "I can't be sure you're not deceiving me unless I take a bite..." Jesus appears before him and offers for him to reach out and grasp the very flesh of Life.
When Jesus shows up - and he does - the one who grasps (closes his hands around) for the only thing in which he knows he can trust for himself is overwhelmed and, notably, no longer feels the urge to grasp. He declares, in response to the world opening, enlarging, and creating call: "My Lord and my God!"
Cherubim (Uriel) with flashing sword at the garden of Eden and Titus (Dismas), the Penitent Thief carrying the cross trying to enter the garden...
From that mysterious place of wonder-struck trust, Jesus' breath of fresh air in the cool of the garden sends his people out of their self-imposed exilic enclosure of darkness and death, out where the Light of the world is shining cherubic rays of a new creative, communal order for humanity representing and basking in the presence of God.
Cast out from the garden, humanity is enslaved to a nostalgia for a lost history. We can only remember bloody scars. Jesus shows up - bearing those very scars! What can you build with shattered mirrors and nails? Blood clots but doesn't make very good glue to hold things together. Christ appears and not only restores the beginnings of our history to us in his act of re-creation in his very self but also redeems the shattered and fragmented bits that we thought were the only blood-stained pieces of mirror and nail we had left of our humanity and history.
Thus, in the life-blood of Christ, we go from cast out to sent out.
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