in the beginning…

…was a vast expanse of something because there had to be something but it was just around and there and not doing a lot and all messy and chaotic and out of that God – our god, you know god, God, Yahweh – he brought life from this amorphous mass of stuff not that he was a part of it – he was definitely apart from it – because he wasn’t made and always was and he was there and it was there and he was all mixed up in it and we know that he is in charge and so from that mass of something we don’t understand he made life which we understand a bit more though it is still a mystery and in a way it is like he

b r e a t h e d

and s p o k e

and is like the way a garden comes together after it has been left untended for ages and ages and the weeds grow and you think it can’t possibly be fruitful and then the farmer comes and works on it with a lot of breathing and creating and some resting and at the end of the day (or week) (or season) something beautiful has become of the chaotic mess and we like to tell stories about all that and about the people who were first here and we like to reflect on their lives and how they started so

close to God

and ended up so

far                                       away

and when we read the story we realise that the story isn’t about those people though we give them names like Adam and Eve  or about the places they found themselves like Eden or erm, Ur, or the things they built like the babble tower in Babylon or the floating square box full of animals and it isn’t about how God made all of these things and places and people and real-time 24-style history the story is ultimately and mainly and superbly and undeniably and historically about

god

God

Yahweh

and his character, his ability to plan and for the plans to go wrong and for him to get huffy but not so huffy that he throws it all away because his character as we learn is that there is always another chance another way there is always a blessing to replace and overthrow a curse there is always grace to find and blessing to pour and there is always another human to choose to be a part of the plan and not apart from the plan

tower of babble

and what a wonderful beginning and what crazy stories and what interesting archetypes of people from the good to the bad the farming to the urban the faithful to the sex-crazed the clothed to the naked the punished and the punishing to the blessed and the continually blessing and and the ever-faithful and the

curiously creative

and the immoral and the right-thinking and the stubborn and the hurt and the desperate and the slave and the master and the mother of the murderer and the murdered and the hopeless and the hopeful  and the warrior and the peacemaker and the friend and the enemy and the loyalty of family and good decisions and bad decisions and the promises fulfilled from generation to generation

 

and I have only got to chapter 15 of Genesis.

Phew.

detached and detaching. period.

I wonder if in Jesus’ day they had bored young people hanging out around the synagogue climbing on the roof and causing trouble?  This week my new developing role of informal detached youth worker (known locally as “The Church Man”) turned into detaching youth from the church roof by getting them a ladder – they were v embarrassed to be stuck…

blaming eve?

Well, we had prayed for ways to engage with the young people on the street. We wanted to be the centre of the community. This wasn’t quite what we had in mind. Nor were the broken windows. But now neighbours have been asking for my name and phone number so they can tell me if kids are on the roof. There’s nothing quite like shared annoyance to get people talking…

Whilst talking with the kids I was asked some spectacular questions:

• Do you own the church?
  
• Why are there earthquakes?
  
• Are you a paedo?
  
• How did Jesus defeat death?
  
• Can Jesus see me in the shower?
  
• Will you crucify me so I know what it was like?
  
• Can I ring the church bell?
  
• How can Mary have been a virgin?
  
• Can Jesus see you and Church Lady in the bedroom?
• What is the Church of England?
  
• Why do bad things happen?
  
• Is it Eve’s fault we have periods?

It wasn’t my answers they were interested in. Thankfully, because saying that I am a boy and therefore don’t have periods probably wasn’t the answer they were looking for. Allowing questions, not being shocked or angry or annoyed, listening, laughing… talking to them human to human, accepting that they are pushing boundaries and want to get in trouble and not allowing myself to get pulled in that direction…

In my naive and glass-half-full mind, talking to them as adults and showing them love and respect will have a positive effect, will mean they muck around on the street but respect other people’s lives and properties and leave the roof alone. Jesus had brief encounters that changed lives, after all.

Maybe I’ll still keep watch though.

Now, back to musing on the Eve and periods question…
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blaming the goat

blame the goat

I am always at it. Blame the goat! You know, that thing we do when we make judgements about people, and always say ‘them’ – that imaginary ‘they’, the third person I remember learning in French that always seemed to be entirely irregular. What third person? Well, there’s you, there’s me and there’s ‘them’, ‘the other’. The goat. And they are always to blame.

When society appears to be falling apart (has it ever not seemed like that?! ask an older person about the war…), we are so quick to blame ‘them’. Whether it is politicians, single-parents, terrorists, religious fundamentalists, Chelsea fans… the dodgy family a few doors down, the farmers, foreigners…Sometimes we can all get a bit Daily Mail and point the finger of blame. Goats, the lot of ‘em.

We like having someone to blame. It makes us feel secure. The problem is labelled and dealt with. Maybe not solved, but there is a door to lay blame at. And it’s not mine. So we can make scapegoats of social workers if there is an abuse going on that wasn’t acted on as we would like, even if life and family intervention is a whole lot more complicated than that allows for; we can blame ‘Muslim terrorists’ for wanting to destroy our way of life, especially if that means we don’t have to hold a mirror to ourselves and ask why.  We can pin the whole blame for Lockerbie on one man, who is now dying of cancer, as if he alone was responsible; we can blame ‘the bankers’ whilst forgetting perhaps it was us who enjoyed the easy credit as much as they allowed it.

The thing is though, with the Jewish-Christian lens we look through, it is much harder for us to point at others and say ‘them’. Instead, we point at ourselves and say ‘we’. Someone once (annoyingly, to be honest) said that when you point one finger at someone, three fingers point back at you. Probably annoying cos I was the one pointing. Anyway… If I am a part of society, and society is producing terrorists, then I am partly to blame. If I am a part of society, and society is producing overweight, under-active teenagers having too much sex (is than an oxymoron?), then I am partly to blame. If I am a part of society and society is producing paedophiles and perpetrators of abuse, then I am partly to blame.

Ouch.

But… but… it’s not me, I didn’t do it, I am a good person, how can it be me? How, indeed. Well, we each may not feel we contribute to things we disapprove of, but we are a part of it, simply by being there. To say otherwise would be to be a grain of sand on the beach and deny you were part of the beach, or a raindrop splashing in a puddle and claiming to be from a different storm. The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, whether a literal account of real people or a allegory laden with meaning, points us to this. As humans, we are together, one – we all looked longingly at the tree, we all offered the fruit, we all ate. So there is no them, only us.

Does that make us feel hopeless, or hopeful? Hopeful (I hope) because God does not cruise earth searching for individuals to rescue like some kind of cosmic kerb-crawler, but he drives a huge ocean liner (mixed metaphor!) so full of space and grace and says to us all, as you all share the guilt so you can also all share the grace, you can all be redeemed, you can all come aboard. This is wonderful stuff! Though to many will seem unnecessary, because still theyf blaming other people and feeling better about ourselves. we (oops) will cling to the life-raft o

But we no longer need the scapegoat, which comes from Leviticus 16, when an actual goat took on the sins of the community and was sent to its death. And we no longer need to shoulder them ourselves either. Because God as Jesus came to take that burden from us, to painfully and wholly free us from the guilt our human nature ties us to. But, interestingly and so importantly, not then to remove us from the society of which we are a guilty-but-free part, but sends us back there to disrupt and irritate the guilt, to be light in the dark, flowers in the desert, love in the blame, a peaceful voice amidst the finger-pointing in anger.To be part of the story of the redeeming of creation that his resurrection began.

So the challenge to them us is to live as us, not us and them, however painful and illogical it seems. We are them. They are us. Live deeply and be free. Most of all, free the goat.

(p.s. be part of freeing the goat without needing to keep checking my blog, by clicking on the new ‘subscribe via email’ link on the right- it will let you know when there’s a new post to read so you don’t have to keep checking)