Redefining the beginning
This week is on Romans 4:7-12:
Paul was writing to the Romans. People at that time had pretty much filtered their view of God through the idea that their connectedness with him started with circumcision. To them, a man who hadn't been circumcised could not know God. Knowing God was being Jewish, which was being descended from Abraham and being circumcised like Abraham was circumcised. (There's probably a lot more to it than that, so forgive my religious/historical butchery here.)
Paul turns their world view on its side. The world didn't begin at the point where people believed it did. God existed before circumcision, and knew people personally before circumcision. Therefore, if circumcision was some kind of magic ritual, none of that could have been possible.
People had clearly chosen to only start paying attention part way into the story. God goes back way further than that. And therefore, their envelope of experience was too small to be making sweeping statements like they had.
We do this ourselves. Maybe it's a religious background that puts God in an easily marketed box. Or maybe it's a background of heathenism or atheism that views him via pop culture stereotypes of Christianity or doctrines of other religions. None of us have the whole story, and all of us make mistakes based on what we "know" to be true. If you're pointing at "the religious people," you're pointing at yourself. Everyone has a set of beliefs they live by, and some of those beliefs will always be founded on incomplete or incorrect information.
The people Paul was writing to, the people who were further along in the faith and more influential, had lived their whole lives in the old testament, under the old covenant, which was based on the law God had given to Moses. Their view of God was filtered through that experience. They had gotten old testament tunnel vision!
Paul's message to them, and to us, is that God is bigger than that. The circumcision thing wasn't something that existed from the beginning of time. It was added. Therefore, the relationship with God is not in the context of circumcision, but circumcision was inside of a stage in mankind's relationship with God. Which is bigger? God, of course.
It seems obvious to us, because we're mostly Gentiles, who haven't practiced religious circumcision ever, especially not in the last couple thousand years. But that's not who Paul was discussing circumcision with. We have to look at this from the shocked perspective of the people steeped in it. For us, the shocking statements might be about permanent church buildings, professional clergy, rehearsed worship, enforced "tithing," or any number of things which have been sacred to us as a religious collective, but which are neither eternal nor related in any functional way to our relationship with God.
If you want to go back to the beginning, it was just Adam (containing Eve) in God's garden. There was no ritual for connecting with God, no prerequisites for faith, or special forms of address. There was God, and below him was man, and below him was the rest of creation. It doesn't get any simpler than that. And that's just the beginning of the story of "us." God goes back to the unimaginable void, full of chaos and nothing. Try making a doctrinal harness out of that!
Tradition sells itself as an unbroken chain carrying back to some ancestral time. But God exists and has always existed before that. Ever since the first man, God has been with us. The real tradition, the most natural state for us, is a perfect friendship with God. Before the first marriage, or the first church was built, or the first town was named, God was talking with mankind, living among us. Jesus died in order to cast off those chains and return us back to our original state with God. We didn't just start with Abraham or Moses. We've been doing this since Adam.
“Blessed are those
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed are those
whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”
Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
Paul was writing to the Romans. People at that time had pretty much filtered their view of God through the idea that their connectedness with him started with circumcision. To them, a man who hadn't been circumcised could not know God. Knowing God was being Jewish, which was being descended from Abraham and being circumcised like Abraham was circumcised. (There's probably a lot more to it than that, so forgive my religious/historical butchery here.)
Paul turns their world view on its side. The world didn't begin at the point where people believed it did. God existed before circumcision, and knew people personally before circumcision. Therefore, if circumcision was some kind of magic ritual, none of that could have been possible.
People had clearly chosen to only start paying attention part way into the story. God goes back way further than that. And therefore, their envelope of experience was too small to be making sweeping statements like they had.
We do this ourselves. Maybe it's a religious background that puts God in an easily marketed box. Or maybe it's a background of heathenism or atheism that views him via pop culture stereotypes of Christianity or doctrines of other religions. None of us have the whole story, and all of us make mistakes based on what we "know" to be true. If you're pointing at "the religious people," you're pointing at yourself. Everyone has a set of beliefs they live by, and some of those beliefs will always be founded on incomplete or incorrect information.
The people Paul was writing to, the people who were further along in the faith and more influential, had lived their whole lives in the old testament, under the old covenant, which was based on the law God had given to Moses. Their view of God was filtered through that experience. They had gotten old testament tunnel vision!
Paul's message to them, and to us, is that God is bigger than that. The circumcision thing wasn't something that existed from the beginning of time. It was added. Therefore, the relationship with God is not in the context of circumcision, but circumcision was inside of a stage in mankind's relationship with God. Which is bigger? God, of course.
It seems obvious to us, because we're mostly Gentiles, who haven't practiced religious circumcision ever, especially not in the last couple thousand years. But that's not who Paul was discussing circumcision with. We have to look at this from the shocked perspective of the people steeped in it. For us, the shocking statements might be about permanent church buildings, professional clergy, rehearsed worship, enforced "tithing," or any number of things which have been sacred to us as a religious collective, but which are neither eternal nor related in any functional way to our relationship with God.
If you want to go back to the beginning, it was just Adam (containing Eve) in God's garden. There was no ritual for connecting with God, no prerequisites for faith, or special forms of address. There was God, and below him was man, and below him was the rest of creation. It doesn't get any simpler than that. And that's just the beginning of the story of "us." God goes back to the unimaginable void, full of chaos and nothing. Try making a doctrinal harness out of that!
Tradition sells itself as an unbroken chain carrying back to some ancestral time. But God exists and has always existed before that. Ever since the first man, God has been with us. The real tradition, the most natural state for us, is a perfect friendship with God. Before the first marriage, or the first church was built, or the first town was named, God was talking with mankind, living among us. Jesus died in order to cast off those chains and return us back to our original state with God. We didn't just start with Abraham or Moses. We've been doing this since Adam.
Comments
Post a Comment