We are exposed.
In the last post we imagined, with difficulty, being as we were before the Fall: naked yet unashamed. We equate nakedness with shame. True shalom exists when we are fully known to one another and fully accepted and loved all the same. Sin has dealt a heavy blow to shalom. To be seen is to have our failures, misdeeds, and gross imperfections put on display. If others were to know who we really are we would be completely and utterly rejected. After all, we reject others when we find out something about them that is offensive to our sensibilities. It is obvious that others would do the same to us.
Shame is not the only problem with exposure, however. Scripture compares humanity, in its current state, to sheep. Sheep are not very high on the food chain. They are easy prey to a variety of predators and possess neither cunning nor claw to protect or defend themselves. Being that most sheep are white, they are endowed with nature's worst camouflage. In addition to being easy prey, they easily wander into precarious situations, far removed from food and water. They need community, but unlike many other animals who run together, they don't seem to recognize it. Ants, elephants, bees, lions, and wolves have no need of a pen to keep them together. Many a wolf has had an easy meal thanks to the wandering of a sheep.
In the Fall we took upon ourselves a self-centered awareness. We think of everything in terms of how it affects us, aids us, hurts us, threatens us, entertains us, or changes our situation. Where we once enjoyed the presence of God and the harmony that comes from embracing our reality as a creature made in God's image, we now know the disharmony that results from being gods unto ourselves.
This proclivity to egocentrism puts us in a precarious situation. In the church we often speak of a three-fold threat: the world, the flesh, and the Devil, though I think we have them in inverse order. We'll discuss them briefly in their logical sequence.
The Devil
Peter puts believers on alert. "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8) Jesus once warned Peter of the Enemy's intentions. "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat..." (Luke 22:31) We first came face-to-face with this Enemy in the Garden. We were innocent; he was initiating the next phase of an assault upon God himself. Having been thwarted in his initial rebellion in Heaven, he set his sights on the bearer of the Divine image and the dominion entrusted to the image-bearer. By yielding to the enticement of the Devil we adopted his character and handed over our will. We died to God yet lived in the flesh. Our relational existence was replaced by a new and unnatural self-focus. Since the Enemy knows this character all too well, he knows how to manipulate it. He is a deceiver, an accuser, and a destroyer. Whatever is destructive to what God has ordained, through lies and deception causing relationships, societies, communities, and cultures to fail, has the Devil's fingerprints. How long would you have to look for an example where one person's self-interest combined with lack of wisdom or true knowledge led to a choice that ruined a marriage, a family, a friendship, a business, an enterprise, a church, a city, or a nation? "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil...In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one..." (Ephesians 6:11, 16) He knows where to shoot and his aim is precise. Our inherent desire for self at the expense of others makes us easy targets.
The Flesh
Lest the Devil take all the blame, we are culpable as well. We make choices on the basis of our own lusts. In our fallen, broken state we take rather than give. We hurt rather than help. We serve ourselves and leave our neighbor to fend for himself. We see ourselves entitled to much and responsible for little. Our problem is not environmental, though our environment is affected by it (as we'll see momentarily). According to Jesus, "Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person...For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person..." (Matthew 15:10b-11, 19-20a)
The World
Imagine seven billion people, each individually enticed by a crafty Enemy to gratify the desires of seven billion self-deifying hearts; seven billion people simultaneously trying to be God, to orient our world and the people in it to meet our own needs and serve our desires. Some achieve a large measure of this power, and most are not largely benevolent in their use of it. At the very least the benevolence wanes as we pass through concentric spheres radiating from self: family, tribe, race, creed (religious or political), guild. The way of the world is the amassing of power and/or alignment with those who possess it (get within a sphere close enough to benefit!). See an agitating enemy and billions of willing participants and it is not difficult to understand why our world is the way it is nor to become overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem, despairing of a solution.
"O Lord, how long?"
No comments:
Post a Comment