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The Absence of Awe

Sunday, March 27th, 2011 | Author:

and the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, . . . Genesis 3:6  ISR

Saw - Are you able to see what’s good?  Can you look below the skin of something and see its true nature?  Maybe you can, I can’t.  I’ve spent some time in the wilderness.  I often come across beautiful plants with apparently wonderful fruit, but I would be foolish to “see” it as food unless I knew that it would not harm me.  When I was growing up, we had a mountain ash in our backyard.  It produces amazing red berries.  But my mother sternly warned me, “Don’t you eat those.  They’re poison.”  They looked good, but they weren’t.  As far as I can tell, no human being can simply look at a plant and determine it is good for food.  So why is Havvah able to do so?

The answer, of course, is that she can’t do this either.  When she sees that the tree is good for food, she is projecting a previous evaluation.  That evaluation doesn’t come from her.  It doesn’t come from careful testing of the fruit.  It comes from trusting the word of the serpent.  Havvah is deceived before she even looks.  By the time she looks, she has already decided to believe the serpent’s statement.  The truth is that this fruit was the most poisonous substance on the planet, but the actual nature of the fruit was not the issue here.  The issue was her decision to not trust God’s word.

Doesn’t it seem absolutely incredible to you that Havvah would trust the serpent?  I mean that it is simply not believable that this woman whose very existence is the direct result of YHWH’s action, who lives in an absolute paradise, who has unmediated interaction with the Creator, could have even entertained the possibility that God didn’t speak the truth.  Does that seem reasonable to you?  How are we to explain this complete collapse of relational awareness?

We don’t have to look very far to find the answer.  Even in paradise it is possible to be indifferent to the wonder of being.  In fact, lack of awe may be the genesis of sin.  When I stop being completely amazed at the very existence of the cosmos, at my very being within it, when that sense of overwhelming presence ceases to permeate who I am, then the possibility of my own self-determination arises within me.  Suddenly I become far more important than all the evidence supports.  I have intimations of divinity, and that is enough to allow me to turn from the face of my Creator and question whether or not His word is really “good for me.”

What did Havvah see?  It’s quite impossible that she saw that the tree was good for food.  What she saw was the possibility of becoming better than what she was called to be.  What she saw was an alternate reality where she decided what was good for food.  Havvah was tempted to add to the wonder of the world by ignoring the mystery of being.

Each of us stands before the Tree.  Each of us must decide, “Is this tree good for food?”  We are surrounded by the Presence of all that we are not.  We can stand in awe of it or we can determine to add our own little bit of creation.  We can be shaped by the power of His might, or we can attempt to shape a world stamped with our mark.  It just depends on what we see.

Topical Index:  saw, food, good, Genesis 3:6, awe, ra’ah

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Torah Alignment

Saturday, March 26th, 2011 | Author:

“Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.” Acts 15:19-20  NASB

Contaminated – What’s in your refrigerator?  That might be the appropriate modern-day question to introduce James’ pronouncement.  Far too often Christian theologians have suggested that this passage eliminates all Torah requirements except the rules given to Noah.  That’s probably because most interpreters in the last millennium have ignored the context of this announcement.  We will not.  Let’s take a longer look at what James has to say.

James is Jewish (despite the Anglicized name).  He is Ya’aqob, recognized leader of the Jerusalem assembly (qehillah) of the followers of the Way.  Everything about him stems from his Jewish roots and his understanding and worship of Yeshua Ha-Mashiach.   When he speaks, he speaks from the authority of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Scriptures).  His concern is not about how his fellow countrymen become “Christians.”  His concern is about all the Gentiles who are joining the Jewish qehillah.  After listening to the discussion, he determines that only four things are really required of these Gentile converts.  He agrees with Sha’ul that outward circumcision is not a requirement.  A Gentile does not have to become a Jew (the ritual process of becoming a Jew included circumcision) in order to be a participant in the fellowship of the qehillah.  That is settled.  What a Gentile must do, however, is meet four specific requirements.  These requirements begin with the idea of pagan contamination (in Greek, alisgema, a word occurring only here in the New Testament).  Of course, Ya’aqob wasn’t speaking Greek.  So whatever he said must be related to a Jewish-Hebrew perspective.  And once we begin to look there, we find something very interesting, not found in the Genesis account of Noah.

Whoever participates in table fellowship in the qehillah has fellowship with YHWH.  The Tanakh makes it clear that table fellowship incorporates “clean” food and specific kosher rituals.[1] Gentiles who are entering the qehillah fellowship are required to participate in the table fellowship according to Tanakh practice.  They may not participate in sacrificial meals to pagan deities because table fellowship was a symbol of worship.  In other words, a person could not participate in pagan rituals and, at the same time, participate in table fellowship with YHWH.  This requirement has nothing to do with “earning” salvation.  Salvation is God’s gift.  But it has everything to do with living a life in honor of YHWH and participating in the community called apart by YWHW.  James effectively says, “You can’t keep on doing those things associated with pagan table fellowship.  You have to leave all those behind.”

Now look at the four requirements.  In the context of the first century, Jewish culture in Jerusalem, each of these four actions would have been considered signs of pagan worship (offerings to idols, sexual worship rituals, strangulation rather than kosher slaughter, drinking blood or using blood in ways other than those prescribed by God).  So James says, “None of these can be allowed,” not because he is making a pronouncement about food but because these fellowship-related behaviors are associated with idolatry.

If you are going to participate at God’s table, you need to give up your idolatrous ways.  Today, James might have a different list, a list that includes our symbols of serving other gods.  Table fellowship with YHWH comes in only one flavor – His.

So, what’s in your refrigerator?  And what’s in your heart?  Have you put aside all those actions and elements that signal idolatry in any form?  Have you determined that you will sit at God’s table according to His directions?  Or are you trying to eat from your own menu?

Topical Index:  table fellowship, pollution, alisgema, food, idolatry, Acts 15:19-20

[1] cf. 1 Samuel 9:13, Jeremiah 11:15, Haggai 2:12, Zechariah 14:21

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