This World Is Not My Home
I am not asking You to take them out of the world, but to keep them away from the evil one. John 17:15 NASB
Take them out – I don’t know about you, but I would just as soon have had Yeshua skip this request. In fact, in my earlier years I would think to myself, “Okay, I got it. Jesus is my savior. So why doesn’t he take me straight to heaven as soon as I make my confession of faith? Why make it so difficult?” I’ve given up that sentiment. Apparently getting to heaven isn’t the plan, despite that favorite Christian song, “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through.”
As we were reminded previously, ḥesed, i.e., interconnectedness, is fundamental and obligatory in the biblical world. “The idea of interdependence of individuals is basic in Judaism.”[1] It also implies that I am not just passing through. I am here to stay for as long as it takes. Heaven is on the way here where God’s kingdom will eventually be fully established on earth, as the prayer says. The bottom line is this: we’re not getting out of here any time soon. This means that my personal utilitarian goals (i.e., making the world a better place for me) are also part of the divine directive. I should take care of myself. But they just aren’t exclusive. I’m not here to just take care of myself. Since this world is really my home—and yours—learning how to make it better for us is the goal, and that means rejecting the Platonic dualism that separates the spiritual from the physical.
“Hence compliance with the principle of hesed is not only mandatory but useful as well with respect to the furtherance of our own good. Judaism has never felt embarrassed by this utilitarian motif, if and when it helps man to reach the ethical decision. Our world formula (in contradistinction to the Christian ethic) has not rejected the naturalistic system of morality, despite the fact that it has been the lodestar of most agnostics. Judaism accepted the here-and-now order of things and events, and sanctioned the creative efforts of man to shape his own destiny and conditions of physical existence and to promote his material welfare. It did not divorce the ethical motif from the human being’s utilitarian nature.”[2]
Last night the Christian world celebrated the entry of God in human flesh into this world. Of course, entry implies exit, so the birth isn’t quite as important as the ascension, even if for some reason the world celebrates the birth with greater emphasis. Maybe that’s because the holiday was once a pagan festival and old thinking dies hard. At any rate, once we accept the biblical truth that this world is the only place we can work out our salvation, we might find that the Bethlehem story isn’t quite as important as we thought. What matters is what Yeshua says in the prayer in the Garden. “Don’t take them out. Just keep them away from evil.” The work of ḥesed, the task of nurturing the interconnections between all of us and the rest of God’s creation, happens in this concrete reality—in preparation for the ideal of the Kingdom to arrive. Bethlehem introduces the last leader of the restoration program. It’s all going to happen here.
Topical Index: ḥesed, Kingdom, utilitarian, John 17:15
[1] Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Family Redeemed: Essays on Family Relationships (KTAV Publishing House, 2000), p. 133.
[2] Ibid.
And yet there is in fact an illegitimate “usurper” that acquired a “claim” up and against our God-given mandate through his deception, and who, according to the God-breathed witness that testifies of God’s loving faithfulness (ḥesed) in relationship with his fallen and culturally conditioned people (sounds like our experience in this present age of “occupying”), works his evil intent by employing other elements of the spiritual order (stoicheia) in opposition to God.
Beset by sin, the order of humanity that comes by natural generation through the “first Adam” remains bound to this illegitimate scheme— unless they are liberated by the work of God through his Christ on the cross, and are thereby freed from this bondage by incorporation into this “second Adam” through faith (ĕmûnâ).