My Questions About American Religion #2 - The way we tell the story (Part B)

I want to continue this idea just because I see it as so core to the rest of everything...

The Hermeneutical idea driving this discussion is wrestling with the implication that our story starts in Genesis 1 not in Genesis 3.  While this sounds simple enough, the reality of this is HUGE in how we tell the story.

I want to point out that no matter where we choose to start, we are telling the same story.  There is not a right story and a wrong story.  The goal is not to get anyone to admit fault or feel bad about how they have told the story up to this point.

The goal is to consider what implications come from the way we tell the story.

Just to restate something from the last post... When we start our story in Genesis 1, we start with a good God who has a good purpose for this world here and now and is inviting us to partner with Him in the redemption of all things.  When we start our story in Genesis 3, we are starting our story with the fall of man. This makes us begin with all the ways in which we have failed to live up to God's standard. That forces us to tell the story from a certain metric that leads people down a path with its own set of implications.

To revisit the parenting illustration, my simple question is, does that work in truly transforming people from broken to whole? Or is the focus of this discussion about making them right as opposed to wrong?

And my follow up question to that is, which one does God care about? Does God desire us to be right as opposed to wrong, or whole as opposed to broken? And if you are trying to answer, "Both," you are missing the question. We must focus on one or the other because if right is equal to whole, then it makes no difference how we get there as long as we are right. But if wholeness is the objective (which it is), then we must bring people into a space where they can actually experience healing and freedom.

By the way, in order to do this well we must deal with things within our own hearts that keep us broken and fearful.  There are so many reasons why we share the "Gospel" (we will talk about that later as well) with others and very few of them are actually rooted in God's agenda. We are going to have to get real with that before anything else matters.  But I think this is a place to start THAT process as well.

Just a few implications to get you started thinking:
If you start your story in Genesis 3 you have to spend most of your time talking about the removal of sin. But if you start your story in Genesis 1, you spend most of your time talking about the restoration of peace. And I want to say this again... I am not saying we don't talk about sin. But sin is able to take its proper place in the story.

What we must always remember is that sin is not the problem for us. Rebellion is the problem. Sin is an extension of that. What are we rebelling against? God's ordering of the universe and this earth specifically. So perhaps, the better conversation centers on understanding God's agenda for the earth and how we are expected to be a part of that, rather than spending our time talking about all the ways we fall short of that agenda.

This is important for many reasons, but I will give a couple here. First, you don't have to tell me that I have messed up God's agenda, I already know that. Second, as soon as you try to make me "wrong" rather than just inviting me to a better reality, I am immediately on the defensive and begin fighting for my rebellion rather than moving towards my own personal healing and restoration.

If you start your story in Genesis 3 you must spend a great deal of time talking about getting "out of this place." The slippery slope here leads us to a place where we begin to see the earth itself - rocks, dirt, water - as evil. And we want out of here. And why wouldn't we? So, unintentionally, we promote this idea that the real action is somewhere else.  One simple spur of this is that if this is true, I do not want to be a Christian right now.  I want to wait. Because all we can do is say yes to Jesus then "hold on til the end." Well, I for one want to "hold on" as little time as possible. None of us would come right out and say this, but let's be honest, this is often how we feel.

If we begin our story in Genesis 1, we can focus on our role in God's work here and now.  We are not waiting for "some glad morning," we are expectant about God's work here and now, moment by moment.

This has extreme fingers for how we talk about ministry and doing the work of God in general. Churches have a tendency to want to take all the best Christian leaders in the world and hire them to work for the church.  And people who work in a "secular" job (another distinction raised by this conversation) feel like they "only make money to give to the people who are doing the real work."

I would suggest that Genesis 1 invites us to consider that "the earth is the Lord's and EVERYTHING in it." And that perhaps many of the distinctions we make between sacred and secular are not only untrue, but they are counter-productive to God's restorative plan for the world.

Again, I am only scratching the surface, but space does not allow for us to explore all the different places that this plays out.  Perhaps, you have more implications to consider? I would love to read about where else you see this potentially playing out.

May you be filled with the life that beginning in the beginning can bring.