THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Some say the Garden of Eden the figment of the fertile imaginations of a biblical writer who was trying to convey a religious truth. Others say that it was an actual place inhabited for a time by the first man and first woman. But does it really matter?

Most biblical scholars look upon the first eleven chapters of Genesis more as parables than actual fact. Most fundamentalists look upon Adam and Eve, the Garden, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark, the Tower of Babel as real live people and events. It doesn’t really matter. Want to believe they’re parables? Fine. Just live out what they mean to teach. Want to believe the literal fact? Fine. Just don’t believe. Live out that belief.

That’s what is essential to all biblical truth and teaching: that we live it out. Take the Garden of Eden as an example. What does it teach and what does it mean? Parable or fact aside, the story says something very important to you and me. This is what I think it says, at least in part:

The Garden of Eden, as it is portrayed in Genesis, was paradise, heaven on earth. The inhabitants, call them Adam and Eve, had absolutely everything they could possibly want that would make them happy. Everything. It was all there. We don’t know what was all there; but whatever everything was, it was all there.

In the biblical Garden Adam and Eve had absolutely everything they could ever want to make them happy. But guess what? That “everything” didn't make them happy. They wanted something more. And when the biblical writer says that in their search for happiness they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he is telling us that that act of disobedience was the beginning of mankind’s discovery of what brings true happiness.

No, disobedience doesn’t bring happiness. What it brought for Adam and Eve was getting booted out of the Garden, woman bearing children in pain and man having to sweat in order to survive. And, believe it or not, that was the best thing that ever happened to mankind. When God closed the gate to the Garden, man and woman finally found happiness, finally discovered paradise.

For they found each other. They found out that happiness/paradise does not consist in having everything one’s heart desires but in having someone to love and care for. That’s what makes work, even with all the sweat and pain that is sometimes involves, worthwhile. We are doing it for someone we love and who loves us and not because it can or will bring them or us things to possess. That’s what makes the pain of childbirth bearable. It is shared by husband and wife. The physical pain is hers. He shares in it because of his love for her.

Yes. the best thing that ever happened to mankind was that our ancestors lost the Garden. For what they found, and what we must find, is that paradise, heaven on earth, consists in loving another and being loved in return. Things, possessions, just won’t do it. They can't. To cry because a loved one is in pain is understandable. To cry over possessions lost or cry because we can’t have something we want is tragic.

The Story of the Garden of Eden – real or parable, your choice – is a good reminder that real happiness is found in people not possessions. God help us if our possessions ever become more important than another person, any person.

THE GREAT CANDLE-SNUFFER

 A friend of mine of the Senior-citizen variety, one who, when he opens his daily paper, turns first to the obituaries to see if any more of his friends have gone on to their eternal reward—this friend of mine likens life and death to a candle; each of us is one. And we go on glowing until the Great Candle-Snuffer in the Sky goes "WHHH."

Well, I've never heard it, death, explained quite that way before. It's a good analogy at any rate. God is in charge. When it comes time to be our time, that's it. And God's the one who puts out the fire, blows out the flame. God's in charge of death just as God is in charge of life.

So if we look at life and death that way, we have two choices, a negative and a positive, about how we can live our life. The negative, as the term implies, is the bad, the wrong choice. Life lived negatively as regards the GCS is one in which we're constantly looking around awaiting our turn. The fear of the dark, the fear of the lights going out syndrome. Growing older means growing towards death. And it means not living. It means we're busy about dying.

On the other hand, the positive side of the candle analogy means that we're busy about living. Sure, our candle will get snuffed someday, maybe someday soon, maybe before we're ready. But that is not our concern. Our concern is to make sure our candle burns brightly up there on the lampstand and not under the bushel basket. It'll burn slower under the basket, of course. No ill winds will get to it there causing it to burn almost out of hand.

But it can't be seen under the basket. And candles are to be seen so that they can lead the way. Besides candles under a basket can go out just as easily and just as quickly from lack of air. They suffocate to death.

So it can be with us. We need air to live. Our flames of life need air to breathe. Sure, sometimes it may be that our life is burning out of control – all manner of winds, good and ill, are blowing at us, around us, wearing us down so much so that we're tempted to hide for a moment under some basket to get some rest.

But that's not what candles are for—remember? Yes, it's risky to stand out there in the wind, to get blown hither and thither, to say by our light: "Follow me; I’ll show the way." But – need I say it again? – that's what candles are for.

A good baptismal custom is to present the newly baptized with a small candle symbolic of the Easter Candle. It is a reminder that as a Christian we are to be the light of the world. We are, by our very life, to show others what it means to live a life of faith in Jesus Christ, to be the light in this sometimes dark and windy world.

And that light of ours is to glow brightly until it is blown out by God. Yes, it can go out if we don't give it enough fresh air. This fresh air comes from making sure we don't hide our light, our faith, but live it. And it also comes from renewing that air around us through learning more about our faith.

Okay: I'm beating around the bushel basket: Life, our life, is to be lived fully at all times. It is to be lived in faith, not fear. And it is to be lived knowing that when we’ve done all that God has asked us to do, when we've lit the way by our life, God will blow out that flame and give us a new life with God forever.

FAITH PLUS

Faith alone is not enough. Not even faith plus hope plus love. That’s not enough. In theory these three may be what we need to have in order to lead a Christian life. But theories, even facts, only go so far. When reality is played out, something more is usually necessary. That something, at least as far as our faith-hope-love is concerned, is patience. Patience, that which allows us to keep the faith when it is all too easy to give up on God because our prayers are not being answered as quickly or in the manner in which we would like. Patience: that which gives us the strength to go on, knowing, in spite of everything to the contrary, that there is a future to hope in. Patience: that which enables us to keep on giving of ourself to the other even when the other slaps the other cheek again and again.

Patience, it seems to me, is what gives us the ability to be a people, a person of faith, hope and love. That is not to say that patience is a greater virtue than these three. It is not. A supremely patient person may simply be an idiot: one who gets kicked in the teeth for no good reason and just takes it, also for no good reason. Or s/he may be oblivious to what is going on and/or could care less.

No, patience is the strengthening agent of faith—hope—love. It allows us to put all things into perspective rather than going off half-cocked in every direction. With it we can keep the faith, hang on to hope and learn to love. Without it: disaster.

A patient in a hospital needs patience. Faith in the doctors, hope for recovery, and love for one’s own self-worth are important. But the healing process is always slow. An impatient patient delays and can even prevent altogether physical healing.

The same is true not only for spiritual healing in particular but for the spiritual (Christian) life in general. We certainly need to have faith in God. That’s a given. No faith in God: no faith. We believe God can and will answer our prayers; but in God’s own time and in God’s own way. Thus we must be patient.

Even if today is good, we always hope that tomorrow will be even better. If today is bad we hope tomorrow will be not so bad: better, unless, of course, we have no faith. If it is not better, that which will keep us from despair is patience. That doesn’t mean we’re laid back. It means that we give God the time to do God’s thing while we do our thing: hang in there patiently, giving even more of ourself—which is what love is all about. Impatient love is a contradiction in terms. Love is always patient (as St. Paul reminds) — by definition. Love takes time to grow. That’s why patience is necessary.

But it is never easy. Never. That’s because we need to be impatiently patient. Sounds crazy, I know. But look at it this way: we have to be impatiently patient with God. On the one hand, we have to give God time to do God’s will. On the other, we have to keep bugging God to do it. Same with hope: sure, we believe, even know, the bad will get better, the pain will lessen, the wound will heal. But hurry up, will you, God. And God will, hurry it up. We just have to keep banging on God’s door.

Same with love, we give of ourself. The other isn’t getting the message. So we give more and more, sometimes just because we’re impatient for a response. And that may be the only way to get the message across: to overwhelm the other with love. Isn’t that how Jesus did it? There still and always will remain these three: faith, hope and love—plus impatient patience.

PEACE AMONG PANDEMONIUM

'Tis the season for pandemonium: the rushing here and there, to and fro, from wherever to whatever, all in the name of getting ready for Christmas, preparing for the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace. It's almost a contradiction in terms: peace among pandemonium.

And yet, when we think about it, when we get to the deep theological roots of what this season and what the Christmas celebration are all about, they are indeed about the finding of peace among pandemonium.

My dictionary tells me that "pandemonium" means uproar, and utter confusion. My Greek reminds me that the word means a place where all the devils live. My Literature Course reminds that it was the worst place in hell in Milton's Paradise Lost. Not a very pretty picture is it?

Sometimes, sad to say, the season almost seems like hell, what with all the demands we impose upon ourselves: we impose, not society, not the church, not anyone. We impose them upon ourselves. Yes, there are those temptations to listen to all those devils vying to get our time, our attention, our money, maybe even our soul. But we're not obliged to listen or give in.

So, amid all this uproar and utter confusion, we desperately search for peace, for quiet, for a semblance of sense. We don't have to look very far, of course. We only have to look beyond the pandemonium to the One who came to make sense of it all, to bring that peace which surpasses all our understanding: Jesus.

The peace of God is not the opposite of uproar and confusion. The peace of God is found among all the uproar and confusion; or, as Catherine Marshall reminds, "to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart." 

No, finding peace among pandemonium is not and never will be easy. But it is not something that is found anyway. It is something that is made or discovered. If we go looking for peace, we'll never find it. We have to make the place and space in our lives for peace to become alive. Otherwise, all those devils that fill our lives will never stop their uproar and noise.

Advent is not simply a time for preparing for the celebration of the Birth of the Prince of Peace. It is also, and perhaps more importantly, a time for making room in our hearts and lives for that peace to become a reality, a daily reality. That won't be easy, as we have all discovered. But as we have all also discovered, when we make those moments for peace to reign, we begin to make sense of our lives even amid all the uproar.

How we use this Advent Season is up to us, as is all of our life. No one can live it for us and no one can take it from us. Hopefully it will be a time for finding peace among all the pandemonium.

WALKING ON WATER

We read in Matthew's Gospel (14:26) that Jesus walked on water. It frightened the daylight out of the Apostles and would prob­ably do the same to us. No one, not even the world's greatest magicians and illusionists, has been able to duplicate that. To be able to walk on water one has to be divine.

That’s what we who believe believe. We believe that Jesus' walking on water is proof positive that he is who he said he is and whom we believe him to be: the Son of God. Now for those who don't believe or don't wish to believe, Jesus' walking on water is written off as so much hokum: the product of the fertile imaginations of those who desperately wanted to believe Jesus was someone he was not.

But both are wrong. Belief does not come from the miraculous, from the extra­ordinary. Belief in another comes from the mundane, the ordinary. The Apostles came to believe Jesus and to believe in him, not because of his miracles, not because he walked on water or raised Lazarus from the grave or fed 5000 plus people with five loaves of bread and two small fish. No, Peter and Andrew and all the rest found the basis of their faith in Jesus because he always loved and cared about them.

It is the little things we do for the ones we love that matter. The big things are icing on the cake. We may be impressed by expensive gifts. Walking on water, making a blind man see, giving clean skin to a leper can almost, if not, overwhelm the receiver and the beholder. They almost demand belief, the big things do.

But we don't fall in love with the gift giver because we are impressed by his/her magniloquence. We fall in love with the gift giver because of all the little, everyday gifts of love. Not the big but the little. Not the extraordinary but the ordinary. Not the out-of-this-world, the you'd-have-to-see-this-to-believe- it; but the mundane.

For you and me, our faith in God comes not because he cures an incurable disease— for us or for a loved one. Our faith comes because God helps us get through each day when we are in pain, when we are ready to give up, to despair.

Faith in another, love of another, comes and grows. It flourishes little by little, day by day. We sprinkle another, God sprinkles us, every day. The water to grow comes drop by drop and not by bucketfulls. Trying to overwhelm the other usually results in drowning.

In any relationship—God with us, us with God, one with another—it is never the size or the cost of the gift that matters, really. It never is. What matters in the beginning, in the end, and all along is the love behind the gift. If love is not there or if the love is selfish rather than of the other, the gift, no matter how impressive or miraculous, will mean very little.

We need not walk on water to show our love for God, for another. All we need do is wade through it with them.

SALTSHAKERS

Somewhere in one of our cupboards we have a saltshaker just in case any guest would like to sprinkle some salt on the entrée being served. The only time I use it is when I may be baking some cookies and the recipe calls for it and usually no more than a quarter of a teaspoon: so little and yet so powerful a spice! That is also why we don’t have potato chips around: we would open the bag only once. All that is on the mundane level.

On the theological level we are all saltshakers: we are the salt and we are the shaker of the salt as in “You are the salt of the earth,” says Jesus in Matthew 5:13. It’s our job if you will, to bring life to everyone and everything around us. And it doesn’t take much, usually just a pinch of salt here or a dash there is all that is needed.

Sometimes I think we think that being a Christian, bringing Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness is a daunting and difficult task. And at times it may seem like it, especially in this world in which we are now living. But I suspect every generation has thought the same. Sin and selfishness have been there from the beginning, as the parable of The Garden of Eden so pointedly teaches.

We are not called, you and I, to change the world. Jesus wasn’t either. All we are called to do is effect a change in the world around us as best we can. We do that by salting that world with our living example of what it means to be a Christian. That is what Jesus did. By his life he showed those around him what life is to be about, what real life truly is. He was met with opposition and, yes, got killed in the process. That is always a possibility, make no mistake about that.

The reality is that there will be opposition. There always is. No one, including you and I, likes to be reminded that what we are saying or doing is sinful and selfish. When that is the message that we/they are hearing, the tendency is to lash out and find fault with the messenger. The salt, if you will, is just a little too much to take at the moment. And yet, if we/they allow ourselves to be honest with ourselves, we will sooner or later, hopefully sooner, admit that what we needed was that pinch of salt. It conveyed the message and that was all that was needed a that time.

No change happens overnight. Any and all change take time and it all begins very slowly and almost imperceptibly: one person at a time, one moment at a time, one day at a time: in us, in others, in the world. It is frustrating and often infuriating, both when we see needed changes in others, and even more, in ourselves.

The impetus for that change is the salt that we have shaken on others and the salt others have shaken on us simply by the example that has been given by the life of the saltshaker. We are indeed the salt and the saltshaker of our world today. A pinch here, a dash there is all we can do, is all we need do. Sprinkle some today.

THE GREEN, GREEN GRASS

With apologies to Erma Bombeck--it is true that the grass is always greener on the other side of the- septic tank, also on the other side of the fence. Always and invariably, it is greener. It is also just as difficult to cut. The one on the other side of the tank and/or the fence didn't get that lush and verdant field simply by looking at the patch and praying that all would be well. He and/or she toiled long and hard and at a great deal of physical and financial cost to produce something that makes us green with envy; pun intended.

There is not very much in this life that comes easy or cheap, except perhaps envy. We see what another has, think it is so much better than what we have, and desire it. That would not be so bad if our dreams stopped right there. But sometimes they don't. And they are dreams, you see. Because once we start fantasizing about what the other has, we start living in a dream world. We quite easily forget all that is entailed in making our dream come true; or we mesmerize ourself into believing that it'll all be easy. All I have to do is toss out some seed, sprinkle a little of lime and fertilizer, add some water (preferably of the rain variety) and, presto!, the green, green grass of our dreams.

We really know it doesn't work that way. We really know that if we want our neighbor's lawn, we'll have to work just as long and just as hard as our neighbor; maybe even longer and harder. And if that is what we really and truly want, we ought to go for it. Give it our all. But we must not forget: the end results will demand more, not less, of us.

What we also forget, what we fail to realize while we are gazing over our fence in envy, is that our own yard might not be all that bad. All too often envy not only hides the reality of what we desire but it also prevents us from seeing how good what we already have really is. That green grass is so deceptive. And we fall for it. Readily, easily, almost willingly. While we are watching our neighbor toil and labor to make what he has the object of our dreams, our own grass gets out of hand with weeds and dandelions and whatever. And that's too bad because what we had really was so good.

For each of us there is a greener grass, a greener pasture. Sometimes it only remains in the realm of our dreams. Sometimes we start to make our dreams come true and discover that they'll take more work, more sacrifices, than we're willing to give or make. Sometimes, as we gaze longingly over the fence, we look down at our feet and feel just how comfortable we are, how good what we have is. And so we smile and go back to cutting our own grass.

We’ll sweat, of course. We might even cuss a little. But when the job is done, we'll sit back and enjoy the beauty of the green. But if we listen closely, we'll probably hear all those blades making noise. They're laughing at us. They're growing. Our work is never done, is it?

It’s all right to dream, to be green, to want, to be envious at times. But at the same time, we cannot allow ourselves to overlook what we already have. It is probably better than what we see over the fence. And if it isn't, it can be if we want it to be.