Idea Transcript
(Not So) SIMPLY CHRISTIAN Lenten Small Group Discussion Guide Meetings 1-3 Table of Contents: Overview Meeting 1 Meeting 2 Meeting 3
Pages 2-3 3-7 8-17 18-23
(Not So) Simply Christian Not long ago, my three-year-old son asked me an interesting question. “Daddy,” he said, “where is God?” I was a little taken aback by the question, but I managed to gather myself enough to respond, “God is everywhere, son. There is no place that God can’t be.” Over the next several minutes, we ran through a solid list of places where God “lived:” in the closet, under the bed, on the fan, next to his snuggle friends, and even in the dark when he was in timeout. Nowadays, my son likes to cheerfully remind me from time to time that “God is everywhere, Daddy.” At the time, I didn’t think much about this other than that it was a heartwarming moment with my son. As I thought more about it, though, I realized that he now has a better understanding of who God is and his relationship to Him, all because he had asked a question. In other words, my son and I had just experienced together one of the oldest and most important processes in the history of the Christian faith: catechesis. What do you think of when you hear that word? Perhaps it’s one you’ve never heard before, or perhaps it’s something you haven’t heard about since your days in confirmation. But whether you’ve heard of the word or not, it’s something we have all of us experienced, since catechesis is how we learn anything about our Christian faith. It comes from a Greek word that means “to teach orally,” and over the years it came to mean the formal instruction in the basic points of Christian doctrine. That is, catechesis is how Christians learn to be Christians.
Israel: Summing Up How does this Jewish story set the stage of Jesus’ ministry? How does the pattern of “exile and return” repeat in your life? ...in the church’s life?
Conclusion The people who are made in God’s image and were created for justice, spirituality, relationship and beauty keep running away from their purpose. In Genesis 12, God tries something new. God calls Abram (Abraham) and his family to be the spearhead of God’s “rescue operation” (to restore justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty). This doesn’t work out very well, however, since Abraham and his family…now the entire Israelite people…are part of the problem and are in need of rescue as well. Thus begins the pattern that we find all throughout the Holy Scriptures, the pattern of running away and coming home: slavery and exodus, exile and restoration, death and resurrection, dying and rising with Christ. Next week we’ll hear how the story of Jesus makes sense within this larger story. We’ll hear how Jesus embodies this story and changes it for the better.
In the earliest days of the church, anyone who wanted to convert to Christianity first had to go through a year-long process of catechesis, in which they learned everything that one needed to know about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the sacraments, sin, forgiveness, and so on. Only after converts had mastered this material could they be baptized. As the church grew, the catechesis entry requirement faded, but the instruction became rooted in written texts called catechisms, which became something like a basic Christian reference work. Catechisms remained important throughout the Middle Ages, but they had another wave of popularity in the sixteenth century, when the Reformation led to the founding of new denominations who were interested in teaching their followers everything about their new faith. Luther was inspired to write his two catechisms after he became aware of the appalling ignorance of basic Christian doctrine in the Saxon countryside, and these remain the foundation of Lutheran confirmation to this day. As important as catechisms are, though, they no longer have the cachet they once did. Christian doctrine can be dense, difficult, confusing, and even divisive. In our increasingly secular world, more and more people are finding it difficult to get a handle 2
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Hope for a new creation echoes Israel’s love of beauty.
Jesus’ story only makes sense inside this larger story.
After the return from exile, although the Israelites had their Temple again, they were dominated by the Roman Empire. By the time Jesus was born, Israel’s hope had exploded its earthly bounds: “setting right” no longer meant return from exile but justice for the whole creation. The Jews’ hope was in a God who had journeyed together with them—God as “Shekinah” or “Word.” Jesus stepped into this heightened period of expectation. We who live after Jesus’ death and resurrection experience a similar cycle of exile and return, but something important has changed, as we will see in the next two weeks.
The second Temple of Jerusalem. The one standing in Jesus’ day.
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on. But learning doctrine isn’t really as complicated as it sounds: as a famous medievalist once put it, doctrine is all about answering questions that people have…questions about who God is, how He works, and how we know anything about Him. At its heart, catechesis is about asking and answering questions about God, just like my son did with me. We tend to think about it as something for the young, but just like any kind of learning, it doesn’t stop with your confirmation. And that’s a good thing, since our questions about God only get more complicated as we get older. For some of these questions, we find answers, while for others, we don’t. Our Lenten series this year will focus on N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian, a book that helps us to address some of these more complicated questions about our faith. In talking through these, we may end up with more questions than answers, but that’s to be expected. After all, that’s what catechesis is. During the past year, we’ve been steadily going through Luther’s small catechism, and we’ll continue to do that here during Lent. In particular, our Lenten series will focus on the Apostle’s Creed, with the goal of understanding a bit better what it actually is that we’re saying when we recite this critical Christian statement. By the end, we hope you’ll see that the Creed is more than a collection of words; it’s a promise to live up to our calling as Christians. As Luther would say, what does this mean? To figure out some kind of answer to this question, we’ll spend the next six weeks going step-by-step through some of the key statements in the Creed. We’ll consider important questions about being Christian, God, Israel, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Church. As we do, we’ll talk about some basic facts about our faith that most Christians either take for granted or have never thought about. We’ll discuss how we constantly hear echoes of God’s voice in this world; how we can hear that voice at all because heaven and earth overlap and interlock; how Christianity only makes sense as a part of the story of Israel; how Jesus and his mission changed that story into a story of dying and rising; the Holy Spirit makes us into the place where heaven and earth overlap and interlock; and how the Church exists in order to set the world to rights. Some of this stuff may sound pretty difficult to get your head around. If it does, don’t worry, we’re here to help. And anyway, the point is not learning all the right answers. Whatever your experience in the coming weeks may be, delving into the basics of our faith can lead to new discoveries, new perspectives, and, above all, a deeper relationship with our Lord and Savior. We hope you’ll find that perhaps what matters most about catechesis is not knowing all the right answers at all the right times, but having the faith and the resolve to ask questions and learn more about who God is, why He loves us, and how that shapes our life. After all, that’s what catechesis is. 3
Echoes of a Voice Lenten Small Group Meeting 1 Introducing the Week We begin our Lenten journey with the first two words of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe….” It’s fairly easy to overlook these two important words; after all, the Creed is full of other concepts (God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and so on) that seem more important. However, these two words might actually be the most important part of the creed, for it is they that make us Christian. What does make us Christian? Have you ever asked yourself that? It’s not the sort of question that we are used to asking about ourselves. But the first question is incredibly important. What is it that makes you Christian? Your baptism? Your attendance at church? Your faith? All of these things are not wrong; in fact, they are all necessary parts of living a truly Christian life. But they are not quite on the mark as far as the Bible is concerned. Rather, we are Christians because we hear the echoes of a voice, and we attribute this voice to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song, and those who plundered us requested mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137) How does God, who overlaps and intersects with the world, pursue a people through slavery and exodus?
In the midst of this pattern, Israel continued to hear the echoes of a voice. Israel heard—and continues to hear—this voice in a specific way… The Torah defined the relationships between Israel, God, and the world.
What does this mean? No matter what religion you are, there just seem to be certain things that everyone agrees on: we can all imagine a world in which everything is put to rights. We all agree that, generally speaking, people are supposed to be relationships with other people. We agree that there is somehow something more to life than whatever the secular world is obsessed with and that there is a certain beauty that we all aspire to see. These four echoes – we can call them justice, relationship, spirituality, and beauty – are heard by people of all faiths, even those of no faith at all. This week, we’ll be talking about how these echoes are the beginning of understanding why Christianity makes sense, since it has a very compelling explanation for why everyone seems to be able to hear these echoes. As we’ll see this week, the two simple words at the start of the Creed are actually the beginning of a very powerful, and very unique claim: those echoes we hear are the echoes of a voice, and that voice belongs to God. As such, we also admit that that voice is not just sounding for its own amusement, but is actually a call, a call to heed the voice, follow it, and live our lives according to it. As Christians, the very first thing we do is to recognize that voice and its call, so that we can go about following it. 4
The Temple was the center of Jewish spirituality —where heaven and earth overlapped and intersected. The anticipated Messiah would finally bring justice to Israel and through Israel, all of creation. (VIDEO) Jewish tradition affirms at least five things about the Messiah. He will: 1. be a descendant of King David, 2. gain sovereignty over the land of Israel, 3. gather the Jews there from the four corners of the earth, 4. restore them to full observance of Torah law, and, 5. as a grand finale, bring peace to the whole world. 21
The Call of Abraham: God’s Rescue Operation God calls an ordinary wandering herdsman and promises that through his family God will set things right. Now the Lord had said to Abram, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those you bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” —Genesis 12:1-3 How do you suppose Abraham would have understood what God was promising?
But then the story goes terribly wrong...
Bishop Tom says the family called to bear God’s solution for the world also has the world’s problem inside of them: Israel contains the medicine but is also infected with the problem. In the next set of pictures, God’s story is repeatedly a story of promise, failure, and (surprising) restoration – a restoration which the Israelites invariably attribute to God. In the following pictures, how does God, who overlaps and intersects with the world, pursue a people? There arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them…” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses. —Exodus 1
How does God, who overlaps and intersects with the world, pursue a people through slavery and exodus?
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Bishop Tom Says Please watch week 1’s portion of “Bishop Tom Says.”
What Does this Mean? ASG Explains Please go through the power point presentation on the disc, pausing for discussion along the way. A copy of the presentation is included in this booklet for ease of use.
Echoes of a Voice
During Lent, as part of this year’s focus on the Catechism, we’ll walk step by step through the Apostle’s Creed: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Church One additional week we’ll talk about “Israel” to better understand Jesus as the Son of God. The Creed is just a short form of the Gospel—the Church’s story. Bishop Tom suggests that the Church’s story makes very good sense when it responds to the echoes of a voice all human beings hear: the echoes of justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty.
Built into our human nature is a longing for justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty. We hear the echo of a voice whispering to us instilling in us the vision of a world put to rights (justice) pointing us toward the possibility that we are made for more than modern secularism (spirituality), assuring us that we belong in a community (relationship), and keeping us searching for beauty in music, nature, art, each other, and so on. As the Christian story tells it, the echoing voice we hear belongs to God.
Echo of a Voice: Passion for Justice “We all know that there is such a thing as justice—as getting it right, and fairness—but we’re not very good at it.” If we really do have a sense of what justice is—despite the obvious fact that we are always going wrong—then somehow, it seems, we must have “overheard” a conversation about justice: the Christian story says that our sense of justice is an echo of God’s voice. Tell a story about a time when your sense of justice (or injustice) was excited. Do you think it’s helpful to describe what moved you as an “echo of a voice?” Why or why not?
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Echo of a Voice: Thirst for Spirituality What do you suppose “spirituality” means? How do you understand Bishop Tom’s statement that “Spirituality is making a comeback?”
coming home is what prepared the chosen people for the coming of the Messiah in the first place, and discuss what our role in this story is in these next chapters. In short, we’ll think about how the story of Israel is, and will always be, our story as well.
“Spiritual experience” is often discussed as the power to change the directin of our lives in a more authentic direction. Talk about a time you felt “stuck.” Where did you find power to get unstuck? Would you describe that power as “spiritual?”
Bishop Tom Says
Suppose a skeptic said that your sense that a “power” got you unstuck was just your conscious surprise at a “sudden” solution that you’d acutally been mulling over for a long time unconsciously. Compare that skeptical story to the church’s story that true spirituality is a response to an echo of a voice—God’s voice.
Please watch week 3’s portion of “Bishop Tom Says.”
What Does this Mean? ASG Explains Please go through the power point presentation on the disc, pausing for discussion along the way. A copy of the presentation is included in this booklet for ease of use.
Israel: Exile and Return (again and again and again…) Echo of a Voice: Desire for a Relationship “We know that there are such things as loyalty – as being true to a relationship, a friendship, a marriage. And yet it’s difficult, it’s hard work, and many of the greatest novelties and plays end with relationships in tatters. And even where a friendship or a marriage lasts a lifetime, it still has to face this puzzle: what happens when one of those partners or both of them dies? Death hovers over the whole question.” Bishop Tom seems to be saying that, as in the case of justice, we know what makes for good relationships even though we’re forever failing in them. So somehow, we must have “overheard” the true meaning of relationship. The Christian story says that what we’ve heard is the echo of God’s voice. Let’s look at a secular poem about relationships that seems to express such an echo: To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. — Mary Oliver
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What seems accurate (or not so accurate) about the way this poem talks about love?
Yeshua of Nazareth Bishop Tom suggests that trying to understand Jesus apart from his Jewishness is like trying to understand why someone is hitting a ball with a stick without understanding the game of baseball. Was learning about Jesus’ Jewishness important to your catechism lessons? Is there anything you know about Jesus that’s part of his being a Jew? Marc Chagall’s White Crucifixion is a favorite of Pope Francis. How is Judaism represented in the painting? Jesus’ story is the climax of a very long story. This week, the story of a God pursuing his lost creatures leads into a story about a God pursuing a people.
Poets sometimes say they are influenced by “muse.” How is that like or unlike what Bishop Tom means by “an echo of a voice?” In what sense do you know something about relationships that’s beyond what you’ve experienced—that strikes you as “the echo of a voice?”
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Israel: Exile and Return (Again and Again and Again…) Lenten Small Group Meeting 3 Introducing the Week This week we’ll be talking about Israel. This might seems strange to you, since there’s nothing about Israel in the Apostle’s Creed. But, as we’ll see in our discussion this week, knowing about Israel is crucial for understanding who Jesus was and what he did. This is not necessarily a self-evident fact; in the early days of our faith, it was an open question whether Christians should care about the story told in the Old Testament at all. But in the end, the majority decided that the story of God’s chosen people was essential to what it means to be Christian. They recognized something that generations of Christians since have, most of the time, forgotten: that the story of Christ doesn’t make sense without the story of Israel. What does this mean?
Echo of a Voice: Sense of Beauty We constantly try to ‘capture’ beauty in art, but at the same time many parts of the world that were once beautiful have been devastated – the inhabitants who once enjoyed that beauty left dead or mourning. Therefore we might be tempted to say, with the skeptic, that beauty is just an illusion – a trick of our perception, projecting glory onto a world which, in itself, is neither beautiful nor ugly – a world that just is. But the Christian story says that the glory that touches us when we experience beauty is someone’s glory – we know beauty because we hear an echo of God’s voice in whatever is beautiful. Tell a story about when you encountered something beautiful. Does the skeptic’s story – that beauty is just a projection – adequately describe your encounter with beauty? If so, talk about that. If not, talk about a different story you might tell the skeptic.
Echo of a Voice: Summing Up
Last week we spoke about God and His presence as places where heaven and earth overlap and interlock, but we did it mostly through images and stories in the Old Testament. This is not a coincidence; when God told Abraham that he and his descendants would be his chosen people, he chose them and everything they did to be a place – really, the place – where heaven and earth overlap. This was a tremendous honor, but it was also an impossible burden. As we all know, the Jews proved themselves to be far too human.
Unlike the stories of other ancient peoples that are filled with heroic deeds, the story of Israel is, in many ways, a story of failure. It follows a traditional cycle: being chosen, messing up, suffering consequences, and – this is the important part – coming home again. Through it all was God’s everlasting promise that he had chosen Israel to, in the end, bring a blessing to all nations, a promise that finally was delivered with the birth of Jesus. When this promise was delivered, it became clear that the story of Israel was not a story of failure, but, like the Prodigal Son, a story of unconditional forgiveness and reconciliation.
This week we’ll talk about how the story of Israel is actually the story of Jesus, how he used the story to explain what he was doing, and how the story helps us understand the magnitude of what he did. We will think about how Israel’s pattern of screwing up and
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Bishop Tom suggests that the Church’s story – as expressed in the Creed – makes very good sense when it responds to the echoes of a voice all human beings hear: the echoes of justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty. During Lent, as part of this year’s focus on the Catechism, we’ll walk step by step through the Apostle’s Creed: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Church. One additional week we’ll talk about “Israel” to better understand Jesus as the Son of God. Next week, we begin by talking about the first article of the Creed: “I believe in God.”
Conclusion Built into our human nature is a longing for justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty. We hear the echo of a voice whispering to us…instilling in us the vision of a world put to rights (justice), pointing us toward the possibility that we humans are made for more than modern secularism (spirituality), that we are social beings and belong in community (relationship), and keeping us searching for beauty (in music, nature, art, each other, etc.). As the Christian story tells it, the echoing voice we hear belongs to God. Next week we’ll talk about how we are able to hear the echoes of God’s voice. According to the Christian story, we are able to hear it because heaven and earth overlap and interlock. 7
God: Heaven and Earth Overlap and Interlock Lenten Small Group Meeting 2 Introducing the Week This week we’re going to talk about God, the very first section of the Apostle’s Creed. It’s fitting that the Creed begins with a discussion of who and what God is. There’s a lot of speculation about these matters, a lot of it from people who claim not to be religious at all. There’s just as much speculation among us Christians; there are those who say that God is everywhere and in all things, and others who say God is omnipotent and loving, but far away from us. Both of these are lovely and comforting images in their own way; and I’ve even used one of them when I talked to my son. His answer – “God is everywhere, Daddy” is a good one, but it’s not quite complete, because it doesn’t actually fit with what we say when we recite the Creed. In fact, if you look at the Bible to find out what it says about God, it says some weird stuff. It says that God is a Creator, a Father, a Judge, but also someone who can feel emotions, eat food with us, literally wrestle with us, take on human form, and even die a humiliating death. In short, the Bible doesn’t show us a God who exists in all things or a God who is absent from the created world, but a God who constantly overlaps and interlocks with our reality.
Conclusion We may hear the echo of a voice, but we can by no means prove the voice exists. As Wright says in the book Simply Christian, “Our lines of inquiry, our probing and questioning, may perhaps lead us in the direction where God might be found, but they cannot break through and claim to have grasped God all by themselves” (p. 57). We can’t get to God, so God comes to us. How? Why? When? Where? Those are the questions, right? They have been answered in a variety of ways over the centuries. Some say God comes to us in everything (pantheism). Some say God created everything, but now is distant and doesn’t meddle in human affairs (deism). But the Bible seems to say something different. The Bible says God and humankind/heaven and earth overlap and interlock…that God can be present on earth without having to leave heaven. Next week we’ll look at how God continues to be stubbornly present with God’s people (because heaven and earth overlap and interlock) through Israel’s repeating pattern of exile and restoration.
What does this mean? If you’re feeling confused about that, don’t worry, that’s kind of the point. The image of God in a cloudy, sunny heaven surrounded by angels playing harps is easy to get, the idea that God could be one of us, hiding in the very midst of us at all times, is not. But this second version is, when you delve into it, far more compelling. We talked last week about hearing the echoes of God’s voice, and now we’ll talk about why it is that we can hear that voice. In short, we can hear it because the heavenly realm and the earthly one overlap, and not just once, but all of the time. This is not the way that many of us think about who God is or where He is, but it is crucial for how we understand what it means to be Christian. In fact, an overlapping and interlocking God is what explains why Jesus could come at all. This week, then, we’ll think carefully about a God whose realm constantly overlaps and interlocks with ours. We’ll talk about what this means for our relationship with Him, and what that relationship means for how we live our lives as Christians. Perhaps this session will change your own view of 8
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who God is and how He relates to us, perhaps not. But either way, we’ll get a better sense of what it means when God says that he is with us, from now until the end of all the ages.
Bishop Tom Says Please watch week 2’s portion of “Bishop Tom Says.”
What Does this Mean? ASG Explains Please go through the power point presentation on the disc, pausing for discussion along the way. A copy of the presentation is included in this booklet for ease of use.
God: I Believe in God… Where might God be found? We can’t get to God, so God comes to us. How? Why? When? Where?
God: Heaven and Earth Overlap and Interlock Bishop Tom says that in the Bible, heaven and earth—God and his creation—”overlap and interlock.” What do you think he means by that? What Bible stories most make you think about heaven and earth overlapping and interlocking? (several examples follow…) “Then the Lord appeared to [Abraham] by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in a tent door in the heat of the day. So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said “My Lord, if I have found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant.” Genesis 18:1-5 What does this story show you about a God who overlaps and intersects with his creation? Is this story mostly about justice, relationship, spirituality or beauty?
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Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.” And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” Genesis 32 What does this story show you about a God who overlaps and intersects with his creation? Is this story mostly about justice, relationship, spirituality or beauty?
“I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. Exodus 3:6 What does this story show you about a God who overlaps and intersects with his creation? Is this story mostly about justice, relationship, spirituality or beauty?
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God: Summing Up Let’s look at a few of the pictures again and try to see them as God’s love story with us.
And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Exodus 33:9 What does this story show you about a God who overlaps and intersects with his creation? Is this story mostly about justice, relationship, spirituality or beauty?
And it came to pass, when priests came out of that holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. Then Solomon spoke: “The Lord said He would dwell in the dark cloud. I have surely built You an exalted house, and a place for You to dwell in forever. 1 Kings 8 What does this story show you about a God who overlaps and intersects with his creation? Is this story mostly about justice, relationship, spirituality or beauty?
Competing ways our culture thinks about God Here’s a story to illustrate how to contrast a God whose realm “overlaps and intersects” the world with two other common ways to think about God—pantheism and deism. Once, when visiting a small church, the Bishop noticed a large banner that read. “God is other people.” The Bishop, taking a magic marker, added one comma: “God is other, people.” 14
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Below we suggest three ways to write that sentence that illustrate three ways to think about how God relates to the world. Pantheism
Deism
Heaven-Earth Overlap & Intersect
God doesn’t transcend the world
God does transcend the world
God is other people
God is Other, people (cap-O) God is Other, people, and God is also another traveling with us
God’s story is the same as God’s story and the world’s the world’s story story only overlap once, at the beginning To know God is to know the world more perfectly, more holistically
God both transcends the world and is really present in the world
God is a character in the world’s story, but we are also characters in God’s story
Knowledge of God must be We know God through his implanted in us by the story with us, and God is who creator, or we interpret hints he is in relation to his creatures about God in creation
Stepping back… Now let’s briefly revisit a couple of those stories and ask: How would a deist see this story? or How would a pantheist see this story? For the pantheist, “God” is a poetic metaphor for “nature” or “the cosmos.” So a pantheist may say something like this: Jacob’s so-called “wrestling with God” is a poetic way of describing Jacob’s internal turmoil as he contemplated facing Esau whom he’d betrayed. Have you ever though about Bible stories in a pantheistic way? Could the idea of a God who “overlaps and intersects” the world influence your reading going forward?
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The deist wouldn’t agree that God actually ‘spoke’ to Moses. So she might say instead, for example, that Moses was inspired to free the Israelites by moral principles that the Creator had instilled in him. Have you ever though about Bible stories in a deist way? Could the idea of a God who “overlaps and intersects” the world influence your reading going forward?
Stepping back farther... How does a God who overlaps and intersects our world appear in the story of the fall in Genesis chapter 3? “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” Who is the human-like figure in the foreground left? In the Talmud, the Rabbinic Jews referred to this “God-with-us” character as the Shekinah—literally, God “settling” or “tabernacling” or “dwelling” with us. What do you think the Shekinah figure feels? What will he do next? The pantheist would say this figure just personifies a natural process. The deist would say the perspective is skewed—God can’t be “in” the picture but must be watching from a distance. But...what if God’s dimension (heaven) overlaps and intersects with ours (earth)? Then the point of Genesis is that we fled from God, but then God followed us out of the Garden, and has been pursuing us ever since. In that case, all of the pictures we saw of God’s “shekinah” are snapshots of a love story: they are pictures of God’s passionate pursuit of his creatures who fled, when all he wanted to do was walk with us in the cool of the day.
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