So what is a good creating God to do when part of what God has created has gone rogue? That is the question which the readers of God's story are faced with at the end of Genesis chapter three. To recap the last episode of the story we find Adam and Eve living in fear, not of God, but of their own finiteness. By choosing to go their own way, rather than follow God's way, they have discovered that the world is a very frightening place in which to live when God is not your partner. So again the question is, how is God going to deal with these renegades?
This being the Old Testament, what most people would expect would be some fire and brimstone raining down from heaven to teach Adam and Eve a lesson. What we find is something very different. God first expels them from the garden (God following through in a way that they suffer the consequences of their actions) but then makes them clothes and gives them children. In other words God shows them grace.
Many of us have grown up with an image of an angry Old Testament God and a loving New Testament God. A more thorough examination of God's story however reveals that from the beginning to the end of the story, grace is part of God's character. This does not mean that God is a pushover who ignores the pain giving side of humanity…sort of like some parents who appear on Super Nanny. Instead it means that God loves God's creation, including God's often disobedient people, enough to both discipline them so they learn better ways, and to show them grace that they might remember they are always loved.
We see this discipline vs. grace theme in the next several stories. Cain slays Able. God disciplines Cain by sending him away from his family, but shows grace by protecting him from those who would try and take his life. Humanity has become completely evil. God disciplines by bringing the flood and wiping out most of the human race, but God shows grace by saving some (Noah and his family) in order that humanity continue its task as stewards of God's good creation. Finally we have the story of the Tower of Babel in which humanity ineptly tries to invade heaven (a careful reading of the story reveals that the tower they are building was bound to collapse long before they got very high). God disciplines them by confusing their language but shows grace by spreading them out across the earth…thus insuring they will fulfill their destiny. Discipline and grace are woven together in God's story.
The combination of discipline and grace becomes one of the key lenses through which the story of God and God's people needs to be read if we are to come to grips with what God is up to in the world and in our lives. Remember that God created this world, and the people in it, in such a way that we can live together in right relationship with God, with one another and with our creation. That was God's purpose and God's goal. These Genesis stories remind us that God will accomplish God's purpose and goals with the discipline and grace of a loving parent.
My hope is that rather than spending time looking for Noah's Ark or the Garden of Eden (favorites of the Discovery Channel) we will instead see the God we worship Sunday after Sunday as one whose desire for our lives is wholeness, and as one who is willing to help us find that wholeness through the grace and discipline that comes from love. (Next week…making promises)
John
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