The War against Terror
“But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"” Genesis 3.9
Here’s a strange picture! The almighty, the omnipotent, the omniscient Creator of all things, playing hide-and-seek in the Garden.
“Where are you Adam?”
“Coming ready or not!”
And Adam is not ready. He is naked, and ashamed, and confused, and angry with Eve and with himself. And he has become afraid of the God who is Love.
“Where are you Adam?” This is not a question about location. It is a metaphysical question.
Adam is lost. And so the war against terror begins.
“Where are you Adam?”
I am plotting mayhem and revenge; the slaying of Abel; the atrocities of humanity before the flood; the wickedness of the cities before the scattering from Babel;
I am plotting nationalism and weapons of destruction; infanticide and torture; oppression and racism; inquisitions and discrimination; religious hatred and world wars; holocausts and ethnic cleansing; acts of terror and global injustice.
This third chapter of Genesis is an ancient aetiology of human evil. An attempt to explain why the world is as it is. Since the dawn of civilisation, humans have wrestled with the terror that is within.
They have experienced great goodness - the simple pleasures of walking with the Lord God in the garden in the cool of the day.
And they have witnessed great evil - the exercise of godlike powers to humiliate and destroy those who are ‘other’.
This war against terrorism which we are currently waging is sometimes in danger of assuming that ‘the other’ against whom we fight, is somehow inherently different from us.
But we are all earthlings and tainted with Adam’s sin. We are all children of Eve and under our mother’s curse.
Solzhenitsyn, who certainly suffered at the hands of evil men and women, was wise enough to write:
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” (Quoted in Mayne, Learning to Dance, DLT 2001, p166)War can only ever be enjoined with a sense of humility and with a recognition that those whom we attack are not all evil and we are not all good.
The little boy is standing up in the back seat of the car and his father keeps telling him to sit down. At last the father stops the car and forcibly sits the boy down. As they continue the journey, the sulking boy in the back shouts: “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside!”
From childhood we experience the division within the self that in this story of Adam and Eve is the result of their disobedience.
In the NT Paul is absorbed with this duality within and uses the word ‘flesh’ to denote the fallen and perverse side of our human nature - “the lust of the flesh” to describe the constant pull of the unrestrained ego.
This is what Paul has in mind in those lists in Galatians where he characterizes the two different sides to our nature.
For Adam and Eve in the garden, the duality within immediately skewed three dominant areas of their life: sexuality, spirituality and society. They were ashamed of their nakedness and sexual companionship becomes an arena for struggle and not just for pleasure; they become afraid of God; and they turn on each other in blame and recrimination.
Paul deals with these same three areas.
Sexuality - in Paul’s lists: fornication, impurity, licentiousness - the pursuit of sex as an end in itself, regardless of the feelings, responsibilities and respect we owe to each other - and to society. And to society? That’s a more difficult point in our divided society where there are very varied sexual mores.
And of course some would argue that what we do in the bedroom is nothing to do with wider society. This was Abp Runcie’s view expressed in his candid biography. Genesis acknowledges that there is an inner tension with regard to our sexuality, and that this must always be taken into account.
Spirituality - the need for human kind to worship and the danger of idolatry - of worshipping ‘other gods’ of our own making - eg
- the cult of self - the body beautiful and self gratification - fuelled by the
- the cult of money - the love of which is the root of all evil - consumerism - shopping mall temples - Tesco ergo sum - retail therapy
- the cult of ‘my church’ - pride, intolerance and lack of Xn charity
- the cult of others - worshipping the lover, the spouse, the children
Society - in Paul’s lists: enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing
- the ills which fragment community life and lead to distrust, social isolation, pain and anguish
Genesis only hints at an answer to this war within. From Eve there is to come one who will crush the serpent’s head. The NT interprets the work of Christ as the unifying factor that may not end the war here and now, but that may give us a victory over the dark side.
And what is the Apostle’s solution to this civil war within us - the backcloth of so much human history, literature and art; the backcloth of this war-riven century; the backcloth of our own experience of the messiness of life.
It is to walk in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit; to be what you are in Christ. It is to have that attitude which was in Christ Jesus.
Paul lists the fruit of this Spirit of Christ, the other side of this inner duality, in relation to God, Others and Self
God - love, joy, peace - these should be the characteristics of our Christian life
Others - patience, kindness, generosity (To dwell above...) These are to be the marks of our Christian society.
Self - faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. This is the way to tame the self.
So with vivid imagery Paul says we are to crucify the flesh: to make those moment by moment decisions to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit rather than to follow our demanding animal self - the lust of the flesh - the selfish gene.
And for this we need not only the help of God’s Spirit, but of his Word and Sacraments, and of his people, and of the best of his world.
Paul uses two verbs to describe the process: being led by the Spirit and walking in the Spirit. The one passive. The other active.
To be led by the Spirit is to follow our desire for holiness: to pursue the good and the beautiful. Now here is the paradox. For we spoke earlier of the cult of the body beautiful, of aesthetics and the glory of the world. The difference is in our motivation for the pursuit of beauty. Is it to worship the creature - or to worship the creator?
Then Paul talks of walking in the Spirit - ‘keeping in step’ with the Spirit. Or to switch the metaphor, it is like sailing - finding the wind - and the exhilaration of running before it. As we approach lent, the spiritual disciplines are there to help us develop our openness to the Spirit.
God’s challenge to us is as it always has been: to live with him, following Christ and the way to life;
or to hide with Adam and rebel and follow the destructive inner path to death.
“But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"” Genesis 3.9
