microcosm and mediator

“I have learned that the commandments Jesus lays out (loving God and others) are not commandments that can be carried out like school rules with angst and grudge and apart from joy, but require being so enveloped in the love and mercy shown to us by God that we suddenly begin experiencing the reality of such a ludicrous truth. By tapping into His full love, I think He teaches us along the way.”

Sin is so often focused on our sexuality. Or our failure to pray enough. Or when we angrily react to someone when we’re in a bad mood. These are all important and I do not want to belittle the enormity of the sin indulged in in all these listed. But they are merely symptoms of the sin of humanity. A failure of relationships.

Here’s what I mean; if we indulge in a sexual fantasy, what are we doing to that person we are fantasizing about? We view them as objects, objects for ourselves and our own pleasure rather than their God-given value as persons created as the very representation of God on earth. It a is a failure to understand that this person is a person with feelings, with desires, hopes, dreams, a soul; that I am to called to engage in a relationship with them, get to know know them and appreciate them and give God glory for their very existence. It’s very different than the few brief seconds of a sexual climax. A shallow indulgence, and a flood of brain chemicals; or a long, fufilling relationship? Which is better?

Or what about a failure to pray enough? Again it is essentially a failure of relationships, to fulfill our calling as relational creatures. God is in and of himself relational. This is the central mystery of the Christian faith, that God is simultaneously One and Three. A theological word for this mystery is Perechoresis; the mutual inter-penetration and indwelling of each member of the Trinity, God is perfect relationship (see my post on Thomas Merton about this idea). So when we fail to pray, we do not make God angry, per-se, I think the idea of sin as making God angry is an inaquate understanding of sin and God. I think sin more than anythig hurts our ability to live whole, healed and fulfilled human life. When we fail to pray, we fail to draw on God’s life giving Energies. We fail to draw on God’s power, strength and healing power. Praying is like a feast on God. When we pray we truly enter into God’s life, we connect into the dynamic, vibrant, ecstasy of the Trinity. It’s like eating a super-concentrated energy bar. Jesus was not lying when he told us that humans do not “live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from God” (Matt 4:4; Deut 8:2-3). Humans can draw on God in prayer and receive his words as nourishment, just like we eat food. Another image of this is seen when Christ is with the woman at the well. He tells us that he can give us “living water” (John 4). Entering and engaging in prayer is a way we can draw on the thirst quenching water Jesus mentions here. Again, the failure to pray is not THE sin, but rather a symptom of our failure at relationships.

Anger is one of the most common things we participate in as humans. I think everyone reading this right now can think of a moment this past week they were angry at someone they love (or even someone they don’t know; road rage anyone?). What is anger? It is our wounded ego. It is a pride issue. And when we engage in it, when we try to really let people know HOW angry we are at them we are being totally arrogant. Blinded by our pride we seek to make them pay. We want them to know that they hurt us (typically anger is reaction to some type of “wrong” committed against us), in order for us to hurt them in return. Again this is essentially a relational issue. The community of love is called to forgiveness, patience, and sacrifice. Why are so many relationships broken though? Lack of forgiveness, lack of patience to deal with that person’s flaws, lack of sacrifice, lack of humility, self-centeredness, anger, and finally a deep and abiding bitterness. I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced, I’ve done it. Anger eventually leads to bitterness and willing to not forgive and and unwillingness to start again. Christ tells us that anger is murder (Matt 5:21-26). Again, as is so prevalent in Christianity we fail ALL THE TIME to take Jesus seriously. How many times have I justified my anger, or manipulate Christ’s words to justify my actions against someone? Being continually angry and bitter towards someone is murder, especially when our goal is to make that person suffer, to let them know that what they did was wrong, that they hurt us, that they somehow deserve our anger. It shrivels up the person on which the anger is being taken out on’s soul. Broken communion between persons is devastating. How many times have I reacted in anger or been frustrated with someone, and hurt them because of it? (God forgive me!) Even when the other person has done something that “justifies” our anger, anger is wrong. There is no getting around Christ’s words, or Paul’s letters about Christian love. We must always seek to rebuild bridges, to love that person despite the fact they hurt us. This does not mean to stay in an unhealthy enviroment. If someone is being abused emotionally, physically and sexually, they better get out of that enviroment. This verse has also been manipulated by oppressors to control marginalized groups (women, blacks, homosexuals). But when we dwell on our anger, feed on it, that’s when we set ourselves up for failure. But more often than not, a lot of our anger is not justifiable. Among our friends, family, and significant others, we must always seeks to overcome the obstacles, we must forgive and re-enter into communion with them, the longer we wait, the more time we give for bitterness to take hold and destroy any chance of reconciliation.

So it is our failure to live up to our capacity as relational beings that makes sin. The story of Eden is all about relationships; our realtionship to God, to other humans, to animals, to the earth, to the very fabric of the universe. Being created in the image and likeness of God is trying to have relationships like God has in himself. That we are to be so in tune with the other person, that we really try to LOVE them, to understand that they are beautiful beings, endowed with God’s life-giving breath, anger will no longer be an option. If two humans (or a whole community of humans) really try to view each other that way and pray (and daily enter into the life of God) God will transform our hearts. Our prayer should be that of the psalmist “Give me an undivided heart!” (Ps 86:11). A heart that is fully in touch with God’s movements in the world. Because more than anything else, it relationships that lead to genuine human life. Not this macho-man American myth of the independent cowboy, the solo pioneer, but the person who is open to love everyone and everything, even if in the end it means all those they have ever loved leave them alone, abadoned, and dying on a brutal Roman cross.