Chaos or Community
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” ― C.S. Lewis
Sit, Walk, Stand is a short book by Watchman Nee that illuminates the letter to the Ephesians. In this book, he presents two tales of conflict. Conflict is inevitable. We cannot avoid it. As followers of Christ, how we handle conflict (and the things we allow to create conflict) must be as different as salt and light to world shrouded in darkness and decay. As humans, we are bound to one another. What binds us, and what separates us?
Scenario one is set in a rice field in South China. A man used a waterwheel powered by a treadmill to pump water up to his field during a time of drought. His neighbor would come at night and dig a trench to siphon off the water in order to irrigate his two fields below. The man would repair the breach and return to watering his field. This happened three or four times. The man was in conflict with his neighbor. “I’ve tried to be patient and not to retaliate, but is it right?” What will animate this man’s response to his neighbor? What separates them, and what will reconcile them?
Scenario two is similar. Also set in China, an elderly widow woman was awakened to the sound of a noise in her kitchen. Upon entering the kitchen, the burglar and her locked eyes. He was rifling through her stuff and this unarmed, frail old woman stood before him in full gaze. What will she do?
What you do and why you do it depends largely on your raison d’être. What is your purpose? Genesis 18 tells of God’s purpose in knowing Abraham was that he would teach his children (and eventually all nations) righteousness and justice. But righteousness, tzedeqah, is different than statutory laws. In the first scenario, the law would call the neighbor’s action both a trespass and a theft. If the man regards the neighbor with the law, he confronts (most likely with anger) or he may involve the local magistrates to intervene. What happens to the relationship? What happens to the community? Is it not likely that hostility grows, regardless of who is right or guilty before the law? What is lost?
Scenario two represents a heightened threat. What is this widow to do? She could grab a gun and stand her ground. It is her property and she in reasonably in fear of her life. If she shoots the man and kills him, what happens to the community and what does it do to her? A family, rightly or wrongly, lost a son, brother, or father. We do not know why he broke in to steal, only that he did. Is she not impacted, first by the fear from her home being broken into while she slept, and also by the emotions of having taken a life? What is lost here? What binds her and the thief, and will separate them?
Studying the pre-exilic prophets offers some wisdom, specifically Jonah and Nahum. Jonah runs from God, preferring even death than to play a role in extending mercy to his enemy, Assyria- specifically Nineveh. Assyria has threatened Israel and choked them of resources and will soon take the kingdom. Yet, God seeks to extend mercy and longs to see the great city transformed. Jonah is angry because he knows that God is a merciful God- even to the Assyrians. He cites Exodus 34:
6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
About one hundred years later, Nahum prophesies again to Nineveh. This time judgement is coming. Though God is merciful and patient, He will do justice. Does God feel differently about the people now? God loved Israel, but He handed them over. Now He looks to do the same to Assyria. But why? What are the accusations voiced by the prophets on behalf of God? Was it their religious activity? No, as described in an earlier entry, Amos and Hosea charge the people regarding religious activities, even invoking God’s name, but it was not what God desired from them.
Habakkuk, in his complaints to God about Assyria, describes the cries which motivate God to bring justice. Pride (which is contrasted to righteousness), self- justification and self-righteousness, violence (and military machinery), economic injustice (covetousness and power determines how people are treated), and irresponsible leaders. What is God looking for then? Micah 6 answers that: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Mercy must temper justice. Hosea says I desire mercy, not sacrifice. In order for God’s wisdom to govern His world, His people must act rightly with grace and do justice tempered with mercy. This fosters a beautiful community.
Genesis starts our story in chaos, out of which God creates a beautiful community. The serpent enters the Garden and unravels it with pride and covetousness. Rather than rest and trust in God’s good and abundant resources, humans listened to the serpent. Habakkuk shares God’s response to the chaos of his time and it illuminates God’s repose to all chaos. God says wait. Leave it to me. I will send the Annointed One, the Christ, to crush the serpent’s head (source) of the wickedness and violence and gather My own. The story of Wonder Woman illustrates what is happening here. Wonder Woman’s mission was to destroy Ares, the source of violence enslaving humans, in order that they may become “good men” once again. Habakkuk gives God’s response to the question of how God can be good when such evil and suffering exist. God’s character is patient. He wants all to respond to His mercy. But He will send the Messiah to crush the source of all of this violence and wickedness. He will conquer the powers and end their reign. This Christ will be the source of a new community. His righteousness will rule the kingdom and shape His people.
Jeremiah gives instruction to those taken into Babylonian exile after the defeat of Assyria. Build homes, raise families, plant gardens. Settle in and be a blessing. Wait on God. Hope in God. He is at work. Habakkuk tells us God said watch Me at work in the world, and at the end of the chapter, Habakkuk says “OK, I will watch.” Daniel gives us the example of settling into the culture yet being subversive when it comes to serving a god other than YHWH. Their image of god was made in the shape of their desire. Mammon is power, privilege, position, possessions obtained and maintained through economic injustice, military war machinery, social injustice, and empty religion. Nations like this oppress the poor, pervert justice, and deprive the vulnerable.
The image of God is Christ. Christ in us transforms us into His image. The word “overthrow” is a hinge word in Jonah. It means to “transform” or “destroy.” Nineveh would be transformed by this act of mercy or they would be destroyed. Christ gives us His right way of loving God and people. He is the source of it; He is the gift that will recreate the world. He transforms us and we become like Him (little choice by little choice), or we will eventually become like the gods of our choosing and share their fate. All along we, we must choose. Be immersed in the Messiah, or listen to the way of pride.
“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).”
So what about our tales? How do these Christ followers become the righteousness of Christ yet confront injustice? Will their actions seem like the cultures around them or subversive to its ethos? Are our imaginations suitable for such as the Kingdom of Heaven here in earth?
The man in scenario one went to the brethren of the church. Together they prayed. One of the men replied, “if we only try to do the right thing, surely we are very poor Christians. We have to do something more than what is right.” The man knew what to do. The next morning he got up early to pump water into his neighbor’s field first, then he watered his own. The water stayed in his field. Humbled, the neighbor approached him. Why? As he sought to understand and asked more question about his unusual actions, he too received Christ.
Ray Vader Laan depicts the fields in the Promised Land as being arranged in a similar tiered fashion. If a wall crumbled or became weak, it wold affect the whole community. Interestingly, the wall you repaired would be your neighbor’s and it was the neighbor below you that would repair your wall. This idea speaks of the beauty of community. Pride and selfishness would undo the blessing God provided, returning to chaos and disorder. But serving one another and cooperation encourages harmony.
Scenario two is more spontaneous. She had no time to solicit prayerful guidance. The widow walked past the burglar, grabbed a skillet and some food and began cooking. The confused burglar did not flee. He just stood there aghast. “What are you doing?” he asked. “You will take what you will take. There is no need to leave on an empty stomach” she answered. She prepared a quick meal. They sat together and talked. The man was broken before this frail widow woman. Why? Where do you get such courage? How is it that you care more for me than your stuff? She told him of Christ and His amazing love that makes us into free people. People free to give as He gave, free to love as He loved, and free to serve as He served.
Chaos or community? This is the story of the Bible. It is the very real problem of the human condition. And the story gives a very real solution. As we are bound to Christ in love, be bound to one another in love.
“Sin” is a failure of relationship, a failure to love God resulting in a failure to love others. For more information on “sin” as a power that breaks relationship with God and man, watch this video from The Bible Project.
