Working the Garden: Interdependent Foundations and Recovering the Image of God
Series: Doing Life: Relationship Skills from the Bible for Today
April 25, 2010
Intro:
Last week I introduced our new series topic which will take us until June, which I’ve decided to call “Doing Life: Relationship Skills from the Bible for Today”. The basis is that if we are to experience the kind of life that Jesus desires for us, the “life abundant” of John 10:10, then we have to be in healthy relationships with God and with others. When we study Scripture, we see a lot of teaching about relationships; their importance, ways to be in relationships in healthy and unhealthy ways, even direct commandments about how we are to live together. I really believe that at the heart of Scripture and at the heart of God’s desire for us is a network of relationships in which we know acceptance, support, purpose, significance, and the joy of experiencing the positive impact that our lives can have on others. But how do we get there? That is what we are going to look at together for the next little while…
Foundations:
Let’s take a look at some foundations first, going way back to Genesis 1:26-27: “26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
27 So God created human beings in his own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
The very first thing to notice in the first verse is that God is not an individual. God doesn’t say “I’M going to make human beings like ME”, God says “Let US make human beings in OUR image, to be like US”. This is a critical foundation – God exists in relationship, and then creates humanity in that image. It sounds simple, but it is actually incredibly significant and incredibly profound. This is one of the basis for our understanding of the whole idea of God as three Persons in One, and our whole understanding next that for these three Persons to be One God there must be complete unity, interdependence, harmony, cooperation, and above all a love that is all the best that we can hope to imagine. God exists in relationship. And then we follow that with our understanding that God created us in that image… in other words, God created us to exist in that same context of unity, interdependence, harmony, cooperation, and above all a love that is the best we can hope to imagine. THAT, my friends, is what we were created for, and that is what verse 27 makes clear to us. This verse of Hebrew poetry puts “the image of God” in parallel with “male and female”, which tells us that God sees these two things as deeply inter-connected.
Now, I am not going to get diverted into a lengthily theological discussion on what the “image of God” actually is – this has been a long running topic of interest among academics which has enjoyed a resurgence recently as the church recognizes a shift from the centre of our culture to the margins, and so attempts to re-establish our mission and ultimate purpose as people which gets brought back to recapturing the “image of God”. If you are interested in that type of intellectual pursuit, I wholeheartedly encourage you. But for today, let’s simply take the verse at what it says – the “image of God” is deeply interconnected with the idea of “male and female”, which at the very least (most simple) means it is about relationship and not about anything individual.
There is one more point to be made here before moving on. This idea of relationship as the very essence of God and us as created in God’s image completely reverses the main message of the culture you and I live in. When I look around, virtually every message I see has, at its root, “me”. It is all about me, all for me, I am the centre, and it all exists to make me happy, me beautiful, me successful, me fulfilled, me rich, me admired, and on and on and on. The loudest message of our culture is that “I” must take care of “me” and get “my” needs met so “I” can be the best “me” “I” can be. As if that is the road to the most full life. I even see that in a lot of contemporary Christian culture and writing: I have a book on my shelf, given to me years ago, a “#1 New York Times Bestseller”, which I haven’t read so indeed I am “judging a book by its cover” (forgive me!), entitled “Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential”, by an American pastor named Joel Osteen. He has a reputation for dabbling in the “health and wealth” gospel, which simply proclaims that God really wants us all to be healthy and wealthy and we will be if we just have enough faith. Even the title is “all about me” – and the “7 Steps” are “enlarging MY vision”; “developing a healthy self-image”; “discovering the power of MY thoughts and words”; “letting go of MY past”; “ finding strength through adversity (in MY life)”; “living to give” which sounded others-centered until I dug a little deeper and found that it was really about all the benefits to ME when I give; and “choosing to be happy”. Now maybe you’ve read it and found it helpful, I’m sure there is some good stuff in the book, but look at the overall theme – the message is one of individualism. The message of Gen. 1:27 is not a message of individualism – “I” (as an individual) am not the image of God; “We” as people in relationship are the image of God.
This needs to upend the entire purpose of our lives. Instead of pursuing all the things we believe will make us happy, we need to pursue all the things that will ensure we live in the healthiest relationships. We need to stop thinking of ourselves first, foremost, and at the centre, and re-imagine ourselves as living in relationships that reflect and embody the “image of God”.
Out of the Garden:
Of course, some of you might be quick to point out that this is Genesis 1, before sin has entered the world, and thus an idyllic picture of a world that no longer exists. And you would be correct. So in our establishing foundations we need to move on. I’m not going to take time in Genesis 2, simply because the message is the same as that which we’ve already discussed, but this is the chapter where we see the detailed, gentle picture of God forming Adam from dirt, declaring “it is not good for the man to be alone”, and then completing Adam by creating Eve and putting the two of them in perfect relationship.
That brings us to Genesis 3. Two people make the choice to disobey the one command God had given them, and the chief tragedy of this sin is the rupture of relationship both between the two people and between them and God. Here’s the story: “6 The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. 7 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.
8 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. 9 Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.” 11 “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” 13 Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.”
This act of sin breaks the relationships. Instead of innocence, freedom, interdependence, and self-less connection, there is “shame at their nakedness”, and then there is hiding from God, and then there is this shifting of responsibility and blame and a sudden selfishness where what matters most is not the integrity and interdependence of the relationships, but of how this is all going to impact “me”. Do you see the shift?
So now it takes work, and (ultimately) the power of God to restore:
The rest of Genesis 3 outlines the consequences for the people and for all of creation now that these relationships have been ruptured. God addresses each of the three parties involved, the serpent, the woman, and the man, and outlines the result of their sin. To the woman God says,
“I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy,
and in pain you will give birth.
And you will desire to control your husband,
but he will rule over you.” (Gen 3:16).
and we see the consequences are entirely relational – one of the most beautiful relationships, that of “mother”, now begins in great agony and physical pain – and becomes a picture of the juxtaposition of something incredible (new life) coming after great pain, a picture we also see in Jesus at the cross and then at the resurrection. We see also a rupture of the husband/wife relationship – instead of the mutual interdependence there is now this ugly control battle with two people jockeying for power. This is the result of sin.
Now, quickly, before I go further we must recognize that this is NOT how it is supposed to be, nor how it has to be. Jesus defeated the power of sin and made the way for reconciliation in all our relationships, so what we read in Gen. 3 here is not the last word and thus we need not resign ourselves to this kind of brokenness. What we should take away is that these broken relationships are because of sin, and they are not what God created us for or desires for us, and now because of Jesus they do not have to be this way.
And that takes us to God’s words to Adam:
“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree
whose fruit I commanded you not to eat,
the ground is cursed because of you.
All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.
18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you,
though you will eat of its grains.
19 By the sweat of your brow
will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground
from which you were made.
For you were made from dust,
and to dust you will return.” (Gen 3:17-19).
God’s words to Adam speak of a time now of struggle. No longer will hard work be a joy and be rewarded with all kinds of abundance, from this point on there will be “struggle” and a fight for existence – the earth will still produce, but it will take a lot more effort and be a lot less certain than it was previously.
I think the same principle applies to our relationships. Because of sin, they are a whole lot harder. Every sin I can think of has a relational component, and every sin does further damage to our relationship with God and our relationship with others. If I asked you to think of a way that someone else’s sin has hurt you, you’d probably have no trouble making a list. If I asked you to think of how your sin has hurt others, it might be a little harder emotionally but we’d still all recognize that at the heart of it, our sin has damaged our relationships. Just like Adam with the land, the result of our sin is “struggle” and the “sweat of our brow” required now for us to have healthy relationships that more closely reflect God’s desire in creating us “in His image”. But it is still possible. And it is still essential.
Conclusion:
So, how does this all apply to our lives? What are we to do with this exploration of the foundations of how God created us for relationship but that has been ruptured by sin?
Well I’m going to give you an assignment. You might not like it, you might find it really hard, you might not want to do it, but it is what Scripture commands.
In one word, repent. This is the only solution to all sin, and it is the only way to restoration of our relationships damaged by sin: repent.
But here is where this gets harder: I do NOT mean that you quietly and individually bow your head and say a silent prayer to God admitting you have sinned and asking Him to forgive you and let you “off the hook”. Instead, my call to repentance comes via Jesus’ words in Matt 5: “23 “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24 leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.” Jesus’ call to repentance includes a call to go to another person, in this specific it is someone that “has something against you” – someone you have sinned against – and make it right.
If we agree that sin damages our relationship, then repentance from sin will begin to restore them. Now – absolutely true: there are two parties (at least) involved, and you can’t control the others, and you are not expected to. Their sin is for them to deal with before God and, quite bluntly, is none of your concern, even if their sin has hurt you. Leave that for God; your part (and my part) is to repent of our sin, to do our part in reconciliation, so that sin can be forgiven and relationships restored.
So here, in summary, is your assignment. Think, right now, of a relationship in your life that is not where it needs to be, that is broken or strained or painful. Now, think of your sin – not of theirs, even if that is waaaay easier for you to do, because that is not your concern. Now, with your sin in mind, I call you to repent of that sin, to seek that person out in person or by phone or even by a written letter, and apologize for your sin, own your part of the problem and repent of your action. This is the way of Jesus, this is (as hard as it sounds) simple obedience to Jesus’ command in Matt. 5, and part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Don’t naively expect this will magically fix everything; in fact it might make your life harder temporarily. Obedience sometimes does. But obedience to God is always the best option, and it leads – eventually – to reconciliation, new life, restored relationships, and “life abundant”.
