I avoided using the title ‘In the beginning’ but maybe I should have as that would indicate the world that has always been here. I however have opted for ‘once upon a time’ – the way stores begin. So…
Once upon a time humanity said ‘let us make God in our image, after our likeness they made God’.
Maybe I should have added ‘once upon a time humanity, but with only the voice of the masculine being heard’?
Religion is a human construct – often a position taken by those who are not religious or are atheists. My response is of course it is. Can we work our way through the construct seems to be the core issue. Paul in Athens seems to suggest that ‘the unknown god’ is a move forward in the stumbling approach of humanity. It is a move that has the potential to set ‘God’ free from our boxes that define.
There are many constructs that we create in this world and often we do so to try to make sense of what is beyond us so that we can find where we fit in. I love cities with the life that is present, but I also love the outside particularly a clear sky at night. Looking up at the moon there is always a thought that goes like this ‘no surprise that the ancients thoughwt of the heavenly bodies as ‘gods’ – the wonder at the transcendent would have gripped them’. In our ever-so educated(?) world of course we are so much smarter that those ancients. But the constructs continue.
Some of the ‘constructed-god’ constituent attributes are not always stated explicitly but are often well-defended. It is so hard to see someone else’s perspective whose experience means they struggle with ‘it’god’ or they simply submerge their response in order to keep the status quo in place with a ‘this is just the way it is’ and in silencing their persepctive that person subsequently makes it very hard to fully blossom.
I often wonder how does one have faith in God if born in (e.g.) Gaza when the ‘god’ you read about is pro-Israel and seems to not simply turn a blind eye to genocide but encourage it? What about a black woman encountering a white-male ‘god’? (I will use a capital ‘G’ when referring to the God of Scripture – and therein lies a challenge we can assume our god is the God of Scripture! Hence the capital ‘G’and the lowercase ‘g’.)
Jesus. He messed and continues to mess up religion. And dare I say it Christianity when it manifests in any form of construct (this is not a pointing the finger statement… we construct to make sense, so I can make it personal in that Jesus will continue to mess me up till I see Jesus without imperfect vision, for only then will I be ‘like’ Jesus. Before that, if I cooperate I will be changed from glory to glory, faith to faith etc., into the image of Jesus. (Grammatically I could have used ‘him’ but for reasons that will come out I think we are in danger of another implicit construct.)
There are a million aspects that I think Jesus disturbs about our constructs but not being smart enough I really don’t know what half of them are. If ‘all things’ are to be made new that is certainly more thn I can count, yet if all our works are to go through fire and some will come out the other side to enter the new reality we can be encouraged to pursue this Jesus so that our actions and thoughts are transformed (thoughts marked on the forehead and actions on the hand – OK a little side note there on Revelation with the inevitable link to buying and selling – trade / economics).
The next few posts will be very limited attempts at making suggetions where our ‘god’ might become a little more ‘God’ than before.