"The Hebrew Beginning Story"

The actual word Trinity does not exist in the text, it’s a concept or idea held by Christians.  The concept of Trinity is one of many theological paradoxes that seem to contradict themselves. How can three separate entities still be one in the same?

Life would be pretty boarding if we were not permitted to see the trinity within Nature.   Think of it, if all we could ever see was just the seed itself, never being permitted to see what makes it whole.  Same goes for the human seed.  First the seed of one coming together with the seed of the other and then the added breath of life.  You are not just you, you are part Mon and part Dad and part of the spirit of breath.  Three in one separate but united by your oneness.  

June 16, 2019 Trinity Sunday       Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Sadly, I think the Churches have done a good job using religion in general and Christianity in particular to give people the idea that God is angry at them. Over the years, I have met person after person (including professing Christians) who feel that God is fed up with the world and them,  or,  they have given up on God and on the verge of saying, “I’ve had it with you!” or just walking away from religion all together, saying they refuse to darken the door.   Often, if they stick with religion at all, they practice it as a never-ending, performance-oriented attempt to show God they are spiritual and worthy of God’s love.  Now I don’t know for you, but truth be told for me, there was a time in my Christian walk that I have personally felt that way myself and for a time, left the church.  May I suggest that the Early Christian church in the western part of the hemisphere especially the protestant denominations,  became centered on Chapter 3 of Genesis as where the Christian story really begins. 3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  I think you know the rest of the story. its called The Fall of Humankind or when Sin entered the world.  It was taught to us as though our story should begin in Chapter 3 of Genesis yet that was not the beginning story, which starts in Genesis 1 and 2.  Chapter 3 is not where the biblical story begins and it is not what the bible says about us but we have neglected to challenge the status quo teaching of Western Christianity.   Rather than promoting the idea that God is mad with us and our world, the Bible actually begins by saying God is madly in love with all of creation and that includes us.  God is madly in love with us folks.   How did we miss that?  Many passages within both the old and new testaments reaffirms for us just how much God delights in us.  Every reading I reflected upon this week provided me with some new aspect of that understanding. Today’s passage from Proverbs tells us that God has delighted in us from the beginning and God’s delight in us is an unending and an eternal quest.    In theological language, we call this “original righteousness.” It is our story which begin and is recorded in the first two chapters of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 1–2.  This was for the Hebrew the beginnings of a Love story.   Unfortunately for Western Christianity and its protestant denominations they began to preach a message that focused on, a Greek view and begins at Genesis 3 which is entitled “The Fall of Man”   Their view is based on perfection, the garden of Eden in their view as perfect.  Now I ask you, if your story is based on perfection the obvious is you can only fall down not up. That’s the hook they got us with.    Only if our story starts in the first two chapters of Genesis can we understand that, out of kayos God creates and it is all for good.   In the Hebrew view life’s mistakes or sins are always opportunities to fall upwards.   The Hebrew does not agree with the western view.  The disobedience by Adam and Eve is important to the Hebrew story of love but only as the first of many cases of disobedience by humans which is central to the main story line.  May I suggest that in the western view we are falling down to a sinful led world in need of one thing, Salvation?   In the Hebrew view we are falling up to a Salvation through 3 things as Paul states it, faith hope and love and of these three things the greatest is love.  That is why the Hebrew story is a love story folks.   

By focusing on Original sin in Genesis 3 it altered the picture for Western Christianity but Original righteousness was and still is the starting point for God’s understanding of us.  Along with everything else God made, we too were created for good. We were made in the image and likeness of God.  Just imagine walking into the holy Presence and seeing God smile at you.  Rather than in fear of judgment that could send you the fires of Hell.  In the Hebrew view God offers choices to the human race but adds something called consequences.  Innocence and the innocent often are wiped out because of the consequences caused by those who make the wrong choices.  That is why we are to always to consider my neighbor when making choices, because my choice has the potential to affect the lives of others. We are to live by example.  Here is a great example for today, don’t use your cell phone when driving.  Innocent people can die because of that choice.   The road to the atomic bomb began in 1919, when New Zealander Ernest Rutherford reported on a series of experiments to split the atom.   It is almost impossible to imagine that one simple choice could have almost wiped out an entire nation of people, and the threat still exists today.   The Hebrew is a story of love and rescue, God does not stay within that heavenly place or the garden as bible describes it, but after allowing the consequence of their choice to dictate their expulsion, God comes out to rescue them from their human dilemma even to the point of becoming one with us.  John 1: 1-4-14  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind.  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

What if we were to have had the Hebrew story reinforced in our early Christian teachings: Well we may have understood this:  Whatever you do, do not fail to hear that I delight in you!   Do not allow anyone or anything to make you think otherwise!  Let us pray.