Advent Reflection 1

Jesus, the Garden, and Beloved Community

It’s Advent—Christmas is not even four weeks away. Which means it’s time to talk about the Garden of Eden.

Wait. What?

Yes, the Garden of Eden. Trust me.

The creation narrative in Genesis 2 and 3 may be the most contested theological real estate in all Scripture. But I want to focus on a single issue. It will require we step back from the scientific, cultural, and sexual dimensions of the creation narrative which can make discussion so volatile.

The issue I want to focus on as we again find ourselves on the cusp of Advent is this: God doesn’t want to be alone.

Think about it.

God does not need relationship—God is complete unto God’s self. God needs nothing and no one to be God. Also, God creates. It’s what God does. But in Genesis 3, God didn’t create, then have a lie-down, leaving creation to fend for itself. God created, then hung around. Because God chooses to be in relationship with what God has created. It follows, therefore, that God didn’t choose to create merely because God can. God chose to create because God desires not to be alone. God does not need relationship; God wants relationship.

It therefore follows, I think, that the Garden of Eden narrative, whatever else it may be about, is about what God intends this relationship with creation to be.

Enter Adam and Eve, two human beings in right relationship with one another (for a few verses, anyway). All their physical, biological, emotional and, presumably, spiritual needs are met. They are also in right relationship with God, a relationship that is profoundly intimate, not because Adam and Eve are buck naked but because they exist fully in God’s presence. They can look at God and be with God yet, unlike anywhere else in Scripture, not be struck dead as a consequence.

But note this: as intimate as this relationship may be, there is ordering—God is God and Adam and Eve are not—and there are boundaries. Eat of any plant in the Garden, God tells them, but not of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If that happens, the ordering and boundaries implicit in life as God intends life to be will be ruptured.

And note this: the relationship God has chosen, with its ordering and boundaries, Adam and Eve must also choose. Why is this important? Because God opted not to make God’s choice the default choice for humans. A desire for relationship with God on God’s terms is not part of human DNA. It’s important Adam and Eve freely choose relationship with God on God’s terms because what would it mean to God for Adam and Eve to say “yes” to such a relationship if they could not say “no”? God wants us to choose to be in relationship with God as much as God chooses to be in relationship with us.

We know what happens. Say what you will about the crafty serpent but Adam and Eve each chose to take a bite of the forbidden fruit because they were less than thrilled with God’s ordering and boundaries. They desired a relationship with God on their own terms, which is the desire at the root of all sin. And the result was as promised. The relationship God intended not just for Adam and Eve but for all humanity was, indeed, ruptured.

Which brings us to Advent and Jesus the Christ. God’s desire to set things right in a broken, sinful world leads God to redeem and restore it (and us) to what God always intended. Patriarchs, judges, kings, the Law and the prophets couldn’t get it done. So God, through Jesus of Nazareth, takes on flesh and does what no patriarch, judge, king, law, or prophet could.

Incarnation—the Word-become-flesh—results in redemption, creation’s return to right relationship with the Creator. This is part of what Advent is about.

But something more than a relationship is redeemed because something more than a relationship was ruptured. This, too, is part of what Advent is about.

A way of living was also ruptured. Adam and Eve may have been less than thrilled with God’s ordering and boundaries but it was the ordering and boundaries which defined the ethic—the way of living—God expected them to embrace: values, priorities, responsibilities, ways of thinking and loving, ways of seeing themselves and others.

So Jesus came not just to redeem us but to show us how to live. In the marvelous translation by Eugene Peterson in The Message, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish” (John 1:14).

And this brings us to Beloved Community. Relationship is crucial to Beloved Community. So, too, is how we live. The Incarnation is a commitment to relationship—Jesus moves in and dwells among us—and, as such, a commitment to community. But to a particular kind of community. A community which reflects what Jesus’ life and teachings reflected: compassion, justice, reconciliation, peace, and unconditional love. A community where all are equally valued, equally nurtured, and equally protected.

So it is that the Incarnation both affirms and informs Beloved Community.

The Incarnation affirms that the material world and human life are worthy vessels for divine love. If God chose to take on human form and move into the neighborhood, then any effort made to nurture and dignify other human beings is a sacred task.

The Incarnation informs our efforts at community-building by demonstrating that Beloved Community is not achieved from a comfortable distance but from an active, empathetic, in-the-midst-of-it-all presence.

The coming of Jesus, in the flesh, into our community, transforms the idea of Beloved Community from a lofty goal to a spiritual imperative. It demonstrates that Beloved Community is more than something we build—it’s something we manifest.

Beloved Community, like Advent itself, challenges each one of us, in our own lives, to incarnate love and truth daily.

This first week of Advent, as you make your way through each day’s readings, I invite you to reflect on the significance of seeing the Incarnation within the bigger picture of God’s intentions for creation, how we humans have tended to respond to those intentions, and what Jesus of Nazareth means to what God has desired for us all along.

Daily Scripture Readings

Sunday, November 30 Genesis 2:4-25

Monday, December 1 Genesis 3:1-24

Tuesday, December 2 Micah 6:1-8

Wednesday, December 3 Amos 5:18-24

Thursday, December 4 John 1:1-14

Friday, December 5 Psalm 46

Saturday, December 6 Romans 12:9-21

Here are some questions to get you thinking:

1) I said God is complete, needing nothing and no one to be God. What does it reveal about God’s character that God wants relationship and chooses not to be alone? How does that help you understand the Word-become-flesh?

2) Think about your own relationship with God and how you live your daily life. In what ways are they broken? What does Jesus’ commitment to “move into the neighborhood” mean to your brokenness?

3) I said the Incarnation transforms the idea of Beloved Community from a lofty goal to a spiritual imperative. Why and how does it do that?

4) In practical terms, what does it mean for individuals and communities to “incarnate love and truth daily”? How is that different from the ways we typically order our lives or try to achieve social change?

5) How does contemplating the original ordering and boundaries of Eden make the anticipation and celebration of Jesus’s birth more meaningful or urgent?