Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 336

When the LORD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth,

and his heart was grieved.

Nihilists would agree with the LORD's assessment in Genesis 6, the Earth would be better off without this human creature. We seem only to make a mess. Where the 19th century nihilist saw economic and political forces wasting human life, anticipating the senseless carnage of the 20th century wars and 21st century terrorism, the modern nihilist wonders why we're on this planet at all. (Nihil in Latin means "nothing") 

If the 19th century nihilist was a philosopher, the 21st century nihilist is an alcoholic or drug addict. Or perhaps she just tweets, facebooks, games and watches mindless television shows hour after hour. The intro to "Big Bang Theory" raised the question: "Several billion years of evolution led to this?"

The question is not new. It's there in the Book of Genesis. God "regretted that he had made man on the earth and his heart was grieved."

But perhaps this vapidity is not the real issue. Perhaps this ennui is born of disappointment: "What's the point of life if I cannot have what I want? Why should I exist if I have to deal continually with other people who don't give me what I want?"

The God of Genesis 6 is disappointed with the way things are going with his creature. He expected something different and much better of molded mud enlivened by his breath.

In my meditation yesterday I concluded that Cain was not prepared to recognize the otherness of his brother Abel. Where Cain preferred to plow the earth, Abel tended sheep. Discovering that God inexplicably favored Abel, he grew impatient and jealous, and then vicious.

This challenge of otherness is continual; it is really the world we live in.

The Christian revelation, appearing many centuries after Genesis was written, reveals a Triune God who enfolds otherness into divinity. The Father is not the Son and is not the Spirit; nor are the Son and Spirit the same. Although they are not the same they embrace one another in perfect love and acceptance. (We don't suppose they love each other because they should. We have seen it in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.) 

Where human beings quarrel with one another, and the most quarrelsome pairs are those who most resemble each other, we meet a God who is one substance yet three persons. The only difference between the Father and Son is the Father is not the Son. But they are substantially the same.

What really bothered Cain was his own brother! They were like each other in every way, but Abel was a shepherd! A shepherd, for God's sake! How can any reasonable person want to be a shepherd? It makes no sense. And then when God favored the shepherd, that sent Cain over the edge.

There are as many ways to read Genesis 6 as there are people to read it; but I see in the story a developing understanding of God. This God is unwise; he has not yet learned that threats and punishment -- even catastrophic punishment -- change nothing in the human heart. If the experiment of a creature in his own image has gone badly, the punishment by deluge will go worse. Noah and his kin will be no better than their ancestors. Confusing the languages of Babel is mischief and the destruction of the cities of the plain by fire will be an exercise in futility. 

A new story, beginning with Abraham, represents another tack. God will stoop down not to flood the earth or to confuse the languages but to befriend a man and make of him a great nation. The birth of Jesus will go further -- God will be born of a woman and suffer at the hands of men. He will become totally subject to the otherness of this creature, allowing himself even to be despised, accused, judged, condemned and executed.

Our salvation begins when we accept the otherness of God. Although I am created in God's image, God is not me writ large. I am not god; I cannot have my way. There is no reason I should expect to have my way but I can expect to die like anyone else.

Nor should I be disappointed by this fate. Quite the contrary, I am delighted! I am not God! Thank God! I cannot have my way! Hurray! If I am saddened by the way things turn out, it's a healthy sadness, a full participation in the sorrow that accompanies pain and suffering. I will drink deeply of that cup even as Jesus did in the Garden.

But, fortunately, most of us embrace the monotony of daily prayer, sipping pleasure and disappointment in small amounts. We take shelter in prayer, looking through the psalms at this tragic, beautiful world which God has made. We don't pray for a deluge though we might fear one. We don't stand outside at night expecting an apocalypse, though we do hope for one -- in God's time.