August 30, 2010

The Movement of God - 12

With the exile from Eden, a new kind of movement began on the Earth.  Wandering.  Homelessness.  This was NOT how God had ideally desired to express his own Movement.  Exile came to earth as a part of the Fall.

Adam & Eve were cast out of the Garden. Cain had to live as a vagabond, after murdering Abel.  For many tribes, banishment was as bad as execution, if not worse.  Throughout the story of Genesis, families large and small almost constantly split, separated, re-split, divided and - always - fought against one another.  At one point, God chose Noah, whose boat bobbled, tossed and wandered over (and over!) the face of the Earth... until it finally came to rest far, far away.

Exile became quite the standard of living, for humans.  Divine Movement on Earth had scarcely been seen in quite some time. God closed the door of the Ark and waited until it was time to start over. Then he began once more.  "Be fruitful. Multiply. Fill the Earth. I won't drown you again." But Mankind continued cursing, enslaving, usurping and out-ranking each other.  And - for the most part - they kept living as Nomads.

Noah declared that one branch of Ham's family would always serve Shem's. Noah decided where Japheth would live. But Ham's grandson Nimrod became good at hunting and killing, and Nimrod decided to set up his own rules. Nimrod established a Kingdom, and tried to put up a Tower. But Nimrod's great building project was overturned when God scattered the people and scrambled their languages.  By this, God kept most of humanity living in tents, wandering, each tribe searching for lands it could call its own.

Exile, again and again, was the primary punishment. Since Eden, the sin had been less clear at some times than others, but what is most clear is that God had not been directing these people.  They were not following Him. God was willing to move - in them, with them, for them - but people kept making their own moves.

So God made them keep moving on.

All this while, God had not lost the desire for His own Movement to thrive on the Earth.  He still wanted to be an (or the) impetus for human action.  He definitely wanted to bring change.  He dearly wanted to find some ones who would follow Him.  He desperately wanted to find people on Earth whom He could walk with, in any part of the day.

Eventually, he found one such person.  You get one guess as to the name.

To be continued...

4 comments:

Josh L said...

Bill Heroman!

:)

Bill Heroman said...

Um. No.

Franklin said...

If the Trinity was "complete" in some way...why does it seem God is so passionate about movement WITH someone other than the Trinity? He moves WITH us, and IN us for sure...but why? Is God like the disembodied spirits who move ONLY in or with a body? Why is this movement in space and time through an image so important to him? Adam moved independently of him...and something happened...bad. Could it be that this movement outside of God is what brings death? His Spirit is life, yes? So movement apart from his spirit results in Death. Just thinkin...

Bill Heroman said...

The Trinity is the Trinity. Or so I suppose. But "complete"? What means complete?

It just occurs to me that, perhaps, One cannot be both infinite and "complete". And so, perhaps, God's love must ever expand.

On the subject of spirits and bodies, you're giving me much more to think about as well... but I'd rather not do angelology in this particular thread.

Anyway, those are fantastic questions. I think you're onto something for sure.

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