This is John the Baptist in full rant by the Jordan river.
Something happened last night that made me read this verse this morning in a different light. So I’ve always seen this verse to be about doing good things, about not breaking the 10 commandments and much more. I’ve thought it meant doing good deeds, of helping the poor, of being cheerful, etc, etc. But last night I was grappling with being put in a position I’m not comfortable with.
This is the uncomfortable position – I came up with an idea about a family event with music and food at a local park. I’ve since realised that I am being expected to coordinate and organise everything and last night that sent me into a tailspin and I was awake from about 3am. I am a visionary and an encourager but I am not great at going into places and asking people to do things. Ask me to get people together so they can do an event [which is what I do with the local areas different Messy Church leaders] and I’m great. But then someone else has to sort out the how, what, when, where, etc.
I did pray and what came to my head was to ask people to pray for someone to help me and to be open about my vulnerability. I sent the request to a group of ladies I’ve only just connected with, as well as to close friends.
Then this morning I read this verse.
I am sure I am not the only person who struggles to ask people to help.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who tries to push through when I’m not comfortable doing so.
I’m sure I’m not the only who doesn’t like to say “I can do this but cannot this”.
But if I am a new creation, if the Son of The Creator God has truly set me free, if I am truly repentant of my old life, then I should be able to be vulnerable, should be able to say “I can’t do that” and should be able to ask for help.
To me this is “producing fruit in keeping with repentance” or showing that I have given up my “sin” of self-reliance.
A friend mention about being a leaf and not tree [I’ve got a poem coming together around this] and I think this is part of repenting of being self-reliant, of producing the fruit of connectivity and community. It is repenting of “going it alone” and producing fruit of “needing others even if they hurt at times.”
After reading this verse this morning after my sleepless but revelatory night I am now going to have a ponder what other areas in my life I “miss God’s mark” and where I need to “turn around” and see what fruit is really there.
There’s more to producing the fruit of repentance than just going good things.
‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’
Numbers 14:18
Until Friday I’ve struggled with this verse. How could God be forgiving and abounding in steadfast love yet still visit the sins of the fathers on their children? Friday, whilst doing some QEC with a small group around inter-generational trauma beliefs it dawned on me what it all meant.
Sins is always a word we get hung up on. Too often it is seen as “wrong things” we have done and then someone decides what is wrong and what isn’t. Like gossiping and even covering over misdemeanors is alright but fancying someone of the same sex or sleeping with someone you aren’t married to are “sins”.
Years ago I heard a sermon saying sin was just missing God’s mark and God’s mark is to put God in the centre of all things all the time. That’s how the apostle Paul can say “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” [Romans 3:23]. Since hearing that this has always been my way of looking at “sin” and I will read it that way, even pray the “Lords Prayer” that way –
Forgive me when I don’t make God’s mark and do as God would for myself, others and the world, as I forgive those who hurt me by not hitting God’s mark for me
[forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us]
So what are the sins of the fathers? I think it should read “sins of our ancestors”. These are those traumas that stay in families and become norms. But they are inherent traumas that effect our mind, body and also our DNA. This can be anything from the belief that “all my family die in their early 70s”, “all my family have arthritis/diabetes/are anxious/don’t do birthdays/add your own” to saying “this is what we’re like as a family”, “it is in my DNA/my make up” as if that is it.
Did you know that there have been studies around genetics and when mice [whose DNA is really similar to humans] experience traumas epigentics tags are added to their DNA which then get passed on to their babies and grandbabies. Do use this Wiki link to read more and use the references to go further Epigentics Ir is totally amazing and for someone like myself who’s been exploring and noticing this sort of thing for a while it makes so much sense.
So back to Numbers 14:18 whether we actually know our ancestors or not, just looking at our recent history shows the traumas that have been faced; The Great Depression, two World Wars, the Cold War, fear of nuclear attack, plus racial abuse or fear of being “over-run” by “others”, fear of lack, of not having “enough”, the education system of having to get good grades, hospital waiting lists, etc and we’ve all experienced untimely deaths and fears of untimely death. So take all those in the last 100+ years and that is a lot of shit that’s happened which, of course, has led to lots of trauma, real and imagined, which has led to one’s DNA adding these epigentic tags to keep us safe.
These, I believe, are the “sins of the fathers”. But, from doing QEC and other inner healing things I know I can get rid of these tags, can be free to be who I am intended to be.
And also forgive those in my past, whether I knew them or not, for accepting those traumas and not being healed from them, and forgive myself for passing those traumas on the my children.
Then I can truly live out the New Creation [2 Corinthians 5:17] God promised I’d be, but I do have to do a bit of work to get there!
But I got to chewing this over. Do we really emerge from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly and that’s it? What happens to those who back slide, loose faith, etc etc? Do they just “die” and that’s it? And what about those people who say they are Christians but don’t quite look like new creations. I know the me of 30 years ago isn’t the me of now but I didn’t change instantly. I am very much a work in progress.
So anyway we got to chewing over this verse – which I think we all should be doing rather than just accepting the interpretation of the person at the front or some book or blog we read.
The NRSV version that our church uses says
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view., we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Not “you are a new creation” but “there is a new creation”. We no longer look from a human point of view but from the point of view of Christ. And Christ Jesus looks at us with no condemnation, no fear, no anxiety. He doesn’t look at us as if we are an issue, a problem that needs solving or sorting. He looks at us with unconditional love.
So this go me thinking – especially as we approach election time – as how do I look at the political situation in my town, my country, my world? At the education system, the health system, the emergency services, the welfare state, etc, etc, etc? The ecology system, global warming, pollution, etc?
I have to say that more and more I am learning to look at my fellow humans as people that I need to learn to love unconditionally and not problems that need solving or people I need to judge – however kindly that might seem at times.
Talking of people – in the park yesterday someone showed me how looking at someone in Christ was. Now I don’t know where this fellow dog walker is with God but we all walked passed this person sat on the bench drinking a can of beer at 8am. Some of us nodded but some walked on without noticing him. This fellow dog walker stopped chatted to him, noticed he had a swollen arm and suggest ways he could help himself. When I said something about getting this drinker to hospital the dog-walker said how this man had to choose for himself. He made me see this other man as a human being with choices he could make and not an issue that needed sorting.
Henri Nouwen’s says
Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering.
What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant [people], we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference.
And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. . . .
Those who can sit with their fellow man, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life into a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears of grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.
But finding a quick cure is not “being in Christ” but is being in self. So to be “in Christ” we all need to be seeing our fellow man and our world through the eyes of new creation. Nothing changes but the way we look at things.
For instance have you ever been somewhere and before you’ve gone you’ve thought “this is going to be hard work and I know I’m not going to like it” and guess what? Yup it is hard work and you didn’t enjoy it. But what happens if you say “I do find these situation hard but I want to go and I want to enjoy it and I want to flourish and see others flourish”. Guess what? You go and you have a good time and something good comes from it. Etc, etc.
When we look through the eyes of Christ, the eyes of God, which is what I think “in Christ” means – looking through Christ/God’s eyes and heart, then we see the whole world and everything in it with unconditional love. That doesn’t mean it is perfect. That doesn’t mean we should just let it be. But it means we can look with love and compassion not at a problem needing fixing.
Like I say I am getting better at doing this with people but with the bigger things like climate change, people trafficking, our crazy political leaders – national and international, our health care, education, welfare, etc I am still working on.
I am a work in progress but my heart is to learn to burrow deeper and deeper into Christ so I can see with their eyes that “the old has passed away” and be able to exclaim “see everything has become new!”
Aspirational Adventures 