So Much to Not Understand

We are the form of a person, the shape of woman and man,

Between what we are forbidden to understand, and what we simply cannot understand.

When we are what we think, we are nothings.

When we are what God thinks, we are judges and kings.

"And in process of time it came to  pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord" (Genesis 4:3, KJV).  There is no indication in the text that the offering was bidden by God.  There is no indication that the offering was required, or that Cain was expected to make up for the offering that was not accepted, or that Cain was under judgment for having made an unacceptable offering.

Cain is upbraided by God for responding negatively to the situation.  "And the Lord said unto Cain, why art thou wroth?  And why is thy countenance fallen?" (4:6).

And then God provides the remedy: "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.  And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him" (4:7).

God is not suggesting that positive virtue will justify Cain.  Cain is expected to attempt to refrain from doing wrong, and moreover to refrain from positively succumbing to sin ("unto thee shall be his desire").  The important lesson here is not one of refraining from evil and doing good, as though a sufficiently positive balance between evil and good will justify a person.  There is refraining from evil, and there is doing good, and then there is resisting the temptation to embrace evil as a matter of personal moral identification.  It is this final point, this third element of humanity's moral struggle, that is most important.

We can try to be moral people, and then we will of course fail.  What places our souls in danger, though, is what we decide to do with our failings.  We must accept that we will become exhausted or overwhelmed, and rest in those instances on an expectation of God's mercy.  We must cede control, reckoning that any notion we have of a good God means that God is a force for good.  Let God act, and it will be for good.  We won't understand, but it will be for good.

That is how Jesus responded to the temptations.  Jesus was hungry, and when tempted by Satan with the prospect of cutting the fast short with a convenient contrivance, Jesus rested in God.  It was as though Jesus said, "Yes, I am hungry; yes, I am tempted; but so what?"  For us, it might be somewhat of a lengthier recitation: "Yes, I am hungry; yes, I am tempted; and--yes--I am thinking negative thoughts about the whole thing, but so what?  I will rest on God's mercy and forgiveness."

The important thing is not to combine in moral identification with sin.  Such identification can be overt or hidden, brazen or subtle, but the upshot is the same.  Whether by defiance or by hypocrisy, or by some other contrivance, we can all possibly embrace an essence of sinfulness.  We have no right to claim that such a thing is ordinary stumbling, since by a positive embrace of sinfulness we have not merely fallen short of the moral mark, we have additionally forsaken the ever-present chance in each shortfall to simply yield to the mercy of God.

When we ask of God, God responds with mercy.  When we let go of ourselves, God presses against us with mercy.  This is perhaps the most important pivot-point in the study of Jesus' teachings.  Jesus tells us that God's blessings fall on the evil and the good, providing support and sustenance from which we can draw strength for the next battle.  We cannot assume that we will be unable to draw ourselves up from moments of resignation, any more than we can assume it possible to avoid moments of resignation.  This pivot-point is where the denominations pounce, shoving theological formulations at us when we are most vulnerable, telling us things that we supposedly need to "understand" about God or about ourselves.

Only people with an unseemly assessment of God--or perhaps more importantly, an unseemly assessment of the Ultimate that we approximate with our "understandings" about "God"--need be assured by theological dissertations about the workings of God.  God is good.

And so, to return to the temptations, Jesus responds to hunger by resting in God.  Jesus responds to physical vulnerability by resting in God.  Jesus responds to the temptation of worldly power by resting in God.  We must do likewise.