God may seem like an angry, distant God…until you understand the rhythm of scripture.
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For most climates around the world, there’s a rhythm to nature.
Spring brings about birth, summer matures, fall ages, and winter brings about death.
If we don’t understand this rhythm, winter may seem cruel and merciless.
I propose that scripture also has a rhythm. If we fail to grasp it, then God may seem like an angry God, bent on getting revenge.
I’ve recently come across two different, but still very similar suggestions.
Stephen Prothero has suggested the following:
- First, there’s wrong-doing, which leads to punishment and exile.
- Secondly, after the breach of the covenant (the wrong-doing), there’s a new covenant that gives hope.
He suggests that because God is just, he punishes. But because he is merciful, he creates new opportunities for renewed relationship.
The second rhythm is proposed by Richard Benton.
- First, God provides for his creation – a gift, if you will.
- But, we misuse God’s gift, which typically causes suffering for others.
- Because we misused the gift, God deprives us of it through disaster or exile (so that we can no longer abuse it)
- Finally, God restores us with the expectation that we’ve learned not to hoard the gifts God gives to all.
This rhythm gives a context for human freedom to accept (or misuse) God’s gifts and the blessing (or consequence) of such use. The cause and effect of scripture.
If you read with an eye for these sorts of rhythms, I think you’ll find scripture to the be story of hope, despite the despair around us.
What are your thoughts?
Thanks, Fr. Dustin.
This is a great exercise. I think of it less as a rhythm (cycling and repeating) and more as a plot. There is a great master plot, with its characters and their flaws, always preceded by the good plan, which becomes the redemptive plan, of the Author who enters the story personally to pull off the impossible. Within the master plot are countless echoes and eddies each pointing forward or backward reflecting the reality of the master narrative.
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Hi Gary,
That’s another great way to think about it.
I was thinking rhythm because the cycle gets repeated so many times (Garden of Eden leads to exile, the rescue of Noah leads to the Tower of Babel, the rescue through Abraham leads to Egypt, the rescue from Egypt leads to Assyrian and Babylonian exile).
But, as a Christian, I see the rhythm breaking and hope finally winning out through the Messiah – exactly what you said.
Amen to the author pulling off the impossible!