Bring it on Home

I am applying to Mars Hill Graduate School to seek a Masters of Divinity, and so I am posting my admissions essays here. Let me know what you think; I have to email them tomorrow, so get back to me pretty quick if you can.

Essay 2 - Bring it on Home
Choose a Biblical story that has meaning for you, and discuss it alongside a “cultural artifact” of your choice. (A cultural artifact could be any piece of art, architecture, film, etc…that enhances, reflects or informs the meaning of your chosen text.)

In the first couple chapters of Genesis God creates the universe and everything in it, and afterwards admits that it’s all pretty good stuff. He can’t help it really, making things that are good. It’s one of those things that God does that characterizes who he is as much as anything. He creates. He makes stuff. Good stuff. And he makes lots of it for that matter. It might be one of the coolest things about our God really.

Of course the universe and the earth and all of those beautifully complex animals were really pretty awesome, and God seems to have enjoyed them quite a bit. You know that feeling you have when you are completely engrossed in doing what it is that you are made to do? You know, like the feeling musicians get when they are playing music, or that one that I’m sure carpenters get when they are working with wood, or the feeling computer programmers get while writing code. It’s that amazing feeling of beauty and worth that we all get when we are fulfilling what we were designed to do or be. It is home. I bet God felt something like that as he relaxed on that seventh day and just took a step back to admire all of the wonder he had created. Wow.

But something wasn’t right. I mean, everything was good, even awesome, but God knew things could be better. He had already invented physics and biology in all of their intricacies and complex yet beautiful workings, but there was something even greater than science that needed to happen.

And so he made something for him to love, and something that could love him in return.

Of course in order to experience real love there must be the possibility of your lover leaving you. It’s not possible to really love someone out of obligation. It’s something you have to choose to do, and something you have to be willing to let others choose or not choose.

So he made us, male and female out of the dust of the ground and he built a really beautiful garden for us to live in. It was a really nice place, probably one of the best gifts that have ever been given. It was a completely ideal situation for us, a location for us to live out our lives and our love for God and for each other, and a place where we had everything provided for us. It must have been pretty flattering to Adam and Eve, to get placed in this amazing dream of a place, because they hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

I can hardly imagine what an amazing relationship they had with their creator God. I’m sure they would chat all the time while strolling around in the garden in the cool of the day. That phrase by itself is very indicative to me of how wonderful this place was, because living in Austin, Texas I have rarely heard the words “cool” and “day” in the same sentence, except where the word “not” accompanied them. And of course Adam and Eve were naked all of the time, which means there was absolutely no insecurity or hiding behind cloth. Everyone just was who they were, and no one was worried about what anyone thought of them because everyone knew at a very deep personal level that they were beautiful bearers of the image of God. This was, of course, just how God wanted it – nobody was worried about what anybody thought of them because God by himself was enough for them.

Unfortunately this ideal setup didn’t last for very long. It is a very complex and meaty story about how it happened, and rightfully so entire books have been written dealing almost completely with the approximately half of a chapter of Biblical text which treats the actual events of the Fall. In a nutshell, a seed of doubt was planted in humanity’s brain. A question: “Does God really have my best interests in mind? Why does he get to be in charge of everything?” It is almost comical that the idea of wanting to “be my own god” is often thought of as such a new one. In fact it is the very root of our Original Sin.

So we chose to walk away and not trust God. We took a bite from a pretty delicious looking fruit, a direct act of rebellion against our benevolent creator God who had been so absolutely unrelentingly loving and caring and had provided for our every need so completely thus far. He had done nothing but shower us with gifts, but when given a choice between God and ourselves, we chose ourselves.

Then we figured out we were naked. I’m sure that to a degree we knew before that point that we were hanging around in our bare skin, but I would imagine the idea of clothes just had never occurred to us. And why should it have? It probably didn’t matter to us that we were naked, because in an absolutely perfect love relationship stuff like that just doesn’t matter since no one is concerned with how they are portrayed – they are only concerned with the well being of the one whom they love.

So we put on some fig leaves because we needed something to hide behind, and then God comes walking along through the garden in the cool of the day, and we have the nerve to hide from him. I guess it can be pretty easy to forget that God knows everything, and to think that we actually can successfully hide from him, but in this story it seems kind of ridiculous, since we had been pretty close to God up until this point and one might expect we should know him a bit better than that.

Then God speaks. “Where are you?” he says, I’m sure knowing full well the answer.

Then Adam answers back, “I heard you coming, and I was afraid because I was naked, and so I hid myself.”

Next come what are probably the saddest words in the whole Bible. God answers, “Who told you that you were naked?” I imagine God was pretty upset by the betrayal in this act. Apparently we had decided we didn’t need him anymore, which is a pretty big slap in the face to someone who had done nothing but love, protect and provide all of Adam and Eve’s lives. It was the most extreme of turning points, the day that we decided we would rather make our own way than take our God’s. It was pretty heart wrenching, I’m sure, from God’s perspective.

I relate a number of different songs to this feeling of lost love experienced by God in the betrayal of the fall. This is one of my favorites:

If you ever change your mind
About leaving, leaving me behind
Oh, bring it to me, bring your sweet lovin’
Bring it on home to me.

I’ll give you tulips and money too.
That ain’t all, that ain’t all I’ll do for you.
Bring it to me, bring your sweet lovin’
Bring it on home to me.

I tried to treat you right
But you stayed out, stayed out day and night
But I’ll forgive you
Bring it to me, bring your sweet lovin’
Bring it on home to me. (Sam Cooke, “Bring it on Home to Me” 1962)

Not unlike what Adam and Eve did to God, Sam Cooke is singing about some woman that used him for his stuff, cheated on him, and then left him all by himself. I really love thinking about this song in the context of the Fall, because I can really feel and relate to Sam Cooke’s pain as he continues, even after all she has put him through, to claim his love for her and beg her to come back, even promising to provide for her once again and forgive her completely for all of her wrongdoing. He really loves this girl unconditionally it seems, and God loves humanity in a way that is even deeper than that. "Bring it on Home to Me" is a song about redemption that is being freely offered to a former lover. Similarly, the entire Bible after this point in the story is a tale of continual cycles of redemption and betrayal, which is ultimately capped off by the redemption offered in the person of Jesus Christ.

He stands at the door and knocks, hoping that his former love will answer the door and let him back into their hearts, surrendering control of their lives while regaining his unfailing provision.