Edenic "Consummation"?

They didn’t have to try very hard but my sister and brother-in-law talked me into staying another day in Denver on my trek back home to Minnesota. All Shelli had to say is “art museum…library across the street” and I made my decision.

So, I’m coffee shop, library, and art museum hopping this morning instead of sitting in the driver’s seat. Thinking. And getting my soul filled with art and writing.

This whole idea of “gifting” is going deeper and deeper for me. I guess that was part of the purpose of what happened this summer. But the more I think about it the more I have the distinct conviction that the notion of personal gifting (or whatever you want to call it) is actually not peripheral but very central to the gospel message. I’ve never made the connection before but it seems glaringly clear to me now…and therefore something that I can’t not live and pursue. In faith and freedom.

Here it is: Jesus didn’t come just so that we wouldn’t go to Hell. He didn’t just come so that we would have “life.” He came for a whole ‘nother thing that’s above and beyond that: He came that we would have life to the fullest.* There’s so much packed into that little phrase. He didn’t come so just so that I wouldn’t perish. His very heart is that I would begin my long, arduous, and profoundly rewarding trek back to, well, “Eden.”

In using the word Eden I do not refer to geography. In Scripture, the Garden of Eden is not only an actual place but it also represents what God originally intended our communion with Him to look like. Furthermore, just as the Garden’s very design and purpose was to be context to foster said communion with God, so was our very existence for the same purpose—which means that such Communion is the consummation of our existence. So basically, the Garden was a place for that to happen and now remains a reminder of the pinnacle of how things were meant to be. Then, skip forward thousands of years (how many thousands I do not care to dispute), Jesus made that Edenic Communion a possibility once more.

So that’s what faith is about. It’s infinitely more than just not going to Hell. The idea that “not going to Hell” is all Christianity is about may be one of the most terrible and, unfortunately, effective lies. In truth it’s essentially about “getting back to Eden,” if you will.

That said, there’s another deeper nuance to the idea of Eden. I think the best word that I can use right now to describe it is “uniqueness.” (I’m still mulling this over, but) I think that maybe inherent in the idea of Free Will is the idea of Uniqueness. Uniqueness is tied in with the autonomy that is innate in Free Will (which necessarily also prescribes the freedom to not choose this Consummation that I’ve described, but that’s another blogpost). All of that to say: I think that if we’re designed to make choices then we necessarily are also designed to be unique on and individual to individual basis (I realize that I’m stating the obvious, but please just allow me to explore—however poorly—the underlying philosophy).

So, if the Consummation that Eden represents is the very purpose of our existence then that must naturally mean that the Consummation of our Uniqueness is at the center of the Heart of God as well.

And that is why I’m beginning to think that the idea of gifting is so married to the fullness of the Gospel: God wants us to become everything He created each of our unique selves to be. That takes figuring out the unique talents, gifts, strengths (whatever your brand of appellation for them happens to be)—and maybe some of the weaknesses too—and allowing God to place in you in a spot where those qualities He gave you will be refined, honed, channeled and brought to their ultimate, again (not to overuse the word) consummation.

The Christian walk therefore, in it’s truest form, makes its adherents anything but homogenous; and that’s the beauty of it. The Body of Christ, when we are all walking in the Light and Path that we are designed to then everyone is, yes, “on the same page” but that does not mean that we are all the same. Actually, if two or more are "on the same page" then that is because we are reading the same pages and are in the same Spirit. This means that the Church being what it’s supposed to be—that is, every individual on this path back to Eden, a path that inherently requires a very real corporate community to healthfully accomplish—would be the most perfect representation of Diversity that could ever exist.

And this why “gifting” is so essential to the heart of the Gospel.  The Gospel essentially says, “be made whole, be restored to your original design, just be the YOU that you were created to be. It’s not as easy or simple as it sounds but it’s what you were created for and therefore your soul will never stop longing for it until you get on this truest of Bandwagons that ever existed….”

So: I need to be me. I need to allow this artist in me to be and to blossom, even if I’ve never seen myself this way because it’s “impractical.” I don’t get to make the rules, I don’t get to decide what’s “practical” and what’s not. The Edenic Economy has completely different rules and I’m finally kind of starting to read the “Rulebook” with this hermeneutic. It’s Truth, and it’s freeing because, well, because “…the truth will make you free….”**

When you look at it this way, it’s a wonder anyone sees the Gospel as a constraint on life. It’s actually is as real as it gets.

(Day 7)

*John 10:10

**John 8:32