All Creation Waits: The Unfulfilled Promise of Christianity

By Katherine C. Keough

This book is for serious reflection by believers who believe that in Christ, God has truly come into our world, and are asking themselves—why has this coming not made a bigger difference? You are invited to take Sabbath time, and come on a quest or journey with the author. Explore the unfulfilled promise of Christianity, but beware—when you go out on a journey or a quest, you might never come back. Small groups will find this book a rich resource as a starting point for reflection and discussion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9780982616031

Book preview

Things

Introduction

In the mid to late 1990s I began to realize the Church I grew up in, and had served as a lay ecclesial minister for years, was becoming an uncomfortable fit. There were jagged edges poking at me, tight places squeezing the Spirit out of me, and bits of gritty things creeping into this religion of my birth. Or maybe I was simply becoming aware of what was always there. I managed to stay in denial for years, making one excuse after another on behalf of the Church I loved. I was not alone in the endeavor to stay, even while no longer feeling at home in the Church. It’s a little like growing out of a pair of shoes you love, or clothes, or whatever. It’s hard to let go of what you know; of what you love.

As I considered my own faith tradition, I began to ponder the whole experience of Christianity down through the ages. If Jesus the Christ is the Incarnation of God, the Messiah, the Anointed One of God come into the world, why is the world still a mess, and so far from God? If billions of people throughout the world claim to be followers of Christ, why do people, including those who call themselves Christians, still rampage, terrorize and storm about this world, killing each other? Why do people care so little for Creation, even to the point of destroying it? Why is getting rich still a primary value, even as the poor get poorer? Why do people work themselves to death, live in fear and trembling, and continue to be exploited by the powerful? Why is the world full of hungry and homeless people? Why do people still spend vast amounts of time and money creating ever more horrid weapons of mass destruction? Why is war still glorified, and why are society’s preferred heroes men of conquest, war and violence? Why is it more heroic to be killed in war than it is to die giving birth? Why are the little ones of society constantly exploited, demeaned and thrown away, with barely any notice or protest? Why is there still violent abuse toward women and children? How is it even possible for slavery to still exist, and in fact involve greater numbers today than prior to our nation’s Civil War? Why… why… why?

This book is a reflection on Christianity and a personal testimony to the truth I have discovered. It is not meant to be an academic sort of book, published within academia for heady discussion and debate, filled with quotes from many authorities to support every position. This testimony is not meant to stay in the head, but it is meant to go to the heart. As someone who has written many a paper and understands academia at least a bit, I realize how the struggle to present things in that academic way can hamper one’s ability to simply state what is true from a person’s own standpoint. I have been influenced by uncountable teachers, authors, theologians, philosophers, saints, other students, family, friends, media and books of all kinds. What I have heard and read from others will find its way into these pages because these things have become a part of me, part of my understanding. Any creativity I bring to the venture of writing is the product of some mysterious weaving together of learnings and insights gathered over time, in dialogue with the Spirit within. This particular venture of writing is a very organic process, and as I write, I am not myself sure where this reflection will take me. I know myself as indebted to many, many voices. I know myself as continuing to learn, grow and become. I understand that even as I complete this writing, I will have moved on.

I intend this book for serious reflection by believers who, like me, believe that in Christ, God has truly come into our world, and are asking themselves – why has this coming not made a bigger difference? This book is for all kinds of Christians, even though I often look at things through the lens of my upbringing in the Church of my childhood. This book considers the failure of Christianity to truly transform the world, asks why, and reflects on the insights I have gathered over time. For it is not that God has failed to give us the power to make this world truly a heaven on earth. It is that most of us have never tried to live out its message. We have been in torpor, even if we look like we are walking around and aware.

This book is like a quest, or a journey, and I invite you, the reader, to come with me. This book is not meant to be a little light reading as you would take on a vacation. On a vacation you go away, and come back refreshed, and then continue to do whatever you were doing before you went away; you are not changed. A journey is quite different from a vacation. You go out on a journey or a quest, and you might never come back. We have many stories that take on the theme of a quest – in a quest, a person is changed, and that person never sees the world the same way again; there is conversion.

Here is what I believe: it is time for all Christians to wake up! We need to stop doing things in the same old ways that have not worked. We need to finally be converted from our pre-Christian ways. Each and every Christian needs to attend to the Spirit within, and listen to what God is revealing today. And what you discover needs to be truly something that is world changing; not the same old stuff that hasn’t worked, and never will work. Let us begin in the name of the Creator, of Christ who reveals God to us, and of the Spirit of God within ….

Author’s Note: This book may be read all by yourself. It is best read with others. In order to facilitate reflection and discussion in small groups there are reflection questions throughout this book. Prayerfully you will think of more questions and further items for discussion will arise as you reflect together. It is my prayer that what you have read will have a chance to make a difference in your life. Prayerfully you will not merely put this book away on a bookshelf when you are done, and forget about it. Prayerfully there is something in this book to bring you back again and again, or send you off to examine the scriptures, to read what other people are writing today, and more importantly, to check in with the Spirit within, and discover what God is saying to your heart. Prayerfully the Spirit of God will use these materials as a springboard to something beyond what is contained in these inadequate words. In this way this little book will continue to be written. This little book is by no means an end in itself, but only a starting point.

Creation groans and is in agony

we, called to free her, are her doom.

God created and all was good

but God gave her to us to mind.

Now she labors nearly in vain,

yet not without a bit of hope.

Ignorant of who we really are

God’s children walk asleep.

Creation waits with patient hope

for God’s children to awake.

All Creation waits and yearns and longs

to hear —

the sleepers have awakened!

In the beginning God…

It may be that in this attempt to bring some creativity to the way we look at Christianity, some people will see only a threat of chaos. Most Christian denominations are well-ordered religious systems, and people get quite comfortable and therefore very protective of these systems. Those who benefit the most from the status quo will quite naturally be the most threatened. And no system wants to be undermined, eroded or insulted, and therefore it is constantly on guard to expel those who might destroy it. It is not a good feeling to be perceived as dangerous by those who are protective of their systems. But, so be it.

Chaos is threatening. With chaos we don’t necessarily know where things will end up when they are reordered again. The threat of chaos in religious systems can be especially threatening to people who have a place of status in that system, or a place of safety. People may insist on the unchanging nature of their religion more than they insist on stability in other aspects of their lives. Nevertheless, periodically someone or something must come along and disrupt things, or the creative process cannot continue. Both chaos and the ordering of chaos are of God, but chaos can make people feel uneasy and even angry. Yet, it is good now and then to disrupt religious systems, shake them up, and allow the Spirit of God’s creativity to renew and refresh human spirituality.

The book of Genesis, the first chapter, tells us God created everything out of chaos – a dark and formless wasteland. In this image of Creation we have a God who brings order out of chaos in the beginning, now and forever. Creation is not a one time event that happened and is complete. Creation is ongoing. It is not that God was Creator; God is Creator. While the story of Creation in the first chapter seems to indicate God rested after finishing the work, Creation is by no means finished, and this rest is actually a hint of some long distant future expectation that may always be the something that draws us on. All we have to do is look at life around us and, aided by things like the Hubble telescope, space ships that travel to Jupiter and beyond, or electron microscopes that peer into the tiniest speck of Creation, we see the work of Creation unfolding. We see both chaos and order. Both the chaos and the ordering are of God. Chaos continues to disrupt things, and just as dependably, everything comes into new order, and so it goes. This is the pattern; Creation continues today. The Seventh Day is that which draws us into the future. On that final great day of our God, all of Creation will rest in harmony and shalom peace. In actual fact, that great and final day of our God does not actually have to arrive for the pulling effect to work. Creation continues as long as God is Creator.

Once again, in a new era of creative chaos, it is time to stop trying to do things in the same old ways that do not work, and to do something new. This is not a matter of throwing out Christianity, but of reclaiming the Spirit of Christianity, and the purpose of Christianity. The trappings of Christianity have too often distracted us from its mission. And so this book is about remembering; getting back in touch with the whole point of the enterprise called Christianity. The book is also about putting our creativity to work to restore and reorder Christianity to its purpose. There are many starting places for the undertaking called remembering. A very good way to remember and get back in touch with the call and purpose of Christianity is by first remembering the Sabbath. The starting point of our quest therefore is to reclaim and embrace the Spirit of Sabbath.

Today’s world seems busier than ever before, especially in the United States. Remembering and getting back in touch with the mission of Christianity takes time, and intention. Also, in order to manage the chaos of creativity it is necessary to produce a calm place in the midst of it—an eye in the middle of the hurricane, as it were. Keeping the Sabbath, a talent so many of us have lost, myself included, provides a space to both remember, and to manage the creativity that will come out of that remembering. In order to get back in touch with Christianity’s true purpose we need time; and so, we need to learn the ways of Sabbath. Remembering and keeping the Sabbath is not an option for those who are serious about Christianity and its promise; it is a necessity.

From the beginning God asks for Sabbath; asks us to take time to walk with God in the Garden. The systems of the world pull us away from the Spirit of Sabbath, and instead keep us too busy for Sabbath. Those who wrote the first Creation story of Genesis were eager to reinforce and support the keeping of Sabbath. In this version of the Creation story, God created everything in six days, and then blessed the seventh day, the Sabbath Day, and made it holy. Those who understand such things explain that each Sabbath is meant to be a foreshadowing of the Great Sabbath, the great day of our God, the Seventh Day. This little Creation story is a snapshot of the whole.

Christians have for the most part lost the Spirit of Sabbath; we lost the ability to walk and talk with God in the garden. We are too busy. The very concept of Sabbath is becoming dim. Early Christians, being Jewish, certainly kept the Sabbath, and even Gentile Christians were persuaded to adapt some sense of the Sabbath. Somewhere along the way, as Sunday became Christianity’s main day of worship, the Spirit of the Sabbath grew separated from the Sunday worship day, and eventually left behind. Yes, for centuries there were prohibitions from working on Sundays. There really was a time when all the stores were closed on Sundays. However the spirit and the purposes of the Sabbath were lost long before the stores started to stay open. Not working is not the same thing as keeping the Sabbath, and letting the Sabbath keep you. It is merely a symptom of our disconnection from Sabbath that working on Sundays is no different than working on weekdays. We’ve lost even that remnant idea about the Sabbath.

What then is Sabbath? Sabbath is a period of time, a space of time, when we remember that God is the Creator – and not us. It is the time to walk and talk with God in the Garden. We are called upon by the Spirit of Sabbath to stop creating, stop doing the work of Creation, so we may know that all Creation belongs to God and God is the Creator. On Sabbath we remember we are waiting for the fulfillment of the Sabbath rest, when all is finished. The Seventh Day is yet to come. On each little Sabbath we have an opportunity to practice living in God’s fulfilled and completed Creation, as it will one day be, when the sea of chaos is calmed and at peace. Sabbath is a day to live totally in the kingdom of God, and not according to the systems of the world. Sabbath is the day to study and learn the ways of God, and live by them. It is a time to live as if God’s ways have truly prevailed over the ways of the world, at least in our hearts.

Christians were not meant to throw out the wisdom and inspiration of the Spirit of Sabbath. Christ, incarnate as Jesus, came to bring us back to the Spirit of Sabbath, not to cancel it. Christ came to bring renewal and to refresh the Sabbath, not to discard it. In his day the Spirit of the Sabbath was buried in the details of too many laws and rules; instead of a joy, Sabbath had become a burden; instead of a way to life, it had become a religious exercise. Christ came to reveal its true meaning, and to uncover its spirit, not to discard it. And so sitting at the feet of Jesus is preferable to doing a lot of things.

Sabbath is not about rules and laws. It is not about not working. It is also not about making a clear distinction between the people of God and others, though this element may be considered a byproduct of keeping Sabbath. Sabbath is about remembering who God is, and remembering who we are in God, and helping others to remember. It is taking a whole day just to remember our Creator, and it is more. It is about renewing ourselves and our relationships, too. It is a day to spend with family, with our children, with friends, with others who matter to us. It is meant to be a day of caring as well as contemplation. Sabbath is a space of time that allows us to refresh our spirits. It is a day to study and reflect on scriptures, and get to know God better. Sabbath is a day to live in the kingdom of God that has already come to earth. When Christianity dumped the laws and rules of the Sabbath, it dumped out the baby with the bath water. We lost the Spirit of the Sabbath. Sabbath is so much more than just going to Church on Saturdays or Sundays.

Christians lost Sabbath as they lost their rootedness in Judaism. Christianity became alienated from its Jewish roots all too soon in its development, and in the alienation Christians lost a great deal. We were not meant to lose the truths God revealed to the Jewish people prior to the coming of Christ into the world. Christianity was not meant to cut itself off from the Jewish people. Jesus came to deepen the relationship God began to establish with all of Creation through the Jewish people, who are more than a family, more than a religious faith, more than a nation. They are the people of God. Christians also are the people of God. Together Christians and Jews are the people who are called to bring all of Creation into the household of God, until all is One. Together they are to be a blessing to all of Creation, and to bring all humanity together as the whole People of God. Divisiveness is the opposite of God’s will for us, and yet we allowed divisiveness to fester, until it revealed its true ugliness in the Holocaust.

Jesus did not come as the founder of a new religion. In fact, Judaism is not really a religion nor is true Christianity a religion. They are both more about being a people called to be countercultural in the world; both Jews and Christians called to bring the kingdom of God into the world.¹ Judaism specifically is called to bring the world to acknowledge God, and the values of God. Christianity takes this another step. The purpose of Christianity is to acknowledge a God who actually comes into the world, lives with us, and calls us to share in bringing about the kingdom of God on earth. Christianity comes with amazing news, surprising news for the whole world.

Many accretions had been crusted on to the Jewish way of walking with God. Jesus was calling the Jewish people back to their simple Covenant relationship with God, and also calling them to go deeper. In other words, the Jewish people had drifted far from their purpose.

We are called to go back to the foundations of Christianity, and to a renewal of the spirit of Christianity; to get back on track with the mission of the Church. The Church has a mission. It is not an end in itself. Jesus, like the prophets before him, was calling the Jews to get back on track with the mission of Judaism. Being Jewish is not an end in itself. Being Christian is not an end in itself. In fact, no religion is an end in itself.

It matters a great deal that Christianity lost the Spirit of the Sabbath. Along with the Sabbath we lost the ability to stay on track; to know who we are and what we are called to do as Church. The Sabbath is a gift of joy and delight, and keeping Sabbath is a necessity for all who would stay true to God, and the ways of God. As a person keeps Sabbath, so the Sabbath keeps the person.

For the Jewish people Sabbath is also a time to get in touch with the Exodus event that formed them as a people. To remember this: it is God who sets them free, who saves them when they cannot save themselves, and who gives them their dignity as the people of God. For us Christians Sabbath ought to be a time to get in touch with the Paschal Mystery of Christ. To remember this: it is God who sets us free from any concern about death, who has already saved us and calls us to join in the work of salvation, and who gives us our dignity not only as the children of God, but also as the Body of Christ – the continuation of the very presence of God as Incarnation. Christianity is all about Real Presence.

Sabbath is not about rules of what we can or cannot do, and Christ revealed as much by breaking the rules of Sabbath. Christ disrupted the Sabbath, not because he was a lawbreaker, but in order to get to the Spirit of the Sabbath. Christ in Jesus attempted to break open the crusts that enveloped the Sabbath, and let the Spirit out; or maybe to let the Spirit in. Sabbath is an attitude, a remembering, a time to cherish our freedom, to cherish our salvation, to cherish each other, and, for us Christians, a time to discover our mission as the embodiment of Christ.

Too many Christians are busy about many things seven days a week, and barely give an hour or two to thoughts about God, and often none at all to who they are in God. Christians are more like Martha than Mary; not sitting at the feet of Jesus, but busy about many things. Christians are rare who take one day a week to remember who God is, and to remember who they are in Christ. Christians may take a day off, but they seldom use the time as Sabbath. Most Christians are sleep-walkers in this life, forgetful of who they are and forgetful of their purpose in life – as Christians. We need to recover the gift of the Sabbath so we will have the time to discover and to maintain our identity as the children of God, and more importantly, our identity as the Body of Christ.

When Christianity forgot the Sabbath, most run-of-the-mill Christians also neglected the scriptures. The homilies and sermons at worship services may be well prepared and wonderfully presented, but a brief moment listening to someone else talk about scripture cannot compensate for the loss of reflecting on our founding stories, and having a sense of the whole context of what is said on Sundays. We come to know what God is like and what is expected of God’s children by delving into the story ourselves, and sharing what we discover with others. We need a day set aside for study, reflection and sharing with others, if we are to wake up to who we are and wake up to what we are called to do in this world.

Since Sabbath has been given little priority in Christianity, Christians easily set it aside to do other things. Losing Sabbath is one of the factors that lead to the failure of Christianity. It is up to the reader to make a decision about whether or not to take Sabbath seriously, to reclaim it, and rediscover what a great and joyful gift the Sabbath is for us.

Christianity needs reform. If we are to reform Christianity, we must regain the Sabbath, recapturing the Spirit of the Sabbath. Regaining the Sabbath is NOT about gaining a set of rules and regulations about what you can and cannot do on some particular day. We do not need a new religious