Powerless Fig Leaves
This week Laura Lindeman shares with us her reflections spurred from Renée’s recent teaching on “Nonviolent Atonement”. –Melissa Logsdon, NCF Associate Pastor
I have always had trouble parsing the violence of animal sacrifices and Jesus’ death. Those acts of violence seem to make me want to run away from God’s wrath and forget God’s mercy and love. God gets smaller somehow in my mind; and too much like a middle schooler who is trying to “get their lick back”.
So Renee’s teaching on nonviolent atonement provoked familiar irritation, a dash of relief and A LOT of further reflection. Often as a child I would recite the words about Jesus dying for our sins as I awkwardly attempted moments of evangelism – but could never come up with a “Why”. I felt like the only person in the room who thought the Emperor was naked (like the fairy tale) and I would be ejected from the family of God if I said anything out loud.
Thus the return of the topic on that Sunday morning was irritating – like trying to cut my own hair and always getting a little too much off one side and then making it worse when I try to even it out. I was not excited to see that cognitive dissonance in the mirror again. However, it was relieving to become aware that lots and lots of people fret and squirm at this doctrine of the faith, and have spent hours thinking on this and writing books on it, trying to get things to come out even. I felt less like a heretic and more like one of many confused sheep trying to understand the nakedness of atonement.
While reflecting on the concept over the past weeks, I worked backward in scripture all the way to the word naked in Genesis 2:25:
“The man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed.”
Of course I always took that literally in the past. I also could not for the life of me understand how they could manage to walk around in front of God and everybody like that and be comfortable. What if it isn’t just literal but also deeper? They were unashamed. They were not wanting to hide from God or themselves or each other. There was no violence needed.
Eve and Adam were already made in God’s image. They were already holding his likeness of love and mercy. What if when Eve and Adam ingested the knowledge of Good and Evil it was too much for them to hold? They were never intended to see this. They were in fact asked not to look there. Not to taste violence. What if that one bite gave them a window into the capacity of humans – then and forever- to commit violence against God and each other and themselves?
Seeing all the behaviors and attitudes and thoughts that the world without God’s presence held; they were not able to look God in the eye. Now, not able to put the guilt and shame of the world (which they previously didn’t know existed) in the same space as The God Who Seeks to Be Near Them –
they tried to hide.
Themselves.
Thus the fig leaves.
But the fig leaves didn’t work to alleviate the violence they had witnessed because they still felt the need to hide from God. And the fig leaves didn’t work to alleviate the shame and guilt either – because Eve and Adam feel that something has to be done to right the wrong – they know it was wrong because instead of saying – “We took care of the problem of eating that fruit – We made fig clothes!” They try to force the blame of the wrong on someone or something else. “She made me do it” and “I was tricked”.
God in his mercy knows that they can not forgive themselves. He must do it for them. And it must be done to Eve and Adam’s own satisfaction. They want restitution (in order for their bangs to come out even) and have no way to get it. What if God allows the animals to hold their shame for them?
This isn’t nonviolent atonement yet – the animals still died, even before there is a covenant and Adam and Eve had nothing to offer God for their part of the deal. I am not finished with thinking through all of this… I’m just finally giving myself space to explore it…the animals still died in the altar sacrifices and Jesus still died…
But I feel closer to seeing God as love and mercy instead of a one-sided violence and vengeance God. I borrowed the book The Nonviolent Atonement and plan to keep reading it as I resume thinking through that big question “Why did Jesus die?” –Laura Lindeman
2 Comments On “Powerless Fig Leaves”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Thanks Laura. I too have struggled with the how and why of Jesus death. A dear friend in a pastoral role taught it like an accounting problem. That made sense to him, also an accountant, but it didn’t work for me, didn’t make sense to me.
God being so just that he couldn’t forgive without a sacrifice was also hard for me to accept, and made God hard to want to relate to. I definitely wanted to keep my distance from that kind of God. So I too was intrigued by this notion of a nonviolent atonement. I too checked out the book, but am finding it hard to get into thus far.
I really appreciate how you “rethought” Adam and Eve and see the sacrifice of animals as a way to enable them to get past their shame. It can be applied to much/if not all the OT. Thanks:)