Stephen
Terry, Director
God
and the Covenant
Commentary
for the November 23, 2019 Sabbath School Lesson
"The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will
make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. By
calling this covenant 'new,' he has made the first one obsolete; and what is
obsolete and outdated will soon disappear." Hebrews 8:8,13,
NIV
When I was attending Walla Walla College in the 1970s to
obtain my Theology and Biblical Languages degree, as one of my electives, I
took a course in Marital Counseling. One of the foundational texts for that
class was "The Games People Play," written by Eric Berne and published
in 1964. The book was a watershed for understanding interpersonal
communications. It introduced a concept called "Transactional
Analysis." This proposed three basic approaches to communication where the
parties involved in the interaction where acting out the roles of Parent,
Adult, or Child. Productive communication was when both parties were acting on
the Adult level, and dysfunctional communication occurred when one or the other
of the parties preferred to play the role of the Parent or the Child. The goal
of Transactional Analysis was to develop methods to move both parties to the
Adult interaction level. This often meant avoiding being manipulated to the
Parent of Child level, because the goal of the person beginning interaction as
a Parent or Child is to push the respondent into the complimentary role. For
instance, someone acting as Parent would do so with the expectation that the
other would then act as Child and vice versa.
These dysfunctional means of interacting came into
existence because for the parties involved, even though they were dysfunctional,
they worked. When a person who felt insecure acted out the role of Child and
managed to create a Parent reaction in the other person, they might find a
measure of security similar to what a child might feel with the protective
presence of a parent. On the other hand, the Parent who could create a Child
reaction may find fulfillment of a need to be controlling, dominant or
nurturing. An understanding of Transactional Analysis then meant refusing to
allow oneself to find rewards in dysfunctionality and instead remain
consistently an Adult which would bring the other party into the interaction as
an Adult as well, once they realized that the Parent and Child interaction no
longer produced commensurate rewards. At the Adult level, instead of entering
into communication based solely on one's own needs and manipulating the other
into meeting those needs, the desire is to make sure the needs of both are
mutually fulfilled. We see examples of problematic dysfunctionality on the
evening news frequently where Parent-types try to dominate a situation,
Child-types attempt to change the situation with tantrums and acting out, while
the Adult-types try to introduce mutually beneficial interactions as a means to
problem solving. These tend to be the people that the late Fred Rogers of
"Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" used to refer to when he said to
"look for the helpers" during challenging situations.
If we look at the Bible through the lens of
Transactional Analysis, we may see that much of the interaction between God and
mankind has been dysfunctional and by extrapolation, perhaps much of it
continues to be so. God naturally is expected by us to play the parent as that
most naturally seems to apply since he is our creator and occupies an eternal
position of power and control. But in spite of that characterization, he may
prefer to interact with us on a more adult-to-adult level. The evidence for
this may be found in his strolls in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.[i] But at one point, mankind changed
that interaction by choosing to take on the role of the wayward child, forcing
God to come looking for us as any loving parent would do. But God does not
desire to have us to be perpetually children in his relationship with us. He desires
us to become adults.[ii]
To that end, God has frequently entered into covenantal agreements with mankind
in order to promote an adult-adult relationship. Perhaps the highest points throughout
history, where we came closest to achieving that status, were seen in the experiences
of the early patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets, like Elijah, who spoke
directly with God. Even millennia ago, these interactions were so rare that it
became important enough to create a written record, handed down to us today in
the Bible, so that we might know of its possibility. We have so frequently and
willingly drifted from God's covenantal attempts to repair the dysfunctionality
that exists between us that we appear to have lost the ability to communicate with
him in the manner of those great saints. Or perhaps, we are so unwilling to
acknowledge the possibility that such relationships can exist, we are unable to
recognize them when they do occur. Faced even with hostility on the part of
some to even the idea of such communication directly with God, those who manage
to achieve it may have been driven so far underground that only rarely do we
hear of it, and then somewhere else rather than close to home.
In spite of all of the dysfunctionality that has developed
between God and mankind, the biblical prophet, Joel, tells us that those
relationships will continue to exist and maybe most profoundly as we approach
the Parousia.[iii]
But paradoxically, Amos tells us that God's communication with mankind at that
time will not be apparent to most. It may seem instead that that communication
will have dried up like in a famine or drought.[iv] However, just as God
preserved Elijah, as well as seven thousand of his faithful followers during a
time of drought induced famine in the past, he is able to do so for those who
seek that adult-adult relationship with him today. As is revealed most
profoundly in the pages of the book of Revelation, especially in chapters thirteen
and seventeen, even though the relationship that produced the great prophets of
old may not be obviously active to most, there will be plenty of organized, institutional
religion being offered in its place. According to that book, many will be
deceived into believing that those substitutes are the genuine article, and for
those who doubt, coercion will help to convince them. This, of itself, may be
an effective identifier of a false religious organization. If it is attempting
to coerce belief and obedience, it is approaching the interaction from the
dysfunctional perspective of Eric Berne's Parent seeking to manipulate its
adherents into a childlike position of subservience. But the expectation of the
Child is that their needs are met without regards to the needs of the Parent.
If that does not happen, the child will go elsewhere to find fulfillment. To a
large degree that may be exactly what is happening with institutional religion
in many places.
Even though we may not see God active in our experience,
if the Bible says that he remains active even in pre-apocalyptic scenarios, a
way must exist to see it. The Bible tells us, " you will find him if you
seek him with all your heart and with all your soul."[v] This is difficult to do if
we have divided hearts seeking a plethora of things. Distractions abound today,
and we have often convinced ourselves that the pursuit of these distractions is
in our best interest or that of our family. But Jesus came to help us restore
our proper perspective and to once again define what it means to have an adult
relationship with God. He told us that if we would place that relationship first,
everything else that was needful and beautiful would naturally follow.[vi] As a matter of course, in
doing so, we may also discover that much of what we have deemed needful is not
so.
While in some ways technology has been a great blessing,
even allowing me to share this commentary with thousands of readers in over 140
nations around the world, it has also become such a focus that it is debatable
whether or not the idol worship of the Old Testament garnered any more devotion
than some of our electronic devices manage to receive today. Instead of arguing
the merits of Baal vs Moloch as idolaters may have done prior to Jerusalem's
destruction by the Babylonians, we hear debates about Apple vs Android, while
the various devotees stroll about with their heads bowed before their favorite,
sending brief missives and seeking answers from the mobile technological constructs.
With our ability to communicate with markets in Europe or cattle herders in
Kenya, we devote many hours every day to these things. We may not be able to
see the Spirit of God active around us, but we know right away when a monkey
does something funny in Asia.
God created us for fellowship with him. To enhance that
relationship, he created us in his image, endowed with creativity and an innate
desire to love and be loved. Repeatedly he has tried to re-establish what is
missing from that relationship through covenants with those willing to engage
him. Just as often we have spurned those attempts. But love continues to offer.
Perhaps we can find a way to cease attempting to dominate God by wanting to be
the parent or acting out toward God by being the petulant child and instead
find God willing to reason[vii] with us as adult to
adult. If we can do that, we may be able to find a whole new world opening up
to our view that we could not see before. That may be the real final frontier.
