Many say that we learn best from our mistakes. That is sometimes a comment made in the aftermath of perhaps a “bad” decision that has ultimately led to some undesirable and sometimes very devastating consequences.  From a parent’s perspective, I would imagine, the instinctual protection that one has for one’s children is captured within a directive like this, “Just listen to what I am telling you.  You really do not want to do that – it’s not good for you.”  (I imagine depending upon the personality of the parent this could translate with quite colorful language).

How ironic it is that many times it is precisely this forewarning given to a child that tempts them to indulge in the very thing prohibited. This may be the mischievousness of a child, but could it just be the adventurous nature of the human spirit?

Traditionally, we consider disobedience as not only insubordination but actually the cause of many of the troublesome experiences we have in life. We seem to have the first book of the bible (GN 3: 1-8) to back us up – the familiar story of the serpent’s conversation with Eve about the forbidden fruit of the Tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden…  Eve tells the serpent how God clearly said:

“You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’”

As the story continues, the serpent seems to convince Eve that God actually is holding back something very valuable in this prohibition:

“God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods
who know what is good and what is evil.”

So, as the story goes, they (Eve and Adam) both eat the fruit, and…

“…the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked;
so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

What if obedience is not just about listening with regards to what someone or what something tells you to do. Of course, this aspect of obedience is very important for practical everyday living.  But, what if we conceive of obedience as a way of tuning in or awakening to something that we were not aware of before.  I’m not talking about additional ‘facts’ here but more about deeper contexts and layers of meanings that can give something that we would normally pay little or no attention to a characterization that is profound and even challenging.  Like seeing the forest for the trees.  That would be putting perhaps a curious spin on the ‘forbidden fruit’ story in Genesis.

What if the story is not so much about how it ‘originally’ all went ‘wrong’ with humanity, but more about how whatever decisions we make in life can enliven us, even through pain and suffering. In other words, the story could be seen as a description of how we endure our own fragility because there is a greater Love context that we may not always readily see.  So obedience would be more an opportunity of aligning ourselves with an ever-growing field of life experience, and this continuous expansiveness is directly related to God.

The story in Genesis tells us that when we eat or even ‘touch’ the ‘fruit,’ we will surely die! This seems to be true, although perhaps not in the narrow sense that we normally think of death.  When they eat the fruit in the story, their eyes are opened, that is, they become aware that they are ‘naked.’  This is a type of death – a death to preconceived notions about security and self-reliance.  This nakedness can be the stark realization that they just cannot effectively live this life outside of relationship.  It’s not so much that they went against God, but more that their very act of ‘disobedience’ or individualistic defiance paved the way for them to catch a glimpse of their utter dependence upon the Lover who created them.  They realize that their situation is unworkable.  It’s not about fault as much as about grace.  Oddly enough, disobedience transforms the very idea of obedience from a one-dimensional “do what I say” to “be in My (Divine) love.”  THAT is all you need.

So then, obedience is about getting naked and knowing that the One you stand before has nothing but Love for you. When we align ourselves in this Love, the relationship grows, and obedience becomes the pathway toward more life and more God!  But as the story reveals, although our eyes are opened to the preciousness of our lives in the nakedness, we don’t see the Whole picture and we get scared.

I think we prefer many times to shrink back from what this divine relationship could mean for us. It frightens us because we think we have to “do this life” on our own. And the fear and anxiety that this solitary idea generates causes us to ‘sew fig leaves together” and make ‘loincloths’ – protecting at all cost that which is most vulnerable within us.  We cover our naked vulnerability and then hide in clothes we have made with a false sense of confidence.

When they heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden
at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God
among the trees of the garden.

We hide in the fear we have of any ‘sound’ of the Loving God moving always around us. God is out there, telling us what we must do and what we must not do.  This is what we tell ourselves, not realizing that the clothes we have made for ourselves are actually covering the Loving God that lives within us, always waiting for us to really open ourselves up and ‘see’ through God’s eyes.  We fear being seen, not realizing that God is seeing in us and through us.  Could this possibly be what being ‘naked’ means –   What a terribly wonderful task is it to share God?!

Mark’s Gospel (Mk 7:31-37) gives us another description of how we dull our senses when it comes to living in relationship with God.  This time it is not about eyes being opened, but our ears and mouths being opened.  When a man who is both deaf and unable to speak is brought before Jesus, the following happens:

He (Jesus) put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)
And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.

Like the story in Genesis, we have the sensation of touch and the faculties of listening and communicating at play here.  The great groan that Jesus makes is to “BE OPENED.”  Again, this is obedience as the invitation to relationship, to realizing and accepting the project of being created in love and living that love in an alignment that fulfills your life and simultaneously the lives of all those around you.

It is of no little importance that despite Jesus’ directive to those witnessing this ‘miracle’ not to tell anyone, the people cannot be silent.  The openness that the man has received, a gift from the Christ, is nothing if not shared by all!  The compassionate touch of God has seismic capacity!  The numbing effect of fear and perceived isolation hiding behind trees in the garden is fiercely cast off by the compassionate groan of God!  The clothes of our nakedness are blown off by the Divine Voice!    And wonder of wonders, we are naked – all of us – together.

So how do we practice this obedience as the loving response to God groaning for and in us? There are as many different ways as there are us!  May we embrace our unique expression of God’s vulnerability within us so passionately that it echoes and reverberates within everyone and everything around us so that every sensation and expression becomes truly obedient to, within, and as the Divine Groan.