Don’t dismember me! I’ll die!

Any boy raised on a farm knows first-hand from his investigation of flower buds and butterflies and various critters that living beings comprise a complex unity of many members. If possible, they mightily resist being dismembered. Otherwise, they will die or at least face significant disability and life-threatening situations. Imagine a deer without a leg or a bird without a wing. Death arrives upon severe dismemberment. A tree cut off from its roots or an animal severed from head or heart or lungs cannot survive. Aggressors in nature and in politics know this instinctively and therefore try to dismember their opponents, just as Caesar said: divide and conquer! Each living being is a marvel of oneness which is essential to its flourishing life. The opposite is also true: when living beings club together, they survive hostile environments more easily and thrive. Small neighborhood bars in Spain recently organized Tocayo Bars (YouTube video) to resist the overwhelming market clout of the extensive international chains.

As people of faith, we trace this phenomenon back to our very understanding of the Creator, source of all life, who is absolutely one. As Christian believers we understand God being so filled with life processes and dynamics as to constitute a Trinity of persons, Light from Light, one in substance with the Father; the Giver of life proceeding from the Father etc. Jesus’ Last Supper culminating prayer sees and seeks our oneness directly linked to his oneness with the Father, John 17.

This article will neither dwell on nature or politics, nor on high theology, but attempt to scan the scriptures and discover the joy-filling and life-giving oneness God has in mind for us, our human family, his people.  

Created as one family: we love to sing and dance together!  

“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” There’s a fundamental truth implied in this first verse of Psalm 133: unity is beautiful, it benefits us, we experience its goodness. We sing together and dance to celebrate it. The victorious team’s fans fill entire stadiums with their delight as they move in unison in great waves around the whole stadium. They are all one. “It is not good for man to be alone.” Genesis 2:18 is hereby confirmed positively when we are blessed together. We enjoy being family, company, friendship, and support of others. That is because we are made for oneness; it is woven into the very fabric of our being.  Really there is not a single story in the Scriptures that doesn’t, in some way, talk about this togetherness whether lamenting its absence or rejoicing in its presence.  

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness’” (Genesis 1:26). One God, one image for all people. One major spontaneous insight from the creation story culminating in Adam and Eve, our first parents, is that we form one family descending from the same ancestors. In Hebrew any person is referred to as Ben Adam, a son of Adam! After things go terribly awry in the first fratricide at the very beginning, Cain’s pitiful self-defense effort boomerangs as every reader rightfully realizes. In Genesis 4 we are our siblings’ keepers! It is self-evident. We absolutely belong to each other and bear responsibility for each other. We are one family, something we suffer acutely in times of hurt and celebrate joyfully when our hearts overflow with blessings.

Abraham, our father in the faith  

When God renews his initiatives for all of humanity he works through families. Noah’s redemption story is a fine example. God calls him to rescue the human family and all of nature from the catastrophic effects of sin and secure the future generations, Genesis 6-9. The covenant not to destroy the Earth by flood again is realized through Noah’s family for the entire human family.

Abraham and Sarah are a very unlikely couple whose descendants will constitute a people to transmit God’s plan “from generation to generation” opening hearts for divine blessings. The foundational intention “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” Genesis 12, reveals the universal human horizon and purpose of this divine intervention. To this day almost four millennia later, all of us who are monotheistic believers call Abraham our father in the faith. “He is the father of all who believe without being circumcised…” Rm 4:11. Mary’s Magnificat proclaims “He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors” Lk 1:54-55. Zachariah sang out after John the Baptist’s birth: “…to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham….” Jesus’ manner of speaking confirms this sense in various remarks: “He too is a son of Abraham” Lk 19:9. “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do what Abraham did” John 8:39, drawing out the spiritual and moral implications of the biological connection to Abraham. “‘Father Abraham’, the rich man cried out … But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime…’” Luke 16:24. This pattern continues: Romans 4, Galatians 3, Hebrews 11, and James 2. Galatians 3:7-9 radically transcends the ethnic understanding of “Abraham’s children”: “Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” No wonder the early Church continued to consistently transmit this so that we still receive it today. We believers comprehend ourselves as children of Abraham, one family!

What God has joined let no one pull asunder!

God brings unity to his chosen people. Not a spiritual and abstract unity, but a concrete one, made through families, blood ties and laws, so that the ground would be ready for Jesus’ coming.

Belonging to a family with traced origins is a strikingly frequent feature of the biblical stories. This is most familiar to us when it peaks with both accounts of Jesus’ ancestors. Luke 3 traces Jesus back to Adam while Matthew 1 establishes the line from Abraham to Jesus. These are cogent expressions of our sense of faith in God’s creation of one human family and similarly his salvation of the one human family.  

… to be continued, because Sacred Scripture’s treatment of oneness is so broad and deep. Let’s continue exploring this immense biblical treasure together as we develop www.onestepcloser.org  . Feel free to send me your observations, comments, suggestions, etc ekelly@magdala.org. What God has joined let no one pull asunder, Mt 19:6; Mk 10:9.  

Enas Salameh  - Cook’s Assistant  

Enas Salameh has been a cook’s assistant at Magdala for over four years now. People love her roast beef, her salads, but most of all her smile at breakfast while she prepares eggs as requested. This is significant because she drives 20-25 minutes to get here sometime between 5—5.30 am.  

We missed her during these times of conflict. For her, recent years have been very difficult with almost zero employment opportunities.  

Enas was raised in Cana of Galilee, yes exactly where we remember the water-wine miracle at the wedding feast. She was the second of seven children, four girls and three boys. Her dad was a taxi driver and so she ended school at eighteen to begin working in a home for special needs children in Cana and afterwards went on to a similar but larger institution in Nazareth.  

Enas married Malik thirty-four years ago. They are blessed with two boys and a girl, and three-year-old and six-month-old grandchildren.  

In these times of conflict, her great hope and prayer is for peace. She loves the Magdala family spirit.