[Wisdom] will save you from the way of evil, from those who speak perversely, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, those whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
Proverbs 2:12-15
Dear members and friends,
At times, I encounter a misunderstanding that God created humans because God needed them to do something, such as worshiping and praising. The origin of this misunderstanding stems from a misinterpretation of Babylonian mythology. According to this ancient mythology, the god Enki created humans to relieve gods from their burdens. This could be understood to mean that humans were created to serve the gods providing whatever they required. However, when we acknowledge the fact that this mythology was written by humans, the main point of this creation story is about human capacity to do work designed for gods. In other words, what the ancient Babylonians were expressing was that it was now time for humans to rule the world instead of gods, taking over the works that gods used to do.
In the Bible, Creator God did not create humans for a certain purpose or even a task that was for God. When we read Genesis carefully, we could understand that the intention of the Creator was simply that humans live a good and joyful life. However, the essential challenges for achieving such a simple goal were caused by no other beings than humans themselves. The jealousy, greed, and arrogance, which were found within their own hearts, arose as the obstacles in achieving a good and joyful life together. In the Bible, Creator God appears to illuminate this truth, and teach humans a way to cultivate themselves to be capable of transcending the negativity arising from their own hearts. This is what Proverbs stresses as “wisdom.”
My brothers and sisters in God, let us take a moment of reflection on the meaning and joy of the birth of baby Jesus this week. Then, let us reflect on what we are doing to cultivate ourselves to be capable of receiving the heavenly gift from God.
Blessings, Rev. Junchol Lee