Genesis

Synopsis

God is always savior. God saves creation from the sterility of meaningless lifelessness and calls Humanity to share in the same task, in relationship with each other and with God. But Humanity chooses selfishness and so evil enters the world. God saves, and chooses a family for blessing and to mediate that blessing to the world. The family is a troubled one; riven with jealousy, not immune to strife, they struggle to live up to the blessing given them. Rather than the succession of patriarchs, our attention is focused on the entirety of each generation of the troubled family chosen for blessing. In so doing we discover that Hagar, the outsider, is central to the life of the first generation. We see that, over and over, God saves the outsider, whether Hagar or Tamar. We see that God and Abraham achieve a silence that bespeaks obedience accepted and love acknowledged. We see that Jacob is never entirely transformed, never entirely Israel, but is loved despite his lameness.