Unashamed: Created for Connection

I vividly remember the rough texture of the mesh office chair rubbing against the back of my legs and my palms face down on the cold conference table as my classmate read aloud the account of Enuma Elish to our table group.

Like you, I was wondering:

Enuma who?

It was one of my first seminary courses at Fuller, and I wasn’t ready for this. Here I was, slapped in the face with a Babylonian creation account poem soberingly similar to Genesis that predated the biblical account of creation by thousands of years.

My first thought was:

“THE WRITER OF GENESIS PLAGIARIZED A BABYLONIAN POEM?!”

Which was preceded by a snowball of questions, followed by a mini-crisis of faith.

My face was cold, blood was draining from my extremities, and my mouth went dry. The panic was pure and simple: everything I thought I knew about the creation account, the author and purpose of Genesis, the story's uniqueness, and my confidence in God writing these words to provide a literal account of his creation was at stake.

Seminary often has this effect on people, and I was not spared.

I looked down at the textbook that provided a parallel account of Genesis and the Babylonian “genesis” and let my mind swirl, hoping my face didn’t show that my inner world was crumbling.

I wondered: Is Genesis just another mythological story? Is this another version of the folktale “How the Turtle Got Its Shell?” Did I just pay $2,000 for a seminary course that is sure to destroy my faith?

Thankfully, once the blood returned to my body, we were given a safe space to wrestle, doubt, and ask all the questions. Also, I wasn’t alone in the panic. Under the care of a seasoned professor, we were graciously guided in exploring why the Genesis account is so much more than the seven days of creation, men and women becoming one in marriage, original sin, and the curse.

(Let’s be honest, that is often what it is boiled down to).

Eventually, I was able to see the beauty permeating the paralleled accounts: The gods of Enuma Elish and the Creator God of Genesis, formed the cosmos and humans for very different purposes. As we continued our study, the need for Israel to tell this story through the generations, to be eventually written down and then canonized as Scripture, became apparent. In fact, this story may be more important to us today than ever before. The thing is, Babylonian mythology was filled with numerous gods, war, and violence, and the winner, the one who overpowered and crushed the other, was given the right to create and rule. The creation of the cosmos was the result of dethroning and killing.

Creating came out of domination.

But we read the God of Israel created, ordered, and formed from a very different place and for a vastly different purpose. Interestingly, among many similarities, the biblical creation account differs most radically from ancient mythology, primarily regarding the reasons for humanity's creation.

The stark difference, and indeed the purpose the author(s) of Genesis were compelled to write a similar poetic rhythm with a radically different claim, revealed the character and heart of our Creator God in contrast to the gods of Babylonian mythology:

The gods of Babylon created humans to be servants.

The God of Genesis formed humans for the sole purpose of: Connection.

This is so radical and important for us today because the account of Enuma Elish, and the many Babylonian, Assyrian, and other creation stories up to this very day tell a different narrative. In all other creation stories, the common purpose of humanity was created to serve the gods. They were a means to an end.

We could have done without the Enuma Elish detail. But most of us live as though the Babylonian tale is accurate. We live as though our lives are a means to some end, and we go about our days striving to be worthy of connection, love, and belonging. But our Creator creates with rhythm and rest, without violence, and for the central purpose of being connected to us for eternity.

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. Acts 17:24-25

You may wonder why this has anything to do with shame. So, I end with this reality presented by that most of us feel but have never put language to:

Shame is the fear of disconnection.

Whether or not we held Scripture in our hands and read Genesis 1-3, we would know by way of living that we were formed, wired, and sustained by and for connection. We were not created to work for, earn, or preserve it. But when shame entered that garden, we knew what we were never supposed to know: disconnection.

I feel it whenever I seek a “like” over his love. I sense it when I turn to food and substance for comfort. I know it when fear of what people think drives my words and my actions.

Violence and war, as displayed in ancient mythology and continuing today, result from shame and disconnection. In his book The Soul of Shame, Dr. Curt Thompson correlates the modern day violence in our world with the root of unaddressed shame:

“Longstanding conflicts such as those in the Middle East or East Los Angeles are evidence that when individuals do not address the shame they experience at a personal level, the potential kindling effects can eventually engulf whole regions of humanity.”

If this is true, the labor pains of creation are groans of shame and disconnection. Too many believe the story of Enuma as true, that they were created to work their way to worthiness.

You were made in love, by love, and for love. Shame will work its ass off to tell you otherwise. Thankfully, our Creator comes into our shame and reminds us that nothing can disconnect us for long.

He has the last word on his creation.