Holy Cross Day To Me
Holy Cross Day - September 14 - Sunday Lectionary
Psalm 98 or 98:1-4
Isaiah 45:21-25
Philippians 2:5-11 or Galatians 6:14-18
John 12:31-36a
Holy Cross Day - September 14 - Daily Office Lectionary
Psalm 66 morning, Psalm 118 evening
Numbers 21:4-9 or Genesis 3:1-15
1 Peter 3:17-22
John 3:11-17
Genesis 3:1-15 +
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ 2The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” ’ 4But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,* knowing good and evil.’ 6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ 10He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ 11He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ 12The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ 13Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’ 14The Lord God said to the serpent,
‘Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals
and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.’
‘Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals
and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.’
16To the woman he said,
‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.’
17And to the man* he said,
‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree
about which I commanded you,
“You shall not eat of it”,
cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.’
September 14th is Holy Cross Day, and also happens to be my 77th birthday. My birthday gift to myself this early morning was to read all of the Scripture appointed by the Lectionaries for Holy Cross Day, both the Sunday Lectionary (BCP page 924) and the Daily Office Lectionary (BCP page 999). There’s a lot of it, memorable stories from the Hebrew Bible, lovely psalms to celebrate the stories, powerful theology from Peter and Paul, and strong, assuring words from Jesus in John’s Gospel. Of all of it, the story above from Genesis chapter 3 struck a special note with me this morning.
In 6th grade Religion & Ethics class one day years ago, we were reading and discovering the two completely different creation stories in Genesis, and the second story (which starts at Genesis 2:4b and which scholars say is actually an ancient campfire story that is much older than the seven-day story at Genesis 1 -- which scholars say came out of the Babylonian Exile experience) took us on over into Genesis 3. There, Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden, where the Lord God has installed them in innocence and plenteousness. They may enjoy life’s blessings and eat their fill of everything they want and need, excepting only that in the midst of the garden God has placed an enticing tree and forbade them to eat or even touch the fruit of that tree.
The creation is new, and the humans are new and perhaps naturally curious about all the wonderful things around them. As the story goes, temptation rears its ugly head in the person of the serpent, who tells Eve how tasty is that lovely forbidden fruit. Eve eats and sure enough it’s yummy, and tempts Adam, and Adam eats, and suddenly the two of them know the difference between right and wrong -- such that they run get dressed, covering themselves with leaves. That evening, the Lord God comes for his walk in the Garden, confronts them with their disobedience (you shall not eat of this particular tree), and pronounces their punishment.
My beloved middle schoolers were aghast. It was all God’s fault. Why did God put that tree in the middle of the Garden where they could see it in the first place? And why did God call their attention to it, pointing it out and telling them not to eat its fruit, making it such a temptation to them? And why did God ... ?
Eleven years old, these students, these children, were still in a concrete, literal mode of thinking. It was not helpful my trying to help them understand that humans told the story in the first place as part of their owning a relationship with God; that the humans’ experience of tough, hard living came before the story was told and that the story came to be told around the tribal campfire to help folks understand why life is so hard, and why snakes crawl instead of walking, and why women are afraid of snakes (!), and why childbirth is so painful, and why men have to work for a living, and that we humans have a propensity for blaming others, and why we finally die; and that the story is meant to help folks understand that all we have comes from a generous and loving God; and that God, not humans, is in charge, and that disobedience, sin, is punished; and that the punishment itself wasn’t all that bad, because after all the promised punishment was death and God let us off easy, why? because God loves us. And even in sending us out of paradise, God felt sorry for us dressed only in leaves, and made clothes for us himself.
The children wouldn’t let it go: but why did God put the tree there, why didn’t He put it where they couldn’t see it and be tempted? This is all God’s fault. God should have ...
The story’s postlude is that because of that so-called “original sin” of disobedience, we humans are no longer mere animals. We know right from wrong. We think for ourselves, reach our own decisions, make up our own minds about things, look after ourselves instead of waiting for God to bring our supper dish. To any extent the story is meant to be taken away from the campfire, perhaps God was testing to see if we His human experiment were as curious and adventurous as He hoped. If so, there would be consequences for our disobedience, but wondrous benefits for human life. If not, we might still be climbing up in the trees for bananas.
But why did God ...
Mercifully, when the class period is over, the bell in the hall at Holy Nativity Episcopal School rings very loud. And has done so in that beloved school building for more than seventy years to my personal knowledge.
TW+