IT WASN'T SO BAD
This is our OT lesson for tomorrow, Lent 1A. My rattle-on about it was prep for the Adult Sunday School class, but we may do something else.
Old Testament Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” …
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’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but 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.’“ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So 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. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
+++++++++++
This is just a snippet, of course. And whether we understand it literal & inerrant, or metaphorically as an old campfire story, we know the whole story, both the beginning and the rest of the story, and it's good for helping us understand our human relationship with God. The few verses for tomorrow just focus on The Sin, disobedience, that brought about The Fall, because it's Lent now, when we are meant seriously to contemplate our sins and rue them. I don't mind calling forth the sins of my lifetime, but they are more likely to stir happy memories than regrets - - so, I have to be careful when I pray "we are truly sorry, and we humbly repent". At any event, here's what comes to mind as I finish reading The Fall story above.
By skipping from Genesis 2:17 to Genesis 3:1, the reading cuts to a key point: willful disobedience of God's Law brings God's punishment; but God still loves us anyway and forgives us, even feels so bad about having to kick us out of Paradise that he makes nice clothes for us before we leave. And although he would never admit it, probably wept as we walked away, such is our God.
Called "The Fall of Man", it's an ancient, beautiful, naive, imaginative, entertaining, whimsical story, an etiology that, told around the campfires the long evenings under the stars as Israel traveled those forty years in the wilderness with Moses, helps explain various things about human life and the world. Some that occur to me (others, probably many more, will occur to you):
That there is a "Before" and an "After" here; that before we did it, and even AS we did it, we were innocent, as innocent as the monkeys who were already up in the tree picking and eating the fruit. I mean, you cannot tell a monkey, "Don't eat the fruit"! It was not until after we did it that we knew we had sinned.
That God deliberately made us (to tend God's Garden) and we are God's possession.
That God cares about us, our comfort, our feelings, our loneliness.
That we have a unique relationship with God that other animals do not have.
That God put us in charge of creation, trusting us to serve faithfully as God's agents, stewards.
That it is God who makes the rules/gives the Law.
Why we have to die, when we'd rather live forever.
Why the serpent has no arms and legs.
Why we are afraid of snakes and intuitively stomp them.
That we are created to take risks.
Why we have to work for a living.
Why we have to feel pain (women in childbirth).
How we came to be self-aware, as other animals are not.
That we have Free Will and how it came about.
When and Why we started wearing clothes.
How we got our conscience, sense of right and wrong, that other animals do not have.
That we make our own decisions and must face the consequences.
That God's created natural order includes elements that mean us harm and can destroy us. That we may bring about our own destruction through our decisions and action or inaction.
To be mindful, alert, for the Voice of Evil, lest we be tricked and led astray.
That we are naturally selfish: we are not inclined to obey, and we put our own interests over obedience..
FURTHER, FOR THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE,
That God, who evidently was quite bored living by Himself or only with insufferably perfect angels [God only chit-chatted with Satan (see the story of Job), with Satan, who is wicked but clever and never boring], God has a Machiavellian sense of humor and is not beyond messing with us. God made us curious and God knew full well that when God said “Do not eat the colorful, fragrant, luscious, soft, sweet, juicy fruit from the beautiful tree that I planted out in the middle of the garden so you could not possibly miss it”, God meant to tempt us, to teach us to take risks; knew that naturally we'd be tempted, disobey, and eat it; but that in doing so and playing into God's scheme of things, we would become less like the dumb animals of Psalm 32 (that we read tomorrow) and more like God, with reasoning, understanding, conscience, and a sense of history.
Maybe fifteen years ago my Holy Nativity Middle School class, we were reading and discussing the Genesis 2 & 3 creation account, a student asked, "Why did God put the tree in the middle of the Garden in the first place?" My obvious answer might be "So that we could become what we are today".
That it's a Morally Good creation story, telling part of God's Plan of Salvation, in which, even if "We meant it (our defiant disobedience) for evil, God meant it for good” by, in leading us to temptation, letting us become complete human beings. And in disobeying, we behaved exactly as God intended, hoped and knew we would; and because of all this, we have life in our world as it is today instead of having continued in the Garden of Eden like innocent pet animals in the zoo.
T+
Old Testament Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” …
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’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but 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.’“ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So 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. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
+++++++++++
This is just a snippet, of course. And whether we understand it literal & inerrant, or metaphorically as an old campfire story, we know the whole story, both the beginning and the rest of the story, and it's good for helping us understand our human relationship with God. The few verses for tomorrow just focus on The Sin, disobedience, that brought about The Fall, because it's Lent now, when we are meant seriously to contemplate our sins and rue them. I don't mind calling forth the sins of my lifetime, but they are more likely to stir happy memories than regrets - - so, I have to be careful when I pray "we are truly sorry, and we humbly repent". At any event, here's what comes to mind as I finish reading The Fall story above.
By skipping from Genesis 2:17 to Genesis 3:1, the reading cuts to a key point: willful disobedience of God's Law brings God's punishment; but God still loves us anyway and forgives us, even feels so bad about having to kick us out of Paradise that he makes nice clothes for us before we leave. And although he would never admit it, probably wept as we walked away, such is our God.
Called "The Fall of Man", it's an ancient, beautiful, naive, imaginative, entertaining, whimsical story, an etiology that, told around the campfires the long evenings under the stars as Israel traveled those forty years in the wilderness with Moses, helps explain various things about human life and the world. Some that occur to me (others, probably many more, will occur to you):
That there is a "Before" and an "After" here; that before we did it, and even AS we did it, we were innocent, as innocent as the monkeys who were already up in the tree picking and eating the fruit. I mean, you cannot tell a monkey, "Don't eat the fruit"! It was not until after we did it that we knew we had sinned.
That God deliberately made us (to tend God's Garden) and we are God's possession.
That God cares about us, our comfort, our feelings, our loneliness.
That we have a unique relationship with God that other animals do not have.
That God put us in charge of creation, trusting us to serve faithfully as God's agents, stewards.
That it is God who makes the rules/gives the Law.
Why we have to die, when we'd rather live forever.
Why the serpent has no arms and legs.
Why we are afraid of snakes and intuitively stomp them.
That we are created to take risks.
Why we have to work for a living.
Why we have to feel pain (women in childbirth).
How we came to be self-aware, as other animals are not.
That we have Free Will and how it came about.
When and Why we started wearing clothes.
How we got our conscience, sense of right and wrong, that other animals do not have.
That we make our own decisions and must face the consequences.
That God's created natural order includes elements that mean us harm and can destroy us. That we may bring about our own destruction through our decisions and action or inaction.
To be mindful, alert, for the Voice of Evil, lest we be tricked and led astray.
That we are naturally selfish: we are not inclined to obey, and we put our own interests over obedience..
FURTHER, FOR THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE,
That God, who evidently was quite bored living by Himself or only with insufferably perfect angels [God only chit-chatted with Satan (see the story of Job), with Satan, who is wicked but clever and never boring], God has a Machiavellian sense of humor and is not beyond messing with us. God made us curious and God knew full well that when God said “Do not eat the colorful, fragrant, luscious, soft, sweet, juicy fruit from the beautiful tree that I planted out in the middle of the garden so you could not possibly miss it”, God meant to tempt us, to teach us to take risks; knew that naturally we'd be tempted, disobey, and eat it; but that in doing so and playing into God's scheme of things, we would become less like the dumb animals of Psalm 32 (that we read tomorrow) and more like God, with reasoning, understanding, conscience, and a sense of history.
Maybe fifteen years ago my Holy Nativity Middle School class, we were reading and discussing the Genesis 2 & 3 creation account, a student asked, "Why did God put the tree in the middle of the Garden in the first place?" My obvious answer might be "So that we could become what we are today".
That it's a Morally Good creation story, telling part of God's Plan of Salvation, in which, even if "We meant it (our defiant disobedience) for evil, God meant it for good” by, in leading us to temptation, letting us become complete human beings. And in disobeying, we behaved exactly as God intended, hoped and knew we would; and because of all this, we have life in our world as it is today instead of having continued in the Garden of Eden like innocent pet animals in the zoo.
T+
- Hendrick Goltzius
- Dutch, 1558 - 1617
- The Fall of Man
- 1616
- oil on canvas