Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man

Previously from The Parishioner: I confess to a pressing need to communicate my religious beliefs and experiences with others.

                                         “What is this that you have done?”   Genesis 3:13

It was a set up. Predictable. God put a forbidden tree in the middle of the Garden and Adam and Eve just happened to have a taste. No surprises. Like so many stories in the Bible, the outcome is perfectly obvious from the beginning. Jesus and Caesar’s coin, Isaac’s close call, Moses’ warning to Pharaoh, Esther’s take-down of Haman are just some examples of inevitability in Scripture.

Foreshadowing is a narrative tool designed to let the reader (or listener) anticipate the ending and revel throughout the telling in the moral of the tale. And, of course, these stories demonstrate that, just as our brother Martin told us, the moral arc always bends toward justice.

So what do we learn about God and humankind from the story of Adam and Eve?  Let’s start with the givens.

1)      God created the world out of his great love

2)      God created Adam and Eve in his image

3)      God was pleased with both and they with him and with all of creation

4)      It was all so perfect

But then what went wrong?

1)      The serpent’s craft

2)      Eve’s desire for knowledge

3)      Adam’s acquiescence

Suddenly, Adam and Eve are frightened and hide from God. They are ashamed. They mumble excuses for their disobedience. God and Adam and Eve hardly know what to say to each other. The perfect life is in ruins. Intimacy with God is lost. Now there will be work and desire and pain and weeds. But is this so bad? What seemed delightful in the Garden was actually very static. No change = no growth. No problems = no solutions. No pain = no healing. No sin = no forgiveness.

I believe (heresy though it may be) that we gained more than we lost when we were turned out of Eden. True we lost intimacy with God but we gained a profound and lasting desire for a return to that intimacy, and it is that desire which drives us to prayer, to church, to acts of kindness and to repentance. It is from God’s desire for us that we receive grace, and it is from our desire, our reaching for God, that all human goodness and greatness comes.

What we once took for granted, we now yearn for. In the static perfection of Eden, there was no desire because there was no lack. No problem needed solving, no yearning needed fulfillment. When we lost the intimate connection to God, we sold off our pensions and went to work. And God is the boss. We are now engaged in God’s work. Invent, search, solve, heal, comfort, care for, teach, love. This is what we have taken on. That first act of rebellion of our first parents set the world on its course of error, pain, confusion and cruelty. But …. it also opened the door for healing, enlightenment, and virtue. In church we learn that we are all sinners. Our sin, thankfully however, opens the door for God to work with us and for us to seek God. For as many villains as it has created, more and more have been made heroes.

God loves sinners. Just ask Cain, Moses, David, Peter. No matter how far they strayed, no matter how much they disappointed him, God worked with them. Peter, denier of Christ but true apostle; David murderer, adulterer but blessed king; Moses halting and weak but leader of Israel; Cain marked forever as a killer but protected from harm nevertheless. And, finally, ask our first parents. What did God do for them when he sent them from the Garden - these his first human creations who broke his heart? He made them clothes.

                                        “And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21 So get to work and God bless.

Next time from The Parishioner: What did Jesus ever see in Simon (Peter)
and then a flight of fancy.