Do you remember playing in the street? In my childhood, a few years ago, I recall playing cricket with my best friend, Paul. We played every day. The wicket was the entrance to the coal bunker in the car port. How we didn’t drive my Mum mad with the ball repeatedly hitting the walls and shouting Howzat is beyond me…
Why did we run across the street every time we bowled? Was it safe? Not when we actually hit the ball and it sailed across the road into No 12… We eventually learnt that the playing field was better and safer.
When we broke parts of the coal bunker, car port and No 12 wow …did we feel bad…
Genesis 2:8-9, 15-17, 3:4-5
8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 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.”
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
In the story of Creation today we heard about Adam tilling the Earth, a tree of life and a serpent. Eden means plain from ‘edina‘, or even dainty. Whether you believe this to be a true story or one filled with metaphors, the USAF agreed not to bomb the perceived location of the Garden of Eden during the Kuwaiti War in 2003.
The story from Genesis Chapter 2 is perceived to the the first Creation story, even before Genesis Chapter 1 – as it wasn’t written as one book but with possibly up to 3 authors. The Tree of Life is quite special as the imagery is not seen in other ancient literature, and only seen in Scripture here. And Eve also misunderstands what God is saying: don’t eat the produce becomes don’t eat nor touch – or you will die. But that’s not the issue here.
Some would say that Sin entered the world at this point. Would you hold that view?
Original Sin was a view held by people like Augustine in the 5th Century, possibly to reinforce the way that the Church was being formed then. Jesus’ death was the way that sin was cleansed, as hymns might say, or
that Jesus showed us the way to choose God.
Perhaps this isn’t about Sin, because look again, it’s never mentioned;
it isn’t about Satan or the Devil, look again, they are never mentioned here.
It is about the desire to make ourselves the arbiters of good and evil, assuming for ourselves the role of God.
Allen Mcsween Jr, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Feasting on the Word – Year A, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.
When we do something we think is wrong what do we feel????
When we may do something wrong we may feel guilt, as did Eve and Adam.
What we may also feel is fear and shame – but they are so different. Fear and Shame were not present in the Garden, and they are only experienced today if we elect to allow that fear and shame to exist. The Bible is full of that statement “Do Not Fear”..365 times I’m led to believe – more like around 100 it would seem.
It’s a question of doing something wrong or being something wrong: doing or being.
Yes we may do something wrong, but we are not wrong.
If there is anything so true about Scripture is that Christ liberates us, frees us from being demeaned and imprisoned. If forgiveness means anything it means that the bonds are broken. If after we have asked for forgiveness from God we feel shame and fear, we need to recall this story, the guilt felt was true but through Jesus it’s gone.
Do not fear nor have shame – it was never about that.