(please note this is my first week using the reading from the Narrative Lectionary)
The Reading
Genesis 2:4b - 25
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had
yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and
there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth,
and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man from the
dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the
man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the
east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 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. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there
it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is
the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and
the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of
the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of
Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And
the fourth river is the Euphrates.
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.” Then the
Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a
helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal
of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what
he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was
its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to
every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his
partner. So the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and
closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from
the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be
called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” Therefore a man leaves his
father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And
the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
The message
Today
is our first Sunday following the Narrative lectionary. This list of readings
for worship starts with Old Testament events and stories that help us
understand God’s first communications of love and care with the world. They also help us see and understand why
Jesus birth is so important, we experience the hope and promises of Advent and the
fulfilled joy of Christmas.
Today,
we start year B in the narrative lectionary.
We begin where the told story of our faith begins, with the first few
chapters of Genesis. Today, we hear one of the stories about God’s creation of people,
of human life. For me, this is a text I
often get lost in and I never quite know what to say about it (I was honestly
not thrilled that this brand new and exciting list of readings starts with
these verses). Two of the more
controversial and divisive issues in the Christian and world community today
come right out of these texts. It is
hard to say anything about this reading without acknowledging and mentioning
the ideas of creationism and the arguments around gay marriage.
These
two issues are the stuff that makes non-believers laugh at Christians and doubt
everything else any faith teaches and believes. They lead Christians to accuse
other Christians of being tricked by the world, ignoring God’s word and
abandoning their faith. They also lead some Christians to look at other
Christians as uneducated, non-thinking embarrassments. There are many places we
can get lost in this reading and things that can stop us from seeing the
amazing truths this story reveals to us about God.
I do not want to dwell on these controversial
issues but will address them briefly. Creationism is the belief that God literally created the
world in 6 days exactly as recorded in Genesis. It usually comes along with the
rejection of evolution and most sciences. Here my thoughts are simply that
these creation stories are not science and they were never meant to be. The
first chapter and a half of Genesis tells one creation story where man and
women are created together. The next two chapters of Genesis tell a second
story where woman is created from man’s rib. The order of most created things
is different in each story as well. Both
cannot be actual descriptions of what happened. 1400 years before anyone heard the word
evolution, Augustine and others argued that these stories were not meant to be
taken literally, instead they were meant to reveal and teach us something about
God.
The
other issue that often comes up when looking at this section of Genesis is
about marriage. Over the past few years there has been a lot of attention on
Gay Marriage. It has been a time of advocacy, protests and an upsurge in
support. There was also a series of legal victories culminating in the US
Supreme Court celebrating and upholding states that allow gay marriage and
forcing other states to allow gay marriages (even against the votes of
majorities in some of those states). Throughout all this time, a significant
group of Christians (and others) have been aggressively protesting, praying and
advocating against this change.
This has led to a great deal of conversations
and sermons about the American government’s open war on Christianity. (This
alone brings up the frightening idea that our faith centers around our opinion
of gay marriage, as though rejecting gay marriage, instead of Jesus death and
resurrection, was the way to our salvation) Many of the people protesting
against gay marriage look to this Genesis reading and simply say “God made
marriage between a man and a woman” in this story, so that is the proper
relationship, how it was meant to be for all people at all times and in all
places. In the same way that this is not
a text about science, this is not a text about marriage being only between a
man and woman. We miss things when we get lost in theses debates. We miss
some truly amazing things when we look to this story as a way to say or prove “God
made the world in 7 days” or ” gay marriage is not okay”.
This
is a text that looks back to something none of us could see, hear or
experience. There are no eyewitness reports of creation, no before and after
photos adam took with his camera and no videos that eve took on her cell
phone. Our faith story begins with faith,
with us having to believe these stories, to believe God’s word reveals some truth we
cannot come to in any other way.
The
most profound truth revealed is this “God is part of the world”. In the first creation story, we are introduced
to God who is sort of distant and incomprehandable, in heaven, looking down on
things and observing “it is good”. In
the second story, we are introduced to God with us. We hear of God creating
life from nothing, breathing life into dust, forming a great diversity of
unique, living and connected things, performing the first known surgery and
creating Eve from Adams rib. Here, God
is physically in the world, touching, hearing, smelling and caring for things. The
first news we have of God is that God is present with us. I do not want to give
away the ending of this story (but I think most of you know what happens
anyway) the people disobey God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good
and Evil. For this, they are punished. They are cast out of the garden, they
are now subject to pain, face the
consequences of sin and will die. People are separated from the right
relationship with God and suffering enters the world. At no time though, God does not leave the
world, the commitment and promise to be present with us remains.
This
is powerful news. One of the things I remember about the weeks and months after
September 11th, is a picture I saw while I was teaching a 4th
grade religious education class. It was a sketch of Jesus embracing the World
Trade Center and gathering those who died. It was not a great drawing and I
have no idea who drew it, why it was is on the desk or why I happened to look
though this pile of papers and see it. It did bring me a great deal of comfort
though, helping me realize and experience what it meant for God to be present
with us in suffering long before it was part of my theological education and
training.
Some
other interesting things happen in this story too. People were given the earth
to till and keep. That means to use but maintain, to take what was needed but
make sure there would be something left for everyone else. We are not entrusted
with the earth to do whatever we want with it. To till and keep have lots of
different meanings especially in such an allegorical reading but I can say for
sure to till does not mean to destroy and keep does not mean to pollute and
waste.
Finally,
this is a story about life together, being in relationships where partners
support, uphold, listen and care for each other. The beauty of this arrangement is not that
they are male and female, it is the partnership between living things that
helps, heals and brings joy. This is the story of human life coming into being,
surrounded by God and needing one another.
Next
week, our reading brings us to the story of Abraham and Sarah where we see that
God keeps God’s promises
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