4:1 - Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man."
4:2 - Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
4:17 - Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch.
4:19 - Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah.
4:22 - Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah.
4:23 - Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me.
4:25 - Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.
Much occurs in this chapter: Cain's birth, his killing of his brother Abel, Cain's "curse" and becoming a wanderer, his living East of Eden in the land of Nod, building a city, more killing - Lamech (Cain's grandson) of another man, the birth of another son, Seth, to Eve and Adam. Much could be (and has been) considered, pondered, and exegeted from these 26 verses. But these are not the stories or themes I am intrigued by - at least today. I am intrigued by how many women appear in this chapter, how much "voice" they have, and how powerful their presence is - not just subtly scattered throughout.
As I discussed in my last post, this chapter begins with Eve's voice and notable movement from shame to co-creation with God. Indeed, the life that begins outside of Eden feels more redemptive and whole than what was experienced in Genesis 3 - and certainly our interpretation of such over the years. In many ways, Genesis 4:1 - a woman's presence and her relationship with God - sets the stage for what follows. By focusing on the women of Genesis 4 we can re-experience and re-interpret the subsequent text and (re)view narratives that have too-often followed the same trajectory as our predominant interpretation of Genesis 3 - bound up in sin (particularly the woman's) and our "falleness" as created beings.
So, what do we see in the women of Genesis 4?
Pregnancy
Birth
The awareness of God's partnering and relationship
Wives
A Sister
Listening
Naming
In every story that flows from this text, particularly the one we always focus on - Cain and Abel - women are present. They are nurturing and bringing forth life. Just as in Genesis 2, they are naming. They are in relationship with men, their children, one another, and their God. They are not just subtext and in the background. They are present and named (Eve, Adah, Zillah, Naamah).
Such remains true - no matter the stories being told around us or those that have been told in the past that continue to haunt, shape, and influence. Women continue to nurture and bring forth life - both literally and metaphorically. Women continue to name - the life around them, the truth they see and experience, themselves. Women continue in relationship with men, their children, one another, and God - often despite plot lines that would move them toward isolation, shame, and silence. Women are not subtext. They are named, present, and powerful.
What I'm most struck by - again - is how powerful it feels to find women in these narratives. The way these stories have been told have either been with negative references to women or no women at all. But that is not what's really there. And even more, it's not true! Women are present and in powerful partnership with God.
Will I acknowledge the same in my own narrative, my own story? Will I look at the whole text of my life and then show up? Will I recognize my partnership with God vs. too-often feeling a lack of agency or control? Will I step boldly into my power to bring forth life, to birth, to name, to act, to relate,to matter? Will I?
Genesis, chapter 4 invites me to do so - over and over again. How easy it is to fall back into the deeply-entrenched patterns of bearing the sin of the world, feeling to blame for all things dark and evil, staying in the shadows as the lesser of God's creation(s). Maybe easy, but so misguided and frankly, so un-scriptural.
The women of Genesis 4 matter. Let's come out of the subtext and step boldly into the story being told and created around us. In fact, let's be the tellers and writers of our own stories - and those created around us. Let's add our names to the list: Eve, Adah, Zillah, Naamah, Ronna, and...
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
East of Eden
I’m stepping out of Eden with a different perspective than the one I've most often held; one that is on-purpose and intentional. I now choose to see Eve and Adam's movement into the unknown as no less inhabited by God’s kindness, care, and presence; their relationship with one another not shaped by shame and blame alone, but also mutuality, an accurate “seeing,” and a vulnerable togetherness. I am face to face with One that loves to create, empower, companion, protect, and care. As evident in Genesis 3 as in the first two chapters. I see a God who does not add to my shame, but honestly articulates what I know in my Eve-awakened consciousness and knowledge: my good and bad choices, my functioning and dysfunctioning, my naming and un-naming. In these first three chapters God has remained with me; just as I walked in the garden in the cool of the day, now I step out of Eden and into the wilderness.
And now, in the wilderness (no less than in Eden) God remains - blatantly and powerfully evident in the first words spoken in Genesis 4.
Now Adam slept with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When the time came, she gave birth to Cain, and she said, "With the Lord's help, I have brought forth a man!" (Genesis 4:1)
Do you recall the last words we heard from Eve? Then the Lord God asked the woman, "How could you do such a thing?" "The serpent tricked me," she replied. "That's why I ate it." Now, just verses later, we hear a much different perspective. Look at the two lines, one after the other:
The serpent tricked me – and I ate.
With God’s help – I have brought forth a man.
There is a definite shift. Can you see it? Do you feel it? For me, it points profoundly away from an abiding sense of shame and sin and toward an abiding sense of God’s love and care. In fact, it would appear that in fact, more shame and a sense of sin dwelled in Eden than in the wilderness. It is now, out of Eden, that Eve is profoundly aware of God’s providence and help, as well as the fullness and gift of life. That is worth noting and, far more, worth allowing to seep into every Scriptural narrative that follows (more on that in posts to come).
For most of us, we leave Genesis 3 and step into the rest of Scripture with this foreboding sense of gloom; once Adam and Eve left Eden all was difficult and dark. There is some validity to such, even as we hear God’s words upon their departure – the “curses” or “consequences” of their now-found consciousness and knowledge: toil and struggle, pain in labor, relational angst, futility and loneliness. I don’t doubt that such was true. I have certainly known all of these in palpable, storied ways – within the narratives of the text and within the narratives of my own life. What I haven’t been as aware of, however, is what Eve actually experiences, invites, births, and names - things that are hardly gloomy, difficult, dark, or steeped in a curse.
It is Eve who sets the stage for how we understand ourselves and God in this new terrain, in the wilderness. God is present. God offers help. Eve and God together bring forth life. And all of this in the wilderness.
Even more, I’m struck by the fact that the first words spoken (as recorded) outside of Eden are a woman’s. Amazing! Life begins anew – both in birthing and in word – through a woman.
And then verse 2:
Later she gave birth to a second son and named him Abel.
Amazing! In only two verses we have an entire flip-flopping of what I’ve always thought about the movement out of Eden – the “banishment,” as it’s been called: Eve is the first voice to speak outside of Eden – just as God spoke in Genesis 1. Eve is the first to create and bring forth life outside of Eden – just as God brought forth life in Genesis 1. And Eve is the first to name outside of Eden – just as God named in Genesis 1 and as she was equally empowered to do alongside Adam in Genesis 2.
Outside of Eden. Into the wilderness. It is Eve who makes us aware of God’s character and care, who brings forth life, who names. It is Eve who shows us that we need not be bound in shame or darkness as women (or as men); that our abiding narrative not be sin or “fallen-ness;” that outside the garden and now in the wilderness we are surrounded by life and God; that we are hardy disempowered, but called to praise, to birth, to name, to live!
I thought I’d get much further in this chapter today, but this is plenty. A woman in the wilderness. A beautiful thing to behold.
And now, in the wilderness (no less than in Eden) God remains - blatantly and powerfully evident in the first words spoken in Genesis 4.
Now Adam slept with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When the time came, she gave birth to Cain, and she said, "With the Lord's help, I have brought forth a man!" (Genesis 4:1)
Do you recall the last words we heard from Eve? Then the Lord God asked the woman, "How could you do such a thing?" "The serpent tricked me," she replied. "That's why I ate it." Now, just verses later, we hear a much different perspective. Look at the two lines, one after the other:
The serpent tricked me – and I ate.
With God’s help – I have brought forth a man.
There is a definite shift. Can you see it? Do you feel it? For me, it points profoundly away from an abiding sense of shame and sin and toward an abiding sense of God’s love and care. In fact, it would appear that in fact, more shame and a sense of sin dwelled in Eden than in the wilderness. It is now, out of Eden, that Eve is profoundly aware of God’s providence and help, as well as the fullness and gift of life. That is worth noting and, far more, worth allowing to seep into every Scriptural narrative that follows (more on that in posts to come).
For most of us, we leave Genesis 3 and step into the rest of Scripture with this foreboding sense of gloom; once Adam and Eve left Eden all was difficult and dark. There is some validity to such, even as we hear God’s words upon their departure – the “curses” or “consequences” of their now-found consciousness and knowledge: toil and struggle, pain in labor, relational angst, futility and loneliness. I don’t doubt that such was true. I have certainly known all of these in palpable, storied ways – within the narratives of the text and within the narratives of my own life. What I haven’t been as aware of, however, is what Eve actually experiences, invites, births, and names - things that are hardly gloomy, difficult, dark, or steeped in a curse.
It is Eve who sets the stage for how we understand ourselves and God in this new terrain, in the wilderness. God is present. God offers help. Eve and God together bring forth life. And all of this in the wilderness.
Even more, I’m struck by the fact that the first words spoken (as recorded) outside of Eden are a woman’s. Amazing! Life begins anew – both in birthing and in word – through a woman.
And then verse 2:
Later she gave birth to a second son and named him Abel.
Amazing! In only two verses we have an entire flip-flopping of what I’ve always thought about the movement out of Eden – the “banishment,” as it’s been called: Eve is the first voice to speak outside of Eden – just as God spoke in Genesis 1. Eve is the first to create and bring forth life outside of Eden – just as God brought forth life in Genesis 1. And Eve is the first to name outside of Eden – just as God named in Genesis 1 and as she was equally empowered to do alongside Adam in Genesis 2.
Outside of Eden. Into the wilderness. It is Eve who makes us aware of God’s character and care, who brings forth life, who names. It is Eve who shows us that we need not be bound in shame or darkness as women (or as men); that our abiding narrative not be sin or “fallen-ness;” that outside the garden and now in the wilderness we are surrounded by life and God; that we are hardy disempowered, but called to praise, to birth, to name, to live!
I thought I’d get much further in this chapter today, but this is plenty. A woman in the wilderness. A beautiful thing to behold.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Another Glimpse at Genesis 3
I wish I had the energy today to write a new narrative - a re-telling of this story that inculcates what I've tried to think through in my last two posts. But I don't. That doesn't mean my mind has stopped or that my textual musings have ceased. It does mean that I'm relying far more heavily on the thoughts and musings of another. Gertrud Mueller Nelson in her book, Here All Dwell Free, tells the fable/myth of the Handless Maiden which mirrors many of the realities inherent in the Genesis story. I'll let her speak:
The feminine quality of curiosity that resides in all of humankind, the quality of wanting to know what is still unknown, is not an evil quality in itself. Certainly Eve or "the woman" is not evil--as one perspective on the issue of feminine curiosity has viewed it. Knowledge brings about wonders, but it can have terrible consequences. If we use knowledge for personal gain at the cost of others, or to further our blooming hubris in order to play at being gods, our unexamined motives are the cause of evil. That is the tragic flaw that is coupled with knowledge...
From my perspective, Eve's curiosity and subsequent knowledge was hardly for personal gain or intentionally at the cost of others. Even to think she "played at being god" feels like it goes too far. Indeed, there were consequences to knowledge and consciousness, but the introduction of such was not pre-meditated, intentional, or evil in and of itself.
Mueller Nelson's statement is true and worth repeating: Eve is not evil. Believing such is hugely important and must be allowed to permeate our deepest stories, firmest-held theologies, and most significant understandings of ourselves as women - and men.
Out of one side of our mouths we say that it is a sin to become conscious, and out of the other we say that it is a sin to remain unconscious. In a family, when one member dares to become conscious - to become enlightened about the ways in which the family has functioned or, indeed, about how they have been dysfunctional for so long - his or her deviation from old family patterns is a heroic act that takes enormous energy...When someone shifts into consciousness and out of an assigned familial role it threatens to unbalance the whole family.
This shift into consciousness, even though it threatens unbalance, is not evil. Nor was Eve's - or Adam's. Undoubtedly, unbalance was created, but such is not always bad. Mueller Nelson continues,
Had we not committed the sin of consciousness, we would also never have brought heaven and earth together in the incarnation of God's own Son.
Indeed, Eden, the eating from the tree, and the resulting consciousness and knowledge are the very things that usher Jesus into our midst. In our own stories the same is true: it is our own movement into consciousness and knowledge - our good and bad choices, our functioning and dysfunctioning, our naming and un-naming - that bring heaven and earth together in poignant, felt, experienced ways. The converse is also true: when we refuse to step into consciousness and knowledge we refuse to let heaven and earth come together. We stubbornly keep at bay the feelings and experiences that, though often painful, remind us of our very need for God. It is our knowledge, consciousness, and honesty that bring God near:
When in trouble I sought the Lord,
all night long I stretched out my hands,
my soul refusing to be consoled,
I thought of God and sighed,
I pondered and my spirit failed me.
You stopped me closing my eyes,
I was too distraught to speak;
I thought of the olden days,
years long past came back to me,
I spent all night meditating in my heart,
I pondered and my spirit asked this question:
"If the Lord has rejected you, is this final?
If the Lord withholds favour, is this for ever?
Is God's love over for good
and the promise void for all time?
Has God forgotten to show mercy,
or has God's anger overcome God's tenderness? (Psalm 77:2-9)
These words could just have easily been spoken by Eve or Adam as David or the Israelite people. Heaven and earth come together in our questions, in our curiosity, in our deepening consciousness, in our knowledge of ourselves, of others, of life. We need not disavow Eve's curiosity or her resulting knowledge; rather, we can recognize ourselves in her and recognize an Eden that ushers God incarnate right into our midst. Mueller Nelson says that it is our very sin that is responsible for our reconciliation with God. Amazing. And a far different glimpse at Genesis 3.
O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!
Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth
and humankind is reconciled with God!
(From the hymn, the Exultet, used in the Easter vigil service)
The feminine quality of curiosity that resides in all of humankind, the quality of wanting to know what is still unknown, is not an evil quality in itself. Certainly Eve or "the woman" is not evil--as one perspective on the issue of feminine curiosity has viewed it. Knowledge brings about wonders, but it can have terrible consequences. If we use knowledge for personal gain at the cost of others, or to further our blooming hubris in order to play at being gods, our unexamined motives are the cause of evil. That is the tragic flaw that is coupled with knowledge...
From my perspective, Eve's curiosity and subsequent knowledge was hardly for personal gain or intentionally at the cost of others. Even to think she "played at being god" feels like it goes too far. Indeed, there were consequences to knowledge and consciousness, but the introduction of such was not pre-meditated, intentional, or evil in and of itself.
Mueller Nelson's statement is true and worth repeating: Eve is not evil. Believing such is hugely important and must be allowed to permeate our deepest stories, firmest-held theologies, and most significant understandings of ourselves as women - and men.
Out of one side of our mouths we say that it is a sin to become conscious, and out of the other we say that it is a sin to remain unconscious. In a family, when one member dares to become conscious - to become enlightened about the ways in which the family has functioned or, indeed, about how they have been dysfunctional for so long - his or her deviation from old family patterns is a heroic act that takes enormous energy...When someone shifts into consciousness and out of an assigned familial role it threatens to unbalance the whole family.
This shift into consciousness, even though it threatens unbalance, is not evil. Nor was Eve's - or Adam's. Undoubtedly, unbalance was created, but such is not always bad. Mueller Nelson continues,
Had we not committed the sin of consciousness, we would also never have brought heaven and earth together in the incarnation of God's own Son.
Indeed, Eden, the eating from the tree, and the resulting consciousness and knowledge are the very things that usher Jesus into our midst. In our own stories the same is true: it is our own movement into consciousness and knowledge - our good and bad choices, our functioning and dysfunctioning, our naming and un-naming - that bring heaven and earth together in poignant, felt, experienced ways. The converse is also true: when we refuse to step into consciousness and knowledge we refuse to let heaven and earth come together. We stubbornly keep at bay the feelings and experiences that, though often painful, remind us of our very need for God. It is our knowledge, consciousness, and honesty that bring God near:
When in trouble I sought the Lord,
all night long I stretched out my hands,
my soul refusing to be consoled,
I thought of God and sighed,
I pondered and my spirit failed me.
You stopped me closing my eyes,
I was too distraught to speak;
I thought of the olden days,
years long past came back to me,
I spent all night meditating in my heart,
I pondered and my spirit asked this question:
"If the Lord has rejected you, is this final?
If the Lord withholds favour, is this for ever?
Is God's love over for good
and the promise void for all time?
Has God forgotten to show mercy,
or has God's anger overcome God's tenderness? (Psalm 77:2-9)
These words could just have easily been spoken by Eve or Adam as David or the Israelite people. Heaven and earth come together in our questions, in our curiosity, in our deepening consciousness, in our knowledge of ourselves, of others, of life. We need not disavow Eve's curiosity or her resulting knowledge; rather, we can recognize ourselves in her and recognize an Eden that ushers God incarnate right into our midst. Mueller Nelson says that it is our very sin that is responsible for our reconciliation with God. Amazing. And a far different glimpse at Genesis 3.
O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!
Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth
and humankind is reconciled with God!
(From the hymn, the Exultet, used in the Easter vigil service)
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Recovering "Shining Bliss"
[We] enter "a fairy tale world" but quickly discover that this world offers no "retreat from reality," nor does it invite us to a world of shining bliss. Rather, anguish and darkness are the fairy tale's prevailing tone--the anguish of a lost paradisiacal happiness and the inevitable darkness that enters every life. (Here All Dwell Free, Gertrud Mueller Nelson)
Genesis 3 continues, rife with exactly what Mueller Nelson states above: movement from shining bliss to inevitable darkness. Or does it? That’s certainly the choice we’ve made, opting consistently for the darkness and losing any memory of the shining bliss.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." 11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" 12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." 14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." 16 To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." 17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." 20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove them out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
What if we could recover the shining bliss?
I sat in a lecture a couple of days ago and listened to Bob Ekblad talk of new ways in which we must interpret and understand Scripture. Admittedly, my paraphrase, here’s what I heard:
At least in the Modern, Western world we have come to the Biblical text and asked, “What am I supposed to do based on this text?” What we need to ask is, “Who is God and what has God done for us in this text?”
Nearly all of our theology has flowed from and focused on the first question. When we’ve looked at Genesis 3 we’ve said, “Given this sad state of affairs, what are we to do now? We’d best seek to explain and understand what has happened and then work like h___ to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Our explanations have then taken forms we are all understand: the woman’s sin, the man’s temptation, the curse(s), the punishment, the banishment. The result of asking such? A near-total focus on sin, its accompanying cost, and its ongoing legacy.
The legacy is painful, one aspect of which I’m particularly aware: the price women have paid. Listen to voices of women who have reflected on Genesis, chapter 3, in A God Who Looks Likes Me: Discovering a Woman-Affirming Spirituality, Patricia Lynn Reilly)
“I was convinced that Eve was imperfect. She was fatally flawed in some way that made her “fall” inevitable. Her behavior proves the natural inferiority and fickleness of women.”
“Eve was bad. She did something wrong. She symbolized that women held a deep-seated corruption within them. Women were corrupters and manipulative temptresses. Eve was so evil that she persuaded the most righteous man to sin. She used her sexuality as a weapon to seduce and destroy him. Her body and beauty were tempting and negative.”
“Every time I experienced pain in labor and delivery, I cursed Eve for her sin. On a primal level beyond any churchy kind of memories, I believed she was the cause of my pain. I was being punished as her daughter. The pain and pressure of childbirth was to remind all of us that we are daughters of Eve.”
“As a child I was sure Eve’s sin had something to do with being curious. Women were curious. It killed the cat. Curious women who wanted to know about things got cast out of paradise. They turned into pillars of salt by angry male gods. They got sentenced to lives of pain and hard labor—in the fields and in childbirth. It was all supposed to hurt because Eve was curious.”
As a woman, I ache when I read these statements because I know how they’ve seeped into my bones, my reality, my understanding (and naming) of myself. They make me deeply sad. What’s more, these are not “truths” held uniquely by women. In nearly all the theology I’ve read as well as what has been taught to me predominantly by male pastors/leaders throughout my life, these statements would probably not be ones they would refute. They’ve seeped into men’s bones, reality and understanding (naming) as well. That should make all of us deeply sad.
And because of such, we should be that much more compelled to instead, ask the second question: Who is God and what has God done for us in this text?
Who is God?
In chapter 1 and 2 we encounter a God who has created beauty and perfection for us; a God who has empowered us to walk in its midst, naming and defining all that we see, all that we are; a God who has walked with us, talked with us, been in relationship with us. And nothing changes in chapter 3. God continues in relationship with us, seeking, pursuing, desiring. Even as movement away from beauty and perfection occurs, God’s presence remains – manifested in further naming of what life will now be like, covering, and care. Who is God? God is a present, generous, desiring of relationship One.
What has God done for us in this passage?
God has given us plenty and extravagance. God has given us autonomy and freedom. God has given us relationship. God has given us differentiation from God’s self and even creation. God has given us grace, love, and care. God has given us one another. God has given us life.
By asking these questions we shift our focus from the weight of Original Sin and an entire doctrine/theology designed to explain our inherent darkness (with women responsible for a particularly large portion of that depiction) to a God who still offers a taste of “shining bliss.” By asking these questions we shift our focus from our pride, willfulness, or even curiosity to a deeper awareness and appreciation of a God who knows us, sees us, and endlessly pursues and cares for us. By asking these questions, we shift our focus from an exhausting, narcissistic emphasis on our own sin and subsequent quest for salvation to a God who saves, redeems, and loves – not just someday, but in the thick of Eden, in the thick of our everyday lives.
Read the text again, looking for clues about who God is and what God has done for us. Read the text again and hold at bay your tendency to critique (the text and yourself), to attribute blame, to sigh with the heaviness of it all. Read the text again and wonder anew at a God who offers such freedom and spaciousness combined with such intimate pursuit and care. Read the text again and wonder how you might re-think not only Genesis 3, but the pages of your own story when God is the lens and not yourself.
I’m a bit overwhelmed by the idea of such. My mind quickly goes to multiple narratives, multiple scenes, multiple dialogues in my own life. I have to un-do much when I ask the same question, “Who is God in my text, my story, and what has God done for me?”
There’s definitely more to unpack in Genesis 3, but for now I just want to sit for a while in even the remote possibility that I don’t have to figure out what to do and instead can just rest in what God has done. That feels like a taste of “shining bliss,” a portion of Eden recovered, a portion of me renewed, redeemed, renamed. And that sounds like God saying, “It is good…still.”
Genesis 3 continues, rife with exactly what Mueller Nelson states above: movement from shining bliss to inevitable darkness. Or does it? That’s certainly the choice we’ve made, opting consistently for the darkness and losing any memory of the shining bliss.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." 11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" 12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." 14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." 16 To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." 17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." 20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove them out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
What if we could recover the shining bliss?
I sat in a lecture a couple of days ago and listened to Bob Ekblad talk of new ways in which we must interpret and understand Scripture. Admittedly, my paraphrase, here’s what I heard:
At least in the Modern, Western world we have come to the Biblical text and asked, “What am I supposed to do based on this text?” What we need to ask is, “Who is God and what has God done for us in this text?”
Nearly all of our theology has flowed from and focused on the first question. When we’ve looked at Genesis 3 we’ve said, “Given this sad state of affairs, what are we to do now? We’d best seek to explain and understand what has happened and then work like h___ to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Our explanations have then taken forms we are all understand: the woman’s sin, the man’s temptation, the curse(s), the punishment, the banishment. The result of asking such? A near-total focus on sin, its accompanying cost, and its ongoing legacy.
The legacy is painful, one aspect of which I’m particularly aware: the price women have paid. Listen to voices of women who have reflected on Genesis, chapter 3, in A God Who Looks Likes Me: Discovering a Woman-Affirming Spirituality, Patricia Lynn Reilly)
“I was convinced that Eve was imperfect. She was fatally flawed in some way that made her “fall” inevitable. Her behavior proves the natural inferiority and fickleness of women.”
“Eve was bad. She did something wrong. She symbolized that women held a deep-seated corruption within them. Women were corrupters and manipulative temptresses. Eve was so evil that she persuaded the most righteous man to sin. She used her sexuality as a weapon to seduce and destroy him. Her body and beauty were tempting and negative.”
“Every time I experienced pain in labor and delivery, I cursed Eve for her sin. On a primal level beyond any churchy kind of memories, I believed she was the cause of my pain. I was being punished as her daughter. The pain and pressure of childbirth was to remind all of us that we are daughters of Eve.”
“As a child I was sure Eve’s sin had something to do with being curious. Women were curious. It killed the cat. Curious women who wanted to know about things got cast out of paradise. They turned into pillars of salt by angry male gods. They got sentenced to lives of pain and hard labor—in the fields and in childbirth. It was all supposed to hurt because Eve was curious.”
As a woman, I ache when I read these statements because I know how they’ve seeped into my bones, my reality, my understanding (and naming) of myself. They make me deeply sad. What’s more, these are not “truths” held uniquely by women. In nearly all the theology I’ve read as well as what has been taught to me predominantly by male pastors/leaders throughout my life, these statements would probably not be ones they would refute. They’ve seeped into men’s bones, reality and understanding (naming) as well. That should make all of us deeply sad.
And because of such, we should be that much more compelled to instead, ask the second question: Who is God and what has God done for us in this text?
Who is God?
In chapter 1 and 2 we encounter a God who has created beauty and perfection for us; a God who has empowered us to walk in its midst, naming and defining all that we see, all that we are; a God who has walked with us, talked with us, been in relationship with us. And nothing changes in chapter 3. God continues in relationship with us, seeking, pursuing, desiring. Even as movement away from beauty and perfection occurs, God’s presence remains – manifested in further naming of what life will now be like, covering, and care. Who is God? God is a present, generous, desiring of relationship One.
What has God done for us in this passage?
God has given us plenty and extravagance. God has given us autonomy and freedom. God has given us relationship. God has given us differentiation from God’s self and even creation. God has given us grace, love, and care. God has given us one another. God has given us life.
By asking these questions we shift our focus from the weight of Original Sin and an entire doctrine/theology designed to explain our inherent darkness (with women responsible for a particularly large portion of that depiction) to a God who still offers a taste of “shining bliss.” By asking these questions we shift our focus from our pride, willfulness, or even curiosity to a deeper awareness and appreciation of a God who knows us, sees us, and endlessly pursues and cares for us. By asking these questions, we shift our focus from an exhausting, narcissistic emphasis on our own sin and subsequent quest for salvation to a God who saves, redeems, and loves – not just someday, but in the thick of Eden, in the thick of our everyday lives.
Read the text again, looking for clues about who God is and what God has done for us. Read the text again and hold at bay your tendency to critique (the text and yourself), to attribute blame, to sigh with the heaviness of it all. Read the text again and wonder anew at a God who offers such freedom and spaciousness combined with such intimate pursuit and care. Read the text again and wonder how you might re-think not only Genesis 3, but the pages of your own story when God is the lens and not yourself.
I’m a bit overwhelmed by the idea of such. My mind quickly goes to multiple narratives, multiple scenes, multiple dialogues in my own life. I have to un-do much when I ask the same question, “Who is God in my text, my story, and what has God done for me?”
There’s definitely more to unpack in Genesis 3, but for now I just want to sit for a while in even the remote possibility that I don’t have to figure out what to do and instead can just rest in what God has done. That feels like a taste of “shining bliss,” a portion of Eden recovered, a portion of me renewed, redeemed, renamed. And that sounds like God saying, “It is good…still.”
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