What we have come to call “The Old Testament”, the first part of the Bible for Christians, is believed to have begun to be put into writing during Israel’s captivity in Babylon, in the 6th century before Christ. This would make sense for several reasons:
– The first reason is that it wasn’t the masses who were first taken into Exile, but Israel’s political and religious elite. They were the educated ones, taken to serve the King in his court where they would have had the financial and material means they needed to write (scroll, ink…)
– The second reason is that until that time, the Israelites probably didn’t feel the need to write History, they had their stories they would pass on from generation to generation. But when they found themselves in a foreign country, cut from their roots and tradition and especially away from their Temple, they started to write everything down, to make sure they wouldn’t forget – in the same way, if you will, that we start writing down Grand Ma’s recipes once she isn’t with us anymore. Understandable.
– Now the third reason why the Israelites started to write their stories is a little more subtle than that, but it’s believed to be an important key to be able to understand why the Bible was written, and it has a lot to do with the Exile. The Israelites started to look at the story of their people and reflecting on their situation. Though small compared to some, they once were a powerful people with King David, they had wisdom and wealth with King Solomon, they had a beautiful Temple and a gorgeous city, and they had a God they believed to be above all gods, a God who would jealously protect them and give them victory in everything. And then, they were in captivity. They had lost their city, their Temple, their people, and a great deal of their faith in God in the process. And so they started to look back and to wonder: What happened? What is it that went so wrong with us? How come that we had everything we could wish for and everything was taken away from us?
What is it that went so wrong with us? One could say that this is the question the Old Testament tries to respond to: in the books of the prophets of course, in the historic books, certainly, in the writings like the story of Job, yes, but also and specifically, in the book of Genesis. And this is exactly where we start today, in Eden: How come we had this wonderful garden, friendship with creation and one another, friendship with God, and we lost everything?
The genius of Israel, you see, is that they have been able, starting from their very own political and historical situation, to write stories that everybody could understand and apply to their own time and their own situation. Who among us hasn’t one day read the papers and watched the news and thought the same thoughts: What is it that has gone so wrong with the planet, with this country, with these people, we had everything? Or maybe you have found yourself signing divorce papers at the Court House or hanging up on a lifelong friend and thought: What is it that has gone so wrong with us, we were inseparable? Or maybe you have caught a glimpse of yourself hooked up on alcohol or medications and thought: What is it that has gone so wrong with me, when I was young, I could have done anything?
And so one could see, indeed, how these stories of the Bible were inspired by God and are full of the Holy Spirit. These stories are still alive today for us, beyond times and cultures, they talk to what’s deeper within our humanity, relationships with selves, others and, of course, relationships with God. Sometimes we just need to do a little bit of “dusting” to hear them afresh, and so this is exactly what we are going to do today with the story of Adam and “the woman” (she has yet to be named), a story that is so well-known that we don’t know it anymore, a story though that is the foundational story to find the beginning of an answer to the “What is it that went so wrong with us?“, Israel’s question, Humankind’s question, and a question we need once again to ponder during this time of Lent when we are invited to repentance and reconciliation.
1 – So first of all, our lesson this morning takes us at the time when God puts Adam in the garden of Eden. A few things are worth being noticed:
– Adam has a job, he is to till the garden and keep it, he is the steward of creation
– Adam has great freedom yet this freedom has boundaries
– He is in a state of innocence, not knowing the difference between evil and good
– Death is a reality but it is not a fate.
In this, we can understand that the people in Israel probably didn’t really believe that there was a time on earth when things were good, back in days, in the good old days. When the Israelites ask the question “What is it that went wrong?“, they of course refer to a time when things were better (like in the days of David) but mainly they refer to the fact that people had the possibility for things to be better. In the same way, when we say: “When I was young, I could have done anything“, it does not mean that we were really good people when we were young. It means that we had the possibility to make good choices. And it’s the same in the story of Eden: Adam had one job and he had to choose to do the job, Adam had commandments and he had to choose to keep the commandments, evil existed but Adam had to choose not to get involved with evil, death was real but it could have been a mostly painless, natural process like birth instead of becoming a tragedy (maybe because it evokes the ultimate loss of possibilities).
2 – Now the man, or should I say the woman, is confronted to a choice. The story says that God gives us the choice, as part of our freedom, but God does not tempt us. God doesn’t say: You cannot eat this fruit although it’s delicious. God says to the man: Don’t eat it because you will die. It’s the serpent who tempts the woman. Now the serpent is not Satan himself. The story mentions that the serpent was a crafty creature, but nonetheless a creature. It means that, if Adam and the woman had obeyed God’s commandments to be the masters of creation, they wouldn’t have listened to the serpent. So they started on the wrong foot if you will, not trusting God.
And this is exactly what happens with the serpent: he leads the woman to doubt God (not God’s existence, but God’s goodness). He puts in question what God had said and since the woman got it wrong to start with, she is getting very confused. For example, God didn’t say they couldn’t touch the tree, but they couldn’t eat the fruit (which is a much more intentional action). A Jewish commentary says that the serpent pushes the woman against the tree, and as she does not die, she start putting everything into question. The serpent is not Satan but there is certainly something diabolic about him. In the Gospel, Jesus says that Satan is the Father of lies (John 8:44) and indeed, the serpent, who does not technically lies, twists the word of God. He leads the woman to believe that God is in competition with humankind, that God, instead of protecting them, is making sure they don’t become God’s equals: “God knows that, when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God“. And the woman starts to elaborate on that: If it is the fruit of the gods, on top of giving wisdom, it must be delicious and it looks very beautiful indeed.
3 – The tragedy, of course, is that by eating the fruit Adam and the woman will lose just what they desired but were too blind to realize they already had. The serpent promises the woman that “They will be like God“, but if we look at the first chapter of Genesis, it is said right there at the beginning (v27) that God created man and woman “in his image“, “in the image of God he created them“. So they already had that. But they will also lose their friendship with God. By believing that God wasn’t their friend, indeed, mankind will become God’s enemy (on a certain level). Finally, Adam and the woman wanted to know good and evil to have mastery over them, instead they come to know evil in the Biblical sense: by experiencing evil, by being subjects to evil and its consequences: suffering and fear of death.
Obviously, there is a lot to unpack but I just want to highlight a few questions we can ask ourselves when, like the ancient Israelites, we look at what is it that went wrong, in our own world and in our own story.
– Do we forget our one job, to take care of each other and to take care of creation?
– Do we forget that we can enjoy great freedom while accepting that our freedom must have boundaries as a sign of respect for others’ boundaries but also because we should have the humility to believe that we don’t always know the difference between right and wrong?
– Do we listen to or take example on what God has declared beneath us? (Thinking for example that in nature, there is competition, fight for survival so it’s okay for us)
– Do we make sure that we really know the word of God and seek God’s will, or do we let others tell us what to do?
– Do we trust in God’s goodness and God’s wisdom or do we think we’d better take matters in our own hands? And do we let our imagination elaborate on how well we would do on our own?
– Do we realize that God has already given us what we need and that God is the only one who can give us what we really long for?
– Do we realize that one bad decision leads to another, and if indeed one little transgression isn’t the matter in terms of actual harm (to ourselves or others) it breaks trust, a breach in the covenant that takes much time to be repaired (now that’s the rest of the Bible, and that’s a story for another day!)