Readings: Genesis 3.8-15; 2 Corinthians 4.13-5.1; Mark 3.20-35
The stories we tell matter. They shape who we are as human beings. Last Sunday we had the story of God as Trinity, epitomising for us, God’s counter-cultural pattern of life: non-hierarchical honouring and empowerment of the other. Equality and mutuality. Our story this morning, the dire consequences of eating that apple!
‘Flesh’ has always been troublesome for human beings! Source of deep connectedness and joy. Source of pain and anguish. Our story seeks to explain how such deep dichotomies have come about.
The account of the Fall follows on from the second creation story in Genesis, an oral tradition honed and written down during the period of the early monarchy in Israel. Story picked up by the apostle Paul in his doctrinal work, the Letter to the Romans, where he squarely places the advent of transgression, so-called ‘original sin’, at Adam’s feet. In his second letter to the church in Corinth, a focus on the waywardness of Eve, is later picked up by the author of the first letter to Timothy, where now Eve and thus all women, become the source of human downfall! Sadly this view has echoed down the centuries, especially in the thinking of fifth century theologian and saint, Augustine of Hippo, cementing the subordination of women in western civilisation ever since. Woman is temptress, enticing Adam to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree – which of course, is sex! The original sin! Through sexual congress we inherit a bias towards sin and evil. So asserts Augustine! Though his thinking was also strongly influenced by his experience of the Greco-Roman world around him. In consequence, the Church, and Christian civilisation in the west, had, and continues to have, a troubled relationship with sex.
But is this an accurate understanding of what the text actually says? Modern theologians digging deeper, have uncovered some different dimensions to this story. The human Adam, is the first being of God’s created order when only the earth exists. Adam becomes man, is, when God creates woman, issa, from his rib. Delighted, the pair form a profound partnership, caring together for the garden and all God’s creatures. Man and woman cleave, cling to, one another, and become one flesh. Astonishingly, in this story of creation, the relationship between man and woman before the Fall does not include children! Their delight is in one another. They are naked – and not ashamed. And walk in the garden with God.
The human pair are free to enjoy and order the garden as they will, they may consume its produce – with one exception. Enter a canny serpent, ancient symbol of wisdom and immortality. Indeed, the Hebrew word used here to describe this creature, arum, cleverness, is also a virtue frequently praised in the book of Proverbs. In God’s absence this able upright creature converses with the woman. And tempts her to eat of the forbidden tree. He argues that God is unreasonably denying her this fruit. A jealous God is simply guarding earth’s knowledge for himself! Of course she will not die! She will become like God knowing good and evil.
Taking the fruit and experiencing how sweet it is, she shares it with Adam. Thus they do indeed gain knowledge of the world, knowledge of enormous possibility – and the ability to exploit.
Their new knowledge begins the breaking down of easy and deep connectedness between the man and his wife, between human being and nature, between human being and God. Now aware of their nakedness, they cover themselves and hide. The Lord God walking amid the garden in the evening breeze looks for them and calls to Adam. Adam replies that they are naked and afraid. The man blames the woman, the woman blames the serpent. Judgement follows.
The mutuality of their desire for one another is lost. In the place of easy joy, pleasure in their work, life will be an existence of exhausting labour to subsist on the land. And for Eve, her desire for her husband not only gives him dominance over her, it brings the travail of many pregnancies.
After eating the forbidden fruit, the text tells us ‘their eyes were opened’. A phrase used in Hebrew to describe the process of education. Notwithstanding the consequences of their actions, it is not the sex that reeks havoc in their lives, it is knowledge of the world their disobedience affords them! The judgement describes the real life circumstances of the world in which the writers of this text lived.
What is astonishing is the presentation in this story of the perception of a very different possibility for human living, the way of being intended by God: that long fruitful life of mutual and corresponding desire; harmony without struggle or shortage.
With the human step towards higher knowledge life has become hierarchical, filled with drudgery, dominance and fear. Their plight has nothing to do with woman leading her man astray with the allure of her body!
This story, a parable written in the tradition of wisdom literature, emerged within a society increasingly controlled by urban elites, educated men with access to other cultures and new patterns of life, those whose eyes are indeed, ‘opened to the knowledge of good and evil’, thus acquiring the power and impulse to dominate and exploit others. This text witnesses to knowledge as vehicle of human development, and, as having potential to be source of many human ills.
So may we take our text as merely an ancient lyrical story, source of artistic endeavour down the centuries? Does it matter today how we understand it? Yes, it matters crucially! For this story has directed human behaviour for millennia! And still influences our background thinking about life. Its misunderstanding has profoundly damaged the life opportunities for women – and in consequence for men too! It is important for us to understand, this is not a story about the dangers of human sexuality, it is rather a critique, of the dangers inherent in the hierarchical city state, and its potential for corruption.
The story does not outlaw sex – other than for the purposes of procreation. Hence contraception is fine – forbidden in the Anglican Church until the 1950s! And most recently, the understanding of sex as God-given expression of committed relationship, has opened the way for equal marriage.
This story is about equality, mutuality, delight in one another, the beauty of the earth, opportunity for creative work, this is the life God intends for humanity, these are the goals for human endeavour.
Now we are left with an extraordinary question: if it is knowledge that is the forbidden fruit Eve offers to Adam, then is the human pursuit of knowledge wrong? It has always seemed to me strange that curiosity is somehow a sin!
The story of the Fall is a highly sophisticated and subtle text. And maybe, we’ve been exploring it within the wrong categories. Where before life was carefree, the actions of Eve and then Adam have rendered them responsible for their own well-being. The fruit of this tree in the middle of the Garden is not sex, neither is it knowledge as such, it is rather, responsibility. This is a story about how exercising the gift of free will makes us responsible for our world. And reflects the human tendency to refuse personal responsibility and blame others. With the knowledge we acquire we must choose between good and evil. ‘Original sin’ is the refusal to make our decisions with God, reflecting on the impact our decision-making has for those around us.
The ‘unforgivable sin’ Jesus speaks of, which so disquiets the ardent student of the Bible, addresses a similar issue. The culpability of those who experience the miracles and teaching of Jesus and yet determine to believe Jesus accomplishes such deeds through the power of demons – and thus justify their refusal to hear him. As Adam and Eve, they condemn themselves.
The story of the Fall is not there to curtail our curiosity – we could not survive without curiosity. Our minds are also gift of God to delight us – and lead us into maturity. Intellectual endeavour is part of our spiritual being. And in the liberal catholic tradition of the Anglican Church to which we belong, such endeavour is an important part of our Christian life. Important because it enables us to better understand the will of God for humanity. Take informed responsibility. Intellectual endeavour is precisely what has led us to a much more wholesome understanding of this story used for so long to limit human delight. Amen.