Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Lent 1A

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A “tree of knowledge” certainly sounds helpful, particularly if it aids one in distinguishing good from evil—even if such distinguishing is as fine as a difference between a white and black thread at the rising and setting of the sun.

Such a “tree” presupposes that good and evil are to be distinguished. If creation by G*D is good and evil only latent until an eye was opened, did evil exist already? If so, how important is a whisper of its existence? Does it take some present ability to distinguish good from evil to desire to better distinguish them?

There is some sense in which stepping between good and evil leads us into confusion.

It is from this very tree that Jesus seems to have also eaten. He is able to distinguish helpful applications of the scriptures (accumulated wisdom of our experiences with G*D) from unhelpful applications. It is not that scripture is automatically helpful. Knowing when to apply which portion is important.

There is some sense in which stepping between good and evil leads us to clarity after an initial confusion. Read again Martin Buber’s I and Thou, in particular his image of a whirlpool.

Thank you “Adam” for joining “Eve” in engaging wisdom. We are in this journey together—discernment is as much communal as it is mine alone.

 

- - - - - - -

I wash my hands in innocence
   again and again
I am washed away by circumstance
   again and again

my very same hand hugs my brother
   again and again
that slaps my sister
   again and again

so I define and define
   again and again
and am in turn defined
   again and again

until I cannot tell
   again and again
truth from falsehood
   again and again

and am joined to the cosmos
   again and again
and divorced from myself
   again and again

redeemed
   again and again
gracious
   again and again

 

As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience

 

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As we being a penitential time, there is a naturalness to reflecting on where our behavior needing penance came from. A myth of a fruit from a tree of knowledge regarding good and evil is one way of reflecting. This myth has been re-mythologized many times to make one point or another. It is difficult to return to the myth per se and so we will be looking at various aspects of it, hopefully de-mythologizing some popular images of it. Remember this scene takes place in the context of a good creation.

We begin with a portion of a play by e.e. cummings about a salt mine. As below the ground, so above.

e.e. cummings, Santa Claus: A Morality

Santa Claus removing the mask of death (EEC drawing)
http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/Santa.html

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/february2005.html

 

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This note came in a listserve I listen to: "The collection of Bonhoeffer's writing that ended up being published as Ethics begins with the premise that whereas secular ethics are based on the knowledge of good and evil, Christian ethics are based on the will of God, not on our own discernment."

We do tend to get hung up on knowing good and evil and trying to choose between. It may be that is a false choice. Follow this link to find an online article reviewing Bonhoeffer's Ethics.

To get into an argument about good and evil presses us to make a ruling so the descriptive nude must become judged as naked. [NAKED suggests absence of protective or ornamental covering but may imply a state of nature, of destitution, or of defenselessness (poor half-naked children). NUDE applies especially to the unclothed human figure (a nude model posing for art students). -- From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary] This very rush to judgment takes us quickly into issues of sexuality rather than relationship and attempting to escape blame through lies rather than truthful accountability. This story has bedeviled religion for a long time. It is a snake in the grass, if not tree, that tempts us to misread the steadfast relationship between GOD and Creation (including humans).

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/february2005.html

 

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In looking at the Genesis lection, Tom Ehrich has the following insight to get us back on track. What do you think? What question would you ask God?

I have spent the past eighteen months just listening to the questions that people would ask of God. If resources allow, I plan to intensify that encounter in a four-month "Listening Tour," starting in July. I am convinced that listening, not talking, is the way forward for progressive Christianity. Church leaders need to stop their orations, public bickering, clever preaching and press releases, and instead listen to their people.

Not only would listening ground us in actuality, rather than safe theory and pointless dispute, but taking people's questions seriously would ally us with the prophetic and disruptive core of God's call. It is the serpent, you see, who says, Don't worry, be clever, have fun, assert your control. It is God who says, Listen to me. It is Jesus who said, Stay in their homes, hear their needs, and serve.

Here is what we learn when we take our faith questions seriously:

People matter more than institutions, and human needs more than institutional imperatives.

Human yearnings and insights reveal God more profoundly than do doctrines and definitions. God is discovered, not distributed. God is known in the here and now, not restricted to a far-off realm that a few gatekeepers control. All have equal access to God, not just those who obey the rules.

When people are treated with dignity and respect, they are less easily dominated by systems that serve the few at the expense of the many. When people are encouraged to think for themselves, to plumb the depths for their actual yearnings, and to approach God from the authenticity of discovered faith, not imposed, they are less easily diverted by empty crusades, such as the current sexuality wars.

I am convinced that if we Christians – joining hands with God-seekers who walk different paths toward the same God – took our own questions seriously, we would find God eager to be known and to respond, our lives would be more whole and less fragmented, and we would feel that personal potency which overbearing systems want us to doubt.

We would make a difference, not as rock-throwers in some mob being formed to attack the vulnerable and thereby to keep us amused and dependent while the few grab power and wealth, but as children of a just God who is not the least amused by self-serving predators and not at all dependent on their grand institutions.

What I want to say to retreatants is, Listen to your heart, listen to the questions you are asking, listen to each other, and don't stop listening when the few tell you to stop being impertinent and heretical.

That is a dangerous path to walk. Institutions fight back. Trillions of dollars are at stake. When faith replaces religion, and yearning ignores obedience, watch out."

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/february2005.html

 

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A tree of knowledge certainly sounds helpful, particularly if it aids one in distinguishing good from evil - even if such distinguishing is as fine as the difference between a white and black thread at the rising and setting of the sun.

Such a tree presupposes that there is good and evil to be distinguished. If created by G*D was good and evil only latent until a eye was opened or did it exist already? If so how important is the whisper of its existence? Does it take some ability to distinguish good from evil to desire to better distinguish?

There is some sense in which stepping between good and evil leads us into confusion.

It is from this very tree that Jesus seems to have also eaten. He is able to distinguish helpful applications of the scriptures (accumulated wisdom of our experiences with G*D) from unhelpful applications. It is not that scripture is automatically helpful. Knowing when to apply which is important.

There is some sense in which stepping between good and evil leads us to clarity after our initial confusion. Read again Martin Buber’s I and Thou, in particular his image of the whirlpool.

Thank you "Adam" for joining "Eve" in engaging wisdom. We are in this journey together as such discernment is as much communal as it is mine alone.

Thank you Jesus for building on wisdom and clarifying the need for larger contexts regarding "tests" or experiences of life.

- - - - - - -

I am a type of one who has gone before
and a type of one who will follow
I am a free gift borne by a past
and a free gift invested in a future
of all the options available - I arrived
and now more options are opened

wrestling still with good and evil
my appetites struggle to be met
my desire for immortality leaps into the fray
my controlling power claims first place
and on other days they all face
poverty, chastity, obedience

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html

 

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Don't you love it that the serpent was more clever than any other wild animal (including Adam? – probably, since Adam got out clevered). We spend so much of our time trying to be clever on our own, when we could simply try a little parseltongue to get ahead.

One of the questions that might be asked whenever things are starting to go astray (building Babel, choosing a king, etc.) is where brother snake or sister serpent might be found camouflaged in the background or unreflected in a mirror of ourselves.

It takes cleverness to find a question that will redirect one’s attention from the joy of revealing heaven on earth. What does it take to get us on a par with G*D – Babel? What does it take to reach parity with other nations and build secure borders – a king? What will reveal a Messiah – moving something from an pre-animate to a post-animate condition (stone to bread) or interfering with a natural law such as gravity or focusing on the glitz of 15 minutes of fame?

It takes reaping-the-consequence-of-cleverness to open eyes that steadfast-love might be steadfastly affirmed as an alternative to parsing good from evil.

So where be ye – pre-clever, clever, or post-clever? Or simply steadfastly loved and more steadfast than yesterday in loving?

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html

 

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Genesis 2:18-24

I am curious about the phrase, "deep sleep." Looks like I will have to go digging deeper than the resources I have here at home. A beginning thought connects this with creation time when darkness hovered over the face of the deep.

In a sense creation keeps going and going, just like that pink bunny. It comes out of the deep and the dark. Then comes a word, an act and a spark of light, a mere glimmer sometimes, awakens a weary world to new hope.

From a deep sleep and from deep within comes the awareness of deep binding together.

This month, two congregations here will be doing an online study of an older resource, "The Wounded Healer." From a deep and dark night of the soul comes the light of being bound together when it felt like everything was being torn and ripped open in preparation for abandonment and death.

In the wound is the healing, in the deep sleep is the awakening. In the Adam is the Eve, the new day -- and it was evening and morning the next day.

The deep sleep of Eden and flood and slavery and captivity and crucifixion and the dark ages and the present age is intended to awaken us to a new day, a new heaven and a new earth.

In "Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologies in Dialogue", Michael E. Lodahl's chapter contains this related thought:

...There is a somewhat insidious implication of creatio ex nihilo that should be brought to light and expunged: The doctrine often seems to imply that God works like a magician who pronounces "Presto!" and pulls a rabbit (i.i., the world) out of his or her top hat (i.e., nothing). In this picture the creation of the universe appears perfunctory and arbitrary with little, if any real, investment or care on the Creator's part -- a picture that lends itself to a devaluing of the world and our lives in it. It is safe to say that this is not, and cannot be, what Christians (or Jews or Muslims) mean by creation out of nothing. The particularly Christian conviction that God has created by the Word -- the Word that became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth -- belies any hint of arbitrariness or caprice in God's act of creation, suggesting instead that creation is the deliberate expression of divine love revealed at Gethsemene and Golgotha. In this case, perhaps creatio ex nihilo might be well-complemented by : God creates out of (and as an expression of) self-giving, creative love...."

What in you has been created by love? Is that enough? What of you is creating out of love? Is that enough?

Sleep deep. Awaken refreshed, a new creation.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/october2003.html

 

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To walk in my integrity implies an understanding of what has been joined to G*D and therefore is joined to me. It is easy to see good joined to G*D, not so easy to see evil having a connection. This is probably a function of our ability to see rather than G*D's experience of good and evil.

It is easy to see inherent relationships between lovers who find themselves in one another, not so easy to see divorce as a sacred event (only a state event). Yet, for integrity's sake, we find we cannot live only one side of an equation. What is being joined and separated in our living today? What is defined and named and to what are we still so blind we cannot see to name? This state of already and not-yet is the interface where we find the energy and experience of life.

May your helpmeet (experienced, whether legalized or not) assist you, with integrity, to both curse G*D and die, and come to yourself.

- - - - - - -

I wash my hands in innocence
again and again
I am washed away by life circumstance
again and again

my very same hand hugs my brother
again and again
that slaps my sister
again and again

so I define and define
again and again
and am in turn defined
again and again

until I cannot tell
again and again
truth from falsehood
again and again

and am joined to the cosmos
again and again
and divorced from myself
again and again

redeemed
again and again
gracious
again and again

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

 

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Satan tempts, G*D tempts, creatures tempt, relatives tempt.

You might get the idea that temptation is a baseline part of creation. Could it be any other way and still have a dynamic participation in a movement toward what is sensed as a better future?

Would you want to make a decision that wasn't in some way related to knowing it was a good decision. Can that be done in any other way than in contrast with other options/temptations chosen against?

If there is not a temptation in a decision, it might be argued that there is no decision being made.

Bless your temptations. Against them you are more human. Being human is a good place to be - in the middle of yesterday's rules and tomorrow's wisdom.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/03/genesis-215-17-31-7.html

 

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Whether one is in a wilderness or a garden, temptations arise. Temptations intentional and simply opportune arise.

It doesn’t take any craft at all to present a temptation. It may make the temptation easier to fall prey to, but the basic dynamic of temptation doesn’t really change according to the finesse with which it arrives.

At best we learn from our responses to past temptations, when finally our eyes are opened. It helps to have a community of Neighb*rs so we can assist one another into the realization that we got caught and we can begin the process of repairing the breech in community we widened.

Here in Genesis, G*D comes visiting. In Matthew, angels attend. Note that temptations and a response to them are never the end of the story. Blessing is the background against which a temptation must be viewed. Then we know we are not defined by a transgression. It is important, but a blip against the field of blessing still available.

Our Lenten Journey to a grave of absence, whether we acknowledge it or not, takes place on the surface of everyday choices and their companion, a mystery of resurrection.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/03/genesis-215-17-31-7.html