· Genesis 3:8-15
· Psalm 130 (7)
· 2 Corinthians 4:13 - 5:1
· Mark 3:20-25
Ordinary time at last!
The first six months of the Church year are very busy. First we have Advent, Christmas, time after Christmas, Epiphany, then up to eight weeks of ordinary time, then Lent, Easter, time after Easter, Pentecost, and Holy Trinity. Now for the other half of the year, we have "ordinary time." Time when nothing in particular happens. I suppose this might seem like a bad thing in our over-stimulated society, but I like ordinary time. It's a good time to read, study, learn, and simply live with the Lord without all the commotion. It's like staying in instead of going out on Friday night. It's restful, and it's what our relationship with God and with the church is built on.
During Ordinary Time, the lectionary is set by the date, not by reference to any of the major festivals. So the Sunday that's between June 5 and 11 is always Lectionary 10, if after Holy Trinity. But because the date of Easter is variable, some of the early weeks of Ordinary Time don't happen every year. In fact, Lectionary 10 happens only 54% of years. And since the lectionary works on a three-year cycle, we only get Lectionary 10, Year B about once every six years; and then again there are two choices of lectionary in Ordinary Time: one series that complements the Gospel readings, and one semi-continuous reading of the Old Testament. If you alternate between the two series each time you go through the cycle, you might hear this exact lectionary once every twelve years. In churches that only use the semi-continuous readings, you'd never even hear it at all.
Why this long preface? Partly because I find the workings of the lectionary interesting, but maybe that's just me. But I'm also trying to draw your attention to the fact that our first reading for today is a text you're hardly ever going to hear in church. And that's really too bad, because what we see here is how God reacted the first time Adam disobeyed him. I think that's important.
First of all, notice that God has to ask. "Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" Nowadays we say that God is all-seeing and all-knowing, but in the Old Testament, God actually asks people what they've been up to. God does not actually spend all his time watching you with a beady eye keeping track of what you're doing. Besides giving us free will, God also gave us privacy. And really, we wouldn't have one without the other. And what's interesting, too, is that God gives Adam a chance to say something. God knows immediately what's happened, as soon as Adam speaks, but he doesn't say "you ate from the tree"; he says "did you eat from the tree?" It's a detail, but I think it's an important detail, because once again, God gives Adam a choice. Adam could have said "dude, I don't know what you're talking and I resent the accusation." Adam could have said "as a matter of fact, I did." Adam could have said a lot of things. What he does is shift the blame. He doesn't say yes, he doesn't say no, he says "that woman you gave me did it" and then after that "yeah, I guess so did I, but it was all her fault."
So God turns to the woman, and the woman does the same thing "well, actually it was the snake; I just went along with him." And the snake doesn't have anyone to blame, so that's who takes the fall. The snake is the only one who actually gets cursed in all this. The reading stops at verse 15, but in the book it continues:
To the woman (God) said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
And to the man he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it', cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.
Then the Lord God said, "See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" – therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:16-24)
So if you notice, God doesn't actually get mad. God doesn't get mad nearly as often as we pretend he does. It takes an awful lot to get God angry. And in this reading, it's not even a case of "I'm not mad, I'm disappointed." God hands out some consequences for everyone, which is pretty fair. No reason we shouldn't get a consequence when we screw up. So God gives out consequences, and then he fixes the mess. The man is uncomfortable about being naked, so God makes garments of skin. And then God kicks them out of the garden, not because he's angry, but because of the tree of life. If the man ate from the tree of life, then he'd live forever. And although some people seem to think that's the goal of life, we really can't live forever. We'd just waste it anyway, and we're miserable enough with the time we do have. We need to die. It's good for us. So God is not kicking Adam out of the garden out of anger, but to keep him safe from the tree of life.
What this tells us is really sad. It's not that God is angry and we're all going to Hell. God didn't even say that; somebody just made it up later. In fact it aggravates me immensely when people go on about how we're such horrible people, and we've sinned so horribly against God, and it's impossible that anyone would love us, let alone God, and we're gonna beat our breast and make a great show of accusing ourselves and pretending to repent and somehow that will make a difference. Honestly, I think that's complete nonsense. Granted we're all douchebags deep down, and many of us not too deep down either. But we're decent enough people that we can even love each other, so why pretend we believe God couldn't possibly love us? God is a better person than us; if we can love someone, all the more so can God. So no, it's not a miracle that God loves us. And no, we haven't sinned horribly against God. Yeah, so Adam ate from the tree, and then Israel worshipped false gods, and we haven't kept the Sabbaths and all the commandments. You think God is keeping track? God has things to do. God isn't keeping track of your sins unless you're doing something really egregious, like casting golden calves.
What really happened between Adam and God isn't that Adam made God angry. What happened, and it's a lot sadder, is that Adam lost God's trust. God didn't kick us out of the garden as punishment, he kicked us out because he couldn't trust us to leave the tree of life alone. And that's really, really sad.
But the good news is, God offered his trust to us again, through our Redeemer. Forgiveness of sins? Sure. But we always had that. Just look at the psalm:
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness in you,
so that you may be revered.
so that you may be revered.
(Psalm 130:3-4) This theme is all over the Old Testament. God's forgiveness is not new with Jesus Christ. It was already there all along, and Israel always knew it. But what God offered us is a new Covenant; a new deal between him and us. There is no deal without trust, so when God offers us a covenant, he's offering his trust back to us.
The question is, are you going to live up to God's trust this time?
Today's hymn: #608, Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling.
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