1st Sunday in Lent                                

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-8

God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

And God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.”

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that God had made. It said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” But, the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden.

The Dawn of Humanity

Genesis is easily one of the most controversial books in the Bible. The part that we read today is part of the creation story, and the ongoing debate in our culture over the creation of the world is just as intense now as it has ever been. Many people wrongly hold this text up as an example of why women shouldn’t be allowed to do certain things or have certain jobs. It’s used as the basis to cast aspersions on all of womankind, as if women were any more flawed than people of other genders. And, hidden within these words is our deeply ingrained fear of snakes and the human tendency to separate ourselves from God and from the natural world.

Even though there is no mention of sin in this reading, the events of this story are often cited as the source of “original sin”, the supposed sin that all people are born with. So, it makes sense that this text appears in the lectionary for the first Sunday of Lent, as the common understanding is that Jesus died for our sins. But again, sin is not mentioned in this story, and the interpretation of this story as the source of “original sin” did not actually come about until much later in the history of Christian thought, in the 3^rd century.

I remember looking at this text in seminary one day and realizing that the story doesn’t seem to follow its own internal logic, at least in the way that it is commonly taught and understood. If we start with the assumption that Eve was created without sin, where does this mistrust, this ambition, this greed that forms the impetus to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil come from? From the serpent? Why? Why would she trust the serpent more than God? And, what does the serpent get from all of this? The more I thought about it, the less sense this story made, especially as the source of “original sin.”

But, if this is not a story about original sin, then what is it about? If we look at this story as a creation myth, then it starts to make sense. But before I go any further, we need to talk about the word “myth”. The word “myth,” in our culture, carries with it a connotation of falsehood or whimsy, a quaint story that the people of old used to believe as true, but that science has long since disproven. When we hear the word “myth,” we think of fairytales or legends, stories that we know are not true. That is not what I mean when I say that this story is a “myth.” I’m using the academic definition, in which a myth is a story that attempts to explain something about the world, in this case how humans became human.

Now, there are many myths that try to explain things about the world that we know, or believe, are not true. There’s the story of the Greek god Apollo riding his chariot with giant flaming wheels across the sky, to explain the rising and the setting of the sun. There’s the story of the will o’wisp, mischievous spirits that try to lure unsuspecting travelers with their light, so that they become lost and never seen again. The myth of the will o’wisp was most likely used to explain swamp gasses that would ignite, causing a flickering glow in the night where there shouldn’t have been one.

But, I think our creation myth is a little bit different. While the ancient Greeks may have believed in Apollo, and Irish people of old may have believed in the will o’wisp, we don’t know if the original authors of our creation myth intended for their audience to believe it as fact, or if their intention was for this story to serve as a metaphor. We don’t know if the original audience ever believed this story to be fact, or if they understood it as a metaphor. You could probably make a case either way, but the more I look at this story, the more difficult it becomes for me to see it as factual truth, but instead as a myth that enshrines an even deeper truth about humanity.

There aren’t a lot of people these days who view Adam and Eve as historical figures, though there are certainly still a few. And, as I said earlier, if sin is disobedience to God, if sin is a separating of ourselves from God, and Adam and Eve were created without sin, how could they have eaten the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil after God had expressly forbidden it? After God had told them that they would die if they ate it? What possible reason could they have to not trust God, who they would have known was their Creator and the Creator of all things? Who had provided everything for them, who they had known for as long as they had lived? Who they had regular face-to-face contact with, in the Garden. This story suggests that the serpent convinced Eve that God was lying to her, and insinuated that God did not want her to gain the knowledge to become like God. And, wouldn’t God have known about this conversation between Eve and the serpent, and I don’t know, step in and say that the serpent was lying?

It doesn’t make sense to me that Eve would believe what the serpent was saying, and it makes even less sense that the serpent would say it in the first place. So, what’s going on here? What is this story about? I think this story is about how human beings became human beings. This is the story of the dawn of humanity. Adam and Eve are the stand-ins for humankind, and at some point in the history of the world, or more likely, this was something that happened over a very long period of time, over hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions of years, over some period of time, we became aware of ourselves. We gained enough intelligence to understand the difference between good and evil. What we were before that time was no more, and there was a new humanity in its place. We were created in the image of God, and God has the knowledge of good and evil, so we too have the knowledge of good and evil. This is what makes us different from the other animals. This is why we have a relationship with God, and what gives us the ability to know about God.

In the same way that humans became human over a long period of time, rather than in the time it takes to swallow a piece of fruit, our lives are not often marked by momentous archetypal mistakes. Usually, when we find ourselves in a bad place, it’s because of a series of decisions. A wrong choice here, a wrong choice there, an unfortunate incident, an unlucky event. It’s usually a series of small mistakes, one compiling on top of another, that sends us down a particular path.

In our creation story, God said that Adam and Eve would immediately die if they ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. But, they didn’t die. They were cast out of the Garden of Eden, but they didn’t die. At least not in the literal sense. They were cast out of the Garden of Eden, leaving their naivety behind and stepping forward to be their new selves, a reflection of God. With purpose and intelligence, with wisdom and perseverance, and with the knowledge of good and evil.

There will be many times in our lives when we will find ourselves in a bad place, but it will not mean that all hope is lost. By the grace of God, Adam and Eve did not perish when they ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. They could no longer remain the garden; they were no longer naïve and unknowing, but God did not abandon them. We lived, and we multiplied, and we spread over all the Earth. And every day, we make choices, we make mistakes, and we keep going. Our creation story is a story about human perseverance and God’s infinite grace. What better choice could there be to herald this season of Lent? Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei