Genesis 3.14-24
As we continue our journey through Genesis we come to the end of chapter 3 (Gen. 3.14-24). It is the description of the curse upon the snake and upon the ground, the pain of mankind in tilling the soil and the pain of woman in childbirth. It hardly makes for pleasant reading. Not a lot seems promising.
It might be a good chance to take a look back at the first three chapters before we begin to look ahead to chapter 4 and all of the issues thrown up by Cain and Abel.
One of the commentaries notes some of the larger themes. Lawrence A. Turner, in a Genesis commentary explicitly conceived and written to emphasise the interconnections in the book, notes some of the major themes after the first 3 chapters.
1. Chaos to Order: in chapter 1 we have chaos and then we have order. I can’t help but wonder if, as Adam and Eve are ejected from the Garden, we have a hint of chaos returning….which seems to happen in chapter 4.
2. Common Time to Holy Time: We begin with God creating things within a context of void and nothingness but on the 7th day God rests. The workweek ends with holy, sacred and blessed time. It is time set apart.
3. Common Space and Holy Space: The first human is created and then placed within the Garden of Eden. Eventually from this human being becomes two, for a partner is needed. The language and the orientation of the Garden uses all the language of the Temple. We have thus moved from common space to holy space.
As Turner says, with chapters 1-3 cocooned in holy time and holy space, the action of chs. 4-11 inhabit a very different world.
Leon Kass, in his study of Genesis (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis), places a great deal of emphasis on the development of speech, of reason, of imagination and of freedom. All of this is good and yet can be used to our detriment. Here is a quote that sends us on to chapter 4:
Human speech and reason, in the form of this remarkable story and our ability to ponder its meaning, hold out a redemptive quality. The remedy begins with our being willing to recognize and acknowledge the follies of which human beings are capable—indeed, precisely because of our special intellectual qualities. The ill-clad human protagonists in our story become aware of their own inadequacies from hearing and experiencing the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden. Similarly, thanks to the special kind of speech that we are reading, we ill-clad human readers become aware of our own inadequacies from hearing and experiencing the voice of the text. The source of our troubles, dear reader, is not in our stars but in ourselves. Suitably humbled, we are prepared to be educated.
We move from a simple world into one in which we will be the perpetual students.
These are the words of scholars. What about the musings and ruminations of a guy on the ground, who sees and reads these insights and yet must balance them with the needs of everyday people in this community and in this church?
There is a sense of great possibility and peace and serenity left behind in the Garden of Eden. Our childhood is over and things get complicated. Sweat and pain are brought to the fore. Life will not be easy and it almost seems like it’s someone else’s fault: God for putting those trees in the garden; the snake for being so cunningly seductive; and our inbuilt tendency to reach for the stars, to become like gods. It just doesn’t seem fair. We are, to all intents and purposes, born into this veil of tears. From the beginning there have been hints that all will not be well: two special trees, mention of rivers that are associated with exile.
There is always an unsettledness to these texts. Why did God bother creating at all? Wasn’t God perfectly happy and whole alone? God doesn’t need us. And yet there was this urge, perhaps through and in a love that strives to create, to do just that. To share love and grace and beauty and life with others. Void and nothingness just weren’t going to cut it.
We then get the story of creation and the suggestion that the first humans should steward the world (or, the stronger ‘dominion’). There was some sense of caring for it, as if there needed to be some kind of (hopefully) benificent leader.
We are told that, in the second creation story, God thinks that the first human should not be alone, for ‘it is not good’. Animals are created and are not what is needed. A human partner is required and that is provided.
The serpent is in the garden and entices both of the humans to reach for something greater than themselves. To reach out to be gods, to know good and evil (all things), to see as God sees. There is an unsettledness here.
And there is undoubtedly an unsettledness when the humans leave the garden for places unknown. What are they to do? All looks pretty grim.
Preceding the expulsion are the judgements placed on the serpent and the humans. The serpent is cursed by God. The woman will feel the pain of childbirth and a desire for her husband. The man will sweat from the toil of the days and will return to the dust. The ground is cursed and will not give up its provision easily to the labouring human.
All rather sad and tragic. But note that the man and the woman are not cursed. They have reached to be gods and have discovered that they are in fact very human, vulnerable (note the fragile fig leaves before the substantive skins provided by God) and fragile.
In what sense is this significant?
When God creates, it is good. The creation of humans is very good. When one human is created and seen to be alone, it is explicitly not good: we are made to be with each other. Even when we heed the voice that encourages us not to be what we are, and we experience the results, we are still good within creation and we are not alone.
Humans are not cursed.
We are good. Very good.
And the God who sends us into the world has not left us alone.
That, I submit, would be bad. Very bad.
Thus, if we take the larger view of this story, we see that there is always movement: chaos to order; common time to holy time; common space to holy space; solitude to companionship; naivety to (partial) knowledge; holy space to the wider world.
If we are to follow God, then we are always moving.
And if we are always moving, we are always moving with God’s presence, with God’s blessing and never with God’s curse upon us.
And as we move into the wider world we should have some of God’s unsettledness about us.
Things as they are, the void and nothingness, the chaos, is to respond to the spirit of grace which hovered over the waters.
If we are to follow God, we are called to be unsettled, restless as God’s spirit. To see that there is always the possibility of creating in love.
To see that there is always the presence amongst us of people who are alone.
To see what is ‘not good’ in our world and strive to rectify it.
To realise that within us there is that tendency to overreach, to want it all, to be like Gods, but in moving towards our true selves, selves in harmony with the God who walks in the Garden, we can and should do so humbly.
We are called to be as unsettled as God and God’s spirit.
We are called to continue to grow, ‘to be educated’, as Kass puts it.
That will lead to challenges and to difficulties.
That will lead to sweat, pain and toil: look at Christ.
But we are not cursed.
We are blessed. We are, each of us, ‘very good’.
And when we leave the holy space and the holy time,
when we depart from the Garden of Eden with little more than our experience of God and some scraps of clothing,
we find that, as pilgrims, as travellers, as those who journey,
that the story continues.
In this story the reality of life continues.
In this story the grace and love of creation and creating continues.
In this story we are not alone.
We have partners in faith.
We have God in the Garden and Christ on the dusty road.
We have a vision of peace and concord.
We have the Garden of Eden in our hearts.
And in the uncertainties of life, it provides a lesson and it provides a hope.
In this story we have the love of God and the maturity of grown up, human faith.
May it never be fully settled.
May it always be restless.
May God go with us.
Amen.
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