Who said you were naked?
I suspect that you have heard the story read from Genesis this morning described as “The Fall.”
As if this moment – a moment of curiosity, of disobedience, and of failed relationship - were the single moment that humans most thoroughly revealed their sinful selves. The story of Adam and Eve and a snake and forbidden fruit has been used over the years to establish and reinforce gender hierarchies, to plant seeds of guilt and shame, and to create hierarchies of sin and systems of forgiveness and salvation.
And I’m not sure much of that is biblical. So let’s dig in to the text and explore a little bit. Because this IS an important part of the big story of God – but maybe NOT for the reasons many of us adults were taught in Sunday School.
This is an intimate story about God and God’s creation. Unlike the “first creation story” in which God systematically draws forth creation over six days, beginning with the separation of water from water and darkness from light, with the human created like the crowning achievement and then called on to rule over the rest of creation, this story begins with a lot of “lack.” God is creating from barrenness, it seems.There is no vegetation. There is limited water. Creation is limited because there is no one to tend or cultivate it.
And so God gathers up the dust of the ground, like a potter gathering clay on a wheel, and forms “ha-adam,” a Hebrew word that means “being” that is essentially without gender as written. The Hebrew word for ground is adamah – and so “ha-adam” is made from “adamah.” There is a great deal of playfulness and poetry in the way the Hebrew language is used throughout scripture – this word-play is a good example of that.
Ha-adam is created in order to till and keep the garden which described this way:
8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God places ha-adam in the garden of Eden, which is a particular geographical spot located among rivers, “to till it and keep it.” The Hebrew here is something like “to cultivate and keep it,” or “to serve and protect it.” And God commanded – you can eat from ANY plant in this place except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the warning is stark – the day that you eat of it, you will die.
Our reading skipped the part where God determines that it is not good for ha-adam to be alone – creating all of the animals and birds, bringing each creation to ha-adam to be named. Among all the creatures, there was no helper for ha-adam so God takes a rib and from the rib he crafts another being. Ha-adam declares that this is “woman,” or in Hebrew “ishshah,” because this being was drawn out of a man, or in Hebrew “ish.” Now ha-adam has a suitable partner or “help mate”, in Hebrew “ezer” for the work he has been created for…tending the garden. It’s interesting that in Hebrew scripture, the word “ezer” us used to to also describe God as human’s “helper.”
Today’s reading has us re-enter the action as the crafty serpent is in conversation with ishshah about God’s command about eating from the garden. It is noteworthy that the text does not suggest that there was a conversation between God and ishshah about what was suitable to eat and what was forbidden. We are left to wonder whether ishshah has learned about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from ha-adam or from Godself.
Ishshah reiterates to the snake that they are not to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden (which, by the way, is a very VAGUE reference throughout the text – more like “in the midst of the garden”) and then she adds a detail beyond what is actually in the text to this point – ishshah tells the serpent that if they simply TOUCH the fruit of this tree, they will die.
And the snake says, “you will not die.” (Which is true!! They do not die physically!) The snake also suggests something else – that in eating from the tree, ishshah and ha-adam will know Good and Evil, which will make them more God-like.
Can you imagine, for a moment, what it would mean to have no awareness of “good and evil.” And if you struggle with a binary, imagine having no gradation of goodness and badness. If the tree of knowledge would impart this awareness, then ha-adam and ishshah must have lacked this kind of awareness, right?
So…if that is true, what is it that ha-adam and ishshah experienced day in and day out?
Stick with me here.
I think it is true that we understand hot relative to cold and vice versa.
We understand salty or sweet relative to other flavor qualities.
We understand joy relative to boredom or sadness or anger.
I wonder what would human existence would be like with no knowledge of good and evil?
I think it is also important to look at the relationships here. God created ha-adam and breathed God’s own breath – ruach – into ha-adam, giving him life. From flesh brought to life by God in ha-adam, God also drew forth the life of ishshah as a helper.
I wonder why ishshah then would the snake’s advice rather than asking God, the creator of life, what was true.
Because as the text continues, we have reason to believe that God has conversations with them…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
We know how the story goes – ishshah eats from the fruit. She shares it with ha-adam. (Have you noticed that ishshah doesn’t have a name yet? And for that matter, the man, ha-adam is never named “Adam” in Genesis in translations that are rendered directly from the Hebrew text.)
Suddenly, their eyes are open, and while they are just as naked as they were BEFORE eating the fruit, they now SEE their nakedness in a different way – they are ashamed.
Ha-adam and ishshah hear the LORD walking through the garden. They hide. And God calls out, “where are you?”
I wonder…have you ever found yourself hiding from God only to have God call out, where are you?
Ha-adam responds – I heard you in the garden and I hid myself….because I was naked.
Now…remember, ha-adam has been naked from the beginning. But now – now ha-adam and ishshah are aware of nakedness in a way that causes shame.
And God says, “who told you that you were naked?”
When I sit with this story, when I visit this text, I don’t hear an angry God in that question. I hear great disappointment. God follows up with, “did you eat from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
And in those words I hear disbelief and disappointment. I hear God’s unspoken lament, “In all of the beauty and wonder that I called forth JUST FOR YOU, you wanted something more…”
As the snake put it, they wanted to be more like God.
They wanted to know what was up.
They wanted what they had been told they couldn’t have.
And who among us doesn’t reach for more power, more control, more insight, more of what is just beyond our reach? Who among us can trust completely God’s guidance, without question.
Sometimes that reaching is kind of petty – like “if I don’t share with you everything the boss said, I will have some advantage,” or like “if I take your pride flag, maybe you’ll stop.” But sometimes that longing is murderous…If I have a big gun, I have God-like power to take your life.
Who among us hasn’t failed to ask for God’s clarification when we have that moment of longing for more?
And who among us, in a moment of disobedience to God hasn’t found ourselves ducking for cover and hiding from God’s calling, “where are you?”
There are two key human conditions unveiled in this story.
One is consciousness – being newly and differently aware of the world around us. Suddenly ha-adam and ishshah had reason to believe their bodies were shameful. Somehow they began to understand that they were in some ways like God and in other ways not like God. And they wanted more.
The other is free will. God could have stopped the humans from living with the knowledge of good and evil. Ha adam and ishshah could have died.
But they did not.
To be clear, their trusting, blameless relationship with God died. Their full dependence on God changed. And that is a kind of fall from Grace and relationship.
And God meted out punishment – suddenly their call to till and to keep was back breaking work, and they would give birth to and raise some quarreling and violent sons.
But God fashioned clothes for the couple even as he was escorting them out of the paradise he had created – so that they could continue the work for which they were created – to serve and protect and preserve and now populate the entire creation.
They didn’t die physically. In fact they live on. Clothed in their nakedness. Charged with a purpose.
And in that way, we live on, children of ha adam and ishshah, aware of our shortcomings and longing for more power and control. Failing to trust completely. Day in and day out.
Along the journey, let’s be sure we’re not hiding from God.
May it be so.
Amen.
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