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If
someone asked you the question, “Where are you?” what would be your answer? Our inclination would be to pull out our
phones, open the map app, and look for the flashing blue dot. Here in Genesis it’s not a literal
question. God is not asking Adam and Eve
to give him their GPS coordinates so he could locate them on a map. He is asking what I would call a “profound
question”, a question that gets to the heart of us. In this case, “Where are you?” is THE
question that gets at the heart of our relationship with God. Therefore, it is a very loaded question.
It’s
like when you have a grandchild who used to just love coming to your house,
spending time with you, raiding your fringe, sneaking cookies from the jar,
walking down to the 7-11 to buy your cigarettes for you because there’s some
nickel candy in the deal (sorry that was a flashback to a day long ago.). But lately, she’s all grown up now and hasn’t
been coming around. And, it’s not because
she’s been away to school or far off working somewhere. She’s still in the area, but she just hasn’t
been around for months, maybe years. And
so, the day comes that she does show up and you naturally ask the question,
“Where you been?” Well, everybody knows
there’s more to that question than where you’ve been spending your time. It’s loaded with other little questions like
“Are you ok?” “Is there something wrong between us?” “Is our relationship ok?” “Do you need something?” And naturally, that
question invokes quite a bit of shame, guilt and fear in the wee lassie. “Profound questions” probe deeper than simply
what they ask at face value and they dig up some deep feelings.
So,
God asks Adam and Eve a “profound question” – “Where are you?” We can imagine what God is thinking about
Adam and Eve’s not being there at the time of day they knew he usually came
around. Are they playing hide and seek
with me? Is somebody hurt? Have they lost track of the time? One thing we must avoid doing is reading our
ideas of God being all-knowing into the story.
There’s nothing here to indicate that God knows they have eaten from the
Tree that he told Adam not to eat, the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil. There is nothing in the story to indicate
that God has any idea of what they have done.
He was just doing what he did every day.
In the cool of the day, God customarily strolled into the Garden to
visit with Adam and Eve. It appears they
had a solid friendship. He was somewhat
parental in nature towards them for he made them. He loved them. In my imagination I think he was coming with
excitement to hear what they had discovered in the Garden that day like a
parent whose child is discovering so much those first years of life.
God
came to the Garden and could not find Adam and Eve. “Where are you?” he calls out. Adam answered, “I heard the sound of you in
the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked: and I hid myself.” Stunned, God asks, “Who told you that you
were naked? Have you eaten from the tree
of which I commanded you not to eat?”
And then the blaming started. Apparently, Adam and Eve had changed that
day. Eating the fruit of the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil changed them. Their
self-perception changed. Their
perception of God changed.
With
respect to the way they understood themselves, Adam and Eve have become aware
that they are naked and being naked means more than they just realized they
weren’t wearing any clothes and are self-conscious of their bodies. They’ve realized that they are exposed and
vulnerable. No longer can they explore
the Garden fearlessly and full of wonder.
They have a sense that it is a dangerous place. You know, crafty serpents can trick you. Now, they’re afraid of death. They know they’ve done what the LORD God in
love had told them not to do. They feel
guilty. They feel the shame you feel
when you betray someone. They are
self-aware and not in a good way.
Nakedness is a profound sense that there is something wrong with “me”
that makes “me” vulnerable to others and so I must hide...especially from God
who made me, knows me, and loves me.
For some reason, their perception of God also
changed. Instead of knowing God to be
their loving Creator, a parent-type of friend, who enjoyed spending time with
them and seeing their wonder and joy at his good creation, they are now afraid
of God…afraid for the lives. In their
minds, the God who in love made them and enjoys them has now suddenly become
the most dangerous thing they can imagine so they hide from him in fear of
their lives.
Be
advised, it wasn’t God who changed. God
is still the same God who loves them. God is not out to get them for their
disobedience. How would you feel if you
were God here in this story? Heartbroken
is at the top of my list. As we would
expect God would be angry. But, his
anger seems as much stirred by Adam and Eve not owning up to what they had done
and instead passing the blame to someone else than his being angry at them for not
heeding him. God is still the same God
who loves them. It is Adam and Eve’s
newly twisted perception of him that is making him out to be the hanging Judge
so easily offended by moral disobedience that Christian Tradition (primarily
Medieval Christian Tradition) has made him out to be. Yes, that’s a punny way of saying that
understanding of God is from the Dark Ages.
This
is the first Sunday in Lent.
Traditionally, the topic is Temptation.
A generic sermon on temptation from this passage would rather naively
focus on the conversation between Eve and the Serpent and preach that though something
may appear good and pleasing if God told you not to do it, then don’t do it. In my humble opinion, that kind of a
Temptation sermon is skewed by that skewed perception of God that we have
inherited from the Dark Ages that God is out to get us.
A
greater temptation we must resist is giving in to the flawed perceptions of self
and of God that this story describes to us.
We do not have to fear God in such a way as to be afraid for our
lives. We don’t have to give in to the
temptation to understand ourselves as naked, that we are vulnerable because
there is something wrong with us, nor be afraid of death. Those flawed perceptions are fruit we do well
to avoid.
These
false perceptions of loathing ourselves and thinking God to be an ogre are
indeed what befall us when we do as Adam and Eve did by trying to be gods too. The crafty serpent led Eve to believe that
God was petty, jealous, and lying and that they could be like God if they eat
the forbidden fruit. These false
perceptions lead us into a vicious cycle that goes like this. We perceive ourselves as naked, so we play God
by doing things that make us feel all the more naked, ashamed, and afraid and
so we hide a little deeper in the forest.
While hiding we get all the more fearful that God or somebody else might
see us for who we “really” are and then its back to trying to be God
again. The cycle progresses and we
become so well hidden that no one, not even we ourselves, know who we are…and
so the question, “Where are you?”
Friends,
God is not out to get us. He’s out to
get those false perceptions we have of God and of ourselves that are causing us
to die spiritually and physically. In
his love for us God has made it so that that we can have the free gift of new
life in Jesus Christ. We don’t have to
hide from the presence of God. We just
have to entertain the Truth that God loves us, likes us, and wants to hear
about our days. We don’t have to hide
from God. We are his beloved children in
Christ to whom he has given his Spirit.
Run from the temptation to believe those old perceptions of yourself and
God and look to Jesus, who died to put all that stinking thinking to
death. Come to the Tree of Life. Amen.
