sermon notesA collection of resources, background information, and periodic reflections on the scripture readings in worship from Pr Josh Ehrler. Archives
July 2018
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Strong Women of Scripture: Eve7/11/2018 During the summer of 2018, Trinity Lutheran will be meeting and interacting with a variety of strong women found in scripture. Some will be familiar, other will be new acquaintances. This reflection is meant to introduce a new woman each week and provide thoughts on how we might be inspired by her strength and faith in God.
This open letter is based on Genesis 2.18-3.20 Dear Eve, I feel the only place to start is with a long overdue apology. I am sorry for all of it and my part in it. You, dear sister, have been the recipient of derision, anger, and patriarchal judgment for centuries. Though we humans are supposed to be better at learning from our mistakes, you know our tendency to fall back on what we think we know. For so long, nearly as long as you have been known, you have been held at the heart of our broken vision of ourselves. We have used you as an excuse for our failures, our divisions, and very nature as sinful creatures. For my own complicity and acceptance of these false assumptions, as well as my continued refusal to correct these thoughts in myself and others, I ask for your forgiveness. I am not much of a scholar and I do not know exactly how we got here. I know, as you full well know, some of it is our Western Christian bias toward St Augustine, an otherwise wise bishop who had issues with his own mother and, I fear, took his angst out on you, the mother of us all. That seems to be the way with us humans. We deflect our anxiety about those whom are closest to us by attacking others who exhibit the traits of our beloveds. Whoever put your story to parchment first was much kinder than we have been since the start. Or maybe I should say, he (or she) was at least more even-handed than we have bothered to notice. In the English translations on my desk, God calls you a partner to Adam. That immediately implies equality and shared roles. It speaks of communication, devotion and mutual respect. It reminds us that you did not arrive simply to pull Adam out of his loneliness, you were sent to build a community with him. You were in this together from the beginning. One of our scholars, Susan Niditch, a contributor to Women’s Bible Commentary, points out that you and Adam are the core model of social and cultural relationships throughout Genesis, let alone much of the Bible. From you generations came, tribes were formed, nation-states rose from the dirt, entire civilians came into being (pg. 30). You deserve far more credit than you receive for birthing, raising, and crafting how we humans continue to function. And I know, those accolades would be nice and obviously well-deserved but, we really need to acknowledge the elephant, or snake, in the room. That whole fruit of the tree thing has really been your social downfall. There again, the author of Genesis never describes it as sin. Nor does he (or she) imply that you and your partner fell from grace. Life got significantly harder, or at least it’s implied by God’s proclamation in Genesis 3.14-19, yet God never abandons either of you. Certainly not you, dear sister. You carry far too much of humanity’s scorn for being yourself. Of course, I’m bound to my own viewpoints and we Lutherans argue incessantly that all humans are bound to sin because we are bound to our own will. God gave us freedom to follow God and we refuse to do it because always we serve ourselves. Your story is an illustration of this though, I have to remind myself and others, it’s not just your story. Adam was there and was an equal participate. Genesis says in 3.6 that “she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.” How in the world does this imply that you “seduced” Adam? As if he’s some sort of sucker or fool just standing around waiting to be told what to do. Though, of course, I wasn’t there, only you know. Maybe, since he was formed first, he was a little…slower on the uptake. Whatever, you didn’t con him, you didn’t cajole him or have to convince him to do something he otherwise didn’t want to do. Genesis gives no word implying that he was devout to God or resisted this particular fruit because he was better than you. What we do learn from the close read is that you, unlike your beau, realized the fruit was healthy, safe, and “a delight to the eyes.” It’s true that the conversation started with some commentary from a snake, or THE snake, and as weird as that seems to us 21st C, Disneyfied Westerners, I can imagine such conversations were common place in the garden. The snake never lied to you and you never absentmindedly followed along. You were your own person, you had your own motivations (the fruit delighted your eyes and you desired to become wise like God), you took the fruit on your own. Susan Niditch, that scholar I mentioned earlier, gives you lots of deserved love for your role in the story. Niditch notes that you are the one, not Adam, who reflects God’s curiosity and the human tendency to test limits. You use all of your senses, Adam merely tastes and discovers what you have figured out. You are described as a “conscious actor choosing knowledge.” (Women’s Bible Commentary, pg. 30) Every human chooses knowledge, at least as we define it for ourselves. I do wish we had a more shared understanding of wisdom and sought to care for each other in love more than we serve ourselves, but that is the nature of sin. This is not your fault even though so many for so long has worked so hard to attach this aspect of humanity on you. You may literally have been the first; this does not mean you are the blame. I can only imagine the proclivities of sin in my life that are probably marks of my genealogy, yet I do not curse my ancestors for them. I do, on the other hand, tend to thank my long gone relatives for some of my natural abilities or interests (woodworking as a hobby or career spans several generations in my father’s line, as well as gardening does in my mother’s). Which reminds me that, as much I must return to the original apology that started this letter, I need to equally thank you for the gifts of life you gave humanity. You taught your children, who have taught us, to keep asking questions and to seek wisdom. You created in us a need to explore and wonder what else there might be. Have we thanked you for astronomy, mathematics, and international travel? We should show our appreciation for innovation, tinkering, and countless medical advancements. We can stand give you some credit for love and devotion existing within families, traits often attributed to God, who made you. As much as I know some families are broken and badly damaged by sin (which you know firsthand), you and Adam are our first model of persevering in parentage and surrendering your own wants for the care of each other. Maybe you two weren’t as self-centered as some boisterous fools have made you out to be in their books. Eve, I can’t speak for everyone, so for my own paralysis in patriarchy, I offer my meager apology. I am sorry for contributing to the demise of your good name when I should be lifting you as a model of what is wonderful about humanity. I will strive to do better. You deserve better. You are, after all, our shared mother and we humans do like to at least say out loud that we love our mothers. Our actions and writings, unfortunately, do not follow this well and reveal how sin embodies every creature. As much as God did not stop loving and caring for you, may we remember this Grace in our lives and be turned back to our LORD to see you in your fullness as a fellow human. May we learn from you and give thanks that you came first to lead us in our toils and our love of God. Trust in God’s Grace, Your Wayward Son
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