Bounded Love
Pentecost 16 – NL3
September 8, 2024
Our Savior’s, Faribault, MN
Genesis 2.4b-7, 15-17; 3.1-8
The new owner of a surfside motel was concerned that guests on the second floor would fish off the balcony thus endangering the people and property below. So, the owner placed signs in all the 2nd floor rooms, “No fishing off the balcony.” Unfortunately, the signs had the opposite effect, increasing the number of incidents of broken glass. In a flash of inspiration, the owner removed the signs. The incidents of fishing off the balconies ceased.
In The Magician’s Nephew, one of the books in CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, the title character finds himself in an alternate world, moving through a museum-like gallery with imposing images on both sides. In the middle of the gallery, he spots a bell and hammer with a sign that says, “Do not ring the bell.” He can’t help himself and does, resulting in chaos and all sorts of evil things being unleashed on that world.
A young couple have everything they could possibly want or need but are prohibited from eating the fruit from one tree. They can’t help themselves, resulting in a totally different future.
Doing what we don’t want to do is a central theme in our text for today. We begin our gallop through the Old Testament in the third year of the Narrative Lectionary, a series of readings that takes seriously the Bible as a story. Saying the Bible is a story doesn’t demean its truth. In fact, the Bible is deeply true, one that has a beginning, middle, and an open ending. As we begin this journey, here are some things to watch for. First, the Bible is a story of belonging, belonging of us to God, of God to us, of belonging to each other, and belonging to all creation. Another way of saying this is that the Bible is all about community.
Second, the Bible is also a story of creation and re-creation. There is more than one creation story in the Bible. God doesn’t just create in Genesis and let things go. Creation is both a past event and an ongoing event. God continues to create. Third, the Bible is a story of God choosing to work through deeply flawed people and broken institutions. People like you and me, institutions like the church, including Our Savior’s. Finally, this lectionary highlights the role the Old Testament plays in the Christian faith. Christianity didn’t begin with the birth of Jesus.
There’s a lot going on in our reading today but there are also parts that are skipped over. For example, we realize there are two creation stories in Genesis, though we can consider the second one to be a deeper one of the first. The first creation story tells us that human beings are created in God’s image, though it doesn’t specify what that means exactly. The second story says that we are both “soil and spirit,” specifically we are from dust and will return to dust. But we are more than dust as bearers of God’s Spirit, the very breath of God breathed into us.
Something else that is missed is the creation of the woman. That’s important to note because some people believe being created second implies an inferior position. That’s important because the text declares that she is an equal partner with the man, different from the man but equal to the man. (BTW, one response to the claim that the woman is inferior is to point out that God fixed the mistakes he made with the man. The woman is Humanity 2.0.) Finally, we miss hearing God’s pronouncement that creation is good. That’s especially important because God doesn’t claim that creation is perfect as we assume; it is good.
A deeper dive into our text reveals some important points. The snake is not the devil or Satan; that’s an interpolation not found in the text but rather comes much later during the time period between the end of the Old Testament events and the birth of Jesus. Also, it’s important to note that the man and woman are likely together in the conversation with the snake, though it’s the woman who is leading the conversation. Furthermore, a fun fact is that we don’t know what kind of fruit was involved, apple or not. Finally, the text misses one of my favorite lines. Part of the reaction of the couple, besides hiding, is for the man to blame God for the woman, which deflects responsibility for his actions.
Now, we tend to think of Genesis chapters 1-3 as an origin story, about how life began for humans and creatures. Instead, I’d like to suggest we think of it as a prologue to the larger story, the one beginning with Abraham. This prologue explains the intimate connection between God, humans, and creation. It shows why the story from Abraham forward into the Jesus story is necessary. It shows why the Jewish people have been chosen to address a fundamental issue in the Bible, that humanity has “rebelled upward” by encroaching on territory that belongs exclusively to God alone. As Luther Seminary professor of Old Testament, Rolf Jacobson, says, it’s not so much a fall downward as rebellion upward.
For me, one takeaway of today’s lesson is the tension we live under as both “soil and spirit.” On the one hand, God created us in God’s image, and it seems that one meaning is the propensity to think, learn, and be curious, including our relationship with God and each other. But that’s balanced by a sense of humility, that we are not God and are to let God be God. One consequence of this is that we are to constantly ask, “What is God doing in the world and where is God inviting us to join in that work.” Too often we get this backwards and rush into making a decision and ask God to bless it on the back end.
There are at least two lessons to take away from today’s text. First, we’re not always going to get this distinction right and we’re going to mess up. In other words, we’ll do what we aren’t supposed to do. Or, as the Apostle Paul notes in Romans 7, we find it almost a law that we do what we don’t do or don’t do what we should do. Second, God will continue to work through our imperfections to restore our broken relationships. When we stumble and fall, God will pick us up, dust us off, and encourage us to try again. And God will go to great lengths to do so, all the way to taking on flesh himself and giving himself fully through the life, death, and resurrection of his only Son, Jesus Christ. So, as Martin Luther says, let sin boldly so that we may believe all the more boldly still. Amen.
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