“I heard…I was afraid…I was naked…I hid…”
One way to dwell in scripture is to look at what is said and focus on the verbs. Today’s passage from Genesis 3:8-15 is a dialogue between God, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. It begins with God walking in the garden near the start of a new day (in the Jewish calendar, new days begin at sundown). The evening breeze is blowing and sound of God’s rustling alerts Adam and Eve to God’s presence. Adam and Eve how ate from the “Tree of Good and Evil,” panic and hide from God. The fruit gave the first two people access to all knowledge: to what is good, evil, and everything in between. This kind of knowledge is more than just having a thought about something. This knowledge is deep, mythical, cosmic, and expansive. It’s a knowing rooted in a sense of reality that we cannot fully comprehend. This knowledge gave Adam and Eve access to God’s experiences but, unlike God, human beings have no way of making full sense of it. And when Adam and Eve are confronted by God, all they can do is hide.
“I heard…I was afraid…I was naked…I hid…” Adam’s use of verbs show how his perspective has changed. This new experience has reoriented Adam. He has now placed himself at the center of his universe. Instead of seeing himself as part of what God created, Adam can only focus on himself. He blames God for creating Eve and blames Eve for giving him the fruit of the tree. He takes no responsibility for his actions and, in fact, seems even incapable of doing that. Adam becomes so focused on himself that he cannot admit who is he or what has happened. And when confronted by the One who knows Adam better than Adam knows himself, the only thing Adam can do is hide and hope God doesn’t see him.
But God does see him and that changes everything. God, amazingly, doesn’t give up on Adam and Eve. Instead, God keeps coming to them, working within their reality to bring them back into God’s. We know that Adam and Eve will still be themselves. We know all of us struggle to imagine a universe where we aren’t the center of it. We can’t change our reality on our own so God, in Jesus Christ, comes to change it for us. It’s through Jesus and his relationship with us when our use of verbs change. When we say we’re afraid, Jesus says, “Don’t be.” When we say we’re stripped bare and exposed, Jesus gives us a community to care for us. And when we hide from God, Jesus comes to us in our baptism, in our faith, and at the table to say we are his and will be, forever.
Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, 6/10/2018.