Rev. Cari Pattison
The Woodstock Reformed Church
Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024
“Image-bearers of the Living God: Eve, Part II”
Genesis 3
Now the serpent was crafty… and said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’”
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
8 The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 The man said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 The Lord said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”
20 The man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife and clothed them.
***
I do have to say, that in advance of this sermon, I’ve been seeing an awful lot of snakes on the rail trail lately- anyone else?
So far none of them have talked to me, but I do have to side-step quickly, to make sure there’s no slithering altercation between the snake and Ollie. I think they’re mostly harmless garter snakes.
But I can tell you with 100% certainty, that if a serpent were to tempt my dog with any kind of forbidden treat, he would turn from all the ways I’ve taught him and go for it in a heartbeat.
☺
***
So here we are, week 2 in our women’s lectionary series, and this is next installment on the story of Eve.
As I mentioned last week, my goal in this sermon series is not only to lift up the lives and lessons of biblical women, but to relate them back to Jesus, and reflect on what they teach us for today.
And whether you take the book of Genesis literally, historically, or symbolically, you can’t escape the fact that these first chapters of the Bible are the animating force of the Judeo-Christian creation story!
Every culture has its origin story, its way of explaining, “How did we get here?” “Why is life hard?” “How did evil enter the world?” “What is our purpose?” and “Why can’t we get along?”
But last week and this week, we’re digging into what I believe to be the core question of this text –
“What does it mean to be made in the image of God?”
What does it look like to recognize and honor the image of God in ourselves and in one another?
Whatever it means to be made in the image of God,
It means there is something fundamental to who God is, that gets reflected back in us.
It means we carry something of God’s own character and likeness in us, and that
we bring something of who God is to this world, and to one another.
God created us in God’s own image and pronounced us “very good.”
***
So last week we looked at what it means to live as image-bearers of God-
***
This week we’re turning our focus outward and exploring what it means to recognize and honor the image of God in those around us, even those we’d just as soon avoid.
But I think it’s important that we started last week with the image of God in ourselves- because it is only insofar as we truly sense the image of God alive in us, that we can glimpse it in our neighbor and lift it up.
***
I have some practical tips for how we can do this, but first let’s look at the text and see what it has to say.
We are told at the end of Genesis chapter 2, that the man and woman in the garden “were naked and unashamed.”
That is, their bodies- and the experience of living in those bodies- is a source of ease and joy. Being alive in flesh and blood, alongside another human, brings uncomplicated connection, peace, and closeness.
How often we see the opposite of this, around us and in us- people at war with their own bodies, their image, their confidence, their diets, their health.
How often we see people tarnishing the image of God in another’s body, through acts of violence and violation, or spiteful words.
And whether you take the Genesis account as prove-able or parable,
what mattered to the writers of scripture is that we see this story as a window:
It offers a glimpse of God’s design for us as people on this planet.
That the paradise plan was one of community and connection, beauty and belonging, and joy in our embodied lives.
It’s a template from the Garden of Eden that’s left a mark on us, leaving us forever with a longing for that kind of ease and union.
It’s in the same sentiment immortalized in those lyrics of Joni Mitchell’s:
“We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
At their best, all utopian impulses, back-to-the-land movements, artist colonies and intentional communities- are an attempt to get back to the garden-
to return to some rich creative essence of our being-
both as individuals and as a collective.
***
Now when it comes to this scene in Genesis 3- the man, woman, the fruit of the tree of good and evil- some scholars have noted that Adam was there the whole time, but it’s only Eve who talks, inquires, and converses.
It’s Eve who demonstrates curiosity and wonder and discussion, while Adam remains inexplicably passive. God gave him the injunction not to eat from the tree, after all. Eve does not know who this serpent is, but she engages and finds herself wanting to explore what has been off-limits. She has a thirst for knowledge and questions prior assumptions- qualities we often associate with intelligence.
But this is not how Eve goes down in centuries Judeo-Christian history.
From the earliest church fathers like Tertullian and Augustine, to some modern-day preachers, she has been accused of bringing original sin into the world and passing down this trait to all her female descendants.
Thus the passed-down notion that women are the primary source of temptation, and the ones deemed guilty of irrational thinking, inferior spirituality, and suspect emotionality.
Women as a result have often been taught not to trust their delight or desire, to silence their intuition, and to suppress their critical thinking- especially when it means going against male authority.
And to all this awful legacy, I can see Eve just shaking her head…
***
Craig Barnes notes that it’s worth considering, that even in the Garden of Eden, even in the place of paradise perfection- there was something off limits. There was something the humans perceived as lack. Even in the land of bliss, there were boundaries.
St. Ignatius – a 16th century church teacher- looked at this text and said that what it really revealed is that the root of all sin is ingratitude.
For Ignatius, it wasn’t that Eve and Adam wanted to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge- it’s that they weren’t content with all the other fruits and trees and flowers and plants and gifts God had surrounded them with.
They weren’t satisfied with the morning birdsong, the gentle breeze on their skin, the fresh scent of lilacs-
They went after the one thing they couldn’t have.
And isn’t that human nature? To grasp at the thing that’s just out of reach? The person or possession that’s off-limits? The substance or escape we know won’t give us what we’re really looking for? Isn’t it just like us, to focus on that one person who offended us, rather than all the others who’ve blessed us?
Could it be that the original sin- wasn’t Eve or Adam or any of us thirsting for knowledge or questioning the system- but simply the sin of ingratitude?
For those of you who’ve joined us for our November gratitude challenge- you know that those 30 days of the shared rhythm of recording our thankfulness, creates a deeper hum of contentment under the surface of our lives. It connects us somehow closer to God and to each other, like a rippling pool of gladness. It is a way I have experienced more of God’s image in me and radiating from you.
***
I was thinking of that as I walked around town this week- maybe you’ve noticed it-
These chalk-drawn letters on sidewalks and bluestones: scrawled out in sky blue: “HAPPY.”
What are they so happy about, I wondered?
I’m not sure what the artist intended, but it got me thinking about how one translation of Jesus’ beatitudes uses the word “happy” instead of blessed.
“Happy” are those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peace makers. Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and are persecuted because of it.
Jesus doesn’t say we’re happy when we get everything we want, and the world’s nice to us. He doesn’t say we’re happy when everything goes our way and all the people we love are well. He says “happy” are you even in your poverty of spirit and grief, even when you’re humbled and have to forgive, and even when people turn against you-
At their core, the beatitudes are about a kind of counter-intuitive gratitude.
Trusting that even in our lack, God will fill us with what we need most.
***
So we’ve got this inquisitive and intelligent woman-
We’ve got this intriguing tree of knowledge-
We see both the woman and man succumb to the serpent-
And now we have the slithering roots of ingratitude.
Now comes the reckoning with God-
And let the Blame Game begin.
“This woman you gave me- she handed me the fruit!”
“No, but this serpent here- he tricked me into it!”
You don’t have to believe in talking snakes or creation science to see the truth in this tale.
It’s real because we know this story.
We’ve lived this story.
The longing to do life our own way, without God.
The tendency to question, “Did God really say we couldn’t do this…?”
The desire for companionship, followed by resentment and then estrangement.
The habit of passing the buck, shirking responsibility, and denying our part.
And the shame and hiding… of our naked failings and our need for help.
The thing about the Bible isn’t if it happened.
It’s that it happens.
***
I want to leave you with a few ways we might apply this story this week and moving forward.
Start to notice whom you have a knee-jerk reaction against, that person or people you’re quick to blame:
Is it an in-law who rubs you the wrong way?
A neighbor who pries on your business?
A co-worker who emails you with more requests than you can keep up with?
It’s so easy to default to “othering” someone, or a group of someone’s.
For me- it’s the people who put up fake handicap signs on their car and park right in front of the church and parsonage all week, apparently so they can make the Village Green their own beachfront property, loudly blasting their speakers.
I can be so quick to question people’s motives, and dismiss them as unworthy of my time, attention, or mercy.
So what do we do?
Well, not only can we pray for these individuals, like I mentioned with the kids- “holding them in the light”-
But we can take it a step further,
And get curious.
Ask them how they’re doing.
Go beyond the usual forms of avoidance and frustration, and find out what they care about, what matters to them.
This is what amazes me about Jesus, in those parables about the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. Anyone listening to him would’ve been quick to assume the foreigner would be the last one to help the man who’d been robbed. That the last thing that runaway son deserved was a party.
And yet time and time again, Jesus’ stories teach a deeper wider ethic of love. Of seeing the image of God in the other.
I thought about this when just over a week ago, the parents of Aidan Clark- an 11-year-old killed in a bus accident in Springfield, Ohio- spoke out against the ways their son’s death was being used to stir up more hate against Haitian immigrants.
Though devastated by the loss, they spoke of their son as one who loved learning about different cultures and wanted to promote community and love for the “other,” not suspicion and hate.
Indirectly, Aidan’s parents pointed to the image of God in their immigrant neighbors, and it was a powerful testimony.
***
It got me thinking, what if instead of playing the blame game like Adam and Eve, and like so much political rhetoric, how can we look at those people who draw our ire as ones who may have something to teach us?
This doesn’t mean accepting harm or not having boundaries, but sometimes it looks like just giving someone the time of day.
One of those people with the constantly parked car here on the Green, usually trying to sell his paintings or some other off-limits activity, came up to me the other day while I was walking Ollie, and I almost turned the other way to ignore him.
But he insisted, “Hey- hey Reverend! Do you want to know what my favorite scripture is?”
Hmm… do I want to know?
He went on. “’Hope is the anchor of the soul.’ I say it every day.”
And I’ll be darned if that wasn’t on repeat throughout my head the rest of the afternoon. Hope is the anchor of the soul, indeed.
What if we regarded new neighbors from Mexico, or the person in line next to you with a loudly crying child, or the special needs person with their aide- walking erratically in front of you on the sidewalk, or the group of people holding up signs you disagree with on the Green, what if they were all here to teach us something, to even bless us in some way?
***
When we move beyond blame and “othering” people, we get to honor the image of God in them. This is why dozens of you invested in supplies to assemble gift bags for the families of women who are incarcerated.
This is why some of you, along with others in our Classis, will soon be traveling to Oman to engage in thoughtful conversation with Omani Muslims and Christians.
This is why others of you pack food and deliver it to low-income families or look for ways to show up for a fellow church member with a meal, prayer, card, or visit.
When we truly see the image of God in another, we can’t help but extend ourselves in some small way.
***
Let us pray.