#LentLite: God Learns Too, Ya’ Know…
Coming to the story of the Garden of Eden always leaves me a little perplexed, if not flat out frustrated. A story so frequently told and retold that it rivals the nativity of Jesus in popularity, it is also wildly and destructively misunderstood — and specifically, what is particularly maddening is the way that Eve’s disobedience is consistently interpreted in ways that are not only textually inaccurate, but that also completely miss one of the main points of the story.
First of all, Eve isn’t deceived by the serpent — the serpent tells her that the fruit that she is about to eat will give her knowledge of Good and Evil and that is precisely what happens. Neither does Eve tempt nor entice Adam to eat of the fruit as well — the text simply States that she gives some of the fruit to him and he eats. I could even go farther as to say that far from worst thing that the human race has ever done, it is easily arguable that Eve’s simple gesture is the single greatest act of our species — as it demonstrates not only that human beings are truly and completely free-thinking and acting (“then their eyes were opened” certainly would seem like a good thing, now, yes?), but also that by choosing to defy God we prove that indeed prove the fullness of God’s work in us and God’s integrity in giving us wisdom and agency that mirrors their own.
But what strikes me most about how we normally talk about this story has much less to do with Eve and much more to do do with its troubling revelations about God, and the way that God first related to us.
This was a god who clearly suffered no question nor hesitation, a god who didn’t negotiate, didn’t compromise, didn’t seek to understand us, and sure and shit didn’t really seem to care about our well-being. And though one might easily riposte that keeping us from the knowledge of Good and Evil was ultimately for our own benefit, God’s response to Eve’s desire for knowledge and Adam’s willingness to follow Eve’s lead shows God to be nothing more than an bully with a quick temper.
However that quickly changes.
See the story that comes later, after Cain kills Abel. God banishes Cain for his crime against his brother, but still allows him to live and gives him a mark that will set him aside from others and keep him free from the threat of violence. Not much longer after that, we see a return of this violent God with the story of Noah and the flood. But in clear mitigation of the destruction to come, God gives Noah ample time and instruction to build and provision an ark to save a vital remnant of all life. By the time we get to Abraham (Genesis 8:16–33) and Moses (Exodus 32:11–1), human beings then start to show a persistent and dogged willingness to use their ‘knowledge of Good and Evil” in order to make God mitigate his wrath.
And why is this so significant? Simple. For not only do these stories show how human beings can (and I might add, should) effectively use their free will in order to confront God, it also demonstrates — equally unambiguously — that God actually listens to these entreaties and accusations and responds accordingly.
This is no small thing.
When I wrote for #FuckThisShit back in December I penned a sharp rebuttal of a common theme of the Gospel of John — that people who don’t follow Jesus are “accursed” (John 3:36). It was quickly picked-up and trolled by a persistent critic of progressive Lutherans, Rev. Tom Brock at Pastor’s Study, who then asked his Facebook fam to pray for my soul.
As misguided as were both his criticisms and calls for intercessory prayer on my behalf, they did expose a terribly commonly perspective on the “proper” relationship between God and humanity: that it is the lot of humanity to simply to listen, obey, and follow — nothing more — and that doing anything else is heretical and destructive.
However when the Bible records stories like these in Genesis and Exodus — stories where human beings actively question God and God listens (let alone the wonderful line from Isaiah 1:18 “Come let us argue it out!”) — we see clearly that the act of raising such an angry fist to God in protest is not only supported by the Biblical witness (and hence NOT heretical), but it also proves God will actually pay attention to us and change their ways when we shake our fist at them, even to the point of overturning death itself!
What’s more, God’s demonstrable ability to mitigate their will in response to human pleading, too, gives can also give us some fascinating insights into Jesus.
It may have taken them a few thousand years — centuries filled with failed covenants, corrupt kings, and all manner of injustice and death — but somewhere along the way something in God finally clicked. They learned something, realized how frightening and painful and brutish life on earth could be. Scripture makes it all too clear, God had made many failed attempts to bring humanity closer to them, and so now — in order to permanently span the breach between God and human beings — God had to carry the full burden of the relationship and come and give themselves to us fully and directly.
So after arguing and negotiating for hundreds of years, this ceaseless back-and-forth between humanity and God finally bore its fullest fruit — Christ crucified. For in Jesus it is made clear that God cares enough about us to listen and learn from us, and then eventually come down and die for us so that we would have life eternal, love eternal, and power eternal.
So as we make our way to the cross ourselves over these next few weeks, as much as we reflect upon our own mortality, and the sinfulness of the world and ourselves, from time to time, pause and take a deep breath and say yourself.
“As much as God teaches me too, God also listens to me. God has always listened to me. And God will never stop listening and learning from me. And this is why I know my God is worth following.”
And then say an “amen.” For this is GOOD news.
Amen.
Before coming to Chicago Francisco Herrera studied classical music (viola and orchestra conducting) in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri and then Geneva, Switzerland. After feeling the call to ministry at his home church in Geneva, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Geneva, he returned to the US to enter seminary in 2005. He completed his M.Div. from Chicago Theological Seminary in 2012 and then began Ph.D studies at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in Fall of 2013 — his emphasis on World Christianity and Global Mission. A polymath and a scatterbrain, when he isn’t preparing for school stuff he blogs at www.loveasrevolution.blogspot.com tweets at @PolyglotEvangel, and relishes in being a contributor to #FuckThisShit as well as fulfilling his duties as the Convener of #decolonizeLutheranism.
