"Eve, You're the Reason We Can't Have Nice Things."

Readings for the First Sunday in Lent

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11 Psalm 32

I'm going to copy the Genesis passage below, because I'll be referring to it. It's the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, which we're all familiar with. But, as with most things we think we're familiar with, we often "remember" parts of the story that aren't actually there. 

Here's the passage:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, `You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 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.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 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. 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.


Before I mention what struck me most about this passage when I read it this week, I have a confession to make. I broke Lent on Friday. When I got up Saturday morning, I realized two things: first, I totally didn't need to break my commitment--it wouldn't even have been hard to maintain. I just wanted the comfort of doing things the way I always did them. Second, I realized that it's a lot harder to do the thing you think God is calling you to do when you aren't all that sure that God is real.

Back when I was in high school, I knew what God expected of me, and I knew I was going to Heavan (at least I knew that most days), and I knew that God was my friend whom I could be with whenever I wanted, just by talking to Him in my head. There was a lot that I "knew." In some ways life was harder--I had high expectations to live up to, and I was always letting God down.  But in some ways, life was easier, too, because when things are black and white, there's a lot of time to be saved by not mucking around in uncertainty and having to decide for oneself what's right and wrong. In some ways, I miss that.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for a God, no matter how abstracted and nebulous, that is big enough to encompass uncertainty and paradox, a God about whom any question can be asked without fearing that the whole construct of God will collapse around your feet. There's something to be said for a God that doesn't force you to deny reality as you are experiencing it.

I wonder which of those Gods is in the garden of Eden, though. Because when I was reading the passage this week, I noticed something: God never tells Eve not to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden. God tells Adam, and Adam tells Eve. So, if we understand living faithfully to be doing what we think God wants from us, Eve is living her faith based on heresay. (Small aside here: you can't spell heresay without heresy.)

In the passage anyway, God never takes Eve for a walk in the garden. Actually, he wouldn't have been able to--she wasn't even Eve yet. She was just a nameless form of Adam. I wonder whether either God or Adam considered her to have personhood.

So God didn't bother to give Future-Eve a little welcome to Eden tour, pointing out all the danger spots. He delegated. And in doing so, God is demanding a much more difficult thing of Eve than he is of Adam. God is asking for obedience without experience. And God is asking for obedience from a creature he doesn't seem to have a relationship with.

The more I think about it, the more pissed off I get, frankly. Eve is expected to keep a promise that Adam made to God. She wasn't there for the decision, and she doesn't even know for sure that Adam has his facts straight. The serpent is the only one who deals with her as an equal worthy of relationship. Everything the serpent tells her is true. The fruit won't kill her. It will show her the difference between good and evil. And you know what? For all the bromance that Adam and God have going, they haven't really been so great at showing Eve what's good (You exist for Adam's pleasure?!) or what's evil (Don't do the thing I'm afraid to do). What woman wouldn't want to buck that system?

And it's not like this only happens in the Bible. It's a common trope in stories throughout time. Whether it's Pandora's box, Blackbeard's locked door, or a tree in the garden, they're all the same. They're all symbols of things we're supposed to be afraid of, that men/gods drop in front of us and tell us to ignore. Always, the tension is the same: ignore what's right there or accept and ingest the truth. So, big surprise, at some point in each story, the woman picks truth. The women expose the hidden to the light. Then the authorities, that is, those invested in the status quo, get all shirty with the women and blame all of the world's evils on the skirts. Christ, Eve, everything was great until you came along.

Except everything wasn't great. Adam was lonely. And I suspect he was probably getting lonely again, because he still didn't have a true companion. I think it wasn't until Eve acted on her own and ate the fruit that she became a fully human person in her own right. And I think she surprised everyone--maybe even God--when she did. But just because she went off-script, that doesn't mean that what she did was wrong.

I mean, is Eden really where we want to be? Everything is taken care of for us in Eden. It's beautiful and peaceful. It's the place of the eternal now. No regret, no conflict. Any mother can understand why God would want to try to keep us in the garden, innocent and lovely, for as long as possible.

But there's a saying among writers that you have to be cruel to your characters. I recently heard one writer (quoting another) put it this way:  "You have to stick you character up in a tree and then start throwing rocks at him." That's really hard to do with someone you've created and grown to love.
You have to, though, because if nothing bad ever happens to your characters, you're writing a really boring novel.

Without mistakes and conflict and loss, there are no stories, just names. Nobody dies in Eden, but does anybody grow? If the people aren't growing or changing, is it really that much of a paradise?

Eve needs a faith based on her experience, not on some law that she's heard about second hand. And I, for one, prefer Eve's way. I don't want to sit around eating the horticultural equivalent of bonbons all day, petting animals and being sexually available.  I much prefer the life we've got, in which we have the opportunity to contribute to the good in the world, and fight the evil. Because the apple didn't just show evil to the innocents in Eden, it made them able to know what was good. Zeus gives Pandora the box because Prometheus already gave humans fire. You can't have one without the other.

Maybe Eden was always meant to be an estuary-- a protected place where Adam could practice being alive, until he was ready to go out and really do it. If God really didn't want Adam to eat from the tree, he could have stationed a guard there from the beginning. The tree is there, just like Pandora's box, and the key to Bluebeard's room. It's there, waiting until some woman has the courage to man up and confront the whole truth of life, the good and the bad. But when she does, she engages in it as an actor, not just as a child running naked through a garden, peeing on snakes and pulling the tails off of geckos because she doesn't know any better.

Eventually, we all need to set off into the wilderness. The wilderness is where the growth happens. Jesus knew that--he didn't run off to a garden of delights in order to prepare for his ministry. He went out to the wilderness, where God's providence is harder to find, but the lessons are there to be learned.