The Temptation

One of the texts for today's sermon was taken from Genesis and the story of the temptation and the eating of the fruit.  Eve eats of the fruit, and she gives some to her husband and he eats it.

In my childhood and youth, growing up in the deep south, Genesis is taken literally, and in fact, Eve is blamed for all the evil in the world.  Therefore, the second chapter of Genesis always sets up a certain amount of anxiety in my soul.

No matter how familiar one might be with a certain story, sometimes you can hear or see or feel things a new way, when it is read once again.   This time, I laughed at the image of Eve eating the fruit and giving some to Adam, who then ate.  Every marriage is different, and roles differ depending upon the couple and their inclinations.  In our marriage, I am the cook who gives the food to her husband and he eats it.  He's grateful because he doesn't have to do it himself.  I envisioned Adam just automatically eating the food presented, because that's the way their relationship worked.  Perhaps he had other jobs---tending the gardens or naming the animals.  but he was not the one who decided what they would eat. The image in my head made me laugh because I thought:  Oh, how little things have changed!

I actually liked the preacher's "take" on this particular story.  He said that yielding to temptation is always about the breaking of relationship.  That could be breaking relationship with a spouse, or a friend;  in the case of Adam and Eve,  it was about breaking relationship with God.

It was a good sermon.  But no matter how many readings, or how many sermons I might hear on Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of Genesis, it will probably always be problematic for me, with elements that I cannot understand, or appreciate, or accept.  Namely, if in fact human beings are created with free will, then of course they will be "disobedient" because that is their design.  And inevitably, it will be necessary for them  to know the difference between good and evil, especially once they have left the garden-cocoon.

The truth is, I suppose, that I am most bothered by Chapter 3, verse 16, where it says Your husband shall rule over you.  This has been the source of so much abuse and violence against women over the course of history that it is hard for me to take lightly.   As long as one is dominant, and the other ruled over, relationship is broken to begin with.  Whatever else one might say about that model,  it certainly not the ideal one.