Good and Evil
Bad Girls of the Bible • Sermon • Submitted
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· 4 viewsEve and her fall from grace reminds us of personal responsibility and systemic injustice.
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Today we begin our series on ‘the Bad Girls of the Bible’ and you might have a few questions about that. Why are we spending any of our time on the ‘bad girls?’ Well many months ago when a group of us met to plan out the year of sermons, Chris Cauda from our Sunday School shared that the ladies of the church had done a Bible study years ago. It was called ‘the Bad Girls of the Bible’ and she thought that would make for an interesting sermon series, and I agree. The Bible is full of male characters and we spend most of our time there, but I think its important that we set aside some time to reflect on some of the women in the scriptures, and, in particular, ones that don’t always get a lot of air time. There are valuable lessons to be learned here, and our first comes from the story of Eve. She is one of the saints of the church, so it makes sense we would look at her life on All Saints Day, but she’s also someone who has done something very wrong. Why would someone who lets sin enter the world, causing the end of paradise be a person we talk about in church? Well I’d like to tell you why..
Joe/Sal is going to read for us from the book of Genesis about that first sin and the punishment that followed. We looked at this same passage over the summer when we were talking about telling the truth and I shared how a snake talks in the story. Obviously this isn’t meant to suggest that snakes can talk; its a story meant to tell us a much bigger truth about humans. This time we focus on Eve’s story, so I want you to listen closely for details about her. What does she experience? What might she be thinking or feeling? This is Genesis 3:1-19. Hear now the word of the Lord.
Genesis 3:1–19 (NRSV)
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.
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 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.” The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
[and from James 4:7]
James 4:7 NRSV - Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
The word of the Lord for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray as we begin: Lord, may we be an inclusive community passionately following Jesus Christ. Open us to your will as we learn from your Word, learn from Eve and reflect on your call for our lives. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.
There’s a story of a tiny butterfly. It is just barely over an inch big and is known as one of the rarest butterflies on earth. Its name is the St. Francis Satyr (say-der) and it was declared an endangered species back in 1994. That’s when Nick, a professor of zoology, got a call to come and save this incredibly rare butterfly. He didn’t have a ton of experience in this particular area, but he was game. He went out and counted them, found out there were maybe a few hundred left, and most of them were in this one small area of Fort Bragg, a military base in North Carolina. They were actually found in the artillery range.
His initial thought was that these constant explosions have to be destroying the butterflies. These tiny little delicate things don’t have a chance in that environment. So he found the few clusters left outside of the base (because he wasn’t allowed to work on the base) and he did everything he could to smooth out the habitat. They drained the ponds created by beavers, they tried to prevent and stop any wild fires from burning the clusters of eggs, and they tracked the results. It turned out the more they did to try and make the environment easy for the butterflies the worse off they did. The butterflies were dying.
With more research they realized they were headed in the wrong direction. What they actually needed to do was not remove obstacles for delicate butterflies. Instead they needed to mess things up. The butterfly thrived in the chaos of the artillery range and nearly went extinct when people tried to make things easy. The flooding and fires may have killed some butterflies, but it also made it possible for a whole new generation to grow. The struggles gave opportunity for life. So, they got out the chainsaws, they cut trees and restored the ponds; they restored the chaos to help the butterflies grow.
I often find myself making a similar mistake as that zoologist. I think I can help someone, maybe my wife or my children or someone here at church by clearing the obstacles for them. I want to make things as easy as possible; all you have to do is this one simple thing. Volunteer here, say this prayer, join this study, but making things easy is not how we arrive at the fullness of life. Many of the women here already know this. You are not delicate butterflies. You don’t need someone to clear the path and make things as easy as possible. You are tenacious, and brave and strong. You have dealt with heartache and raised families. You’ve survived cancer and lost loved ones. You are saints and you are also bad girls in the very best sense.
So now I’d like to introduce to you one of the bad girls of Grace. Each week we are going to spend a couple of minutes hearing from one of the women from the church to help connect our stories with those of the women in the Bible. You heard about Eve; now let’s hear from Carol. Will you welcome her as she joins me today?
Tell us a little about yourself (where you grew up, work you did, how long at Grace)
You’ve faced some challenges this past year. Tell us about Tom. (stroke)
How have you been able to overcome these challenges (friends, family, church, prayer, taking direct responsibility for Tom’s care)
(Thank Carol for joining us)
You know one of the things Carol’s story reminds me of is how Eve was confronted in the Garden of Eden. She was deceived and perhaps manipulated by the snake, so she and Adam both eat from the forbidden fruit. When God asks Adam, “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” he turns it into the blame game. He says, ‘well the woman you gave to be with me gave me the fruit…and then I ate.’ And when God turns to Eve and asks, “what have you done?” She says, ‘well the serpent tricked me.’ Neither is willing to take ownership of the decision they made. They are immature, they don’t take responsibility; they just try to blame someone else.
Carol isn’t like that. She knows that she made a commitment to Tom a long time ago and that commitment means whatever may come, she’s going to be there; she’s going to do what it takes to make sure Tom gets the care he needs.
Its interesting that the thing that gets Eve in trouble is when the snake says she can eat the fruit and become like God. Most stories about being like God have to do with immortality. There’s Gilgamesh and the Greek Gods. Today we have Marvel superheroes with their new movie “the Eternals.” Its all about people that are god-like because they have been here for thousands of years, essentially immortal as God is immortal. That’s a typical route stories and movies take to become ‘like God.’ But here, Eve is tempted by the knowledge of Good and Evil. Sure, there’s a tree of life and that factors into the story, but the main thing driving her actions is the ability to know good and evil.
Often times we know what’s good and what’s not good. We see it; we can just tell something is wrong. And that’s usually enough for us. Carol knows that caring for her husband is the right thing to do. If she didn’t you know people in the church would be talking to her about it. “Carol, Tom lives alone; that seems strange.” Or, “I noticed you are rarely home; what about Tom?” We know similar obligations extend to our immediate family. Children need to take care of their parents, especially as they are aging. That’s not an option - we have to figure out a way to make sure we honor them in their final years. It might look different from one family to another, but this is a biblical command - “honor your mother and father that it may go well with you in the land.”
But after some of these clear cut commands (don’t murder, don’t lie, don’t cheat) it can get a lot trickier when it comes to good and evil. I remember growing up my family would have a lot of arguments. One person would make a statement and the other would take issue with it; essentailly being the Devil’s advocate. You’d think we grew up in a household of lawyers or something with how we would come up with these convoluted defenses for our position, but we didn’t. We just argued, but the beautiful thing was that after any argument, we would get to the end of it and act as if it had never happened. We would tell each other that we loved one another and we would hug. Every argument ended with a hug and affirmation. For the longest time I thought that was really good; that was the right way to argue.
But one day I realized that was wrong. I had been learning a lot about family dynamics and some of the dysfunction that happens there. And I realized that loving someone doesn’t mean we do a loving thing at the end; love means we do a loving thing the whole time, all the way through the process. An argument done in love is done for the other person’s benefit; its done with kindness; its the right motives at work from start to finish. So I told my family I wouldn’t argue with them any more. I told them I loved them too much to argue over these small things. And you know how thye responded? They were angry! I was breaking the rules! This is a family that fights and then gives a hug at the end!
Eventually, though, the dynamic in our family did change. The thing that helped us get from something bad to something good, though, was wisdom. Wisdom is being able to see good and evil and being able to tell the difference. Seeing things from another person’s position; knowing that what’s good for the gander is good for the goose. It’s seeing things as they really are and not how we wish them to be.
I think Eve did not have wisdom when she ate of that fruit. She was naive and knew little of how the world worked, so the knowledge of good and evil became a destructive force. We see this in children all the time. When they are little they are sweet and innocent. When they get a little older they are taking literal handfulls out of your trick Or treating bowl that says, “take one.” (I promise, I’m not bitter or anything at my neighborhood kids from Halloween). As young ones get older they know more, but they haven’t necessarily gained wisdom. They know information, but not always how to use it. Its essentially the difference between an activity, like learning or knowing something, and quality. Real wisdom is using what you know to make a difference, to improve things, to do good. You feel it; you feel wisdom when someone hears your story and they pray with you, or a group is trying to figure out the right direction to take and someone says, “I think this is where we need to go” and the room agrees. It feels right; its the right application, the right direction, the right response for this moment in time.
Sometimes we think of wisdom as being automatic as we get older, or a guarantee for the boss in charge. If you’ve been around long enough, you know that’s not always the case. The boss can be a fool, and a person can spend a lifetime with their head in the sand. Wisdom only comes when we engage with life as it really is; not pretending, not wishing or hoping. Its seeing the world with all that’s good and bad and steering the right course. Carol is doing that with Tom, and in the midst of that she’s reminding us what it looks like to be a saint. In a biblical sense all Christians are considered saints; but usually we reserve that word for people who are exceptional. Well I very much think that of Carol - she is an exceptional human and an incredible blessing to those around her.
Kirk Cousins is an NFL quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. You may not cheer for him to win against the Ravens today, but there is one good reason for you to cheer for him. Supposedly he has a jar in his home with 720 stones in it. Each stone is meant to represent one month of his life. At the start of each month he takes the stone out and carries it with him to remind him, “this is it. After this month is over its gone. You can’t get it back.” He learned to do this from a Bible study; and the verse they learned was from Psalm 90:12
Psalm 90:12 (NRSV) “Teach us [Lord] to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.”
You have to choose wisdom. You have to do the hard work of growing and learning and discerning. You have to figure out how to work well with others and get a feel for what is truly right; what is good and right and true for this moment, in this situation. In counting our days, in reflecting on the wisdom of the saints that have gone before us, we move closer to having that wise heart. May Eve remind us that wisdom doesn’t come automatically; it doesn’t come in an instant. It requires effort, and in her lifetime she became a saint and a source of life for others. May we follow her example and the example of all saints that teach us and lead us to Christ, the real source of all wisdom. Amen? Amen.