Dr. Brian Bantum reflects on the story of Adam and Eve as one that initiates us into the freedom of individuality and difference, for good and for ill:
When I come back to the story of humanity’s fall I still see some of the pride and hubris I was taught to see when I was a young Christian. Adam and Eve desire to be like God and seek something that is not meant for them. They violate God’s law, God’s justice. But even more than that in the story of the Fall I see our propensity to mistake freedom for individuality. I see us estranged from our bodies, hiding the very aspects of ourselves that make us different than one another….
When God created us, God created us to be like God. God wanted us to love and to be loved. But when you love someone you have to choose them. You have to choose them in the big things and in the small things. To love someone you have to see how they are like you and how they are not like you, and you have to see how their differences are gifts, ways of helping you to see yourself and God and the world in new ways….
In the garden … God did not hide the tree [of the knowledge of good and evil] away or place it behind impenetrable walls. It grew among the many other trees. It bore fruit and grew like any other and in this way it stood before Adam and Eve, before us as a mark of their freedom. We could choose not to eat and in not eating we would confess God as our creator, the one whom we cannot be without.
In our freedom and knowledge, we enact a terrible cost:
But in our freedom we, Eve and Adam, did not rest in this relationship. We did not enjoy the trees given to us. We take, cut, tear, beat, consume, enslave what we believe is ours to know. Our eating was the slightest tilt of that beautiful freedom, away from God, and away from one another.
In our disobedience a new world opened up. We could see. The serpent was not lying in some respects; we human beings continued to breathe and think and love. But something had changed…. With this new knowledge we could no longer see the blessed significance of our bodies, of our lives together. The knowledge we gained drove us into hiding, hiding our bodies from one another and hiding ourselves from God. We were terrified by a true knowledge of our incapacity. But this knowledge did not lead us to cry out, to see ourselves truthfully.…
Yet, Adam and Eve remained God’s children, unique creatures with whom God desired to dwell, to love and be loved by. In this moment we did not lose the image of God. God did not withhold God’s animating Spirit and love toward us, but something changed nonetheless.
Reference:
Brian Bantum, The Death of Race: Building a New Christianity in a Racial World (Fortress Press, 2016), 44–48.
Image credit and inspiration: Abishek Rana, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. A serpent in a garden invites us to pause. We are reminded that maturing means discerning between venom and challenge. Can we step from innocence into experience—while being held in intimate relationship with God?
Story from Our Community:
I appreciate this week’s meditations on the beginner’s mind. When we get older, sometimes we think we finally have it right—until God shows us once again that our schema is a little off, that things are not quite what we thought. When we lay down old thoughts and ways and embrace more accurate ideas, we continue to learn. I am grateful for this community of learners. By God’s grace, I continue to learn and grow and change my understanding of this world, my fellow humans, and my God through these teachings.
—Linda O.
