Ignorance, Answers, and Bliss
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
January 27, 2019
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
Those of us of a certain age may recall a commercial which began airing in the mid-1980’s for Wendy’s featuring Clara Peller demanding to know, “Where’s the beef?” Some thirty-five years later, the catchphrase, “Where’s the beef?” is still uttered to question the substance of a product or idea.
Our history as a faith is full of women and men who questioned the substance of certain religious ideas and doctrines. Indeed, historically, Unitarians were among those who questioned the substance of the doctrine of the Trinity. And Universalists questioned the idea of eternal damnation.
Another religious idea or doctrine that rankled our religious forbearers and continues to do so to this day, is the doctrine of Original Sin. For many Christian denominations the doctrine of Original Sin describes and explains the origin of the condition of sin into which every human being is allegedly born. In short, it attempts to explain why humans seem inclined to do bad things or disobey God, if you will. This inclination is the inheritance, according to the doctrine, left to us by our mythic parents, Adam and Eve. Thanks mythic mom and dad!
Evidence of this alleged inheritance, is said to come directly out of today’s readings, Genesis 3. The reasoning goes something like this: Eve, tempted by the serpent, gave in to her own desires and disobeyed God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from which she was instructed not to eat. She then shared it with Adam, who unquestioningly partakes. Having thus brought sin into the world, God punishes not just Eve and Adam but the heirs…and apparently snakes, too. Case closed!
But is it?
Now, the author of this chapter of Genesis…(No, it wasn’t God or even Moses)…The author was a person, presumably a man, referred to by scholars as “J”, (that is, the letter J). Indeed, the first five books of the Bible were, many scholars believe, written by no fewer than four anonymous authors, known as J, E, P and D.
“J” is believed to have lived sometime between the 9th and 8th C. BCE. Whereas the author known as “P”, who wrote the first chapter of Genesis and viewed God as distant and transcendent, “J”, viewed and described God in anthropomorphic terms, ascribing to God many readily recognizable human characteristics, emotions and limitations. Which explains why the story presents a God who walks and talks among humans, seems to bend the truth, if not lie, appears at times to be a somewhat clueless given our popular notions of God as omniscient, and is, shall we say, rather moody.
I wonder how the author “J” might respond to those who claim his writing as the source of what became the doctrine of Original Sin?
Perhaps he might respond, “Where’s the beef?” or rather, “Where’s the sin?” To which one might expect a quick reply, Eve’s disobedience to God, duh!.
Yet, at the start of the story, Eve and Adam have not yet eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Which implies they are ignorant, perhaps blissfully so, of any concept of right and wrong, let alone good and evil. Which is to say they had no moral sense, no knowledge of sin. Thus, while God said not to eat that fruit, how was Eve to know that disobedience in this or any other instance might be wrong, even sinful?
But what about God’s warning to Eve that she’d die if she touched or ate the fruit, you might wonder? Well, the serpent told her that’s simply not true. What criteria was Eve to use to weigh the word of one over the other?
Indeed, while the serpent is described as “crafty”, the Hebrew word used in the text and subsequently translated as “crafty” actually means something closer to mentally astute. And, as the story itself reveals, God wasn’t truthful about the fruit of the that tree. Eve and Adam did not die after they ate the fruit. Rather, “the eyes of both were opened…” (Gen. 3:7), just as the serpent had said to Eve.
While they didn’t die after eating the fruit, things definitely changed for Adam and Eve. For the first time they are confronted with previously unknown concerns….vulnerability, responsibility, accountability. Some concerns they adapt to quickly…sewing fig leaves into loincloths. While others they struggle with and even stumble over as they attempt to adjust. Most notably blaming one another and then the serpent when God finds out what has happened.
Still, that human life became much more difficult and complicated after Eve and Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, suggests not the origin of humanity’s hereditary sinful nature, but the birth of human conscience and moral awareness. If death occurred as a result, it was a loss of innocence. And God, who comes off as a sort of bumbling, overreactive parent in the story might thus be viewed more sympathetically as a parent experiencing all the emotional ups and downs, hopes and fears of witnessing his/her children grow up.
Remember, the Bible is a narrative about the human experience told through multigenerational stories. It is not the biography of a deity (or deities, for that matter). For this reason it is a far more profound and meaningful book than we often imagine if we only think of it as a book about a God we may or may not always like or even believe in. As Genesis 3 ends, God sends Eve and Adam out into a new world. To a life outside the garden, where, without the protection of ignorance, they will struggle to find answers as they seek to reclaim something akin to bliss.
The story, like all good myth, reveals a fundamental truth about the human experience that deepens as we spend more time with it. At first it seems to describe, rather fancifully, the evolution of our species into what we understand today as a human being. From there we might also see it as a story describing human development, from the innocence of childhood to the moral complexity of adulthood.
Even more though, it speaks, I think, to the recurrent experience of being human. That is, our ongoing loss of innocence and exposure to the reality of good and evil, right and wrong in the world and in ourselves. An experience where we find ourselves facing the risk of being cast out of the garden time and again. That place we live protected and comforted by the ideas, beliefs, prejudices and judgments we’ve accepted and cultivated. An experience which, like God in Genesis 3, demands a response.
But how to respond?
Well, as we know, some…and I would argue, most of us, to some degree, respond by attempting to cling to ignorance some of the time. Facing the truth, seeing the reality of things admittedly sometimes feels too painful, too overwhelming, too humiliating, too paralyzing. Clinging to ignorance, however, it not the same as being ignorant. When we cling to ignorance, we have a sense something is amiss, we just don’t want to look too closely, otherwise our conscience might reveal our nakedness.
Far easier to move on to another option. Blame or point the finger at things like…humanity’s inherent sinfulness. How convenient. When we believe human nature to be inherently sinful, or similarly flawed, it is not a far leap to see ourselves…and even more so others…as undeserving. Judgement is too often the ten foot pole we use to avoid touching what or who we don’t want to know or see or understand, lest we find ourselves driven from our meticulously kept garden.
It is far easier, for example, to see migrants as “illegals” breaking the law than as human beings struggling to survive. Otherwise how could we justify taking and locking their children in cages.
It is far easier to see the poor as a “type” person. You know, lazy, scheming, a bad decision maker, rather than individuals who often face multiple challenges made worse by a system and society that treats poverty as a punishable, personal moral failing rather than the social failure it is.
And, it is far easier to see women, people of color and LGBTQ people as uppity, disrespectful or angry radicals, rather than as people justifiably fed up with living under constant threat of rights being denied, eroded or eliminated. And thus protest when an entitled straight white man acting as if he’s owed a seat on the Supreme Court, rants and raves, pouts and cries about being treated unfairly in the face of serious allegations of wrongdoing only to then earn a majority vote in the Senate. A Senate sympathetic, not to the concerns of justice, especially for historically marginalized people, but for how he was treated.…and almost cheated…out of a “his” seat on the court.
Examples, as dramatic and far less so, both personal and societal abound, but I think you get the drift.
There is of course, another option. Examples can be found in ancient texts, Biblical and beyond which point to one echoed by someone who walked this earth up until a few years ago. Maya Angelou, whose words were our call to worship,
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I wonder what would have happened if God had sent Eve and Adam off to life outside the garden with that bit of advice?
For one thing, there might not be a doctrine of Original Sin, for what these words offer is not a confirmation of our inherent sinfulness, but assurance of our capacity to grow in and exercise our knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, that we might cultivate a new garden. A place not of carefree existence cultivated and maintained by state of ignorance to which we cannot return, but a place of right relations cultivated and maintained by a deepening awareness and compassionate response to life’s complexity from which none of us are immune. Where another’s woe is not their pain, their problem or their fault, but all of ours, calling us to do the best we can until we know better. Then when we know better to do better.
And we can begin today.
You can’t get past the front page of a newspaper or the first few minutes of a newscast without learning of something…be it good or evil…right or wrong… that begs a response, but which nonetheless leaves us wondering, What can I do?
Here’s an answer:
You can write or call a legislator, business or organization and share your appreciation or support of a good they are engaged in or your disappointment or disapproval of a wrong they are engaged in. You need not offer alternatives to things you view as wrong. Sometimes the best we can do is simply recognize and call out something that is wrong. Other times we know better and can lift up alternatives, take further action or get more deeply involved. And, I want to mention that not everything out there is bad. I heard a story on my way here today about an immigrant from Japan who makes sake in Arizona with the hope of building community and peace. And another about a man who was once a member of a white supremacist group and who now works with others seeking to leave that world.
And so, I want to leave you with a challenge today. The ground is still hard from winter’s cold, but it is never too late to begin tilling the soil of a new garden. Over the next week find a good or wrong that moves you. One that begs a response from you. Then, write, call or otherwise share your appreciation or disapproval with the appropriate person(s). Do more if can, but at least do that. And in so doing may bliss be found not in returning to the old garden, but in the cultivation of the new. May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
January 27, 2019
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
Those of us of a certain age may recall a commercial which began airing in the mid-1980’s for Wendy’s featuring Clara Peller demanding to know, “Where’s the beef?” Some thirty-five years later, the catchphrase, “Where’s the beef?” is still uttered to question the substance of a product or idea.
Our history as a faith is full of women and men who questioned the substance of certain religious ideas and doctrines. Indeed, historically, Unitarians were among those who questioned the substance of the doctrine of the Trinity. And Universalists questioned the idea of eternal damnation.
Another religious idea or doctrine that rankled our religious forbearers and continues to do so to this day, is the doctrine of Original Sin. For many Christian denominations the doctrine of Original Sin describes and explains the origin of the condition of sin into which every human being is allegedly born. In short, it attempts to explain why humans seem inclined to do bad things or disobey God, if you will. This inclination is the inheritance, according to the doctrine, left to us by our mythic parents, Adam and Eve. Thanks mythic mom and dad!
Evidence of this alleged inheritance, is said to come directly out of today’s readings, Genesis 3. The reasoning goes something like this: Eve, tempted by the serpent, gave in to her own desires and disobeyed God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from which she was instructed not to eat. She then shared it with Adam, who unquestioningly partakes. Having thus brought sin into the world, God punishes not just Eve and Adam but the heirs…and apparently snakes, too. Case closed!
But is it?
Now, the author of this chapter of Genesis…(No, it wasn’t God or even Moses)…The author was a person, presumably a man, referred to by scholars as “J”, (that is, the letter J). Indeed, the first five books of the Bible were, many scholars believe, written by no fewer than four anonymous authors, known as J, E, P and D.
“J” is believed to have lived sometime between the 9th and 8th C. BCE. Whereas the author known as “P”, who wrote the first chapter of Genesis and viewed God as distant and transcendent, “J”, viewed and described God in anthropomorphic terms, ascribing to God many readily recognizable human characteristics, emotions and limitations. Which explains why the story presents a God who walks and talks among humans, seems to bend the truth, if not lie, appears at times to be a somewhat clueless given our popular notions of God as omniscient, and is, shall we say, rather moody.
I wonder how the author “J” might respond to those who claim his writing as the source of what became the doctrine of Original Sin?
Perhaps he might respond, “Where’s the beef?” or rather, “Where’s the sin?” To which one might expect a quick reply, Eve’s disobedience to God, duh!.
Yet, at the start of the story, Eve and Adam have not yet eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Which implies they are ignorant, perhaps blissfully so, of any concept of right and wrong, let alone good and evil. Which is to say they had no moral sense, no knowledge of sin. Thus, while God said not to eat that fruit, how was Eve to know that disobedience in this or any other instance might be wrong, even sinful?
But what about God’s warning to Eve that she’d die if she touched or ate the fruit, you might wonder? Well, the serpent told her that’s simply not true. What criteria was Eve to use to weigh the word of one over the other?
Indeed, while the serpent is described as “crafty”, the Hebrew word used in the text and subsequently translated as “crafty” actually means something closer to mentally astute. And, as the story itself reveals, God wasn’t truthful about the fruit of the that tree. Eve and Adam did not die after they ate the fruit. Rather, “the eyes of both were opened…” (Gen. 3:7), just as the serpent had said to Eve.
While they didn’t die after eating the fruit, things definitely changed for Adam and Eve. For the first time they are confronted with previously unknown concerns….vulnerability, responsibility, accountability. Some concerns they adapt to quickly…sewing fig leaves into loincloths. While others they struggle with and even stumble over as they attempt to adjust. Most notably blaming one another and then the serpent when God finds out what has happened.
Still, that human life became much more difficult and complicated after Eve and Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, suggests not the origin of humanity’s hereditary sinful nature, but the birth of human conscience and moral awareness. If death occurred as a result, it was a loss of innocence. And God, who comes off as a sort of bumbling, overreactive parent in the story might thus be viewed more sympathetically as a parent experiencing all the emotional ups and downs, hopes and fears of witnessing his/her children grow up.
Remember, the Bible is a narrative about the human experience told through multigenerational stories. It is not the biography of a deity (or deities, for that matter). For this reason it is a far more profound and meaningful book than we often imagine if we only think of it as a book about a God we may or may not always like or even believe in. As Genesis 3 ends, God sends Eve and Adam out into a new world. To a life outside the garden, where, without the protection of ignorance, they will struggle to find answers as they seek to reclaim something akin to bliss.
The story, like all good myth, reveals a fundamental truth about the human experience that deepens as we spend more time with it. At first it seems to describe, rather fancifully, the evolution of our species into what we understand today as a human being. From there we might also see it as a story describing human development, from the innocence of childhood to the moral complexity of adulthood.
Even more though, it speaks, I think, to the recurrent experience of being human. That is, our ongoing loss of innocence and exposure to the reality of good and evil, right and wrong in the world and in ourselves. An experience where we find ourselves facing the risk of being cast out of the garden time and again. That place we live protected and comforted by the ideas, beliefs, prejudices and judgments we’ve accepted and cultivated. An experience which, like God in Genesis 3, demands a response.
But how to respond?
Well, as we know, some…and I would argue, most of us, to some degree, respond by attempting to cling to ignorance some of the time. Facing the truth, seeing the reality of things admittedly sometimes feels too painful, too overwhelming, too humiliating, too paralyzing. Clinging to ignorance, however, it not the same as being ignorant. When we cling to ignorance, we have a sense something is amiss, we just don’t want to look too closely, otherwise our conscience might reveal our nakedness.
Far easier to move on to another option. Blame or point the finger at things like…humanity’s inherent sinfulness. How convenient. When we believe human nature to be inherently sinful, or similarly flawed, it is not a far leap to see ourselves…and even more so others…as undeserving. Judgement is too often the ten foot pole we use to avoid touching what or who we don’t want to know or see or understand, lest we find ourselves driven from our meticulously kept garden.
It is far easier, for example, to see migrants as “illegals” breaking the law than as human beings struggling to survive. Otherwise how could we justify taking and locking their children in cages.
It is far easier to see the poor as a “type” person. You know, lazy, scheming, a bad decision maker, rather than individuals who often face multiple challenges made worse by a system and society that treats poverty as a punishable, personal moral failing rather than the social failure it is.
And, it is far easier to see women, people of color and LGBTQ people as uppity, disrespectful or angry radicals, rather than as people justifiably fed up with living under constant threat of rights being denied, eroded or eliminated. And thus protest when an entitled straight white man acting as if he’s owed a seat on the Supreme Court, rants and raves, pouts and cries about being treated unfairly in the face of serious allegations of wrongdoing only to then earn a majority vote in the Senate. A Senate sympathetic, not to the concerns of justice, especially for historically marginalized people, but for how he was treated.…and almost cheated…out of a “his” seat on the court.
Examples, as dramatic and far less so, both personal and societal abound, but I think you get the drift.
There is of course, another option. Examples can be found in ancient texts, Biblical and beyond which point to one echoed by someone who walked this earth up until a few years ago. Maya Angelou, whose words were our call to worship,
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I wonder what would have happened if God had sent Eve and Adam off to life outside the garden with that bit of advice?
For one thing, there might not be a doctrine of Original Sin, for what these words offer is not a confirmation of our inherent sinfulness, but assurance of our capacity to grow in and exercise our knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, that we might cultivate a new garden. A place not of carefree existence cultivated and maintained by state of ignorance to which we cannot return, but a place of right relations cultivated and maintained by a deepening awareness and compassionate response to life’s complexity from which none of us are immune. Where another’s woe is not their pain, their problem or their fault, but all of ours, calling us to do the best we can until we know better. Then when we know better to do better.
And we can begin today.
You can’t get past the front page of a newspaper or the first few minutes of a newscast without learning of something…be it good or evil…right or wrong… that begs a response, but which nonetheless leaves us wondering, What can I do?
Here’s an answer:
You can write or call a legislator, business or organization and share your appreciation or support of a good they are engaged in or your disappointment or disapproval of a wrong they are engaged in. You need not offer alternatives to things you view as wrong. Sometimes the best we can do is simply recognize and call out something that is wrong. Other times we know better and can lift up alternatives, take further action or get more deeply involved. And, I want to mention that not everything out there is bad. I heard a story on my way here today about an immigrant from Japan who makes sake in Arizona with the hope of building community and peace. And another about a man who was once a member of a white supremacist group and who now works with others seeking to leave that world.
And so, I want to leave you with a challenge today. The ground is still hard from winter’s cold, but it is never too late to begin tilling the soil of a new garden. Over the next week find a good or wrong that moves you. One that begs a response from you. Then, write, call or otherwise share your appreciation or disapproval with the appropriate person(s). Do more if can, but at least do that. And in so doing may bliss be found not in returning to the old garden, but in the cultivation of the new. May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be
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