“The Eves of Our Lives”

A Sermon Preached at First Presbyterian Church

By Dr. James R. Henery

Sunday, June 29, 2008

I have before me the top ten reasons Eve was created—sharing only a few.  God knew Adam would never remember which night to put the garbage on the curb.  God knew Adam would never go out and buy himself a new fig leaf when his wore out and would therefore need Eve to go out and buy one for him.  It gets worse.  God knew that one day Adam would require someone to locate and hand him the remote.  Finally, God was worried that Adam would frequently become lost in the garden because he would not stop to ask for directions.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made and he said to the woman, “Did God say you shall not eat from any tree in the Garden.”  And the woman said, “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 in the middle of the garden nor shall you touch it or you shall die.”  But the serpent said to the woman, “You won’t die.  God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God—knowing good and evil.”  So that 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 make one wise, she took the fruit and ate it.  And the eyes of both were then opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of 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 God called to the man and asked, “Where are you?”  And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the Garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.”  God said, “Who told 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 the fruit and I ate.”  And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?”  And the woman said, “The serpent tricked me and I ate.” 

The Eves of our lives.

It’s very clever of the producers of Desperate Housewives to use Adam and Eve in their opening animation.  Then again the story of the garden, the apple and the serpent has evolved historically and in literature to suggest multiple themes and subjects that one could pursue on a Sunday morning.  Temptation, the fall, original sin, dislike of snakes, ubiquitous search for the garden, what type of fruit—it does not say apple—painful childbirth, the garment industry, quest for knowledge and even a post modern biblical kind of discussion on the role and status of women.  This morning I want to add just another thread or level to that story, somewhat prompted on my recent observations on the now completed primary elections, both parties, and the subject of excuses and defenses and the blame game;  however, now the Democrats have kissed and made up.

But for months now we’ve heard lots of campaign spinning, blame has been placed on everyone, even the preachers who apparently cannot escape criticism from both parties or the campaign aides or their families or their race or gender or even their military past.  Always the rhetoric seems to be found in interpreting or paraphrasing or editing statements that come out of both campaigns.  Now all campaigns, corporations and even the White House have an amorphous senior official or spokesman and all directives are reminiscent of The Garden of Eden:  who told you … and  the answer seems to always be an unnamed senior source.   

But out here in Tompkins County, far away from the dizziness of Washington, D.C.,  all we are really seeking, I think, is truth and transparency but much of what we hear is commentary and defensive posturing.  Then again, it’s sort of like the Adam and Eve story, all over again, with too often the blame being placed on what I have titled this morning’s sermon, The Eves of Our Lives. 

In the mid-1960’s, American psychiatrist James Glasser began a major departure from psychoanalytic and Freudian psychiatry when he broke from his training to develop a much different treatment called reality therapy.  The practice was to have people and behaviors focused on their present situation, not looking in the past for reasons why things aren’t going well, not being on a quest for trying to figure out who made you unhappy or unstable or always chiding someone for something that went wrong in your life.  No, this new therapy concentrated not on the why or the when but on what you are doing now.  Past problems or people or events could no longer be blamed for one’s current situation or erratic behavior.  It wasn’t so much then what happened in the past but what are you going to do right now in your life starting today.  Thus blame and excuses were eliminated.  This therapy approach would then evolve and define the word responsibility in the following way:  the ability to fulfill one’s needs to do so in a way that does not deprive others of the ability to fulfill their own needs.  In other words you are responsible for what you do and say—don’t excuse it or blame someone else. 

So now let’s quietly sneak back to the garden and see how all of this works out.  And we discover the beginning, the earliest biblical example of blaming a problem on someone else and creating a scapegoat in the form of a name of Eve and then she on a snake leading to unending references and illusions to the tree of knowledge, the serpent, fig leaves and eventually booted out of the garden.  Most scholars and theologians no longer argue about this text or story being allegorical or metaphorical.  Even the names in Hebrew are more language creations Adam equals man but the word is ish in Hebrew.  Eve’s name means life and in Hebrew is ishaw which means that she has the same characteristics as the man, ish and ishaw, so they are really not all that terribly distinct but equal.  But it’s the dialogue and the story and the implications that become so compelling.

Who told you eat the fruit becomes an almost comedic agenda of excuses … the snake told me, the woman told me.  I’m not taking Adam’s side because he already knew the situation earlier in chapter two when he heard the same rule from God.  He was told he could not eat from that tree and so begins a series of excuses and blaming as if the tree of knowledge becomes the real source of future politics and spinning and debate. 

The Eves of our lives.  

Who would have thought that such a simple story would have such an incredibly complex spectrum of generational issues—including the ancient argument about original sin and the fall of mankind?  Perhaps even more dramatically in this first book of the bible is the very human account of excuses, of not being responsible for their own actions or lack of.  It reads almost like a legal case study of he said she said but the corroboration lacks credibility.  We blame a woman whose name is Eve who becomes synonymous with an apple and a snake.  It’s almost silly isn’t it? 

But the residue of broken promises, of excuses, of denial sticks with us.  Too often our behaviors, our answers, our responses are that we blame our mistakes on someone else, past or present, to excuse our own actions by transferring the reason to someone else.  For a few years at night, I taught an English class in a maximum security prison in Mansfield, Ohio.  It wasn’t particularly the highlight of my day but it was entertaining.  I would ask all my student cons to write a narrative about why they were in prison and I kept track of some of their comments and responses.  Invariably they would begin with “It was the thrill of not getting caught.”  But when they did get caught, they had a whole list of people to blame for the reasons they got caught including their family and best friends and so forth and they blamed the system because they got caught doing that which they expected to get caught in the first place. 

The moral here seems to be similar to Adam and Eve.  It’s not the serpent or the tree or the fruit or the woman.  It’s not even the temptation.  It’s the choice we make that determines what we do and how we live and the problem accepting the consequences of one’s actions which my cons in prison knew all about because many had already been there once or twice before. 

Sadly, the church’s own history is not dissimilar   Someone always seems to be finding someone to blame for their lack of faith or their falling out with the church.  Always trying to find someone to excuse for his or her own lack of belief because someone or something got in the way and caused that diminishment of faith or spirituality. 

The Eves of our lives.

It’s about those people and situations that we point at everyday to cover up our own unhappiness, our own frustrations, our own problems, our own failures.  And as long as we can find an Eve then we can dispute and excuse our mistakes and our sins and it does make us a little bit powerful, a little bit egotistic, a little better absolved of our own shortcomings until the next time.  Then it takes a little bit more effort and the cycle continues and the tree of knowledge eventually just becomes the tree of confusion. 

Poor Eve.  She and her name is/are a biblical target for all time.  Blame her for the fall of mankind.  Early church theologians did just that calling it the first sin, eating the fruit, becoming naked, the first cover-up in the bible.  But if one must pronounce guilt here, both are.  And yet when Adam is approached by God about what happened there is the classic line, “the woman gave it to me” and the first biblically attributed case of a scriptural excuse. 

I think we have culturally and theologically asserted much too much attention to the concept of judgment of original sin based upon this early story in the scriptures and not enough on original denial and default of personal responsibility, male or female.  For if we lived responsibly and did what was right, and acceptable and just and honest we would never have to point fingers at the Eves of our lives.  We would start always first with ourselves.  Yet the ancient story in Genesis and Adam’s response is as modern and contemporary as what we say and do as we live in our gardens.  And Eve, perhaps unfairly characterized as the one who made future life more difficult, becomes the all purpose excuse for our blatant weaknesses. 

The Eves of our lives. 

And so it was that a Sunday school teacher asked her class of first and second graders, “Can anyone tell me the story of Adam and Eve?”  One girl raises her hand quickly and she says, “First God created Adam and then he looked at him and said I think I can do better if I try it again and he created Eve.”  Amen.