Genesis 2:15-17
God took the Man (created just moments before) and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order.
God commanded the Man, “You can eat from any tree in the garden, except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don’t eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you’re dead.”
Today is the first Sunday in Lent. The lectionary choice for the Gospel reading today is the Temptation in the Wilderness – which we already read and discussed last week. (I believe I mentioned that things can get a little confused at the end of Epiphany.)
The reading we’re using instead is the lectionary’s Old Testament reading for today. It comes in the second chapter of Genesis, which means from the second of the two versions of the creation of the earth and of humankind that are found here.
The Man had been created only a short time before and put in the newly created garden to be its caretaker. The Woman was not even created yet when God issued this rule against eating from “the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil” – basically, just don’t eat it -- or you will die.
Okay, there’s just a couple of brief points I want to make here and then we’re going to move on from Genesis. The first is simply to reiterate that The Woman was not even in existence when God issued the “don’t eat this” rule.” She was created later, She presumably heard of it later on but she did not hear it directly from God. And yet, she’s the one who’s been blamed for the whole mess that followed for lo, these thousands of years. Just thought I’d remind us all of that.
The second point, and the one that is more germane to my message here, is that this was the very first rule given to human folk– at least in biblical time and as recorded in scripture. I read chapters one and two three or four times and didn’t find one any earlier. But think of the hundreds, or thousands of rules we’ve burdened ourselves and each other with in the centuries since then – all too often claiming these rules came directly from God..
And Rules are what I really want to talk about today. Do we really, really need all those rules? We have the Ten Commandments. That was OK for a start, but then people just ran with the whole idea. We have the Holiness Codes, the Levitical Laws, the Purity Laws – Hebrew scholars of the OT counted up their laws and came up with 613 of them, just in the Torah alone. Humans had to have 613+, while God seems to have made do with 10.
Do they do any good? Think about it. Some rules are definitely good — stopping for red lights is a good rule. Most of us obey it. We may grumble, but we do it. We literally could not get in our cars everyday unless we had some level of trust that others were obeying that one, too.
But all too many rules exist only to enforce power by some over others. Dress codes, for instance. One of the more useless things we’ve invented. Or laws restricting people of color, but not anyone else – definitely not good.. No tattoos? Or any law that comes with a “because we said so” or worse yet, “because we can.”
In my Facebook “memories” for the day as I sat down to type this out, one popped up from 2018 – five years ago.. It was one of our daily quotes from that year’s Lenten readings book and this particular one was written by Quinn G. Caldwell. He had me from the very first line:
And one last point – this one from Jesus. When he was asked which is the greatest commandment he, according to the writer of Matthew’s gospel, answered: Love the Lord God with all your heart, and soul, and mind, and the second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself. But you know, you cannot mandate Love or enforce it by rules.
I always picture Jesus here sighing and thinking “this wouldn’t have to be a commandment if you all just thought for a minute and lived properly.” This isn’t delivered like a Law or a Rule, there’s no “do this or we’ll throw you into Hell!” It sounds to me less like a rule than a suggestion – just try it this way, it’s easy. I promise...just love.
God doesn’t love our rules. God loves God’s people.
AMEN.
The reading we’re using instead is the lectionary’s Old Testament reading for today. It comes in the second chapter of Genesis, which means from the second of the two versions of the creation of the earth and of humankind that are found here.
The Man had been created only a short time before and put in the newly created garden to be its caretaker. The Woman was not even created yet when God issued this rule against eating from “the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil” – basically, just don’t eat it -- or you will die.
Okay, there’s just a couple of brief points I want to make here and then we’re going to move on from Genesis. The first is simply to reiterate that The Woman was not even in existence when God issued the “don’t eat this” rule.” She was created later, She presumably heard of it later on but she did not hear it directly from God. And yet, she’s the one who’s been blamed for the whole mess that followed for lo, these thousands of years. Just thought I’d remind us all of that.
The second point, and the one that is more germane to my message here, is that this was the very first rule given to human folk– at least in biblical time and as recorded in scripture. I read chapters one and two three or four times and didn’t find one any earlier. But think of the hundreds, or thousands of rules we’ve burdened ourselves and each other with in the centuries since then – all too often claiming these rules came directly from God..
And Rules are what I really want to talk about today. Do we really, really need all those rules? We have the Ten Commandments. That was OK for a start, but then people just ran with the whole idea. We have the Holiness Codes, the Levitical Laws, the Purity Laws – Hebrew scholars of the OT counted up their laws and came up with 613 of them, just in the Torah alone. Humans had to have 613+, while God seems to have made do with 10.
Do they do any good? Think about it. Some rules are definitely good — stopping for red lights is a good rule. Most of us obey it. We may grumble, but we do it. We literally could not get in our cars everyday unless we had some level of trust that others were obeying that one, too.
But all too many rules exist only to enforce power by some over others. Dress codes, for instance. One of the more useless things we’ve invented. Or laws restricting people of color, but not anyone else – definitely not good.. No tattoos? Or any law that comes with a “because we said so” or worse yet, “because we can.”
In my Facebook “memories” for the day as I sat down to type this out, one popped up from 2018 – five years ago.. It was one of our daily quotes from that year’s Lenten readings book and this particular one was written by Quinn G. Caldwell. He had me from the very first line:
- Listen, and I will tell you a mystery: God doesn’t give a crap about your rules.
- Actually, that’s not totally true. God knows you created them for what you believe are good reasons, and that you (or your ancestors) did so after years of faithful practice and study. And God thinks that’s nice. Really.
- It’s just that what God actually cares about is the impulse behind the rules, not the rules themselves. The love that undergirds the expectations more than the expectations themselves.....
- Listen, and I will tell you a mystery: God doesn’t love your rules. God loves God’s people.
And one last point – this one from Jesus. When he was asked which is the greatest commandment he, according to the writer of Matthew’s gospel, answered: Love the Lord God with all your heart, and soul, and mind, and the second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself. But you know, you cannot mandate Love or enforce it by rules.
I always picture Jesus here sighing and thinking “this wouldn’t have to be a commandment if you all just thought for a minute and lived properly.” This isn’t delivered like a Law or a Rule, there’s no “do this or we’ll throw you into Hell!” It sounds to me less like a rule than a suggestion – just try it this way, it’s easy. I promise...just love.
God doesn’t love our rules. God loves God’s people.
AMEN.
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