In the last article I wrote about the grace of the story of the Garden of Eden – of how it reminds us that we are all called to an intimate, loving relationship with God even though we have been disconnected from that relationship. As promised, this article will look at the grace within the story of the garden. Why might that disconnection be an important part of our faith journey and where might we find God’s grace within it?
I don’t have children, but I do remember some of my own journey from childhood through adolescence and on into adulthood as I’m sure you remember your own. As we grew, we began to feel an urge to move beyond the safety of our parents’ watchful eye. We became curious and began to explore the world around us. As the years went by, we moved further out on our own. We tested the boundaries our parents set for us, and (if we were smart) learned from our mistakes. We tried new things, contemplated new ideas, experimented with new ways of being. In other words, we slowly moved from passively accepting the identity placed on us by our parents toward developing our own identity.
This disconnection from our parents is a necessary part of growing up. The work of developing our own identity is vital to our ability to know ourselves and to understand the world into which we were born. I am suggesting here that the same is true in our relationship with God and that God understands and blesses that work.
Depending on where you are on your own faith journey, you may have already learned how necessary it is to leave behind the image of God we develop in our childhood (an image, I would guess, that is far different from that with which we are born) so that we can grow into a more profound and less constricted image of God. Some of us may even need to walk away from God for a while so that we can come back with a healthier understanding of God later.
Think of the younger son in the Luke 15 story of the two sons. By leaving home and discovering how difficult life was without the loving care of his father, he was able to return and receive his father’s love with joy. The elder son who stayed home, however, grew to resent his father and the work he felt obligated to do. He seems to have experienced no joy in his relationship with his father. Which son would you rather be?
In our life’s journey, if we are blest to have parents who are patient and loving, we eventually find ourselves moving back into a beautiful relationship with them – this time as grown children. We develop an interdependent relationship with them in place of the dependent one we left behind.
The old adage is true: You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Living in the Garden of Eden, being in daily communion with the Creator, having all their needs provided for them, Adam and Eve were unable to understand their deep need for God nor God’s deep love for them. Like all growing children, they became curious about aspects of the garden that they had not yet explored. They decided to test the boundaries God had set for them. They began to seek their own identity beyond that which they had received through the eyes of God.
I think God sees the wisdom in this process and realizes how important it is for humanity to stretch our metaphorical wings. And so God lets us go. Just as good human parents do, however, God never loses sight of us “children” and is always right there waiting for us to come to our senses and realize how much we need God’s love, wisdom, and care. Such a realization can only come through a spirit matured by the challenges of life in this world.
Does that mean that there is no sin in this story? On the contrary, there is sin aplenty! I’m less inclined, however, to see the eating of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as that sin. The sin came in what happened afterwards when God came for that daily walk with Adam and Eve and, instead of being honest and authentic with God, they chose to lie to God and then to blame everyone but themselves for what had happened.
Wisdom and maturity come from learning from our mistakes and from maintaining honest and open relationships with others in the process. How it must have hurt God to have these beloved friends betray their relationship with God and one another! Yet God does not destroy them nor abandon them.
So it is that we find grace within this story in multiple ways. We see God’s grace in the act of allowing Adam and Eve to grow beyond their complete dependence on God, to move from a childish need for God into a more mature partnership with God. We see God’s grace when God refuses to completely walk away after Adam and Eve betray God’s trust and friendship. And – as the Luke 15 story demonstrates – we see God’s faithful and patient waiting as Adam, Eve, and you and I grow into that realization of how much we need God.
Rev. Joyce Day
If you would like to view past editions of Grace for the Journey, follow this link: https://sounddistrictnc.org/category/grace-for-the-journey/