Bible Stories...-

For the Summer months, we have decided to center our worship and preaching at St. Paul's UMC around several of the famous stories of the Bible. Many of us learned these on the "little painted chairs" of a Sunday School room, but an increasing number of church attenders were not raised in this tradition, and often don't know these stories. So, when we preachers say something like, "You remember the story of Cain and Abel...", the fact is, many don't remember it, and even if they do, they will think of the story as they remember it from their childhood days. And that can be bad.

The simple moral lessons we learned as kids probably are a real short-sell of what is going on in the original story. In a recent sermon, I likened this to the two different "levels" brought to the cartoon feature The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. When you watched the adventures of the buck-toothed flying squirrel and his goofy moose sidekick Bullwinkle J. Moose, you laughed and enjoyed the prevailing mayhem. However, when you review one of these episodes as an adult, you uncover an entirely different message. The little squirrel and his friend remind us more of the Smothers Brothers, speaking critically about the social justice issues of the day, lampooning those in power, and attacking the ethics and prejudices of the Cold War and the civil rights injustices of the day. Wow. Rocky and Bullwinkle carried out their subtle social protests and satire under the radar of the sensors, but Tommy and Dick Smothers got cancelled by CBS at the peak of its popularity for their version.

The Bible story of Adam and Eve tells us more about the human condition, human suffering, and our often failed attempts to remedy our situation than they do about sin and redemption. The oversimplification of this myth causes us to miss asking the important questions: Did God REALLY not want human beings to live without the knowledge of good and evil? Was the demonizing of the female protagonist in the story more about the prejudices of the author than a pronouncement that women are to blame for the world's problems? Did the devil really make us do it? I'm afraid many of us perpetuate childish ideas about what we can learn from Bible stories like Adam and Eve!

What we can learn from the story is that the "best design" of human beings is that we are made to need each other, and for far more than perpetuating the species. We need each other to care for the earth and to live in harmony with it. WE need each other to live what Jesus would later call "the abundant life." We need each other to create healthy communities and to share resources, talents, and abilities for the common good, as well as our own. Any strong thrust toward individual rights and power skews human society toward economic and political injustice, and creates a class of people who have not money, power, nor influence. These people will suffer unfairly. Eden, even after the "tree" incident, was a place where people needed each other and would not survive--let alone thrive--in isolation. And having a relationship with the Creator was a part of this we-need-each-other topology. Even after the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, when Cain is set to the land of Nod, East of Eden by God, he is not condemned. The seeds of his rehabilitation are sewn in God's command that no one would be allowed to harm him as retribution for his act.

And anyone who tries to use either biblical creation story to justify attacking people who are not at the extreme ends of the gender spectrum, or who are transgender, is missing the meaning of this story, and is turning it into a "clobber passage." The biblical story is about relationships, the social interaction of the human creation, the fickleness of human judgment, and how human suffering plays out while working through the difficulties of these. It is not an apologetic for hard-line, conservative ideas of gender exclusivity. Our blood should curdle when we hear someone say, "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," or some other such ignorant blather as an assault against other children of God. An oversimplified, childish statement such as this misses the whole reason we even have this story preserved in scripture, and should be seen as an affront to the whole human community, not to speak of it being an offensive slur against the God who created us and loves us all.

Over the coming weeks, we will look at stories such as the Tower of Babel, Esau's Birthright vs. Jacob's chicanery, Jacob and Laban, David and Goliath, David and Bathsheba, Queen Esther, Shiprah and Puah, the Temptation of Jesus, Ananias and Sapphira, and the Conversion of Saul. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, we suggest that if you are an adult, you start using the same mind--the same mind you use to be successful in your field of endeavor, wisely parent your children, prudently manage your finances, maintain a happy and growing relationship with your significant other, and plan well for your future--to read and study the Bible. And try not to listen to anyone who feeds you oversimplified, dismissing, or hurtful interpretations of what you read in its pages. The fact that we are all still here is the best proof that God is more about love, forgiveness, and helping us work out the challenges of human suffering than about condemnation, judgment, and retribution. This stuff is complicated! But, as Mr. Wesley said on his deathbed, "The best of all is, God is with us!"