B Cycle – 10^th Sunday in Ordinary Time 24

Gn.3:9-15

We do not know much about Adam and Eve’s life with God before they at the fruit of the forbidden tree.  Why would we for there is no mention of their relationship with God other than God bringing “every bird of the air and every beast of the field to Adam for him to name” (Gen. 2:19-20).  I like to think about God and Adam’s interaction as he named them.  How God would laugh as He asked Adam how to spell aardvark, rhinoceros, or platypus.  I would also believe Adam named all the insects, fish, trees, bushes, grasses, shrubs, all things God created.  God gave Adam the task to tend and cultivate all that God had created (Gen. 2:19.).  We also know Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed (Gen.2:25).

That is all we know about Adam and Eve other than the story of their temptation and fall which is described in detail in Genesis chapter 3.  What should catch our attention and have us prayerfully reflect upon is how their sin caused them to be aware of their nakedness.  Their shame caused them to hide from God and to cover their nakedness.  It is amazing how our response to sin is like Adam and Eve’s. We certainly do not want others to know when we sin. We also justify our sin and make excuses for our weakness and that we embraced the temptation to sin. 

What we can learn from them is how sin motivates us to separate ourselves from God. Instead of seeking God’s forgiveness we strive to avoid God or seek to explain why we failed.  We are like children in that we will do something to elicit our father’s praise and overlook our failure to do what he asked us to do.  In the story of the prodigal son, we do not know how long it took for the son to “come to his senses.”  Was it years, months, or weeks before he realized those in his father’s house were better off than he was?   All we know is that the son hoped to be in his father’s house as a slave, without any rights or privileges.  No voice, just obey the father’s commands and receive a bed to sleep in, meals to eat, clothes on his back. 

The story of Adam’s fall and the prodigal are more alike than we may have ever considered.  Both stories are stories about our response to sin.  One difference is Adam never had the chance to reconcile with God. Have you ever wondered why God who identifies Himself as merciful, forgiving and always loving never gave Adam a chance to repent.  Perhaps it was to provide a way to overcome sin because Adam would sin again.  Their children would sin, and every generation would sin. 

Could that be the reason for the shedding of blood to clothe Adam and Eve after they discovered their nakedness?  God certainly understood the weakness of us humans toward self-sufficiency as He gave us free will.  He understood how temptations will always exist within us drawing us away from Him to satisfy some more urgent desire which drives us to disobedience.  Was this first shedding of blood a signal of what would later happen on the cross?

We know from thousands of years of church history and theology that Jesus came to take upon Himself the penalty of our sin.  His death gave us access to God and the assurance that we will be embraced and restored by the Father.  Is the story of our first mother and father a history lesson to teach us how we need to seek the embrace of the Father?  We know the story of the prodigal is clear in its message of total and complete forgiveness for every offence.  Just as the older brother in that story shows us how easily we can be deceived by believing all we need to do is to follow the law.   Did you ever notice that the older brother’s description of all he did for the father was no different than completing the duties of a ‘slave.”

God is fs offering us more than we imagine because we concentrate on our “nakedness which is revealed every time we sin.  What we do with that nakedness is critical to our relationship with God. Do we seek forgiveness knowing it is offered without any preconditions?  God’s forgiveness is a free flowing fountain of grace, washing us clean and clothing us in “righteousness.” We cannot lose God’s grace, but we can certainly feel it can be withheld because our sin. 

What we need is to understand what God has made clear and Jesus has shown us.  God wants our hearts not our blind obedience to laws or because of some perceived acceptable behavior we must have before God.  We can always stand before God, naked just as the woman caught in adultery stood before Jesus. We cannot hide because God sees the sin and the root cause of our sin while at the same time, He is offering to clothe us.   We need to stop hiding and start seeking to discover our own identity as God’s delight. 

God is always waiting for us to come to our senses and stop hiding our nakedness, stop hiding in the garden while avoiding contact with God.  We are all too often “Martha’s” busy doing things for God instead of sitting at the feet of Jesus and allowing the grace of His sacrifice to wash us and cleanse us of our sinfulness. God promised to change us. All we must do is to stop covering up our failures with acts of piety and allow the Spirit to change our hearts.