CHAPTER 1
Eve
Eve should speak like an old woman of wisdom and a great deal of humor—please,don't forget the humor! She is a storyteller with an immense store of knowledgeand understanding. Please pay attention to the rhythm of the words. Do not rush.
It is no longer possible to remember how long it's been since we left theGarden—yes, well, as one of my great, great, great grandchildren reminds me—sincewe were told to leave the Garden. They ask me if I remember it. Of courseI do. "Gardens are lovely," I tell them, "but we cannot live in them forever."(At my age, you can say anything and get away with it.) The children, so many Icannot count them, laugh uneasily. They sense that I have asked them here for apurpose. I have called them to draw close to me and they have gathered from nearand far to hear my secret. I have been mulling over this for a long, long while.Here it is.
My Children, know this:
First, I have not minded so much leaving the Garden because God, blessed be hisholy name, has never abandoned us. We may no longer have that sweet firstcontact, but we have been aware of the Holy Presence throughout this long time.God has never abandoned us.
Second, I know the stories that are being told among you; I hear them. You havesome of it right and some of it so wrong it makes me laugh. But it does notmatter. What does matter is that you understand this one great truth I havelearned in my life: having knowledge, even at the expense of leaving the Garden,has been worth it. For it is through this great gift of knowledge that I haveunderstood something of the Creator's power—yes, even the Creator's love. Out ofwhat seemed punishment, came a great good; out of physical pain, all of you haveemerged. The pain has been forgotten while the pleasure of your presenceendures. Adam and I have known joy—how would we have tasted it had we not knownits opposite, sorrow? And we have seen how darkness is dispelled when lightarrives, night and day, after night and day. We never tire of it.
This is the secret: Out of you, maybe tomorrow, or maybe eons hence, God'spromised fulfillment will arrive. You will not be left orphaned and abandoned.God created us in love. God will save us with love. Trust me and go in peace.Now that I have told you, I too am ready to leave this earth, this garden.
The Carols
Anthems
"As truly as God is our Mother," William Mathias (Oxford University Press)
"Adam lay ybounden," Boris Ord (Oxford University Press)
"Adam lay ybounden," (unison) Peter Warlock (Oxford University Press)
"When long before time," David Cherwien (Concordia)
Hymns
"A Song of True Motherhood," Enriching Our Music 2 (Church Publishing, pp. 177,178)
"Of the Father's love begotten," The Hymnal 1982 (The Church Hymnal Corporation,#82)
A Meditation on Eve: Who Was She?
The man called his wife's name Eve,because she was the mother of all living.
(Genesis 2:20)
One must see the man's naming of the woman as an act of faith, ... anembracing of life which as a great miracle and mystery is maintained and carriedby the motherhood of woman over hardship and death.... Who can express thepain, love, and defiance contained in these words?
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Let's face it. She is one of the most verbally abused persons in the Bible. Menhave blamed her for everything that has gone wrong in humanity's long historyand women have apologized for her. I wrote Eve's monologue originally for achurch in the United Methodist tradition. The woman who commissioned me to writeit was shocked at my interpretation of humanity's foremother. When I asked herto examine the reasons for her reaction, she said, "I wanted Eve to be sad, tobe repentant." Both of us were emotional over the issue. I was upset by herstatement, which seemed utterly unfair toward the person of Eve. She wasdistressed by what I had written.
Obviously, even women disagree on their understanding of this first-named woman:some see the Genesis story as a magnificent, compact, theological retelling ofGod's act of the creation of the world and of human life, others see it as thehistoric account of a specific man and woman created, together with theuniverse, during a specific period of time. Yet those who cling to a literalinterpretation miss the point. I have observed in many years of reading andlistening that the most passionate defenders of this viewpoint often don't seemto know just what the Hebrew Bible says. I've realized—after countlessconversations with believers and non-believers—that those who argue mostvociferously have learned their position through the words of others, notthrough their own reading and study of Scripture. The more literary areinfluenced by John Milton's poetic retelling of the creation story in ParadiseLost, while others grasp on to the words of their preachers or, worse, theirpoliticians.
Two Writers; Two Creation Stories
We cannot speak of the Creation or of Eve without looking at what biblicalscholars have told us about the story. Recent scholars have concluded thatGenesis 1—the Creation of the world—was written by a masterful writer who hascome to be known as the Priestly writer, or as we shall call him, P. Gerhard vonRad writes of this first chapter: "Nothing is here by chance; everything must beconsidered carefully, deliberately and precisely." He calls this chapter thePriestly writer's "doctrine."
The second Creation story, Genesis 2:4b–25, von Rad calls "the Yahwistic storyof Paradise," and its writer, scholars agree, is very different from P; he hascome to be known as the Yahwist, or J, for the German Jahweh. Understanding thedifference between the two versions helps us to see the story—and Eve—in a newway. So let's look at the biblical accounts.
First, let's remember that translations often are not accurate. Manymisunderstandings have resulted from the difficulty of rendering Hebrew words—whichcontain no vowels—into another language. Take, for example, the Hebrewwords adam, which means "of the earth," and adamah, which means "the earth," or"dust of the ground." Both words are impossible to translate exactly intoEnglish. Translating from Greek into English has been problematic, too. Usingthe earliest Greek version of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint, sometranslators have rendered the Greek word anthropos, which means "human being"and applies to both genders, as man. But Greek, like Hebrew, has entirelydifferent words for man and woman: aner and gyne. So to say that God created manis to mistranslate the word and misunderstand the story.
Here's what Genesis 1:26a has to say: "Let us make a human being in our image,according to our likeness. It doesn't say, "Let us make man in our image ..."as the King James Version declares. A modern translation, the New RevisedStandard Version, corrects that mistake by translating it as "Let us makehumankind in our image and in our likeness."
Let's look a littler farther on, in verse 27: "And God created adam/anthropon,in the image of God, he created him; male and female he created them." Thechange from the singular pronoun him to the plural them poses a puzzlingproblem. But one thing is clear. The writer declares that male and female humanbeings were created at the same time—not man first and later woman.
Second, let's separate the first creation story in Genesis from the second one.Confusion happens when the two creation stories—the first from chapter 1 and thesecond from chapter 2—are conflated. It is this second story that most peoplethink of when they speak of the creation of Adam and Eve, and it is the firststory that they think of when they speak of the creation of the earth and thesea and all that is within them. Most people don't realize that they are twodifferent stories written at different times by very different interpreters ofthe oral and written traditions. In this second story, man and woman are notcreated on the sixth day but adam/anthropos is created first, before all else.God makes adam/anthropos out of the earth and blows life into him. Then all theplants and living creatures are created to keep adam company and give himnourishment. Finally, woman is created so that man will not be alone: "And theLord God said, 'it is not good for anthropon to be alone; I will make for him ahelper just like him'" (Genesis 2:18). The NRSV writes of the "helper aspartner," while the Authorized Version writes of man and the helper, help meet(something that doesn't mean much to modern ears). I find the Greek—like him—muchmore persuasive with its sug-gestion of equality and mutuality.
It is in this second story that the Garden of Eden is described. It is here thatAdam alone is told "from the wood of the knowledge of good and evil you will noteat." But when Eve eats of the fruit and then offers it to Adam and he eats, hedoes not remind her of the injunction against eating it. So on whom does theblame fall? The decision is made by both of them. The word sin is nevermentioned.
Looking carefully at what the story of Genesis really says shows the harm thathas been done to women as a result of misreading, mistranslating, andmisinterpreting the first two chapters. When we consider the abuse heaped onwomen in the past and the suffering of women in so many parts of the worldtoday, we realize with a shudder that this is very serious—and enlightening—indeed.
Two Expressions of Eve
Though I don't consider Eve to be a specific, historic woman but All-Woman, Istill thrill at the expression "daughter of Eve," which I first encountered inthe writings of C. S. Lewis. As Eve is an expression of God's creation, of God'sunderstanding of our need for companionship and love and procreation, I findmyself a grateful part of this created order when I hear the expression"daughter of Eve."
The other expression that has caused me hours and hours of thinking andgratitude are these words from Genesis 1:26: "Let us make anthropon in our imageof God, in our likeness," which I take to mean the hosts of heaven that surroundthe Creator God. I remember vividly the moment this understanding came to me. Iwas still very young, teaching a creative writing class to high school seniors,and I said without forethought—as if it came to me like an epiphany: "This iswhy we write, we paint, we sculpt, we compose music—we are created in the imageof God; we are given the gift of creativity. God started it, Eve continued it bygiving birth, and here we are millennia later giving thanks for this gift."Years later I was delighted to find confirmation in Carol Meyers' interpretationof Genesis 4:1–2a, "where Eve is said to have 'created a man together with theLord.' "
Thanksgiving to Eve and for Eve
Eve, you are woman,wife and mother.Above all, you are mother.In you, mother Eve,we honor mothers, we honor women.We thank your Creator who made you equalwith man and gave you the gift of birth and nurture.You worked hard beside the man tilling the soilbut you struggled even harder giving birth.Love helps you forget the pangs of birthing.Love urges you on to offer food, to give nourishmentto those who come near you,to give knowledge to thosewho seek it.
Creator of Adam and Eve, we thank you for Eden—for the cool, green earth, for the beasts of the field andforest,for the winged creatures that lift our hearts with joy bytheirsoaring flight and their song ...For the sounds of water, the rivers that flow, the seawith its rich surprising life;for all that forms our paradise, we thank you.For the gift of the tree of knowledge and theawe that fills us when we understand what is goodand can choose the difference from evil.
God of the universe, of Eden, of this good earth,of our forefather Adam and foremother Eve,We offer our thanks.
CHAPTER 2
Abraham
Abraham is very old and utterly resigned. His life has been lived with all itstriumphs and tragedies and mistakes, but this one event remains the most vividin his mind, and in talking about it he finds an answer that satisfies him.Still, the memory remains truly terrible. The voice should be that of an oldman, rather gravelly, sad, but, at the same time, full of hope.
Sarah says I've lost my mind. She says that this is not how our God deals withus. "Just because we are surrounded by fools who think their gods are afterblood, you think our God is the same," she yells at me. It's easy for her totalk about this now, when Isaac is alive and safe, his hand firmly clasped inhers. I don't think she'll ever let him go. I don't think she'll ever trust mewith him again.
My son. God's promise. The child of my old age. My hope and my terror. I was sosure it was God's voice I heard telling me to take him to the hills that I didnot hesitate, though my heart bled. I didn't say anything to Sarah; she wouldhave killed me with her bare hands had she known. My son and I traveled forthree days and Isaac, sweet and obedient as was his nature, didn't ask questionsuntil the very end. "We have everything we need for sacrifice, except for theanimal, Father. Where is the animal for the sacrifice?" And I, unable to lie tohim, said, "The Lord will provide."
The Lord did provide. I keep asking myself: Would I have done it? Could I havedone it? Killed my own child? All the neighboring tribes do this—they sacrificetheir firstborn to honor their gods. How could I do less than the pagans? Do Ilove Yahweh less than they love their gods? Is this what I was thinking? I nolonger know. But Sarah is sure she knows. She thinks I feel so guilty aboutabandoning Ishmael, my other son, my true firstborn, that I felt compelled tosacrifice Isaac. Sarah has no patience when it comes to Ishmael and his mother,Hagar. Maybe she's right. I have never stopped thinking of them. I have neverforgiven myself.
But my God has forgiven me—this I know. Isaac has forgiven me. I had tied him ontop of the sticks of wood, on a frame I built while my hands shook and my eyespoured out their tears, and he only looked at me as if to say, Even now I trustyou, Father. This is what I was saying in my mind also: Even now I trust you,Yahweh. And it was then that the angel of the Lord stopped my hand fromcommitting the crime. Sarah scoffs: "It was fear of what I would do to you thatstopped you, you foolish old man," she says, but her voice trembles with theimagined horror of it all.
So I have to ask myself, Whose voice was it I heard? How can God make promisesif God intends to take them back? I am beginning to wonder what it is that wemen call the voice of God. Now, when my life is nearly spent, I am sure only ofthose true moments when the call of God to me was clear, beyond all doubt. Thatmoment when God called me out of Haran, and I obeyed. And later, in thedarkness, out of my deep sleep, when God's promise came to me that mydescendants would be blessed, that they would know God. This I have believed andthis is the God I have obeyed. No matter what Sarah says, what will beremembered about me is that I believed in God's promise even when nothing aroundme gave any proof that the promise would be fulfilled, even when the fulfillmentof the promise was demanded and almost snatched from me. Even then I trustedYahweh. Even then I trusted Yahweh.
The Carols
Anthems
"God's Promise," Samuel Adler (Oxford University Press) (SSA)
"In dulci jubilo," 14th-century German, arr. R. L. dePearsall, ed. R. Jacques(Oxford University Press)
Hymns
"The Song of Zechariah," Wonder, Love, and Praise, #889, #890
"Sing, O sing, this blessed morn," The Hymnal 1982, #88
A Meditation on Abraham:The Terrible Sacrifice
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And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your namegreat, so that you will be a blessing. (Genesis 12:2)
The promise given to Abraham has significance, however, beyond Abraham and hisseed. God now brings salvation and judgment into history ... a source ofuniversal blessing.
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Being painfully familiar with the plight of the Palestinians and the historicagonies of the Jews makes me enter the Abrahamic realm with fear and trembling.At a time of war in Iraq and terror in the Middle East and elsewhere, I am awareof the claims the three major monotheistic religions make on the person ofAbraham. My father, who taught me so much about faith, adored Abraham for histrust in and obedience to the Lord, but I have found Abraham a difficult man tolike. Yet, I am grateful that the stories and sagas about him are brutallyhonest, so that he appears to us with all the weaknesses of humanity despite hisgiant status as the father of the religions that claim him.
I will set aside the question of historical accuracy. Some of the stories aresagas and a few concerning Abraham have the whiff of legend about them, but theyreveal the essential truth proclaimed by the ancient Hebrews that God actsthrough and in history, that he is a God of promises, and that Abraham was a manof obedience. I grew up with the stories of Abraham and all of Genesis andExodus. My father read biblical stories to us every night of our childhood yearsand they became part of me as the Greek myths were part of me from a forgottendawn of awareness. Abraham and Sarah were part of our faith story, so it isdifficult now to remember a time when they did not matter.
When my father told us the Old Testament stories, he did not leave any of thehard parts out. Questions were inevitable and he always tried to answer them.What I came to regard as "the easy answer" was this: God has his reasons. Whatwe don't understand now, we will one day. As a child I believed this, but thatdoesn't mean that I gave up on the questions. What I could not forgive, however,no matter how it was explained to me, was the call for the sacrifice of Isaac.It angered me and saddened me, and my brother still teases me that Dad had tostop his reading because I dissolved into tears, and he could not continue toupset me. The stories of the sacrifice of Isaac and of Joseph's abuse by hisbrothers were so painful that I still remember running away to another room inorder not to hear them.
