advent week three
the fig leaf
advent week three
genesis 3:7-13
i’m going to cheat here a little. instead of reflecting on one of the week three readings, i’m going back to the fig leaf in genesis 3.
immediately after adam and eve eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they knew they were naked - and they covered themselves. nothing physically changed, they had been naked the whole time. naked and unashamed. naked and fully known. in fact, the idea of nakedness didn’t have meaning because naked is just how they existed.
what changed is not reality, but their relationship to it, their understanding of it.
the fig leaf was a solution to a perceived problem. adam and eve crossed a boundary, and even before attempting to negotiate repairs to the relationship with god, they took matters into their own hands.
the fig leaf is a covering. they realize they are naked, they feel vulnerable, they are afraid. so they react by hiding, isolating, and making assumptions about how god will react. they take matters into their own hands. they act unilaterally and without consideration of the other party in the relationship.
today, many christians call this “original sin.” but the word sin does not appear in this part of the story. what adam and eve do here is not named as sin.
i absolutely hate the idea of sin. sin has been used for thousands of years to elevate one set of rules for behavior over another. the idea of sin is for powerful people, and it keeps them in power above folks who “sin” against the set of rules that belongs to the powerful people.
so how about we reframe the conversation. the idea of sin comes from relationship, originally (in this context) attributed to the relationship between god and humanity. we like to convince ourselves that relationships follow predictable patterns and have rules for how people should behave in them. perhaps that’s why so much stake was placed in the law of the Torah. humanity realized the relationship with god had changed, but they didn’t know how to reconnect. having a set a rules to follow, something straightforward and specific, should make things easier, right? but people are nuanced and storied in a way that cannot be predicted. every person is different, every relationship is different.
if people are nuanced and hard to predict, how much more is god, the divine, the infinite, the incomprehensible?
sin is an attempt to make the unpredictable predictable, to control, to exert power. it is a construct, it is not universal law. if we must hold onto the idea of sin (which I actually think we don't need to do), let's think of it differently.
relationships are a constant negotiation of connection. it is a dance of moving towards and away from others as our circumstances, needs, and desires allow. if we conceptualize it this way, then “sin” can be thought of as a transgression of a boundary that a partner in relationship has set. most of the time, the transgression can be dealt with through repentance and renegotiation. but in order to do this healing work when a transgression happens, all parties need to be involved to find a solution that works for everyone, and according to god, involves both justice and mercy.
to bring this conceptualization back to the fig leaf, adam and eve did not include god in the solution they found to the transgression of boundaries. what they did changed the terms of the relationship, and instead of going to god to negotiate repair and reconciliation, they created a covering, something that moved them away from being fully known, seen, and loved by the divine.
they could not stand to remain naked and vulnerable - powerless - so they covered themselves.
