2020.03.01 | How Do You Know….Good and Evil
We kick off Lent, the season of reflection on “where we have gone wrong” and repentance, with a little review of the story of Adam & Eve from the Book of Genesis and “how they went wrong” and got themselves kicked out of the Garden of Eden. I say a little review because today’s reading is just a short excerpt of the longer story, which can be found in Chapters 2 & 3 of Genesis.
I’d like to start by drawing your attention to three key facts about this excerpt. First, Adam, and later, after she is created to help him, Eve, are placed in the Garden of Eden “to till it and keep it.” The underlying Hebrew words indicate that when God “placed,” Adam & Eve in the Garden, God intended for them to “rest, settle down, and remain” there, caring and serving it together.
Second, Adam is told and Eve later learns that they can eat freely of every tree except one. In fact, the story makes it quite clear that the Garden is lush with plants, animals, and every tree that is “pleasant to the sight and good for food.” There is no shortage of food for the couple but there is, however, one tree that the two should not eat from, and that is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The penalty for eating from this Tree is death, the couple is told by God.
Third, although she is very familiar with this modest restriction on their liberty, Eve is goaded into eating the fruit of the Tree by the crafty serpent, who claims she will not die but will instead be wise like God. She, and Adam who eats with her, find the tree pleasant, the fruit good eating, but eye-opening for they quickly come to the awareness that they are naked and in need of some fig-leaf clothes.
But the consequences for eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil are more dire than having to wear fig leaves. The good news is that they don’t die for their mistake, which is our first Biblical sign that God is a merciful God. But all three, the serpent, Eve, and Adam, are roundly told off by God, cursed with lowliness, hard labor, and labor pains. Adam and Eve are driven out of the Garden and prevented from returning because God foresees that knowing good and evil now, they might also try to eat the fruit from the Tree of Life and live forever.
This story has often been used to explain our original sin and our separation from God; more often I have thought it highlights that seeking experience and making mistakes in the process is a natural part of being a human, a characteristic that has defined us since Adam and Eve.
I have observed, as a mother and a pastor, that experience is how humans learn, particularly young children and teens. I distinctly remember telling my daughter when she was six or seven that she was free to use the kitchen to make snacks but not to use the sharp knives because she might cut herself. Quite shortly after that conversation, she had a big band aid on her index finger for well over a week, absolutely refusing to let me see it or tell me how she got hurt.
I was not unsympathetic to her experience because I also remembered that when I was her age I was told by my mother not to run with a toy arrow in my mouth and a week later, it was my dentist who mentioned to my mother that I had a wound in the back of my throat that looked infected.
And you’d be surprised how many children I’ve told not to climb up on the brick fireplace in the Church’s courtyard only to return and find them ready to catapult themselves on oh-so-soft concrete below.
The lesson we learn from these experiences, besides the practical lesson that children are irrational and dangerous objects when best out of reach, is that babies, children, and teens all learn from experience, which makes it critical that we the adults in their lives model the best way to respond to our own and the mistakes of others, which doesn’t come naturally if we were raised by parents who over-reacted to our errors. It’s remarkable how helpful it can be for a child to hear: “It’s okay, you didn’t know. Don’t worry, we can fix this. That was wrong, but now you know and I know you’ll try not to do it again.”
But it’s not just children who are experiential learners. Adults also will ignore common sense of directions to their own detriment and the detriment of others. You can see a lot of this driving, especially among those who have never had an accident. But it isn’t only bad drivers or young people: I recently heard a group of 60-somethings discussing which type of alcoholic drink gives them headaches, with each finally admitting they were unclear if it was the type or the quantity of the drink that did them in. We all know people of every generation who, against the advice of family, advice columnists, and other experts, have gotten involved with difficult people, missed out on schooling, taken the wrong job, spent too much money on restaurants, clothes and iphones, and/or used too many substances to distract and dull their pain.
It is not unusual in life to meet an adult who has made the same major mistake two or more times. Most of us, however, especially as we age, try to remember our painful lessons and exercise extreme caution when the circumstance arises again. If we are lucky or have spent some time in therapy, we have a little voice inside that says: “It’s okay, you didn’t know. Don’t worry, we can fix this. That was wrong, but now you know and I know you’ll try not to do it again.”
In fact, some say mistakes teach us about what works, how to take responsibility, and what we really value. If we conclude that making mistakes is a normal, natural, and “to be expected” part of growing up and being an adult, then we have to give Eve and Adam the benefit of the doubt: they were not bad people, they were just humans like you or me.
Where their story differs, however, is that the expert advice they are ignoring is from God, who appears to be not only their creator, but also their employer, their advocate, and their sole companion. Wait, you say, you had me at “their creator.”
We are so accustomed to the idea that humans learn by experience that we sometimes forget that there can be a larger moral imperative that commands our respect, one that is not only personified by our images and stories of God but also can sing loudly in our hearts and if we trust it enough, compels our action intuitively.
It might surprise you that a series of psychology studies have recently documented that babies as young as five or six months appear to understand the difference between right and wrong. Shown a video where one puppet attempts to climb a hill, while two other puppets either assist or hinder the climbing puppet, infants will later show a demonstrable preference for the puppet that helped over the puppet that tried to stop the climbing puppet. Inside their tiny brains, young but rapidly forming, the infants already recognize and respond to images of helping as positive and reject images of hurting.
And what is true for infants may also be true for adults. According to Scientific American, seven recent experiments, involving over 2,000 participants, suggest that our first impulses in many situations involving competing values are usually self-less and cooperative, rather selfish and self-interested. Interestingly, these self-less and cooperative impulses were much more likely to emerge if the individual acted quickly on their intuition rather than took time to reflect on what might be in their self-interest [1].
Think of Eve and how her first response to the crafty serpent was to restate what God had said. It is only with further reflection, prompted by the serpent’s arguments, that Eve changed her mind and ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Most of us walk around with the idea that our first impulse is highly likely to be a bad one; in fact, the very word “impulsive” has a bad rap because it implies that all quick and intuitive responses are wrong or immoral. What if your first impulse – to help, to give, to love – was the correct response?
Last September, there was rather extensive media coverage of a young ICU nurse in Wisconsin who donated part of her liver to an 8-year old boy experiencing liver failure. Her description of why she chose to make a rare and difficult living donation to a boy she didn’t know boiled down to some pretty strong intuition that it was the right thing to do and that she was the one to do it. Both operations were successful; the two met for the first time about two weeks after the transplant, and have gone on to be like family to one another [2].
As people in Bible Study and Seekers know, because I’ve mentioned it more than a few times, it seems to me that the most mysterious and miraculous work of God is accomplished not up here between our ears when we hear God’s commands but deep within each of our souls, even when our hearts are frozen in fear or doubt. God has the capacity to call us in many, many ways and I believe each heart has the capacity to hear their unique call and a strong impulse to respond.
To recap, we humans make mistakes. We also learn from them; sometimes we learn good things but often we learn to be very cautious and self-protective. We sometimes learn to do bad things and with enough trauma, our impulses become bad. But inherently, we all start with good hearts and the ability to hear God’s call, and we can be, just like that, all about doing good and preventing harm.
My friends, this season of Lent is a time to reflect on your humanity and your mistakes. It may be time for you to hear your voice say to you: “It’s okay, you didn’t know. Don’t worry, we can fix this. That was wrong, but now you know and I know you’ll try not to do it again.”
And truly believing that, take the time to listen prayerfully to the many ways God is calling you and to retrain yourself to act impulsively in love, caring and serving for this Garden of Eden that God has given us. I pray you will be glad for the experience life gives you. Amen.
Footnotes:
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-probe-human-nature-and-discover-we-are-good-after-all/
[2] https://nypost.com/2019/09/08/icu-nurse-donates-part-of-liver-to-save-8-year-old-wisconsin-boys-life/