ENCOUNTER 1: IN A GARDEN
You are dust, and to dust you shall return.
[Gen 3:19, NRSV]
Pretty ominous words.
This is the conclusion to God’s curse or sentence after the first humans’ first sin. God tells the serpent it is cursed and can move only on its belly. He tells the woman childbirth will be painful and she will be ruled by her husband. And he tells the man he will work hard all his life for his food. And that he will die. And then God kicks the man and the woman out of the garden.
Many folks see this incident as the beginning of the story of salvation. The very brief version of this story is: humans sin against God and therefore are subject to punishment; but eventually God sends Jesus into our world, who takes the punishment on himself on the cross. Jesus’ resurrection is the sign that God accepts his death on our behalf.
This all sounds very transactional: God gave the humans an order. The humans did not do what God told them to do. So God punished the humans. Then somehow Jesus took on our punishment (paid our “debt”). So the transaction is complete and we are back in a relationship with God (“saved”).
But there are a couple of elements to this story in Genesis that often get overlooked.
First, God tells the serpent that one of the woman’s offspring will eventually defeat the serpent: he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel, [3:15]. Some folks interpret this as a prediction of the crucifixion (striking Jesus’ heel and his death) and resurrection (striking the serpent’s head and ending spiritual death). Why does God tell the humans the punishment is going to be temporary?
Second, God makes clothing for the man and the woman before he banishes them from the garden [3:21]. How does such a generous and underserved gift fit with the punishment for disobeying God?
Is God not clear on how things are supposed to work? Or is God following some rules but not others because he can? Or to confuse us? Or to “fix” something that we broke?
Let me suggest the answer is a couple of chapters before this incident — all the way back to: In the beginning when God created . . . [1:1]. Genesis describes God’s process of creation: first “the heavens and the earth,” then night and day, then sky and dry land, then plants and animals, and finally humans. And God saw that everything he created was “very good,” [1:31].
Creation is not transactional. It is the visible expression of God’s love. It is giving, not counting. It is — ultimately — good, very good.
Even as he tells the humans their life is going to drastically change, to be significantly more difficult, God gives them a preview of their future and of his ongoing support. Franciscan Father Richard Rohr calls this process “order-to-disorder-to-re-order.” It is the cycle of life in this creation, from the beauty of the garden to the chaos and uncertainty of life in the desert to the joyous celebration of reunion in the kingdom. (Some churches burn the palm branches from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebration to make the ashes for the current Ash Wednesday.)
It is also the cycle of Lent. God invites us to use these forty days (yes, I know the math doesn’t add up, but the church usually doesn’t count the Sundays), to reflect on the disorder — sin — in our lives. He encourages us to follow his spirit into our own “wilderness” and examine our decisions and actions that don’t include him, that don’t include our neighbors, that don’t love those who are different than us, that fail to show his love of his creation.
So we can accept the ashes on our forehead and the truth that we will return to the dust from which we were made with confidence in Jesus’ resurrection and his promise that he is always with us.