 | The New England Church PulpitNew England Congregational Church UCC |
LIVING OUTSIDE EDEN | Genesis 2.1-7 | February 17, 2002 |
It is a story about the Creator and the created, our choices and consequences. But it tells us more than how we fail--it tells us more importantly how we survive. Adam and Eve did not die at the end, Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us. They went on. They survived outside Eden. There are times they wished they could die; it seemed easier. But they were the original survivors, the quintessential real-life myth that makes for good television these days.
We can't go back to Eden, we must journey forward outside Eden. This side of utopia is fraught with pain and disappointment, evil and fear and the question is how do we survive? How do we survive the death of a child snatched too soon from our family? How do we survive the devastating flood or financial debt or depression or divorce or loneliness? One way is to find someone to blame for what has happened to you; that way you get to be angry instead of hurt, and you can play the role of victim. Adam blames God and then Eve, Eve blames the snake. It is tempting to be a victim, to seek sympathy from those around you for the unspeakable tragedy that has unjustifiably visited you. But temptations are only the dark side of our best intentions of wanting to survive outside a perfect world. There's a better way.
Benjamin and Rosamund Zander, in their book The Art of Possibility, talk about being the board in the game of life. Imagine a chess game. You can be one of the pieces of the game--a knight, the queen, or a pawn. You have a goal of defeating the enemy and winning the game. Or you might see yourself as the player who moves the pieces around with strategies and goals and a game plan. But the Zanders suggest that a better way to play the game is to see yourself as the board. Here you can transform your experience of any unwanted condition into one with which you care to live. You as the board make room for all the moves, for the capture of the knight AND the sacrifice of the bishop, for the good things that happen to you AS WELL AS the bad things that happen to you.
They illustrate with a story. A woman waits peacefully in her car at a red light; another barrels up behind and smashes into her. The driver of the second car, it turns out, is intoxicated and unlicensed. Who is at fault? According to the law, there is no doubt. But the driver of the first car, even from her hospital bed, can be the board of her own game. Instead of casting blame on another and thereby increasing her own misery and status as victim, she reframes the picture: driving is a hazardous business. Every time I step into a car I am at risk. While usually I can count on other drivers to be awake and drive responsibly, there is always the chance that one of them may fall asleep, drink too much alcohol, have a sudden seizure, or simply be young, angry, and feeling reckless. When I drive, I take that statistical risk: I own that what happens on the road happens in my sphere of consciousness and choice.
We may rightfully decide to prosecute so the drunk driver gets his due. We may receive the sympathy and the flowers we get in the hospital, for a time. But when we frame what we do in the context of the risks of living outside Eden, we do all of this more gracefully and with less angst to ourselves. Being angry and getting even may be an appropriate response at times, but it usually hurts me more than it does the person I’m out to get and it can begin to possess me. If my only tool is a hammer then everything begins to look like a nail. When we see ourselves as the board we can include within the rules of the game the possibility of bad things happening to good people. It is a part of living outside of paradise.
There is a wonderful Zen parable about a man walking across a field who encountered a tiger. He fled, with the tiger chasing him. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above, and then went below the cliff to eat the man when he fell. Two mice began to gnaw at the vine. But then the man saw a luscious strawberry near him. With one hand on the vine, he plucked the strawberry with the other. O how sweet it tasted!
For the western mind, such a story is frustrating and to some even stupid. What happened to the man? Did he escape? Did the lion get him? Who cares about how good a strawberry tastes when life is hanging in the balance? Do you see by your response how much we want to be the pieces on the chess board or the mastermind who makes the moves? Jesus pointed out the beauty of being the board: look at the lilies of the field: they don’t worry about tomorrow, they just radiate beauty today. Look at the birds of the air: they don’t worry about where they’ll have lunch or how they’ll pay for it. They just simply let the wind carry them on the wing of a song for the world to hear. We humans want guarantees; we want neat endings; we want dreams fulfilled and to know the purpose of life; we want to live in a perfect world. What we are given are strawberries.
There are tigers that destroy our dreams every day; we found that poignantly true on Sept 11. There are mice that threaten our hope. But there are also strawberries just ripe for the picking. The delicious moment of a child’s smile; the beautiful hour you enjoy with a friend, a lover, a partner, a spouse; the memories of wonderful times you had with someone who is now gone. It might be the strawberry of a good book, or a movie or getting a nice warm hug from your son or seeing your daughter score the winning point of the game. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are all hanging from that vine over the cliff. The mice of terrorism and cancer and a myriad other things are always gnawing at the thread that holds us to life, and the tiger of death is ever on the prowl, for we know not the day or the hour we will leave this world for another.
But there are strawberries for today. Have you noticed them? Have you tasted them? Have you given thanks for them, or have you just complained that life hasn’t turned out the way you had hoped and blamed someone else for it? There is a wonderful line in the movie Harry Potter: it does not do to dwell on dreams and thereby miss out on life. And you own the board on which the game is played. Will it include all the possibilities of life, the good as well as the bad?
Wise men regard all beings
as equal: a learned priest,
a cow, an elephant, a rat,
or a filthy, rat-eating outcaste.
Freed from the endless cycle
of birth and death, they can act
impartially toward all beings,
since to them all beings are the same.
They do not rejoice in good fortune;
they do not lament at bad fortune;
lucid, with minds unshaken,
they remain within what is real.
A man unattached to sensations,
who finds fulfillment in the Self,
whose mind has become pure freedom,
attains an imperishable joy.
Pleasure from external objects
are wombs of suffering...
They have their beginnings and their ends;
no wise man seeks joy among them.
He who finds peace and joy
and radiance within himself--
that man becomes one with God
and vanishes into God's bliss.
(Bhagavad Gita 5.18-24)
Amen
–Gary L. McCann
(Thanks to Barbara Brown Taylor for her thoughts in her sermon ‘Surviving Eden’ in Lectionary Homiletics, Vol XIII, No. 3 and to Rosamund and Benjamin Zander for their ideas in The Art of Possibility (Harvard Business School Press).
PASTORAL PRAYER
God of the day and God of the night, in this place we are bathed in stained-glass light and delicious melody after the dark hours of dreaming and sleeping. We have walked many different roads this week which now converge upon the altar of faith; our journey has taken us through the landscapes of joy and sorrow, longing and discovering, fear and delight along a road of unknowing. Just a week ago we were celebrating Mardi Gras, our spirits alive with the rhythms of dixieland and monks whose mad melody lifted the weight from our shoulders for a brief time. Today we sing a different tune that empowers us through whatever Good Friday darkness we will pass to immerse ourselves in the bright light of Easter's abundant hope.
We stand on the precipice of angst with new warnings of terrorist attacks. Yet people in Israel and Afghanistan must steel themselves to such violence every day. We look to olympic spotlights as a venue for worldwide peace, but even here we are betrayed by those who judge out of selfish and political interest. We invest in the strong arm of the powerful to quell terrorism, and diplomatic negotiators in their quest for peace, but these, too, fail to forge plowshares from swords or pruning hooks from spears. And as we dangle on the edge of the cliff, we realize so poignantly that control is an illusion and every day is an exercise in summoning hope amid the ashes of our dreams.
Enlarge our faith, that even in a world of desperation, we will be inspired by the still, small voice of your Calm. Be to us Hope that we may not only be hopeful but also inspire hope in others. Be to us Joy that we may be joyful in a world gone mad with violence. Be to us Peace that we may be peace makers in our homes, in our churches, in our communities, and in the world. As we evaluate our priorities this lenten season, be the plumb line by which we measure ourselves in this day of frantic pace and frenetic fretting.
Wing our prayers to the bedside of those who are ill, that they may be sustained by your presence and our concern. Be to those facing surgery, those facing nursing homes, those facing a lonely day, those facing death a face of serenity and confidence that you walk with them.
Give us this day all that we need to be creators of new life with you in the possibilities and the challenges of our time. In the name of the Christ, Amen.
| Copyright © 2002 by Gary L. McCann. All rights reserved. |