Open Eyes

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, September 12, 2010.  The text is Genesis 3:1-13; read it here.

I wonder if you’ve ever had the experience of seeing someone you haven’t seen in a while after they’ve been through someone really huge: death, illness, or some great sadness.  Something about their eyes has changed.  It’s as if their eyes have been opened, and with that opening, that unveiling, comes knowledge, wisdom, and often sadness. 

The story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, is a story about knowing things.  

Knowing things that God knows.  

Knowing the difference between good and evil.

I have a few memories from childhood of testing boundaries.  The first is of being given a time out in the bathroom and, in retaliation, unrolling the entire roll of toilet paper from its holder.  I was about three at the time, so I think it was seen as tantrum related, and I don’t so much remember the consequences. 

Then I have a memory from later -- I may have been around five years old -- of figuring out that the volume knob on the television set in my parents bedroom would stay at the same level after you turned the TV off.  And of having this sudden, powerful realization that I could play a trick.  I snuck into the bedroom when my Mom was downstairs, and turned the knob all the way up.  And then turned the television off.  And then waited. 

There wasn’t a huge pay off.  When my mom turned on the television that evening, the volume blasted on, and she jumped a little, and then turned it down.  “Now, I wonder who did that,” she said, and cast a look to me in the corner, and moved on to whatever else she was doing. 

I had expected to feel this great sense of victory in that moment, having played a trick on my Mom.  But victorious was not what I felt.  I felt shame.  And even fear. 

An important part of a every child’s development is individuating his or her self from the parent.  Coming to recognize that she is a separate person with an individual identity, and the ability to act on her own: to do what she wants to.  Figuring this out means testing boundaries and disobeying rules.  When I set that volume knob on high, I felt a great sense of power and control because was acting on my own in the world.  But when my trick played out, I was afraid.  Because to act on your own in the world is to realize that you’re on your own in the world.  Tasting that fruit, the fruit of independence, of individuation, meant becoming more and more like my parents, and at the same time, moving farther and farther away from them. 

The serpent says to Eve, “God knows that when you eat of the fruit of the tree, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.”  After they eat, they hear God walking in the garden and they hide because they’re afraid. 

Afraid, just as I was, because tasting that fruit makes them more and more like God each day, eyes opened wider and wider.  Seeing what God sees means knowledge, wisdom, understanding.  Eyes that are sadder and wiser too.  We can’t stay in the garden forever, just like we can’t be children forever.  But to leave it means recognizing the distance between ourselves and God; between the creator and the created.  And there’s grief and loss and fear in that experience. 

I spent the weekend in New Orleans, teaching a conference on singing at a church filled with some really good people.  Driving around the city, even in the short time I was there, talking with folks at the church, I could feel the memory of the storm.  There was a sense in that city, the whole city, of having seen something, having tasted a fruit that showed them much more than they ever wanted to know.  

Perhaps you’ve tasted that fruit in your life.  

Perhaps you long for the time before, before your eyes were so wide open.

Perhaps you sometimes wish that you were a little bit less like God.  

That you felt the difference between good and evil just a little less keenly. 

Perhaps you’re fearful of your own power, your ability to run far away from God and stay there. 

We live a life of open eyes.  

Of understanding and hard experience.  

Of knowledge we may wish we didn’t have. 

This story tries to answer a question, a question we’ve been asking for a long time, about why life is difficult.  About why we sustain pain.  About why we loose, why we grieve.  The story tries to imagine a time before all that, but it’s a place that can’t exist for long.  Like children, we need to reach out and take what’s not ours just yet.  It helps us discover who we are, and launches us into a life that’s about knowing, understanding, living with what’s real, and often painful. 

We run into a friend whose eyes are a little sadder, a little wiser, and know that they’ve tasted that fruit. 

But God is good, and life is good.

Our eyes are open and we see what God sees, 

and every so often we love like God loves.  

And every so often we live like Christ lived.  

We share the sermon at St. Lydia’s, and so I invite you to share a story from your experience that was brought up by the text or my words.