Genesis 2.4b-9, 15-21
4b At the time when YHWH made the heavens and the earth, 5there was still no wild bush on the earth nor had any wild plant sprung up, for YHWH had not yet sent rain to the earth, and there was no human being to till the soil; 6Instead, a flow of water would well up from the ground and irrigate the soil.7So YHWH fashioned an earth creature out of the clay of the earth, and blew into its nostrils the breath of life, And the earth creature became a living being. 8YHWH planted a garden to the east, in Eden – “Land of Pleasure” – and placed in it the creature that had been made. Then YHWH caused every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, to spring from the soil. In the center of the garden was the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

15Then YHWH took the earth creature and settled it in the garden of Eden so that it might cultivate and care for the land. 16YHWH commanded the earth creature, “You may eat as much as you like from any of the trees of the garden – 17except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You must not eat from that tree, for on the day you eat from that tree, that is the day you will die.” 18 Then YHWH said, “It is not good for the earth creature to be alone. I will make a fitting companion for it.” 19So from the soil YHWH formed all the various wild beasts and all the birds of the air, and brought them to the earth creature to be named. Whatever the earth creature called each one, that became its name. 20The earth creature gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals. But none of them proved to be a fitting companion, 21So YHWH made the earth creature fall into a deep sleep, and while it slept, God divided the earth creature in two, then closed up the flesh from its side.
*translation from The Inclusive Bible

On November 22, 1970, Elizabeth Platz was ordained in the Lutheran Church in America, making her the first woman of European descent to be ordained in a Lutheran Church body in North America. Exactly a month later, Barbara L. Andrews was ordained in the American Lutheran Church (I know, we’ve always been good at distinctive names). She was the first woman of European descent with a disability to be ordained in the United States. On March 4, 1979, Lydia Rivera Kalb became the first latina woman ordained in a Lutheran Church in the United States. Later that year, Earlean Miller became the first woman of African descent ordained in a Lutheran Church in the United States. July 1, 1982 - Asha George-Guiser became the first woman of Asian descent ordained in a Lutheran Church in the United States. July 19, 1987 - Marlene Whiterabbit Helgemo becomes the first American Indian woman ordained in a Lutheran Church in the United States. January 22, 1990 - Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart are the first openly lesbian women to be ordained in a Lutheran church body in the United States and because of national church policy prohibiting such relationship their congregation was suspended and ultimately expelled. These women were formally welcomed back to the ELCA in 2010, after the people called church changed those policies at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly to acknowledge the calling of clergy in same-gendered relationships. This year we celebrate 50-40-10, the anniversaries of ordaining women, women of color, and LGBTQ people in relationships as Pastors, bearers of God’s goodness

These are our elders of faith, our own She-roes, as they shaped and became what we embody now, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (I know, we’ve come a long way in the naming department). This is our story. This is where we come from. These are our origins, our genesis. And before them, there were others. And before that, still more:

Women of faith beyond any single timeframe or tradition, reflecting and participating in God’s creative goodness.
Women like those named in our invocation tonight and those we will name in the weeks to come.
Women who know God’s voice and blessing from the beginning.

Our origin stories always take on a bit of that “larger than life” quality. It’s part history, part narrative, part mythical epic. It’s the story of how Disney, Google, HP, Amazon, and Apple were all founded in garages. Perhaps it’s the truth but maybe not the whole truth, or the truth packaged in a particular way so that it points to an even larger truth.

Frederick Buechner wrote, “The raw material of a myth, like the raw material of a dream, may be something that actually happened once. But myths, like dreams, do not tell us much about that kind of actuality. The creation of Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, Oedipus- they do not tell us primarily about events. They tell us about ourselves. In popular usage, a myth has come to mean a story that is not true. Historically speaking, that may well be so. Humanly speaking, a myth is a story that is always true.”

How we imagine and understand our origins shapes everything that comes after.

The creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2 are categorically myths and yet also true in the ways they reveal the nature of ourselves and God from the beginning and even unto the end. These stories are not even entirely unique as they follow similar patterns of existing Sumerian and Babylonion creation myths, and yet also distinctive enough to make a different sort of claim about the world, humanity, and our relationship to the divine. In fact, the similarities serve to highlight the significance of these shifts. These other stories mirror the poetic rhythm of creating land and sky and water, moon and sun, growth and animals. When it comes to humanity...we come from the same stuff, from soil and mud. But in these other stories the creation of humankind comes as a product of violence and animosity; humanity comes from a motive of narrow control rather than care.

In Genesis, we are defined by and dwell in a nature of integration, goodness, and wideness. Humanity is established with a deep connection to the earth as it becomes the very stuff of our being. Some bible translations present verse 7 as “the LORD God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” The word translated as “man” is actually the Hebrew word adam which is a play off of adamah, which means earth. “Adam” is not a proper noun (in fact, it isn’t even translated this way until halfway through chapter 3 after a little incident with a fruit tree), it’s a generic word which literally translates as earthling, one who is made of the dirt and dust. In the beginning, there is no gender that precedes another. Humankind is created together, full of capacity for all things. Our very being is drawn from the rich dark soil from which new life and possibility emerges.

Our calling, our place, our purpose is to cultivate and care for the land, not conquer and control it. Our very being points to the connectedness of creation rather than its subjugation. This sense of cultivation evokes our work, our purpose, not as a means of production but as service, in service to the well-being of what the earth and all of creation was created to be. God plants a garden of plenty, pleasure, delight, and diversity where we are made to dwell. Whereas other stories use humankind as an inferior shell to serve divine interests, as cogs in the machine or pawns in a cosmic political game, the LORD God invites our whole being to share in the ongoing work of creation, to tend and till, to name and give meaning. This divine power is expansive in its inclusion, obscenely generous in its abundance, but also grounded in its responsibility to all else.

The culmination of this connected and integral creation is true companionship. What makes a fitting companion? The animals are made of the same stuff as the earth creature, but they do not have that “shared with” quality that creates companionship. Some translations render this as “a helper.” It is no insult nor insinuation of inferiority, that’s our baggage that we bring to the text. This same helper/companion word is used to describe God’s very self as in Psalm 121: “from where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD.” Likewise, from one becomes two - and God’s track record of an ever-expanding welcome continues. As the story sometimes goes, God pulls out a rib and creates a second earth creature. But again, the Hebrew word there is different from what this translation suggests. The actual word is “side”, tsela, which is used again throughout Exodus to speak of the sides of the ark of the covenant, the sides of the holy altar, of the tabernacle sides - the holy dwelling places of God. And so this creature who is made side from side is not a lesser portion, but a complete and holy rendering. God creates the newly- expanded whole of humanity to literally stand side by side. Just as God does with fish and loaves of bread, when God divides it does not diminish. Only after this expansion are gendered words of man and woman, ish and isha, used simultaneously for humankind. Perhaps, then, they point less to separation or hierarchy and more to relationship and sharedness.

This understanding of our origins shapes how we understand ourselves, our world, and our God and undoes the patriarchal interpretations that have tinted our view of scripture and the church for generations. For just a moment, before the blame and heteronormativity, and racism slither in, we find our origin is one not of sin, but of blessing.

But we can not hear this story without also wrestling with what comes after it. Even in the garden, the spectre of death and destruction sits right in the middle of everything. Right in the midst of everything else...YHWH commanded the earth creature, “You may eat as much as you like from any of the trees of the garden – 17except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You must not eat from that tree, for on the day you eat from that tree, that is the day you will die.” We know that in Chapter 3, both earth creatures do exactly that. The first thing that happens is that they realize they are naked and determine that their nakedness is not to be seen and so they go to cover themselves, to hide part of themselves from one another. Then, they hide themselves from God. Then, they turn to blame. Shame, blame, and hurt...the byproducts of loss, of grief, the response to death which comes in many forms. If we didn’t know that God said death would follow, we would know there had been a kind of death by this trail it leaves. We grieve at physical death but also the death of connection, the death of clarity, and the death of trust - the losses which cause us to question the abundance and connection of creation. Is there really enough? Is this good enough?

Tradition has pointed to this moment as the origin of sin and it too is an origin story that claims to shape who and how we are as those who can sit as judge of good and evil. The serpent uses God’s own words, but then adds something that is not there. It twists the truth into something that serves subjugation and scarcity rather than the connectedness and abundance that we see God proclaim in creation. It is evident in art and literature as the woman is predominantly depicted with a snake wrapped around her like she’s Lord Voldemort. It is perpetuated in centuries of theology that insert bias into the text to cast her as seductress in ways that feed the poisoned fruit of sexism into the church and the world. It is found in the ways faithful people have laid their baggage on scripture to make woman second-best in order to silence and exclude.

In Genesis, chapter 3, God gives voice to the many difficulties that will come from this broken relationship culminating in the reminder that “you are dust and to dust you will return.” And when the dust settles, the woman is named “Eve.” Now here’s the last language lesson of the night. Eve is an english translation of the Latin name Eva, which comes from the Hebrew name Chavah which comes from the root of chayim, which means “life.” Death is a part of life, but it’s not where the story ends. It’s easy to get stuck in that haunting middle, and sometimes it seems like that’s all there is, but there is more beyond it. In our story of origin, life persists even beyond death. The beginning points us toward a different kind of end. The first book of the Bible speaks to the last as Revelation proclaims that God’s creative work continues into a new heaven and a new earth. Death and mourning and pain will be no more and in its place at the center is a new garden amidst a new city - which gives only life to all people. It’s own mythic poetry reveals a creation and humanity that are not only restored, but resurrected, built again, created anew. Even the incredible connectedness and care of the beginning is dwarfed by what is to come.

This is where we come from and where we are going. THIS is the story of our people. The Word of God. Amen.

SHEroes of Faith: Reclaiming Eve