Pentecost+2/Proper 5B (Genesis 3:8-15)

Rephrasing a saying “Gossip dies when it hits a wise person’s ears,” blame dies when it directs to a contemplative heart. This heart that sees through what lies beneath and cuts through what’s covered does not discriminate but experiences all as one’s own. In this heart, there’s no ego which is one’s state of being full of oneself, self-serving, and self-centered. Rather, it is the state of one going out of oneself, surrendering oneself to the union with God. Jesus embodies what it means to be empty of oneself to embrace all within his arms spread on the cross. 

In today’s lesson, we see how blame is born out of the ego and how blame is so contagious. Our sense of ego or self begins as soon as we know how to distinguish and separate ourselves from others. This is a natural human development to individual oneself from others. What’s so distinct and unique about myself becomes more conscious. As a parent, I notice how Theodore self-refers as Theo rather than “I” or “me.” For example, he would say, “Theo likes Cheetos.” Or he’s confused with how to use “you” and “I.” Instead of saying “I like Avocados,” he would say, “You like Avocados.” He hasn’t fully developed a sense of self yet but is quite clear when I try to take his chicken nuggets as he shouts at me, “Mine!”

What I get out of this child development is how they make sense of the world and themselves. It’s unitary that there’s no distinction or separation between self and others/the world. They experience what’s around them as their own bodies that everything is part of them. It’s like expanding oneself to the world around rather than shrinking oneself only to the body as we do. For us, what doesn’t belong to our body is not considered a part of who we are. French Sociologist, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl would call this “participation mystique” in which we are one with the world as a baby in the mother’s womb. (Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self, p.13)

Our development of sense or this process of individuation is crucial to our survival as well as matters of human rights and scientific discoveries. Our sense of ego can also create a healthy boundary to protect ourselves and others from stepping on each other. But we can’t just remain in this stage. When we’re so distant from others that there’s only me, myself, and mine, we end up isolating ourselves from the world. Jesus who is selfless expands his boundary of who his mother, sisters, and brothers are that he says, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:35)

Reflecting back on the lesson today, this idea of separation from others or the world begins with the serpent. Eve is misinformed that she’ll be like God after eating the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden of Eden. This idea of becoming like God is false because Adam and Eve are already created in the image of God. They’re already like God. As soon as Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, they gain self-consciousness; “...the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” 

Then begins the blame game as God senses the absence of their presence or feels separated from them. God seeks and they hide. God asks them questions and they blame each other. This blame moves from Adam to Eve and then to the serpent. I imagine what if Adam and Eve responded to God’s question, “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” differently? What if they admit that they messed up and tried to take the blame on themselves? Wouldn’t it place God in a position to either let go or be angry about it? It seems to me the issue is not on eating the forbidden fruit or not. It already happened and we do what we’re told not to do anyway. It’s more about what we do after eating it. 

This blame game continues until our time. We continue to eat the forbidden fruit of dividing ourselves from others, discriminating against others with unconscious biases. God still seeks and we still hide. And this can and must change right here and right now with the help of the Holy Spirit. As we attune to others with compassion and empathy, seeing the world and others as our extended selves, we are one with the world and therefore with God. This expansion of self is to get out of ourselves. Ego shrinks the world whereas its lack expands us to the limitless realm of God who is “an infinite circle whose periphery is nowhere and whose center is everywhere.” (Ibid., p, 11) 

So asks God, “Where are you?” 

‘No man is an island’ (John Donne, 1572-1631)

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.