Lord, forgive Adam

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Lord, forgive Adam: 13th March 2011: am: The Very Revd Frank Nelson

• Psalm 32
• Genesis 2: 15 – 17, 3: 1 - 7
• Romans 5: 12 - 19
• Matthew 4: 1 - 11

Two little pieces of paper appeared yesterday on the Altar without Walls, along with lighted candles. One says: “The chaos that appears to be in a mortal world. Please keep us all safe as we try to make sense of it.” The other includes the words: “Lenten dust and ashes.” Even as we are still coming to terms with the Christchurch earthquake there is one in China and then, on Friday night, one of the biggest in recorded history – a whopping 8.9 off the north east coast of Japan. I don’t know about you, but being so closely involved in recent weeks means that I have a new appreciation, fear – if the truth be known, of an earthquake and the accompanying tsunami that comes from the sea. The same Urban Search and Rescue teams that so quickly came to the aid of New Zealand are being called on again. May God be with them in their new task.

How do we make sense of it all? How do we deal with the dust and ashes of our world today? In their time and their way the writers of the different passages from the Bible which we have read today, try to do just that. So do many of our hymn writers.

The first few sentences from Genesis 3 are just the beginning of what someone called a cascade of sin entering the world. In an extraordinarily well crafted piece of writing, the reality of suffering and hardship in the world as we know it is attributed by the biblical writers to a deliberate choice to go against God. In time, this came to be called Sin – the state of alienation from God. We read of, and long for, the beautiful Garden of Eden. And then we read of the man, the woman and the serpent in debate. Doubt, lust, action – all follow in quick succession. As does the judgment – their eyes were opened, they knew they were naked, they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. Read on in those early chapters of Genesis and the cascade is clear to see. Adam and Eve’s disobedience, prompted by the serpent’s assurance that all is well, leads to pain in childbirth and sweated brow to find food. The fratricide involving Cain and Abel is followed by a desire for revenge spiraling away completely out of control, seen so clearly in the chilling words of Lamech - “if Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

On this first Sunday in Lent we are given just a taste of the mature thinking about sin, the world and the inevitable death that is the lot of human beings, so well expressed in the mythology of Genesis. But we are also given a taste of the mature thinking of one of the greatest of Christian thinkers. St Paul wrestled with the meaning and implications of the Gospel – and nowhere more deeply than in his letter to the Romans. Using the tools of analogy and contrast Paul underscores the difference between the sin of one man, Adam, and the gift of another, Jesus Christ. The one brings death, the other brings life. They are not the same; they are not balanced. Yes, sin came into the world and death is the inevitable result of sin; but far more important, and for more gracious, is the offer of life that Christ’s obedience, which led to his death on the cross, ushered into history.

It is this promise of resurrection life, what St Paul calls grace, that we should be looking for at times like this. And it is there, isn’t it. We have seen it again and again over these past few days as people, complete strangers, have been thrown together and have reached out to one another. Neighbours continue to check on one another; people continue to come up with innovative ways of raising money, getting food, charging mobile phones; and what gracious words from the leader of the Japanese Urban Search and Rescue teams on his imminent departure from Christchurch to his stricken country. Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States Katharine Jefferts Schori put it well in a message to Anglicans and the people of Japan: “May we all be reminded that we live on a fragile earth, in continual process of creation and destruction, and that we share a common responsibility for healing wherever we are able.”

Over the past few Sundays several people have questioned the lectionary readings set for the day, suggesting we should have looked for other, more appropriate readings. Perhaps it is not that tactful to read Jesus’ words on marriage and divorce when we know there will be people who find these words hard to accept; or Jesus’ parable about the wise man who built his house on rock just days after an earthquake. Yet there is also something wise and comforting in knowing that throughout the world Christians of many denominations are reading the same passages, and struggling to make sense of them in their own contexts.

So we must turn too to the Gospel reading of Jesus in the wilderness – those forty days without food tempted by the devil. In the Bible the wilderness is often a code for a time of formation, of testing, of being faced with choices. It was so for Moses and the people of Israel, and for Elijah following his contest with the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel and, of course, for Jesus. How might we use the wilderness time of this Lent in the wake of earthquakes both local and international? Might it be a time to re-evaluate who and what we are? Where we are going? What we are doing? What is important in life? A time to look at how we relate to other people; perhaps sort some relationships out while we have time? Lent is often seen as a time of fasting, of giving up something or other. Might it be that as we open our hands to let go of what we so fiercely call our own, we are surprised by the space for others, the surplus for others, the time for God?

Let me end by reading a short poem written by a twentieth century hymn writer. In very few words Richard Jones skillfully tells the story of God’s creation, man’s disobedience, sin and fall, and the hope offered to the world through Jesus’ death and resurrection. You will, I hope, recognize the influences of readings such as we have heard this morning.

God who created this Eden of earth giving to Adam and Eve their fresh birth, what have we done with that wonderful tree? Lord, forgive Adam, for Adam is me.

Adam ambitious desires to be wise, casts out obedience, then lusts with his eyes, grasps his sweet fruit, ‘As God I shall be’. Lord, forgive Adam, for Adam is me.

Cursed is the earth through this cancerous crime, symbol of man through all passage of time, put it all right, Lord; let Adam be free; Do it for Adam, for Adam is me.

Glory to God! What is this that I see? Man made anew, second Adam is he, bleeding his love on another fine tree, dies second Adam, Young Adam for me.

Rises that Adam the master of death, pours out his Spirit in holy new breath; sheer liberation! With him I am free! Lives second Adam in mercy in me.