Adam Un(y)bound

The Lord God commanded Adam, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)

There is an early 15^th century English Catholic (or just “English Christian”) text (which is probably, in fact, known to some of you blessed church nerds and musicians) called Adam lay ybounden.

The Poem was written somewhere between the late 1300’s and the early 1400’s and, while it is written in English…. it’s not exactly… our English….

However, like most poetry and verse, it usually sounds better when we read it as written…. but before I subject you to that…

The most interesting thing about this work is not the language itself, but the implications that the verses are making - an intriguing glimpse into medieval theology which takes a familiar story and moves it in an… interesting direction.

Here is the text as it was written:

Adam lay ybounden,

Bounden in a bond;

Four thousand winter

Thought he not too long.

And all was for an apple,

An apple that he took.

As clerkës finden written

In their book.

Ne had the apple taken been,

The apple taken been,

Ne had never Our Lady,

A-been heaven's queen.

Blessed be the time

That apple taken was!

Therefore we mown singen

Deo gratias!

At the beginning of the poem we find Adam (our common ancestral father) in the state that our English Catholic forbearers would have imagined him at the time of Christ (indeed in the state that even the early Christians would have thought of Adam as being in) - Dead.   (Obviously,)  But also waiting.

Waiting for the day that his shackles in death would finally be loosed.

Adam lay ybounden,

Bounden in a bond;

Four thousand winter

Thought he not too long.

The medieval folk who wrote this (like Yoopers) apparently reckoned time by the amount of winters that had passed. And here we can see that they were using state of the art chronology - which, although we often poke a bit of fun at it now, was actually pretty mathematically savvy for the time … although it did pose the creation of Adam as only 4,000 winters before the birth of Christ.

Not exactly correct… but for Adam (the first human) it’s definitely better than one million years of patiently waiting through human prehistory.

Four thousand winters?

That’s not too long!

“And all was for an apple,

An apple that he took.

As clerkes (clerks – clergy) find

written in their book (the Bible).”

But here’s where it gets weird.

Our Middle-English sibling in the faith goes on to say…

You know…

          “Ne had that apple taken been…”

                   (that apple taken been)

Ne had never Our Lady,

A-been heaven's queen.

In other words:

If our first Human parents hadn’t (in fact) screwed up, then Christ wouldn’t have come to walk among us... and… that means…

Mary would never get to be queen of Heaven.

It’s okay to gasp.  (The writer’s audience certainly would have).

No Apple taken…. No Blessed Virgin Mary.

         

Therefore

Blessed be the time

That apple taken was!

Therefore we mown singen

Deo gratias!

Thank God we broke the one and only rule that we were initially given (…by God…) because…   Mary.

It’s so weird. I love it.

But this song (for it is a song) speaks to an ancient set questions - questions that we Christians have been asking ourselves since the Christ-Event.

Why (exactly) did Jesus Christ come to walk among us?

If Adam had not sinned, would Christ have come at all?

And, I mean, if God really didn’t want us to eat of the Tree of Knowledge (both) Good and Evil… then why put it there at all with nothing but a big “DO NOT TOUCH” sign on it?

(I mean. We were OBVIOUSLY GOING TO TOUCH IT)

That last one is actually the easiest question… Sort of.

(Let’s not be so bold as to assume we know everything.)

But it does reflect a common theme seen in the relationship between God and Humanity, as it is recorded in Holy Scripture.

“This day I set before you:

 Life and death, a Blessing and a curse.

Therefore choose life - that you may live.

As beings made in the Image of God, we were made to have relationship with God (the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth).We were made to eternally draw into deeper and deeper relationship with God.

                  

Falling ever more in Love.

Seeing the Image of our Beloved in the Face of Every Human Being made in His Image.

But, this has to be consensual. Love can be nothing else.

Now, at a certain point, the Grace of God is actually unavoidable (whether we actually think we want it or not – whether we actually will it, or not).

                  

The breath in our lungs.

The beating of our heats.

         

The continued nuclear reactions in the Sun.

                  

Gravity.

But, in a sense, that’s all really just the starter package.

For more, we can either:  opt in or opt out.

Further up and further in to the reality that God is building?

Or, “No thank you, we’re just looking..”?

Beloved.  We were created to choose life.

Now, for many Christians and our Jewish brothers and sisters, the story of the creation of the world and of humanity, as it is found in Genesis, wasn’t quite… enough…

Sort of like the old:

“Well, Genesis doesn’t talk about dinosaurs…”

And… well yeah…

Because that’s not really the point.

That’s not the story that the Genesis narrative is telling.

Paleontology, and astronomy and biology (and all of the other investigations into the early life of our world and of humanity) all ask certain sets of questions. And so does the Book of Genesis.

In particular, it tells the story of human beginnings – and of the origins of our relationships with each other, the world, and God. Starting with the very first Humans.

But people have never actually stopped there.  Even St. Augustine – whom we often put down a bit for being a bit repressed (which he totally was) - wrote that we shouldn’t take literally the idea of a “Seven Day Creation.”

We must, however, still take seriously the Origins of the World and of Humanity.

         

For as Maya Angelou wrote:

“If you don't know where you've come from,

you don't know where you're going.”

St. Ephrem the Syrian (a fourth century Christian scholar, poet, hymn-writer, and early defender of the Faith) wrote a commentary on Genesis sometime in the 300’s. The work was based both on the narrative he found within the Book itself and some of the natural philosophies that were available to him at the time - and it is actually a very perceptive work in terms of understanding the natural rhythms of humanity and the world around us.

In this work, Ephrem recounts his understanding of the creation of humanity (back in the mists of time, shortly after the long untold ages in which God created the Heavens and the Earth).

It mirrors the Genesis story, but adds commentary between the lines (drawing from an old Jewish tradition called midrash – or “between the lines”).

In this story we find God creating Adam out of the stuff of the earth - taking Adam form the place he was made, and placing the newly formed Human in the Garden of Delights (a Paradise on Earth).

When Adam gets lonely, God takes Adam and splits the mud-man in half,

Creating a man and a woman - Two partners who exist for the sake of the other.

Ephrem says that when humanity was created, we were neither created mortal nor immortal - Perfect nor Corrupt. We were simply creatures made in the Image of God and laden with potential.

Now we come to the instruction which our First Parents were given.

“All of this is yours. And you may eat freely of every tree in this Garden of Delight. But of that Tree (of Knowledge of Good and Evil), you shall not eat…

For when you do…. You shall die.”

You will have made your choice.

And you will have chosen to not walk with me.

To receive that which I am offering.

Today I set before you Life and Death.

Please choose life.                              

And we know how the story goes.

But Ephrem paints for us an interesting depiction of this familiar scene.

He pictures the Garden of Eden (Paradise) as a mountain - and at the top of this mountain are both the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as well as the Tree of Life.

Now, some ancient writers saw the two trees as Twins - or as sprouting from the same stalk.

But Ephrem pictures the Tree of Knowledge as a large woody hedge – fencing in the very summit of the mountain, where the Tree of Life stands mightily with its branches reaching up to Heaven Above.

Adam and Eve were destined to eat of that Tree of Life; but (according to Ephrem) only after they had sampled the other trees of the Garden which God had actually already offered - after that, presumably, they would pass through that poisonous hedge and eat the Fruit of the Tree of Life.

But that’s not what happened.

Ephrem writes that when Adam and Eve ate of the Fruit of that Hedge (the Tree of Knowledge – both Good and Evil) in the misguided hope that they would receive greater wisdom and be gods in their own right…

When they ate - they were indeed granted dual knowledge.

Both Good and Evil.

Because that was the security system.

They received knowledge of the Good:

Because when they ate from the Hedge – it then opened up before them, and they could see the Tree of Life standing proudly upon the summit.

It’s leaves were all of light.

It’s Fruit was Life itself.

It’s branches held the heavens aloft.

and it’s roots plunged deep into the Earth.

The Tree was a bridge between Heaven and Earth.

The Place in Paradise where the two realms meet.

The Place of Divine Nourishment.

The place of our Destiny.

The place which these two unfortunate mortals would now never reach.

For the other half of the Knowledge which they had gained, the Knowledge of Evil, was the full-realization of what they had done, and of what they had now lost.

Standing naked before the Heavenly Light of that Tree… they realized (for the first time) that they were… in fact… naked.

Beautiful Creatures made in the Image of God (yes– for the Human Body is indeed a beautiful thing)…

But also Creatures of clay – mortal beings of passing dust…

Corruptible – fallible  (as recent events had shown)

Completely unprepared to stand before the Glory they had found upon that mountaintop.

With Tears in their eyes they beheld that Glorious Tree in all of its perfection - the perfection that comes from Unity with God, with God’s Own Life - and they knew (because of what they had done) that they would never be able to eat of that fruit… to share in God’s Life.

For the first time

in the History of the Cosmos

Living Beings had felt

Shame.

But God had planned ahead.

All throughout St. Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis, when he is really getting into the nitty gritty of Creation and flexing some of his philosophical muscles, he points to certain “fail-safes” that God seems to have worked into Creation - processes in nature and in human affairs that were ready to kick in just in case things went wrong.

And (interstingly) Ephrem – as well as other ancient writers – all assumed that God knew Adam and Eve were going to eat the Forbidden Fruit.

I mean… it is God…

They assume that God knew that because Adam and Eve were creatures of the earth (Image of God or not), they could very well be led astray by their bellies (by their appetites)

So then, when our Archetypical First Parents were sent out into the wilderness…the God of Heaven and Earth had already set a plan in motion that would span generations of human life. It was a plan that would not only restore humanity’s relationship with God, but bring it to the next level.

To that place beyond the Hedge…

To Perfect Unity with God…

The Destiny so longed for

by our very First Parents.

Generations upon generations after they were first sent out into the wilderness, we now find a Son of Adam (in today’s Gospel lesson) walking in the wilderness of Judea - once more being tempted by that same serpentine voice which had once beguiled his (many times over) grandmother Eve.

But Eve had been given a promise.

That one day one of her descendants

would crush the serpent’s head

even as it was biting him.

For this Son of Adam - this Jesus, son of Mary - was the renewal of our humanity (the renewal of all things).

He is Adam 2.0

Jesus was by nature

What Adam longed to become by the Grace of God.

Adam was made (in the Image of God) to constantly reach forward; to enter into deeper and deeper relationship with God, reflecting more and more of who God is to the rest of Creation.

But Christ is the Eternal Image of God (God’s own Image of God’s Self)

born now of human flesh

born of the flesh of Adam and Eve

born the Son of Mary.

Adam and Eve (and by extension, the rest of us) were destined to become what Christ already is.

Humanity and Divinity

In perfect Unity

When you see this Christ

You see who God is.

But when you see this Christ

you also see what humanity

is supposed to be

But we may say:

“Okay, that’s great for Jesus. But I’m not Jesus.”

And you would be right in saying that: you’re not Jesus – there is wisdom in this saying.

But IN Christ we find the flesh of Adam restored, and not just in a metaphorical sense. Remember that Christ was nailed to a cross. He died - as a human being, as a descendent of Adam.

But on the Third Day that Human Flesh was raised to a new Kind of existence.

Unity with God that defied even death.

God’s own Life bound to Human Life.

Restoring it.

Transforming it.

That’s what humanity was destined for; and that’s the kind of life that Christ offers to us.

We couldn’t reach the Fruit of the Tree of Life… so it came to us.

And he offered up for us his Body and his Blood,

that we might be nourished by him,

and grow to be like him.

Not offended by the goods and pleasures of the world (for such things were created good by God); but also not ensnared by our own unruly appetites and passions.

Not punishing ourselves with our fasting as we journey into Lent, or being abysmal about such acts of piety, but instead using our fast in such a way that it becomes an offering to God - an offering of our own desires and appetites in the knowledge that we are not defined by these things.

For the God who is our Strength is always preparing us for something more worthwhile, and better than that which we could ever ask or imagine.

The Way to the Tree of Life has been opened again

and the Children of Adam and Eve are now invited to partake

to walk through the gate which has opened before us

and follow where Christ has led the way.