"Where are you?"

Sermon. 7 June 2015. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford.

Trinity 1 (Year B)

Genesis 3.8-15

Yesterday evening was a first for me. For the first time in my life, I was part of a team which won Bronze. Yes, my team came third in the quiz. I guess it's for me to clarify, before somebody else humiliates me, that there were only three teams. Still!

In the spirit of the excellent quiz, I'd now like to ask you a question. As usual with me, do feel free to treat this as a real question and give a real answer, either silently, or, by all means, aloud. But, unlike with the quiz, to this question there is no right answer. On the contrary, it is one of those questions where what counts is not the answer you give after thinking it through for a long time, but your first response, your instant response. Here goes:

Do we ever surprise Gd? Does anything we do surprise Gd? Is Gd ever surprised by us?

What do you think? [People answer No.]

In a sense, in its form, it is a yes or no question. For some, their first response may be: Yes. We can and do surprise Gd. Gd gives human beings free will, and so does not know our decisions before we make them, and so, with at least some choices we make, we do surprise Gd. For others, the first response has to be: No. Gd makes us and knows all our limitations and all our inclinations and preferences. Gd is also outside of time, so the issue of Gd being surprised by any event-in-time does not even arise.

You see that there is a problem here. No one answer will be in all ways satisfying. We need to say something quite complicated like: Gd does not plan our lives in every detail – we are not preprogrammed machines following a set course. But! But Gd knows us so much better than we know ourselves (and always will), including how we make the choices we make, and all the choices we might ever make. So nothing we do is ever unexpected by Gd.

Here is another question: what is the first question in the Bible?

The answer, you may have guessed, is in today's first reading, from the Book of Genesis. Adam and Eve have just eaten the forbidden fruit, and Gd comes to them. Gd is walking in the garden 'at the time of the evening breeze' or 'in the cool of the day' as older translations had it. And he asks Adam: 'Where are you?' Ayyekka in the Hebrew.

Quick Hebrew lesson here. First, there is no verb to be in the Hebrew. So literally, it is 'where you?' or even 'whereness of you?' But that's perfectly normal Biblical Hebrew. Second, there is something of a an emphasis in the Hebrew. 'Where are you?' perhaps, but not to exaggerate the point. Third, and unambiguously, the Hebrew is singular. Gd is speaking to Adam, Adam alone, and not to Eve.

This is an issue we have to face time and again in the Bible, how the male has the 'speaking part', and is the norm, with the female being the exception. Here, though, it is worth pointing out that 'Adam' has two meanings. It can be a personal name, the name of the male man, Adam. But it can also come with the definite article, the adam. Adam as an impersonal noun relates to adamah which means earth or ground. This in turn is related to edom, meaning red. If you think that's wrong – because earth is not red – then that just shows that you don't live in desert country, where, often the earth is very red. So: adam/adamah – the adam is the human being (not gender-specific) and, more, the groundling, the earthling.

But... what is going on here? Why on earth would Gd ask anybody, ever, where they are? You see, this relates to my earlier question, about whether we can ever surprise Gd. There are at least three interpretations of what is going on when Gd asks the human being, the groundling, 'where are you?'

First, some commentators say that this is a piece of folklore, a fairy tale if you like. Time was when people believed that Gd was indeed greater than human beings, but by no means perfect, or beyond limitations. So Gd is powerful and wise, but exists within time and space, knows many things, but is ignorant of others. So Gd genuinely walks about in the garden of Eden, and is genuinely surprised not to find Adam and Eve, because they have hidden. Now, by the time the Bible was collated and edited, this idea, of Gd as limited in many ways, had long passed. However, the editors had a conserving/conservative instinct, and kept lots of details in from earlier times, even if it led to conflicting ideas about Gd. They just couldn't throw the old stories away.

Second, some would say that the writer of this story themselves understood that Gd is all-powerful and all-knowing Creator, but, when it comes to Gd's relationship with human beings, from the very beginning, Gd gave up Gd's own power and foreknowledge. So Gd enters into the lives of Adam and Eve, and in that decision, chose to be ignorant of their whereabouts until they revealed themselves.

Third, yet others would say that Gd is all-powerful and all-knowing Creator, and, when Gd comes to be with us, Gd is not remotely ignorant of what Adam and Eve have done, or of where they are. Rather, Gd is asking Adam what his own account is of where they are. Gd is being the first therapist, the first counsellor, and is asking therapeutically 'Where are you?'

In favour of this reading, is that it does seem to work in helping Adam to give his own account of where he thinks he is: 'I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.' Remember: Adam has been living in Eden, in paradise. There's no reason to think he has ever been afraid before, ever known fear. What would he have to fear? And through Gd's gentle and open-ended question, 'Where are you?' he indeed connects for the first time with the new and painful feeling we all know, fear.

Truth be told, when it comes to many, many stories in the Hebrew Bible, which Christians call the Old Testament, we have a similar choice. We can see them as some quaint bit of folklore, or some background reading, or we can see them, in different ways, as Scripture, as Revelation, as telling us important things about the nature of Gd.

If we do the latter, if we think that these stories tell us important things about the nature of Gd, then – when we remember that Gd is outside time – they must also have something to say about us, us, here and now.

So, my final question is: what might happen, if we came to this service, week by week or whenever we can, if we came to every Christian service we come to... expecting Gd to ask us, listening out for Gd to ask us: 'Where are you?'

• If we came, and heard the readings from the Bible, expecting Gd to ask us – in these stories, where are you?
• If we heard the story of the sacrament – of Jesus's last meal, his taking of bread and wine – with Gd asking us: 'Where are you in this story?'
• What if, indeed, with the blessing from Gd we all receive at the end of this service, Gd were asking us: 'given that you have my blessing (for I am Gd who blesses), where are you?'

There is no one answer from all of us to this question from Gd. For each of us, the answer will differ over time. But if we are here we are on one level or another open to the ideas

• that Gd is really, deeply with us and for us,
• that Gd is really, deeply safe, and trustworthy, such that,
• when Gd asks us where we are, we can take some risks in answering, we can dig deep into the less public parts of ourselves, and answer, and give a more truthful account of where we are.

And the answer we give (the answer we try out) will not be the end of our conversation with Gd. Gd will stay with us, and lead us on (whether 'surprised' or not). But the question 'where are you?' is a good place to start. It's not a quiz. It is life. Amen.