Sunday, September 22, 2019

Embodied Faith - Attached through Our Senses

Genesis 3:21 & 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 by Rev. Susan Lukey
Series:Journey to the Heart of God - All about Relationships!

And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve, and clothed them. Genesis 3:21 This statement, found in the Genesis story just before Adam and Eve must leave the Garden of Eden, is one that I find fascinating. It’s a little detail that often gets lost in the bigger story of creation and Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge, but it is a detail that tells us so much about God’s relationship with humankind. This fall, we are talking about relationship, about God’s relationship with us, our relationship with each other and how those relationships are formed and nurtured. That one sentence, God made garments for Adam and Eve and clothed them, tells us so much about what God intends in a relationship with us. Adam and Eve have messed up. They ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge when they were told not to. Now their innocence is gone, and their time living in the Garden of Eden is ended. However, they are not being punished. God is not mad; sad yes, but not mad. This scene of God sewing clothes for the couple and then helping them get dressed is such a tender scene, filled with loving compassion. Perhaps I love it because I love sewing. I can just imagine God creating the clothing. It is a scene filled with the physical senses – the loving touch of God in creating the clothing, one last view of the garden, one last smell of the flowers growing there, and then God, leaving the garden with the pair. There was a time in Christian history, with influence from Greek culture, that anything to do with the body was considered not spiritual and even evil. Yet, the truth is that the expression of our faith is a very physical one. Over and over again, God is described in human form, in ways that engage all of our senses. As people of God, followers of Jesus, we are not disembodied.
Duration:19 mins 40 secs