Perfect care east of Eden

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to consider some of the consequences of our choices to be independent of Divine guidance in our lives.

East of Eden

The passage from Genesis describes the Expulsion from Eden as the loss of our primordial innocence about good and evil.

 * [3:17–19] Cursed is the ground: the punishment affects the man’s relationship to the ground (’adam and ’adamah). You are dust: the punishment also affects the man directly insofar as he is now mortal.1

In the Gospel from Mark, Jesus feeds the Four Thousand and the symbols in the text proclaim the perfect meal for all people.

* [8:1–10] The two accounts of the multiplication of loaves and fishes (Mk 8:1–10; 6:31–44) have eucharistic significance. Their similarity of structure and themes but dissimilarity of detail are considered by many to refer to a single event that, however, developed in two distinct traditions, one Jewish Christian and the other Gentile Christian, since Jesus in Mark’s presentation (Mk 7:24–37) has extended his saving mission to the Gentiles.2 

Scott McClure comments that the image of God who provides, as in today's Gospel reading of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, stands in stark contrast to the same God in today's first reading.

There is a key in today's readings that may help us reconcile this seeming contradiction of God who punishes yet also provides, and it lies not in God's behavior but in humanity's. In Adam and Eve's case, their punishment was the result of their unhealthy attachment to the fruit of the forbidden tree. They could not detach themselves from this desire, which held them captive. By contrast, the crowd on whom Jesus takes pity has demonstrated a rightly ordered life; one that seeks union with God above all and, therefore, is detached from desires of worldly things. It is such detachment and a right orientation toward God that, in fact, bear fruit of a sort Adam and Eve did not yet realize.3 

Don Schwager quotes “Breaking the bread of God's Word,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"In expounding to you the Holy Scriptures, I as it were break bread for you. If you hunger to receive it, your heart will sing out with the fullness of praise (Psalm 138:1). If you are thus made rich in your banquet, be not meager in good works and deeds. What I am distributing to you is not my own. What you eat, I eat; what you live upon, I live upon. We have in heaven a common store-house - from it comes the Word of God." (excerpt from SERMONS ON NEW TESTAMENT LESSONS 45.1)4 

The Word Among Us Meditation on Genesis 3:9-24 asks us to notice that first that God doesn’t begin by correcting Adam and Eve. He first seeks them out.

 Finally, God banishes them from the garden and places angels to protect them from the tree of life. Like a parent who wants to keep a child from burning his hand a second time, God prevents them from losing their way forever. He chooses not to destroy the tree of life; he still keeps the possibility of eternal life open for them when they are ready to eat its fruit.5

Friar Jude Winkler relates the text of Genesis to the separation we experience between ourselves and between us and nature. When the Genesis text was written, King David had crushed the serpent worshipping people of neighbouring Moab. Friar Jude explains the symbolic language in the multiplication of loaves that connects to everyone, both Jews and Gentiles.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, invites us to read these Daily Meditations contemplatively, going deeper than the mental comprehension of words.

Contemplation is waiting patiently. It does not insist on quick closure, pat answers, or simplistic judgments, which have more to do with egoic, personal control than with a loving search for truth.
Try reading the following ideas in a contemplative way:
Christ is everywhere.
In him every kind of life has a meaning and a solid connection.
Every life has an influence on every other kind of life.
Jesus Christ came to earth so that “they all may be one” (John 17:21) and “to reconcile all things in himself, everything in heaven and everything on earth” (Colossians 1:20).
Pick one idea and linger with it. Focus on the words until they engage your body, your heart, your awareness of the physical world around you, and most especially your core connection with a larger field. Sit with the idea and, if need be, read it again until you feel its impact, until you can imagine its larger implications for the world, for history, and for you. (In other words, until “the word becomes flesh”!)6 

The juxtaposition of texts today with symbolic language and apparent tension in the description of how the care of God is expressed to us is an invitation to the contemplation described by Fr. Richard.

References

1	(n.d.). Genesis chapter 3 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved February 16, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/Genesis/3:9
2	(n.d.). Mark chapter 8 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved February 16, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/mark/8:1
3	(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved February 16, 2019, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
4	(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved February 16, 2019, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
5	(2019, February 16). 5th Week in Ordinary Time - Mass Readings and Catholic Daily .... Retrieved February 16, 2019, from https://wau.org/meditations/2019/02/16/
6	(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archives — Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved February 16, 2019, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2019/02/