3 before Lent Evensong - St Peter's 8 Feb 2004

Revd Mark Bonney

As you've probably picked up from the pew leaflet I'm off tomorrow for a week governing the Church of England - or something like that anyway - those of us who will be at Church House for General Synod like to try to think we're doing something important and worthwhile. I assure you that we really do have a very full timetable - and some quite important matters, though I suspect that the press will be most interested in the debates on Wednesday which cover the report On being human - which has a chapter on sexuality - then the report Some issues in Sexuality - and then a diocesan synod motion about co-habitation. Should be fun.

Since sexuality is going to be inescapable I want to share with you this evening some things that a book I've been reading has to say about the OT reading that we heard (I cunningly chose the BCP lectionary reading for tonight). The book is called A Question of Truth by the recently departed Blackfriars Dominican Gareth Moore - it's about 'the issue' that's raging in various places - Christianity and homosexuality. In the book Gareth Moore takes various texts and Vatican documents to task and asks penetrating questions about whether the texts really say what people have made them say and whether they can bear the load that has been placed upon them. 

The standard view on Genesis 2 is that here we have the first human beings, they are created for each other and the joyful acceptance of Eve by Adam leads to what is in effect the first marriage - and a model for subsequent relationships between men and women. Men and women are made for each other, they find their joy in one another. God makes us to find our fulfilment in heterosexual union - there are those who dedicate themselves to God by vows of celibacy, and those who are unable to find a suitable partner - but the model of heterosexual marriage remains - that is what the exceptions are exceptions to. It is very clearly a model that excluded homosexual relationship s and activity.

That I would suggest is the traditional reading. But in his book Moore points out some difficulties about this reading. The first is the inequality between Adam and Eve - the story originates in a deeply unequal society - it reflects, and uncritically accepts, that social hierarchy as natural and God-given. Adam is created first - and he has everything he could need - it's just not good for him to be alone - it's not good for Adam to be alone. Eve is created to solve Adam's problem. (He isn't created for her!) We hear nothing about whether he's good for her, in fact there's nothing about what's good for Eve at all. When Adam sees Eve for the first time he reacts with joy - Eve however remains silent. It's the man who is described as leaving his parents - the women's part is simply to accept. This is miles away from our understanding of the relationship between men and women today.

The dominance of Adam is also expressed in the fact that he does all the naming; and by Eve's creation from his rib. None of this stuff is difficult to notice - and given the society at the time is hardly surprising - any modern claims of the equalities of Christian marriage can't be built on this text as many writers try to do.

But there are other things to be found in the text that Moore points us to.

Adam is alone - and God wants to create something to help him. And it's the attempt to do this that leads all the animals being made - woman only comes along when all the animals have failed to meet the bill. There's this faintly amusing picture of God trying a range of things - here's an elephant, "oh, that doesn't work, how about a giraffe?" - and eventually he hits upon a woman. In the story, presumably God made the elephant thinking it would be a companion - what does that have to say about divine will?

Two important things - God doesn't force something on Adam - he tries something else when the elephant has failed; God isn't the judge of the success - it's quite simply Adam's reaction to that that signals the success of the attempt - and Eve give him delight. The fitting partner for the man is the one he receives with joy - and that's what a companion is, someone who we want to be with. If God had imposed the companion it would have defeated the purpose of the project (just like a parent trying to decide who their children are going to be friends with - it doesn't work!) The story isn't one of Adam recognising a moral truth (i.e. that women are made for men) but a story of human delight.

In this Genesis myth Adam is, of course not a man, but the representative human being - it becomes true of each of us to say that it's not good to that we should be alone, and God seeks for us a helper, a partner. But God seeks for each of us, not the partner that pleases God, but the partner that pleases us. This is rather a long way from a compulsory heterosexuality point of view - it opens a range of possibilities, and not least living in Community.

Here we have, as I said a moment ago a story of human delight. When Adam receives the elephant as his prospective partner with less than perfect joy, God doesn't say - too bad, it's the elephant or nothing - he tries something else. On the gay issue, as a matter of interest, Moore says "we can't suppose, consistently with this story, that God effectively presents a gay man with a women and says 'here is your partner. If you don't like it, it's too bad, and you'll have to remain alone."

As in all things, however, what is essential for us as disciples not of Adam, but of the second Adam, Jesus Christ, is not the will of Adam, but the will of God. And Moore suggests, imaginatively and helpfully I think, that the will of God shows itself here as the will to serve, just as Christ came to serve. Here he is shown serving the needs of those he has created needing to delight in and to enjoy intimate companionship with one another. Adam is left free to accept or refuse, and his acceptance follows not from obligation but from delight. We respect the role of God in this story if we say that, like Adam we too are left free, that we too can accept a partner in whom we delight. And in a community that delight is in one another and in the one and only living God who is father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen