Everything You Know (About Original Sin) is Wrong!

'They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.” 

The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat  all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”'

--Genesis 3: 8-15

'The crowd came together again, so that Jesus and his disciples could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” 

And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”'

--Mark 3: 20-25

Years ago Weird Al Yankovic had a song called Everything You Know is Wrong: black is white, up is down, and short is long, he sang. What if I told you that everything you think you know of the doctrine of original sin is wrong? 

Our story from Genesis is a familiar one, maybe a little too familiar. We know the basic outline, perhaps from Sunday School: God makes Adam and Eve and tells them not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; Eve disobeys and eats an apple from the tree anyway, and the whole world has been paying for her actions ever since. This tendency to disobey God is thus passed to through our parents, a condition of rebelliousness, which we’re told is the original sin. 

Adam and Eve as seen in a Russian Orthodox mosaic.

The word sin has its roots in the Greek word hamartia, which is an archery term that means ‘to miss the mark.’ And let’s face it, we all miss the mark from time to time. This particular understanding of the Genesis story, though, isn’t how our Jewish siblings have understood it; in fact, it arises in the Middle Ages during the days of feudalism, and Jesus becomes the one who appeases God’s wrath when he is sent to die to pay for Adam and Eve’s original sin and our own. But there’s more to this misunderstanding the story, and when we unpack it for what’s it’s truly worth we find how it ties in with the Good News of a table of sinners eating with Jesus.

Let’s get this out of the way: not only is the fruit not an apple - the text never says what it is -  Eve is NOT to blame for bringing evil into the world. The serpent, who is a kind of trickster character that Christians will later identify as Satan, already existed within the created order. In other words, the undermining agent of confusion was already present, even before Adam and Eve came into full consciousness.  Furthermore, the serpent didn’t actually lie to Eve. He told her that if she ate the fruit she wouldn’t die – as God had said – but she would be like God, knowing good from evil, which is exactly what happens. And once she and Adam eat their eyes are open, they see the world in terms of good and evil, and they feel ashamed. The shadow side of this consciousness and their newfound ability to pass judgement – something only God could do up to that point – is the fear of being judged themselves. And so they cover themselves with fig leaves and try to hide, both from God and each another. 

God, of course, finds them and asks what they’ve done. Immediately they begin to scapegoat one another and play the blame game. Adam blames Eve. Eve blames the serpent. And thus begins a vicious cycle of blame and scapegoating and self-justification that has had disastrous results for us as a species, as well as our planet as a whole. We grasp at something like divinity, we try to hide the most vulnerable aspects of our humanity, and we blame someone, anyone else, for nearly everything that happens as a result. 

THIS is the original sin: scapegoating and blame. It can't be disobedience because how could Adam and Eve have disobeyed if they didn’t know what disobedience was because they hadn’t come into full consciousness yet? This is where it all begins, and the very next story in Genesis is, you guessed it, Cain killing Abel, precisely because he blames Abel for his own shortcomings in the eyes of God. 

A strong case can be made that every single human conflict comes down to this, our own fears of judgment – and therefore of death – leading us to take up defensive postures, and lash out at one another, both with words and with weapons. Enough blame goes around that any hope of reconciliation feels lost.  It happens in interpersonal relationships, in family systems, and even on the world stage – we see it right now. There’s plenty of blame to go around. And while it is disingenuous for a Christian priest to say that Jesus is the only answer to this problem, I believe that his life and death offer the world another way apart from the scapegoat mechanism. 

Often we focus on Jesus’ death as the agent that was meant to eliminate our perceived need to scapegoat. He willingly dies, not to appease a bloodthirsty God, but so that by taking on the shame, the guilt, and the blame, he would free the world from ever giving in to this temptation again. This is true, but I worry that in focusing on his death we neglect the way he lived, and how his very life is a testimony against the original sin of scapegoating. 

Jesus at table.

In our reading from Mark’s Gospel we find Jesus in the early days of his ministry, and boy howdy, is he coming under fire. Sure, he’s curing people and casting out demons, but it’s HOW he’s doing it that infuriates the authorities. They compare him to Satan – to the serpent – who is deceiving these people just as Adam and Eve were deceived. And just as Eve blamed the serpent, they blame Jesus for breaking the commandment about the sabbath, setting a bad example, and drawing people away the corrupt collaboration system between the Temple authorities and the Romans. They blame Jesus for leading the people astray, just as they blame the people for their own ills and plights; after all, if someone is born blind, or if a young woman is driven into prostitution, it was due to their own sinful nature. But right here in this very Gospel today we see Jesus undo this by inviting these very folks – along with a host of others whom the authorities scapegoated and blamed – to a table, to a meal. In a house. In a safe space, where judgement is not passed, only food and drink are. Plenty of folks in this story think Jesus is either out of his mind – as the authorities do – or is veering into territory that is going to get him in trouble – as his family does. But Jesus’ mission is to proclaim the Good News that the kingdom of God has come near – his first words in Mark’s Gospel – and the kingdom is a mindset, a way of being that has no need to blame others, to lash out in fear, but lets it all pass through the hands of Jesus.

His hands are the birth canal through which abundant life flows. And his table is the place where all of burdens are laid, where all fear subsides, where scapegoating and blame come to be transformed into love and light: at that table in the crowded house that day, in the field when he fed 5000 folks, in the upper room with his friends, and at the table we set each and every Sunday. 

There was another tree in that garden, do you remember? It was the Tree of Life, and though it’s never said explicitly in Genesis, Jewish scholars have offered that it was the tree from which all life – even Adam and Eve – ate. Jesus is that Tree of Life for us. He takes, blesses, breaks, and gives us his very self in the palm of our hand, and in doing so, he frees us from the need to blame or pass judgment on others. If the cycle of the original sin is to end, we need to build longer tables, not bigger walls.

If you’re holding on to blame or feeling the urge to scapegoat – whoever you are, come to the Table of the Lord, to which Christ himself invites us and meets us. Feed on the bread of life. And be made whole.