Under the Bed

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 5, Year B
June 6, 2021
 
When I was little, may parents had one of those really high up antique beds.  I think they made them that way to get those poor colonial folks far off the cold, cold floor.  Their bed had this white floor length skirt and underneath it was a really great hiding place.
 
Rumor has it that my brother went missing when I was being born.  My grandmother phoned the hospital in a panic, adding a little more tension to the day.  Out of her labor haze, my mom told her to look under the bed, and there he was.  She stretched the phone cord and handed it to him under the bed, where and he said, and I quote “She won’t feed me.  She won’t give me a thing to eat.” 
 
Despite my parents knowing full well that under the bed was our go to hiding place, we sheltered there whenever we needed alone time, or to escape from the wrath of whatever was sure to come our way when we did something wrong.  We stocked supplies in there: pillows, books, and a stuffed animal or two for company.
 
Whenever I read the Genesis story of Adam and Eve in the garden, I think of that space.  It is a familiar story that, often, passes without being unpacked.  I want us to go there today and reflect on how the story tells us about ourselves, and more importantly, about God.
 
The caper begins when they eat of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The crafty serpent convinces them that when they eat the fruit, their eyes will be opened and they will be and see like God.  The first thing they see is that they are nekkid.  I say nekkid because if they were naked, it would just be artistic or freeing.  Nekkid is the state of having done something wrong, and being self-conscious about it.  So, they hide in the shrubbery – the moral equivalent of under the bed. 
 
As the story goes, God moves about the garden and asks where are you.  God being God knows where they are, but Adam says they are hiding because they are nekkid.  God asks the following question:  Who told you that you were naked?  And then, the whole blame game starts.  First Adam: “It’s Eve’s fault, she gave me that gosh darned fruit.”  Then Eve: “It’s the serpent’s fault because he convinced me to eat the gosh darned fruit.”  And so it goes.  In that all too human moment, the move to deflect, deny, and blame is set in motion.
 
In all of the casting out from Eden, and cursing the serpent, and all that stuff about labor pains and the necessity of work for survival, we might overlook the important question.  Who told you that you were Nekkid?
 
Most of go through life figuring that we are somehow broken, guilty, or unworthy.  When we are loved, it helps, but the urge to hide, deflect, and deny is in there.  It is part of the soup of being human.   Largely, that is a prison we build all on our own.  Yes, we are sinners, because we are not God and we are not perfect.  The rest of the story endeavors to show us where to look for help, and to show us that we are completely and utterly forgiven.  All we need do is accept that, stay close to God, and clean up whatever messes we make.
 
When Jesus comes on the scene and those who oppose him proclaim him mad or demonic, he explains that human nekkidness comes division and distraction.  If we will cannot, or will not, work together, we are exposed to all kinds of rotten thinking and acting.
 
Finally, he looks at those who sat around him, family, friends, foes, scruffy fishermen, squealing children – the whole lot and says “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Those are Jesus’ family values.  As I said a few weeks ago, a good translation here is “y’all means all.”
 
Today, we welcome Roger Hutchison whose published art and poetry and texts invite us into belonging.  As crazy as family can be, we are all part of God’s great family.  And today’s event with games and art and food and cake is all about being a place and people of welcome, nurture, acceptance, support, and encouragement.  This is not a complicated theology.  Even though it is hard to be in a world that divides, labels, categorizes, blames and shames at its worst, there is an easier and softer way.  Love them all.  Feed, clothe, help, and refuse to empower whatever demons work to divide us.  We do not have to hide.  God knows where we are anyway.  In the whole of the story God shows us that we are wonderfully made, and capable of so much creative love, because, plain and simple, God loves us.  All of us.  That is what we celebrate today, and every day.  Welcome to the family.  Amen.