What is one of the more difficult questions to answer in life?
(if you answered: “Why?” – that is my second place answer – give yourself 2pts)
It is an innocent, even playful question when you are playing Hide and seek. It is a complicated question when you are working through a problem in a relationship, or trying to define the parameters of what works and what does not. And a guilt inducing one when you are caught in the act of doing wrong. Where are you? Where are you?
In today’s 1st reading, we hear this question asked, perhaps for the first time in human history. But it is not the last time that question is asked. And I wonder, when that question gets asked of us, do we hear it as something that causes us shame or evokes guilt? GOD was asking Adam where he was. GOD is asking US where we are. And because we know that we have fallen, we have failed, we have not been the people we are called to be, that becomes guilt inducing. Where are you? can be the most difficult question of all because it asks of us an honesty that sometimes we don’t want to employ and to admit things we don’t want to face.
And yet, though we can ‘hear’ a tone of voice as people ask that question which helps us understand what the person who is asking is getting at, we can’t pick up the tone of voice from the written text. Though there are many possible tones of voice to hear this question spoken with, what happens to your prayer when you hear it in this tone: that it is not a question asked by a judge, but a question from a friend? This is not God ferreting out some hidden truth from us, like an inquisitor endlessly grilling us until painfully, and shamefacedly, we ‘fess up. Rather, this is God not giving up on us. God seeking us out – even when we feel a million miles from God; – even when WE are hiding because we don’t want to face the naked truth about who we are. Still, there is that link, that compelling tug that we hope for and long for – even while we experience the conviction that we are not where we are supposed to be.
When Adam responds, we see the effects of every sin. “I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” That is what sin does to us – it awakens in us the false notion that we have somehow separated ourselves from the God who desires to walk with us in that easy fellowship called the garden. As if God would be so easily put off, so easily displeased with us. And then, the blame game starts – Adam pointing at Eve. Eve pointing at the serpent. And just like that * (snap) humanity, who was meant to live in this harmony and blessedness with God, becomes immediately suspicious of motives and relationships. We hear echoes of that in the gospel –“He is crazy.” “It is by Beelzebul that you do this.” Or by the prince of demons. Blaming. Finger-pointing. Scapegoating. We forget who we are. And whose we are.
But, watch what happens next – God gets to the heart of the sinfulness – “AH – so you have eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. You have decided how I should act, how I should respond. You have determined for yourself what is good and bad, right and wrong.” This is the origin of sin. When we decide about life. About relationships. About everything. “Who told you that you were naked?” Certainly you can hear that spoken in an accusatory tone of voice. But can you hear it in a pleading tone? “Who told you, because you got it so wrong!” “Who told you that?”, because it is a misunderstanding of what I want from you…
And so the question: “Where are you?” becomes a kind of plea from a lover to the beloved. Don’t you know I want to walk with you? Don’t you know I want to be connected to you? Don’t you know that you matter beyond anything else? And then we hear the promise – “I will put enmity between you and the woman, her offspring and yours.” I will not give up on you, even though YOU might judge that I have.
So, this week – live with that single, powerful, GENTLE question spoken from the heart of a God who ALWAYS wants to walk with us in the comfort of the garden.
Where are you?
- If you are distant – make use of the sacrament of reconciliation.
- If you are blaming, shaming others – recognize that for what it is – the snare of the divider, the one who wants to keep us from God.
- If you are lost – ask to be found.
- If you are broken – ask to be whole.
- If you are blessed – then walk with the Lord in the garden of his delight.
And know that God wants one thing of you –just one answer to that sometimes most difficult question: Where are you? – “Right here, Lord. Right here!”