A Refreshing Take on Eve

Y'all, she wasn't a whore

A few days ago, my friend Sheldon Greaves gave a sermon that just left me stunned and speechless. I just wept as I listened to him, especially at the end.

In this sermon he said, “In the religious tradition of my youth, we were taught that Eve is not the villain of the story but in a real sense she’s the hero. She recognizes that the Garden is a paradise, but a stagnant one. In order for humanity to progress, it was necessary to advance beyond simply following instructions. What was needed was independence; the mind to conceive, the will to direct. Yes, it was a transgression, but we were taught that the transgression was a matter of timing. They ate the fruit at wrong time, although no one ever explained when the right time was.”

When I wrote my dissertation, I used the Madonna/Whore binary as a framework for how women navigate religious stigma to get abortion and contraception.

It was revolutionary work.

I have long believed that Eve was never a problem in God’s eyes. Sheldon reaffirmed it for me this week.

He says, “Eve was not naive. She looked at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she saw that it was beautiful, that it was good for food, and it was desirable to make one wise. She also grasped that knowledge comes at a price, and that sometimes that price is very high. She weighed what was at stake, and she made the hard choice.

I have come to see this pivotal event in the primeval history as something other than some Fall that got twisted into some really bad ideas like sexism or original sin. Instead, I now see it as the final step in the creation of humanity. It was the moment when we become fully human, with a touch of the divine.”

And there it is, Eve enlivened and effectively gave birth to humanity as a mindful, thinking, knowing entity, with all the complexities of what it means to be a human BE-ING.

I share this with you as a bit of wisdom to carry into your week.

Original sin isn’t real. It is a bunch of crap created to control women and people of color. To commit acts of genocide and own people as slaves. IT ISN’T REAL!!!!

So…I encourage you to listen to Sheldon and his remarkable sermon. (Feel free to fast forward until you see him on the pulpit.) Also, here is a link to his beautiful words so you can follow along.

And hey, I love you. We will get through this. You are amazing.

Love your face,
Melissa