A Message from Pastor Kaji
Dear Church:
What a beautiful start to Lent this has been! God continues to delight me in the spirit and energy you are bringing to the church.
When I was headed into the church last Sunday, I braced myself for just a few people coming to church, given the gloomy blizzard forecast. However, it seems that we all read the same predictions and decided to prioritize worship together. We felt a confidence in our ability to make it home safely, and we also shared a yearning to be in the sanctuary. The church was full, thanks be to God. What an incredible season this is.
We also kicked off the Enough for Today prayer call on Wednesday morning. These prayer calls allow us to come together midweek for a powerful 10 minutes to reflect on the day’s devotion and to set our day off with God and each other. We had a fantastic turnout and look forward to welcoming even more people next week. Our Elders and Deacons are helping to lead these, and I’m delighted that Deacon Talik Lewis will lead our next one on March 4. Please contact Stephanie Wilson to register; I do hope that you can join us.
Looking ahead to this Sunday, we’re already coming to the Second Sunday in Lent. We will continue with our Lenten theme: Enough, with our text from Genesis 2. This is the crucial story of the so-called “fall” from grace. As I was planning out the narrative and textual arc for this Lent, the phrase that kept coming to mind is: the Blame Game. While the blaming part of the story comes just after the appointed text (so I recommend that you read on in your study), the section that we’re reading together sets it all up. As you read, where do you think responsibility lies? With Adam? With Eve? With the serpent? With the tree itself? With…God, perhaps? The number of interpretations is nearly endless. What’s yours? (One more quick observation: there’s no apple, specifically. What exactly does the text describe?)
I very much look forward to getting into all of this and so much more with you on Sunday.
Pax Christi,
Pastor Kaji
Study Guide:
Genesis 2 opens with soil. The Hebrew word for ground is adamah. From that ground comes ha’adam: “the human” or “the earth creature.” At this stage, the term functions as a description, not yet as a personal name. The poetry binds identity to origin. The human is animated soil, dust infused with nishmat chayyim, the breath of life. Relationality is structural here.
As the narrative continues, differentiation emerges through soundplay. Ha’adam exclaims over the woman:
“This one shall be called ishah, for out of ish this one was taken.”
The pairing of ish and ishah signals relational kinship through shared phonetics. The text layers identity by echo: soil to earth creature, earth creature to relational counterparts. The emphasis rests on shared substance.
The name “Eve” does not appear in this chapter. In Genesis 3:20 the woman is called Chavah, traditionally rendered Eve, connected to the root for “life” or “living.” That naming belongs to a distinct creation strand within Genesis, where theological accents differ and divine names shift. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2–3 represent separate tellings placed side by side. (The movement from ishah to Chavah reflects literary layering within the book, not a chronological sequence within the Garden itself. In other words: don’t read the two Creation Narratives as sequential. They’re traditions in conversation with each other.)
The serpent is described as arum, meaning shrewd or perceptive. In 2:25 the humans are arummim, naked. The consonants overlap, binding the narrative vulnerability & cunning through sound. In Egyptian royal symbolism, the cobra signified protective wisdom and sovereignty. In Mesopotamian literature, serpents were linked with knowledge and the quest for immortality, as seen in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In Canaanite contexts, serpentine imagery evoked fertility and underworld power. Genesis places such a creature into dialogue. The tension unfolds through speech, memory, and interpretation.
Questions for Journaling/Further Reflection
- The story begins with breath and soil.
Where in my life do I need to remember that I am created, not self-made? - The first human relationship in Scripture is built on shared substance.
Where am I tempted to shift blame instead of owning my part? - Before shame enters the story, there is nakedness without fear. What part of my life feels guarded right now? What would it mean to soften?
SCRIPTURE
Genesis 2:7-9, 15-17, 21-25; 3:1-7 (Year A, p. 157-8)
7 The SOVEREIGN God crafted the human from the dust of the humus and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living soul. 8 And the SOVEREIGN God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there placed the human whom God had formed. 9 Out of the ground the SOVEREIGN God made grow every tree pleasant to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of the garden, along with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
15 The SOVEREIGN God took the human and settled it in the garden of Eden to till and tend it. 16 Then the SOVEREIGN God commanded the human, “From every tree of the garden you may eat freely, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you shall surely die.”
21 The SOVEREIGN God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the human, and it slept; then took one of its sides and closed up its place with flesh in place of it. 22 And the SOVEREIGN God built the side that had been taken from the human into a woman and brought her to the human. 23 Then the human said,
“This time, this one is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called a woman,
for out of a man this one was taken.”
24 Therefore a man leaves his mother and his father and clings to his woman, and they become one flesh. 25 And they were, the two of them, naked, the man and his woman [or the woman and her man] and were not ashamed.
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent had more naked intelligence than any other animal of the field that the SOVEREIGN God had made. And it said to the woman, “Indeed, did God say, ‘You two shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of any tree in the garden we may eat, 3 though of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden God said, ‘You two shall not eat and shall not touch it lest you two die.’ ” 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You two will certainly not die, 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you two will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her man, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
