From Genesis 2:18-24
And God sat down, yes, God sat him down
And he looked at man
And God said: That’s good.
So he gave man some learnin’
And God said: You is in charge.
Man learn’t to name the things that was creepin’
And man learn’t to name the things that was crawlin’
Man learn’t to call the swimmin’ things in the sea by name
And man learn’t to call the walkin’ things on the land by name
Man even learn’t to name the things that was flyin’ in the air
And God said: That’s good!
But then God thought and he thought
And God said: Man has looked at all these creatures, but he looks sad
Hmmmm, I know, he is lonely,
I’ll make him some company
So God made man sleepy and laid him down in the dust,
He laid him down and put man under the knife without a knife
And this magnificent, all-powerful, all-knowing God performed the first surgery
He took the rib out of man,
And like a plastic surgeon and orthopedic surgeon combined,
God formed woman in his own image
And God said, now that’s real good!
And man was pleased.
Man and woman went by Adam and Eve
They called their home Eden
They took care of their home and enjoyed living with the other creatures.
God gave Eve learnin’ too so she would know what Adam knew.
God said: I gave you all of this,
But don’t eat off of that good evil tree over there in the middle
You eat off of that tree, you die.
Adam and Eve obeyed, they did good,
For a while
But one day Eve was lookin’ at the fruit on that good evil tree
And it looked so good
All at once a slimy, slithery, tricky creature came up to her and hissed:
Don’t that look good? How ‘bout a taste?
I heard God say don’t eat off of it, did you?
And Eve said: God said don’t eat off of it and don’t even touch it or we dead
And the slimy creature said: Awwww, he didn’t mean it,
He jus’ afraid you might know as much as him, go’n and taste that good fruit
Well, Eve tasted that fruit and gave fruit to Adam
And all of a sudden, things was changed!
It was not good, the way things was changed………….
All of a sudden, Adam and Eve needed things that they didn’t need before.
They needed clothes
They had children who needed anger management training
They needed farm implements to take care of the land
And generation after generation struggled to obey God
Many even ignored God, even after God flooded them out once.
And the earth groaned.
People enslaved other people
People killed other people
People stole from other people
People pushed other people out of their lands and took it for their own
The women needed pre-natal care and medication to ease the pain of childbirth.
The generations began to invent things to try to make their lives easier
But this came at a great cost
And the earth groaned.
He came, Jesus Christ God’s only son our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.
The third day he arose from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God Almighty,
From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
Some believe in the Holy Catholic (Universal) Church,
the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.
But that didn’t make no difference to some.
And the earth groaned.
People lived in fancy houses, and drove fancy cars and bought fancy clothes
They made weapons to protect all of their stuff, and to punish those who touched their stuff
They made knives, bows and arrows, catapults, gallows, and guillotines
They made cannons, muskets, shotguns, pistols, and rifles,
They made bombs, atomic bombs, AK47s, Uzi’s, nuclear warheads
They made biological weapons………..
People robbed, raped, oppressed, suppressed, ignored, disenfranchised and marginalized
Other people
People squandered, wasted, misused and abused what they had
And the earth groaned.
But wait, this is not just past tense, this is in the recent past and in the now
Black smoke belching out of tall stacks and truck exhaust pipes
Blue and green stained soil underneath houses
Where groundwater full of benzene, toluene, ethylene and xylene flow
Cancer clusters, strange looking frogs and albino deer near nuclear research facilities,
Hazes over cities, forest fires, algae in streams,
fish floating, whales beaching, polar bears falling off of ice caps
Fracking, methane gas floating up in drinking water as the earth shifts
And the earth groans.
People buying yachts, people buying castles, people going to outer space on vacation
Millionaires, billionaires buying $3000 shower curtains
People in the streets, people in the gutter, drugged out of their minds and selling their bodies
For just one more hit.
People in the emergency room with no primary care physician
People wanting education, but cannot afford it.
People losing houses that they once could afford
And the earth groans.
Preacher’s churches purchasing planes, preachers purchasing Bentleys,
And telling people your lack of faith has made you poor
Church folk arguing about how much to spend to buy new pews
For what? The man outside with the dirty clothes won’t be welcome to sit on them
The people with the different color skin and the different language can’t come in either
And the earth groans.
Politicians making promises, some good, some bad
Healthcare, senior care, education, housing, taxes, foreign policy, defense, equal rights, civil rights
Same ol’ same ol’
Hail storms, earthquakes, hurricanes, soil bakes due to drought
Tsunamis, floods, pests, mold,
Disease ravages crops, pets and humankind
And the earth groans.
Did the fruit of the good evil tree give Adam and Eve more knowledge?
And the earth groans.
And God says: That’s not good………………………………..
Copyright 2015, Cherlyn W. Tribble
— The Rev. Cherlyn W. Tribble is a preacher, pastor, poet, author, music minister and an environmental engineer. She is a recent Master of Divinity graduate of Garrett Theological Seminary at Northwestern University and is currently taking doctoral classes at Columbia Theological Seminary.
*The painting is “A Part of the Mind” by Mike Mucker of Nashville, TN.
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